"Shrewd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... months; and by that time I could reckon among my acquired friends, Judge Allen, Samuel Bustill, the secretary of the Province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph Cooper, and several of the Smiths, members of Assembly, and Isaac Decow, the surveyor-general. The latter was a shrewd, sagacious old man, who told me that he began for himself, when young, by wheeling clay for brick-makers, learned to write after he was of age, carri'd the chain for surveyors, who taught him surveying, and he had now by his industry, acquir'd a good estate; and says he, "I foresee that ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... him to sea. Let the captains ship their own crews on board the ship, and do away with the system of advances. But, at any rate, do learn to treat the sailor as if he were not altogether a fool. He has sense, plenty of it, shrewd, strong, common sense, and more real gentlemanly feeling than we on shore generally suppose, a good deal of faith, and certain standing principles of sea-morality. But at the same time he has prejudices and whims utterly unaccountable to men living on shore. He will forfeit one or two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... long to wait. A shrewd hissing apprised him that something unusual was about to occur. Like the flight of a great rocket a black object quickly mounted to the zenith. It did not become visible for several seconds; Gerald's nerves crisped with ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Ethel had a shrewd suspicion where she should find him; and in the nursery he was, playing at spillekens with his ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lidhurst's tutor? I never saw any of these cold moralists who were real, warm-hearted, good friends. I have a notion I see more of Russell's play in the house where he has got than he thinks I do; and I can form a shrewd guess why he was so zealous in warning you of the report about Lady Sarah Lidhurst—he had his own snug reasons for wanting you away—Oh, trust me for scenting out self-interest, through all the doublings and windings of your ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... that this delay and hesitation afforded an opportunity to interfere judiciously in behalf of the spirited girl, whose sins or faults were still unknown to me. Accordingly, I imparted the tale to Ali-Ninpha; and, with his consent, despatched a shrewd dame from the Mandingo's harem, with directions for her conduct to the village. Woman's tact and woman's sympathy are the same throughout the world, and the proud ambassadress undertook her task with pleased alacrity. I warned her to be extremely cautious before the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... end of the first seven years. I wondered that, with this opportunity of getting rich cum otio et cum dignitate, there were so many poor people in the world; however, I mentally resolved not to discover my shrewd plan to anybody else. ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... after the versatile performances of Sir Robert Peel, and they had at last found such in Lord George. But although his whole mind had apparently been given up to the turf, it was not actually so. He had been a member of parliament for eighteen years, and was a shrewd observer of party, as he was of men and things in general life. Before entering parliament he had for three years served as private secretary to Mr. Canning, whose sagacity was seldom at fault in the selection of persons of indisputable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... replied Grace, but she had a shrewd idea as to who the confederate might be, and felt that if her suppositions were correct there was not much chance of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... Fifty-first Street L. Seated in the train he would assume an air of importance and testy haste; glance out of the window; look at his watch. You got the impression of a handsome and well-preserved old gentleman on his way downtown to consummate a shrewd business deal. He had been familiar with Chicago's downtown for fifty years and he could remember when State Street was a tree-shaded cottage district. The noise and rush and clangour of the Loop ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... opportunity for labor? Are not their active and powerful brains at the back of all progress? There may be a thousand men idling, and poorly fed and clothed, in a neighborhood: along comes one of these shrewd adventurers; he sees an opportunity to utilize the bark of the trees and the ox-hides of the farmers' cattle, and he starts a tannery. He may accumulate more money than the thousand men he sets to work; but has he not done more? Is not his intellect immeasurably more valuable ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... sage advice was a little old man, with a wizened face like parchment. His keen blue eyes had a shrewd twinkle in them, and altogether he gave one the impression that he could see further into a stone wall than most people. He was the confidential lawyer and intimate friend of Lady McAllister, of Dunmorton Castle in Fife, and had served the family ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... an intelligent, shrewd, naturalized Scotchman, replied that he was "a little old fogy," he supposed, but that those great high buildings, where six or eight hundred children were gathered in one school, were like great cities, where too ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... to Beth that made the difference. The things one might say to other women meant something different to Beth—the things one might do.... He had been a fool and lost his head, handled her roughly, spoken to her wildly, words only intended for gentle moods, softer purposes. Shrewd little Beth, whose wide, blue eyes had seen right down into the depths of his heart. He had been clumsy, if nothing else, and he had always thought that clumsiness was inexcusable. He had a guilty sense that while Beth was still the little lady to her finger tips, born to a natural ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... art what one could aptly call a man. But thou'rt endowed with somewhat too much heart! How queer thou art, cross-grained and impish shrewd! A spirit too, thou couldst not be more shrewd. If all I say thou dost not think is true, In secret just a minute search pursue; For then thou'lt know if ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... they mounted and again took up the trail, soon leaving behind their halting-place, which the boys named Lake Christopher, much to the vain little darky's chagrin. He had a shrewd suspicion that he would not hear the last of his fright for many ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... said Langston, with deep interest in his keen, shrewd face. "There is even more to this than ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... a shrewd and practised observer as Sir Walter Scott, after a week's hard and systematic sight-seeing, could only say of Oxford, "The time has been much too short to convey to me separate and distinct ideas of all the variety of wonders ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... and sympathy. George Carew, writing to Sir Thomas Roe at the Great Mogul's Court of the building of the Destiny, which was launched on December 16, 1616, 'prayed Heaven she might be no less fortunate with her owner than is wished by me.' Carew, shrewd and prudent, had no doubt of the sincerity of his 'extreme confidence in his gold mine.' Adherents contributed money and equipments. Lady Ralegh's relative, grand-nephew of her old opponent at law, Lord Huntingdon, presented a pair of cannon. The Queen offered good wishes, and was with difficulty ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... art, their trade, their navigation. All this Phoenician development the Greek looks at in a wondering way as if miraculous; he is reaching out for it also. To be sure the Phoenician has a bad name, as a shrewd, even dishonest trader. Still he is the middleman between nations, and ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... several spasmodic repetitions a blue silk curtain flickered at one of the cabin windows on "Lorelei," and a little, old, brown face, with a fringe of fluff round the chin, appeared in the aperture—a walnut of a face, with a pair of shrewd, twinkling eyes, and a pipe in a slit of a mouth. Another call brought on deck a figure which matched the face; and on deck Mr. Paasma (it looked like a gnome, but it could be no other than the caretaker) evidently intended to remain until ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... house (and re-furnished it very often, which always gave me pleasure). I had no care, for Richard had arranged that I should have a very excellent sort of person for duenna, who had a good deal of tact, and didn't bore me, and was shrewd enough to make things very smooth. I liked her very much, though I think now she was something of a hypocrite. But she had enough principle to make things very respectable, and I never took her for a friend. We had very ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... while from the shade the old sergeant smoked and watched them; and a little apart lay a stretcher, a tattered and stained blanket outlining the shape upon it. Jovannic was aware of the old man's shrewd eye measuring him and his temper as he stopped by ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... for ourselves in Sussex, and part of this furniture—my part—will go down there presently." She looked at Miss Avery intently, trying to understand the kink in her brain. Here was no maundering old woman. Her wrinkles were shrewd and humorous. She looked capable of scathing wit and also of high ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... A shrewd suspicion was being borne in upon La Boulaye's mind as he stood by that window, his men behind him watching also, with no less intentness and some uneasiness for themselves—for they misliked the look of ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... or wounded several Union officers. One of Colonel Birges's sharpshooters, an old hunter, who had killed many bears and wolves, crept up towards the breastworks to try his hand upon the Rebel. They fired at each other again and again, but both were shrewd and careful. The Rebel raised his hat above the breastwork,—whi——z! The sharpshooter out in the bushes had put a bullet through it. "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Rebel, sending his own bullet into the little puff of smoke down in the ravine. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... he had been made consul elect for the afternoon of the next first of July,[Footnote: Perhaps an allusion to the shortening of the consul's term, which was done to give more candidates a chance of the honour.] being as shrewd a man as you could find on a summer's day: for he could see, as they say, before and behind. [Footnote 8: II, iii, 109; alluding here to Janus's double face.] He made an eloquent harangue, because his life was passed in the forum, but too fast for the ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... brow-beating and examination of the counsel, and sometimes give such replies as turn the sting upon their examiners; having like the Irish a sort of tact for repartee, they are not often to be taken aback; the lower classes in Paris are naturally extremely shrewd and penetrating, they recognise a foreigner instantly, before he speaks, as a friend of mine found to his cost, who although an Englishman would anywhere in his own country be set down for a Frenchman from his external appearance. On the Saturday following the three glorious days, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... moral support of knowing that he had in the savings bank the exact amount of his sickness and life insurance premiums due that very week. So it did not embarrass him to take Kitty straight away up to town—she, making a shrewd summary of him, did not object to third-class travelling—and to stand her coffee and a sandwich at ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... from the poet, of July 21, 1883, affirms that the account is correct in every particular, adding, 'My own explanation of the matter has been that the shrewd Italian felt his way by the involuntary help of my own eyes and face.' The story has been reprinted in the Reports ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... sharp and shrewd trader, but his honesty was never questioned; indeed, the only trait in his character that ever came up for general discussion was his extraordinary, unbelievable, colossal meanness. This so eclipsed every other ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Corra Harris's The Eyes of Love except that it offers such a study of marriage as only Mrs. Harris puts on paper? Shrewd and homely wisdom, sympathetic and ironical humour, the insight and the fundamental experience,—above all, imagination in experience—which made their first deep and wide impression with the publication ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... evidence that Burke or his agents had instigated the telegrams. But there was a shrewd suspicion that such was the case. Sanford's answer to the Supervisors and Assessors was most effective. He mailed them copies of the Sacramento Bee which set forth the actual purpose of the bills, ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... was, and absorbed in his own feelings, he yet saw plainly that his advent was disturbing to these men. They looked alarmed, exchanged glances, and then quickly turned to him. One of them, a tall, rugged man with sharp face and shrewd eyes and white hair, got up and offered ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... True; but there still is something given to guess, Which a shrewd gleaner and quick eye would catch at; A whisper, or a murmur, or an air More or less solemn spread o'er the tribunal. The Forty are but men—most worthy men, 30 And wise, and just, and cautious—this I grant— And secret as the grave to which they doom The guilty: but with all this, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... agricultural operations. Of stock he was equally ignorant, and of the comparative goodness or badness of soil he was, of course, no judge. Such a man, in the choice of a farm, was sure to be shaved by the shrewd Yankee proprietor, and my poor friend ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... adequate presentation of what he saw. He spoke what he knew, and testified what he had seen. His accent of conviction was unmistakable. When men see the professed prophet of the Unseen and Eternal as keen after his own interests as any worldling, shrewd at a bargain, captivated by show, obsequious to the titled and wealthy; when they discover the man who predicts the dissolution of all things carefully investing the proceeds of the books in which he publishes his predictions—they are apt to reduce to a minimum their faith in his ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... characteristics. They also are an organization for agricultural life, though not so consciously organized as the Mormons. Their societies are older and they have replaced with instinctive processes that which is among the Mormons a matter of logic and shrewd application of principles. ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... on a sofa with her husband. She was a notable outline of a woman, large and massive, with a shrewd capable face and a middle-class mind. She lived, when at home, in the rarefied atmosphere of Golders Green, in a red house with a red-tiled roof, one of a streetful similarly afflicted, where she kept two maids and ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... told me I was greatly mistaken and smoothed down the matter so that it appeared satisfactory to me. He had at this time got into debt about eighteen thousand dollars. One day he went to Hartford and bought seven thousand dollars worth of cotton cloth from a shrewd house in that city, telling them a very fine story that he had a vessel which would sail for South America the next day, and that the cloth must go down immediately on the boat. He told them who his father was, and promised to bring his endorsement in a few days, which ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... The shrewd business man won't let profits slip away if he can help it, so the real producer sits in a pretty good seat. He has only to show what he can do and he will ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... very shrewd eyes to see how desperately devoted Maggie was to Martin. The sight of that touched the hearts of every human being in the farm. Not that Maggie was foolish; she did not hang about Martin all the time, she never, so far as Mrs. Bolitho could see, kissed him or fondled him, or was with him when he ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... much interest in himself and all that appealed to him as he did himself, the readiness with which he adapted himself to all sorts of men and of circumstances, his credulity in matters of faith and his shrewd common sense in things of the world, his wit and lively fancy, his eloquence of tongue and pen, his acute rather than accurate observation, his scholarship elegant rather than profound, are all characteristic of a certain lovable type of South Walian. He was not blind to the defects of ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... butcher, whose slender income was readily exhausted by a burdensome family. Rebecca, his daughter, was a good-looking young woman of twenty at the time she entered Mr. Mordecai's family. Although coarse and ill-bred, she was also shrewd and designing, often making pretence of friendship and affection to gain her ends when in reality hatred and animosity were burning in her bosom. Such was Rebecca Hartz. Such the woman to usurp the household government, when the ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... in calm content with the cud he had already found. Often, while making the circuit, he paused, and, shading his eyes with his hands, examined the desert to the extremest verge of vision; and always, when the survey was ended, his face clouded with disappointment, slight, but enough to advise a shrewd spectator that he was there expecting company, if not by appointment; at the same time, the spectator would have been conscious of a sharpening of the curiosity to learn what the business could be that required transaction in a place so far ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the young man to send out with a sword and a mandolin into the wide world, for he had much shrewd sense. He never pressed a point, but when something had been said that might mean much he preferred to store it, as it were, in his mind and pass on to other things, somewhat as one might kill game and pass on and kill more and bring it all home, while a savage would cook the ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... Some shrewd managers have recently expressed a willingness to submit their pooling arrangements to a public commission for approval, before they should go into effect. This is objectionable on the ground that they would then, more even than before, endeavor to control the making of the commission. ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... thought M. Tabaret when left alone. "What a fatal discovery! and how he must feel it. Such a noble young man! such a brave heart! In his candid honesty he does not even suspect from whence the blow has fallen. Fortunately I am shrewd enough for two, and it is just when he despairs of justice, I am confident of obtaining it for him. Thanks to his information, I am now on the track. A child might now divine whose hand struck the blow. But how has it happened? He will ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... places with him; and, on this being complied with, he asked the meek woman to read him Henry's figures, slowly. She stared, but complied. Mr. Bolt pondered the figures, and examined the drawings again. He then put a number of questions to Henry, some of them very shrewd; and, at last, got so interested in the affair that he would talk ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... o'clock in the morning the troop transport stopped for refreshments at the French village of X, and here a funny phenomenon was witnessed. From all sides the shrewd inhabitants of the village came running, scores of them, with bottles of wine. The laughing German soldiers got out and, negotiating over a picket fence, returned with the refreshments while the inhabitants made off with German coin. I saw bottles of champagne change ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... with his great, smooth, laughing face; his gray eye, shrewd as a chicken hawk's; his diamond ring, his voice like a bugle call, his prince's air, his plump and active roll of money, his clarion call to friend and comrade—oh, what a king of men he was! How he obscured his lieutenants, though they ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... her. Where did you see her." I prided myself on my careless tone, but Dicky gave me a shrewd glance. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... her table, she gazed raptly aloft, meditating perhaps some daring new feat. Merton Gill stared, entranced, frozen. The Montague girl perfectly understood this look and traced it to its object. Then she surveyed Merton Gill again with something faintly like pity in her shrewd eyes. He was still ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... open and see me here, won't they feel ashamed. Moreover, the voice in which those remarks were uttered resembles very much that of Hung Erh, attached to Pao-yue's rooms, who has all along shown a sharp eye and a shrewd mind. She's an artful and perverse thing of the first class! And as I have now overheard her peccadilloes, and a person in despair rebels as sure as a dog in distress jumps over the wall, not only will trouble ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... distinguished from a mere copy. The third cause may be found in the reader's conscious feeling of his superiority awakened by the contrast presented to him; even as for the same purpose the kings and great barons of yore retained sometimes actual clowns and fools, but more frequently shrewd and witty fellows in that character. These, however, were not Mr. Wordsworth's objects. He chose low and rustic life, 'because in that condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil, in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... mother. He could see what a good little mother she would have made, looking after her children and doing everything on earth to make them happy and comfortable, just the kind of mother Ann would make, though she had not Ann's steady wonder of a little head or her shrewd farsightedness. Jem would have been in luck if he had been her son. It was a darned pity he hadn't been. If he had, perhaps he would ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of two shrewd men of different types is interesting as bearing on the subject of tapestries. One with tastes fully cultivated says impressively, "Buy good old tapestries whenever you see them, for there are no more." The other ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... Lydgate thought that he was going, but on moving towards the whist-tables, he got interested in watching Mr. Farebrother's play, which was masterly, and also his face, which was a striking mixture of the shrewd and the mild. At ten o'clock supper was brought in (such were the customs of Middlemarch) and there was punch-drinking; but Mr. Farebrother had only a glass of water. He was winning, but there seemed to be no reason ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... quite true that mother-wit and the common experiences of life do often furnish people with a sort of shrewd and sound judgment that carries them very creditably through the world. They come to good conclusions, though perhaps they would give bad reasons for them, if they were forced to find their reasons. But you cannot count upon mother-wit in everybody; perhaps not even in a majority. And ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... was still determined that the Americans, unrepresented in Parliament, should still pay into his treasury whatever sums of money he might exact. Calling to his aid courtiers more shrewd than himself, they devised a very cunning act, to attain that object in a way which would hardly be likely to excite opposition. They laid a tax, insignificant really in its amount, upon paper, paint, glass, and tea. This tax was to be collected at the custom-houses in the few ports of entry in ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... to stir him from his trance. I pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid, Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands: Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd, That till the father rid his hands of her, Master, your love must live a maid at home; And therefore has he closely mew'd her up, Because she will not be annoy'd ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... "All is I know he wouldn't do it if I'd married him," she added mentally, resuming her walk. Martha Lacey's sense of humor was not keen, but suddenly the mental picture of Judge Trent's shrewd, thin countenance, as it might appear in pillowed slumber surmounted by the high hat, overwhelmed her and she laughed silently. Then she frowned with reddening cheeks. "Hannah's ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... that drew him ever closer to Mr. Gladstone, while it made the House of Commons and the daily doings of politicians uncongenial. There is no doubt that he had learned too well "the secret of intellectual detachment." Early in his life his shrewd and kindly stepfather had pointed out to him the danger of losing influence by a too unrestrained desire to escape worshipping the idols of the marketplace. There are, it is true, not wanting signs that his view of ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... worse by the treatment she received. Arabella was rich and independent, and spoiled by over indulgence to her idle whims and caprices. For Mrs. de Silver, intent on making the match, did not dare cross her dear Arabella in the least thing. She was shrewd, and soon perceived that she controlled the situation, and did not hesitate to take advantage of it. In fact, she kept everybody dancing attendance on her. Fond of admiration to an absurd degree, she still had ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Whitbread did not tell me anything that I did not know; yet he put matters together as I had not heard them put before; and he seemed to me altogether a shrewd kind of man whose judgment I might very well rely upon; and as we went up the Strand he spoke again of ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... and powers, they decided that they might better remain on their thrones, even though the powers remaining to them were merely nominal, and accept the titles, honors and generous pensions which the Dutch offered them, than to resist and be ruthlessly crushed. In pursuance of this shrewd policy, every province in the Indies has as its nominal head a native puppet ruler, known as a regent, usually a member of the house which reigned in that particular territory before the white man came. Though the regents are appointed, paid, and at need dismissed by the government, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... swaddling clothes, it is destined before very long to enter upon its vigorous life. There was an eminent French naturalist, M.F. Peron, sent out to Australia by the Emperor Napoleon during the years 1801 to 1804 inclusive. A shrewd observer, he saw even at that early period of Australian history that there were unequalled possibilities for her wine. In the course of his interesting narrations he remarks:—"By one of those chances which are inconceivable, Great Britain ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... from a Kanaka, you must have all your eyes about you, because you can rest satisfied that you are dealing with a shrewd unprincipled rascal. You may leave your door open and your trunk unlocked as long as you please, and he will not meddle with your property; he has no important vices and no inclination to commit robbery on a large scale; but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... were not allowed to learn anything. Sometimes one would be shrewd enough to get in with the white children and they would teach him his a-b-c's, and after he learnet to spell he would steal books and get out and learn the ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... many times, rubbed his hands, mopped his head, and cursed most things under heaven and some in it, Master Baldassare found himself watching the laundresses on the shore. They were the usual shrill, shrewd, and laughing line—the trade seems to induce high mirth—and as such no bait for the old merchant by ordinary; but just now the sun and breeze together made a bright patch of them, set them at a provoking flutter. Baldassare, prickly with dust, found them like their own cool linen hung ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... butchers, good for a score or two apiece. What I may call the parochial horizon is well illustrated, too, by the announcement of a domestic economist: "Farmer Jones lost two calves last week; I reckon we shall have beef a lot dearer." And again by the recommendation of a shrewd and ancient husbandman of my acquaintance that it was desirable for any young farmer to get away from home and visit the county town sometimes, at any rate on market days, and attend the "ordinary" dinner, even if it cost him a few shillings—"for there," he added, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... speechless. She could only stare at him and could not even interrupt him. For her shrewd woman instinct told her so convincingly that even her sense of loyalty could not eject the doubt which assailed her mind, that if there was not truth in what he was saying there was ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... others, but his prudent selection of subordinates ensured that all units in his Brigade were well commanded. He was more than a good judge of character: hollow prevarication was useless with him, and bluff—though, when he liked, he was himself a master of it—a dangerous policy. Among the shrewd qualities of this man there were the abilities to summarize rapidly whatever he had been told, and to remember most of everything he saw. His power of observation was so developed that sometimes the actual picture ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... property at the time, it is admitted, woefully dilapidated. Boyle declared that it was not worth nearly the amount he paid. He complained of having been forced to an expenditure, for which the vendor was liable, of L3700 to clear the title. So shrewd a man of business would hardly have thus defrauded himself. He is sure to have had an excellent bargain. But it does not follow that the arrangement was unfair to a speculative absentee like Ralegh. In his hands the ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... whites was poor, bitter because of persecution, ill-educated, overworked, without a bright future, and shadowed by the race problem. Though their new political leaders were shrewd, narrow, conservative, honest, and parsimonious, the constant fighting of fire with fire scorched all. In the bitter discipline of reconstruction, the pleasantest side of Southern life came to an end. During the war and the consequent reconstruction ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... running, she hardly slept, hearing the clocks of St. James's strike, and Big Ben boom, hour after hour. At breakfast, she told her father of Fiorsen's reappearance. He received the news with a frown and a shrewd glance. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... have, but any one having once seen your sharp, shrewd eyes would never forget them or the saucy turn of your head. You can't be here to give me another message from ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... deprived him of all faith in man or woman. He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope with villany, while it continually caused him by overshots to fail of the success ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... certain fluency of speech I possessed also a readiness at picking up information, and arraying the scattered fragments of news into a certain consistence, which greatly imposed upon my comrades. A quick eye for man[oe]uvres, and a shrewd habit of combining in my own mind the various facts that came before me, made me appear to them a perfect authority on military matters, of which I talked, I shame to say, with all the confidence and presumption of an accomplished general. A few lucky guesses, and a few half ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... 'tis a shrewd doubt] [The old quarto gives this line, with the two following, to Iago; and rightly. WARB.] I think it more naturally spoken by Othello, who, by dwelling so long upon the proof, ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... But I was smiling calmly. And I tried to put into my voice a shrewd note of cupidity. "I really know very little about this treasure, Miko. If there were a million or two of gold-leaf in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... split-second repeater and him and Ben match coins and this time Ben is lucky enough to lose, thereby showing his dear old New Yorker that he ain't a crook after all. But the New Yorker still looks very shrewd and robbed and begins to gulp the champagne in a greedy manner. You can hear him calling Jake a confederate. Jake sees it plain enough, that the lad thinks he's been high-graded, so he calls over our waiter and crowds all five watches onto ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... could ever be persuaded to an ascent beyond the snow line. As to the Greek, so to the Indian the great peaks were sacred. The flames of an eruption, the fall of an avalanche, told of the wrath of the mountain god. The clouds that wrapped the summit of Tacoma spelled mystery and peril. Even so shrewd and intelligent a Siwash as Sluiskin, with all his keenness for "Boston chikamin," the white man's money, refused to accompany Stevens and Van Trump in the first ascent, in 1870; indeed, he gave them up as ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... Magnus, De animalibus, Mantua, 1479, Lib. xxiv. At the same place however is given a description of the whale-fishery grounded on actual experience, but with the shrewd addition that what the old authors had written on the subject did not correspond ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... Richard's shrewd sense comprehended in an instant all the difficulties of his position; but he walked on deliberately and directly toward Mrs. M'Catchley, who was standing near the grand marquee with the Pompleys and the Dean's lady. As these personages saw him make thus boldly toward them, there was a flutter. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... coming to throne it. Charlotte could believe that he flouted the world with a beautiful young woman on his arm; she would not believe him capable of doing that in his family home and native county; so, then, her shrewd wits had nothing or little to learn. But her vehement fighting against facts; her obstinate aristocratic prejudices, which he shared; her stinger of a tongue: these in ebullition formed a discomforting prospect. The battle might as well be conducted through the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... residencia, he will come out from it with everything just as he desires, as every one says. I assert that it is necessary for your Majesty to send some one, because with all the officials here Don Pedro is so shrewd and crafty and suave that he sways every one at his will, and will attain all his desires. I have fulfilled my duty in placing this before your Majesty; now you will be pleased to command what is most expedient to your royal service. May ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... origin, and association that characterize their particular set; but when it came to the nicer distinctions that mark true individuality, it would not have been easy to find two men more essentially different in character. The first was bold, morally and physically, aspiring, self-possessed, shrewd, singularly adapted to succeed in his schemes where he knew the parties, intelligent, after his tastes, and apt. Had it been his fortune to be thrown earlier into a better sphere, the same natural qualities that rendered him so expert in his present situation, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... does not know many things in common with enlightened men, and yet one constantly marvels at his practical knowledge. Tylor says primitive man has "rude, shrewd sense." The Igorot has more ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... discoveries nearer to the equator, the result of his decision being the exploration of the Gulf of Paria, including the coast of Trinidad and of the continent. His speculations, although sometimes fantastic, and originating in a too vivid imagination, were usually shrewd and carefully thought out. Thus they led from one discovery to another; and even when, through want of complete knowledge, there was a flaw in the chain of his reasoning, the results ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... "Yet, they are a shrewd, sensible people," said Mr. Swan, "who might, under more favorable auspices, make a figure in the world. There are many kind-hearted, Christian men and women in Waveland, Miss Graystone, notwithstanding their rough ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... she did. If you take a hundred and fifty people off a steamer that has sunk, and if you get a man as shrewd as Mr. Smith to plug the timber seams with mallet and marline, and if you turn ten bandsmen of the Mariposa band on to your hand pump on the bow of the lower decks—float? why, ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... would see the Epean King Augeas; surely for this end I came. If he bides there amongst his citizens, Ruling the folk, determining the laws, Look, father; bid some serf to be my guide, Some honoured master-worker in the fields, Who to shrewd questions shrewdly can reply. Are not we made dependent each ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... sense of religion, always showing itself in action, though not always consistently, and therewith a grand sense of honor and generosity, coupled, however, with a curious shrewd astuteness. The high-minded Norman was the flower of chivalry and honor, the low-minded Norman the most successful of villains—and there has often been a curious compound of both elements in the character of ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... into the cabin, and the men stared after her with a kind of awe, as at a Valkyrie of the old faith who had come to my help. There was a man whom she had smitten who was binding up a wound in his bare forearm. I believe that she stayed a shrewd blow from me. ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... Not hunt the bear with musket, carbine, or wheel-lock? What then—did King Charles reckon to have a wrestling bout or a turn at "single-stick" with the Jarl Bruin? So wondered Arvid Horn, but he said nothing, waiting the king's own pleasure, as became a shrewd young courtier. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... his mind: there are no cleansing doubts and fruitful alternatives. The work of Bryan has been to express a certain feeling of unrest—to embody it in the traditional language of prophecy. But it is a shrewd turn of the American people that has kept him out of office. I say this not in disrespect of his qualities, but in definition of them. Bryan does not happen to have the naturalistic outlook, the complete humanity, or the deliberative habit which modern statecraft requires. He is the ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... systems of management the men and the management had about equal weight in deciding how fast the work should be done. Shop records showing the quickest time in which each job had been done and more or less shrewd guessing being the means on which the management depended for bargaining with and coercing the men; and deliberate soldiering for the purpose of misinforming the management being the weapon used by the men in self-defense. Under the old ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... cause pleaded; Sir — Turner, Sir W. Walker, and Sir Ellis Layton being our counsel against Sir Robert Wiseman [D.C.L. King's Advocate 1669.] on the other. The second of our three counsel was the best, and indeed did speak admirably, and is a very shrewd man. Nevertheless as good as he did make our case, and the rest, yet when Wiseman come to argue (nay, and though he did begin so sillily that we laughed in scorn in our sleeves at him,) he did so state the case, that the Judge [Sir Leoline Jenkins, Principal of ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... can't deceive myself. I'm quite as sharp as Gertrude Whittaker; and this it is that has kept me from making a fool of myself and writing to poor Richard the note that I wouldn't write to Captain Severn. I needed to fancy myself wronged. I suffer so little! I needed a sensation! So, shrewd Yankee that I am, I thought I would get one cheaply by taking up that unhappy boy! Heaven preserve me from the heroics, especially the economical heroics! The one heroic course possible, I decline. What, then, have I to complain of? Must I tear my hair because a man of taste has resisted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... various times wielded an immense power usually in the direction of shrewd, sane thinking about national affairs. No Canadian editor of his time so thoroughly mastered its intricate problems. He has a faculty of clear, constructive thinking and a fine style of writing. With no college education he became a cultured journalist—which ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... not be attained without making enemies, perhaps without making mistakes. But the more we study George Buchanan's history, the less we shall be inclined to hunt out his failings, the more inclined to admire his worth. A shrewd, sound-hearted, affectionate man, with a strong love of right and scorn of wrong, and a humour withal which saved him—except on really great occasions—from bitterness, and helped him to laugh where narrower natures would have only snarled,—he is, in many respects, ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... leisure. Then his thoughts turned towards the subject of murder. It was so easy to kill, he felt no pride in having been able to accomplish that much. But it was not everybody who could escape the consequences of his crime. It required an acute brain to plan after events so that shrewd detectives would be baffled. There was a complacent conceit about Melville Hardlock, which was as much a part of him as his intense selfishness, and this conceit led him to believe that the future path he had outlined for himself would not ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... general at once ordered forward his two field guns, his instructions to the artillerymen apparently being to shell the little clump of cover in which Jack had concealed his sharpshooters. But the latter, despite his youth and inexperience, was shrewd enough to foresee some such move as this, and accordingly he had no sooner put the reconnoitring party to flight than he withdrew his men from their place of concealment and marched them back to rejoin their comrades, taking care to keep ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... had sane moments, when the raving madman of yesterday became the courteous, polite, shrewd man of to-day, charming all by his wit and high-bred geniality. It was, of course, inevitable that a career such as this, marked by a madness which grew daily, should lead sooner or later to tragedy. And tragedy was coming swiftly. It came early in the year 1760, before Lord ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... the goodman, interrupting himself and looking at Godefroid with a shrewd air, "I thought it best to tell him ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... nothing less than armed invasion of his continental borders as occasion for all-out war. The consumer-goods party in the Soviet has gained immensely during the past five years and of course their armaments have suffered. Your shrewd directive to put the Republic in a war-like posture has borne ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... would gamble now, pitting the seemingly wild deductions of his shrewd brain against all the proofs of the bestial ferocity of his antagonists that his experience of them had adduced—against all the age-old folklore and legend that had been handed down for countless generations and passed on to him ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... These are only a few of fifty honorary awards he has received at various times. The famous surgeons of London, the Societe de Chirurgie of Paris, and the most celebrated practitioners of the United States have given him their hearty recommendations. So lately as last August, that shrewd and skilful surgeon, Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, who is as cautious in handling his epithets as he is bold in using the implements of his art, strongly advised Surgeon-General Hammond to adopt the Palmer leg, which, after a dozen years' experience, he had found none to equal. We see it announced that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... important negotiation; the purchase of a supply of hogs. He found that the king had profited in more ways than one by his intercourse with white men. Above all other arts he had learned the art of driving a bargain. He was a magnanimous monarch, but a shrewd pork merchant; and perhaps thought he could not do better with his future allies, the American Fur Company, than to begin by close dealing. Several interviews were requisite, and much bargaining, before he could be brought ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... so the long and short of it is that they go off to the orderly-room and qualify themselves for tickets by taking the oath and becoming enrolled members of the corps. Whereat those moving spirits in the affair wink their shrewd eyes gleefully. They will dance all the more heartily, remembering the good stroke of business they have done in the interest of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... in business in the North has not only to compete with his own people, but with the shrewd Yankee, who seeks to monopolize all interests that have money in them. The Negro of the North for the most part appears to be content with his superior civil and social privileges. He breathes the air with more perfect liberty, enjoys life free from violence, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... him now—the old slouched hat Cocked o'er his eye askew, The shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat, So calm, so blunt, so true. The "Blue-Light Elder" knows 'em well; Says he, "That's Banks[1]—he's fond of shell, Lord save his soul! We'll give him"—well, That's "'Stonewall' ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... black-eyed Mabel, never held equal position with the first. It was observed, however, with some surprise, that under the sway of the latter he was more punctilious and regular in religious observances than before,—a fact which the shrewd ones explained by his old doctrine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... his reinforcements had come to hand, while his Yeomanry was still gathering in long queues upon the London pavement to wait their turn at the recruiting office, Lord Kitchener had dealt the enemy several shrewd blows which materially weakened their resources in men and material. The chief of these was the great drive down the Eastern Transvaal undertaken by seven columns under the command of French. Before considering this, however, a few words ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... feather his nest, but he also knew that they accused him falsely. He was thick-skinned, and they might go to the devil. In person he was stout of habit, brusque of bearing, with a healthy, sanguine complexion, a double chin, shrewd grey eyes, and cropped hair which stood up straight as the bristles on a brush. He lived abstemiously, rose at six, went to bed at nine, and might be found, during most of the intervening hours, hard at work at his desk in the little office behind his shop. The office had ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shillings a week regular! and she only comes at ten and leaves at faive. Oh! bless you, she knows when she's well off, or she wouldn't put up with the books and slippers. Ay know 'em!" he added, with a shrewd wink, which set Valmai laughing again. When Mrs. Finch came in for the tray he was quite amiable. "Well, ole gel," he said, "this is the night for your wages, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... with laughter. "Shrewd girl!" he exclaimed, pinching her cheek. "All right. I'll take them off your hands to-morrow. And by the way, I must ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... mercy, and I can govern it as I please; therefore, when I begin to find the wit too bright, the learning too deep, and the satire too keen for me to deal with, (a very frequent case no doubt, where a man is constantly attacked by such shrewd adversaries) I peaceably fold it up, or fling it aside, and read no more. It would be happy for me to have the same power over people's tongues, and not be forced to hear my own work railed at and commended fifty ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... to rebellion by the cruelty and oppression of the Spaniards, accompanied the marauders and wanted to massacre the prisoners, particularly "the religious," but when they understood that the buccaneers were not remaining in Granada, they thought better of it, having, no doubt, a shrewd inkling of what to expect in the future when their rescuers ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... securing the utmost mobility in his columns. Throughout the campaign his own headquarters looked small and bare compared with those of many of his subordinates. Some writers have ridiculed this, as if it were a mere "fad" of the general; but it was both wise and shrewd to keep before the army the constant lesson that privation was necessary, and that the orders on the subject must be obeyed, since the commander set the example of obedience. It was akin to Bonaparte's marching on foot through the burning sands of ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... laugh at this proud folly in a woman, otherwise of shrewd understanding, Edwin turned toward the window; but not before the countess had observed the ridicule which played on his lips. Vexed, but afraid to reprimand one who might so soon resent it, by speaking of her ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... of a jovial, teasing disposition, prone to occasional shrewd thrusts at the idiosyncrasies of his acquaintances, but he held sacred things sacred and rendered to reverent things their due reverence. It was his acknowledged privilege to say grace, at the meals ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... good-humoured man, about thirty-six, with a dark complexion, an oval face, fine black eyes, full of fire and sensibility, and twinkling with roguish humour—an expression fully borne out by the mouth, which had a very shrewd and sarcastic curl. The poet's appearance altogether was highly prepossessing. With a strong tendency to satire, but without a particle of malice or ill-nature in its display. Gay, by his strokes of pleasantry, whether in his writings or conversation, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... long necks. "The old Greeks and Romans would have loved this scene, though they would, of course, have found alien influences here," said the architect. "They would have enjoyed the sequestration of the Palace, its being set apart, giving the impression of loneliness. The architects were shrewd in making the approach ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... live like princes," he answered without a smile. If he had dared say that and smile we would have struck him, and Monty might have been alive to-day. But he seemed to know his place, although he looked at us down his nose again in shrewd appraisal. ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... not ventured blindly, nor dared without deep and shrewd thought. When the artist-soul can feel the fiercer passions it has the capacity to work them out in action. Kenkenes, having been wronged, grew vengeful, and therefore had it within him to aspire to vengeance. He knew his handicap, but had estimated well his strength. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Henry; but his dislike to the young laird, Archibald Mackenzie, hourly increased. Archibald and his mother, Lady Catherine Mackenzie, were relations to Mrs. Campbell, and they were now upon a visit at her house. Lady Catherine, a shrewd woman, fond of precedence, and fully sensible of the importance that wealth can bestow, had sedulously inculcated into the mind of her son all the maxims of worldly wisdom which she had collected ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... and see what the coming years had in store for us. We did not believe in gipsy craft. We well knew that, like our own, the woman's powers were limited; that it was all guess-work; that her cunning rested in a shrewd knowledge of character,—of certain likings springing out of contrasts, which led her to match the tall with the short, the fair with the dark, the mild with the impetuous, the sensitive and timid with the bold and adventurous. On these seeming contrarieties the whole art ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... human soul. What an invisible, intangible chameleon is its true reality! Watch it, and you see something that seems to uncurl and expand like a feather with exultation and delight and joy, to contract and stiffen into a billiard ball with fear and pride, shrewd caution and vigilant malevolence, to rear back and spark fire like lightning with anger and temper, and to crawl and slither with abjection and smirking slyness, when it needs to. This multiplex Thing-Behind-Life, are we really about to dissect ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... the crafty governor, while he eyed the bow with which Tell had so bravely performed the cruel operation. "Tell me, my shrewd archer, who does not hesitate to aim at his own flesh and blood, why did you draw two arrows from your quiver ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... that, Ben, you may rest assured; for I will not take advantage of your generosity any longer than I can help. I mean to continue a good friend of yours whether you continue to be a good friend of mine or not." This was a shrewd way of putting it. Ralph knew the young man he was talking ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... that was quite as shrewd a psychologist as bacteriologist," pursued Craig impressively. "He calculated the moral effect of the letter, then of Buster's illness, and finally ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... Green Fancy would rush to the outer edges of the Curtis land and seek to intercept, rather than to overtake, the fugitive. In answer to a question she informed him that there were no fewer than twenty-five men on the place, all of them shrewd, resolute and formidable. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... The woman being shrewd, intelligent, sarcastic and having leisure to meditate over an ironical phrase, can easily turn you into ridicule during a momentary clash of opinions. The day on which she turns you into ridicule, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... confidence in herself and her destiny. In addition she had great beauty, the high light spirits of her mercurial temperament, a charming and equable manner (when not engaged in judiciously tormenting her slaves), and a shrewd brain. What wonder that her sovereignty was something for the men who worshipped her to remember when they too were old beaux, and that their present condition was abject? The wonder was that the ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... what I should like to know, and I mean to find her sooner or later. I know a man named Clarke, a dry fellow, in fact a man of business, but shrewd enough. You understand my meaning; not shrewd in the mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knows something about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and he was evidently ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... looked like old Roebuck himself—the same smug piety, the same underfed appearance that, by the way, more often indicates a starved soul than a starved body. One difference—where his face had the look of power that compels respect and, to the shrewd, reveals relentless strength relentlessly used, the expressions of the others were simply small and mean and frost-nipped. And that is the rule—the second generation of a plutocrat inherits, with his money, the meanness that enabled him to hoard it, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... for fear," said Jean, with a shrewd smile, "that I should stop somewhere on the road. Well, I have looked in Avranches. She is not in ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope |
