"Wily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crazed with excitement. She had always depended upon Alice for advice, encouragement and comfort in her troubles; but in the present case there was not much that her friend could do to cheer her. With M. Roussillon and Rene both fugitives, tracked by wily savages, a price on their heads, while every day added new dangers to the French inhabitants of Vincennes, no rosy view could possibly be taken of the situation. Alice did her best, however, to strengthen her little ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... "Because," said the wily cripple, "I have a witness here who is about to reveal to you everything you said and did in that council-chamber last night, even to the minutest detail. If you had told your story to many, or to untrustworthy persons, ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... out spak' the wily bridegroom, Weel waled were his wordies I ween:— "I'm rich, though my coffer be toom, Wi' the blinks o' your bonny blue e'en. I'm prouder o' thee by my side, Though thy ruffles or ribbons be few, Than if Kate o' the Croft were my bride, Wi' purfles and pearlins enow. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... Thought you greatness was to ripen for you like a pear? If you would have greatness, know that you must conquer it through ages, centuries—must pay for it with a proportionate price. For you too, as for all lands, the struggle, the traitor, the wily person in office, scrofulous wealth, the surfeit of prosperity, the demonism of greed, the hell of passion, the decay of faith, the long postponement, the fossil-like lethargy, the ceaseless need of revolutions, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... But the wily redskin was not to be so easily caught off his guard. With a grunt of surprise he half turned to meet the attack, and the butt of Bert's revolver dealt him only a glancing blow. Before the savage had ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... The wily Sioux had had no intention of losing altogether the share of the prized articles which he supposed the fort to contain. He consented, therefore, to allow Laurence to return, on condition that he would obtain from the white chief, as he called Mr Ramsay, a certain ...
— The Trapper's Son • W.H.G. Kingston
... prey to that which is nationally strong, so the poor, emaciated Kaloramas had for years been a prey to the avarice of rival adventurers, who, in that spirit which arrogance always asserts over ignorance, would make their king a puppet and themselves mere vassals. And this the wily adventurers did, by professing great friendship for the king and his people, then setting up a fictitious claim to a voice in the affairs of the kingdom, and finally demanding for such service, which any knave or fool might have rendered, not one, but all his islands. In truth, the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... This was to settle the matter by single combat between the kings. Both were willing. While Edmond had the advantage in strength, Canute was his superior in shrewdness. For when the champions met in deadly fray and Canute was disarmed by his opponent, the wily Dane proposed a parley, and succeeded in persuading Edmond to divide the kingdom between them. The agreement was accepted by the armies and the two kings parted as friends—but the death of Edmond soon after had in it a suspicious appearance of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... vulture swoops down on its prey the wily financier seized the opportunity thus presented. And he took so much trouble in answering the judge's inexperienced questions, and generally made himself so agreeable, that the judge found himself regretting that he and Ryder had, by force of circumstances, ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... unnoticed, the spiteful brute approached the Sultan, and offered the greatest indignity in his power to the pantaloons of the sensitive monarch. Imagine the indignation which occurred, and the designs of the wily British Ambassador to civilize the Turkish Sultan would have been wholly frustrated had not the chief gardien of the Sultan's wardrobe fortunately brought with him a full fresh suit for his master, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... woman who has stirred up politics to its deepest depth; who has shaken the seat of President Hayes; who has set in motion the whole machinery of government, and who, when brought to the witness stand has for hours successfully baffled such wily politicians as Ben Butler and McMahon;—a woman who thwarts alike Republican and Democrat, and at her own will puts the brakes on all this turmoil of her own raising? Does Senator Wadleigh know nothing of that woman's ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Now the wily old elephant knew that this tree was a banana tree, although the fruit had not yet started growing on it. The tree looked quite hard and strong, but it was really very soft and easy to break, like all banana trees. But Salar did not know ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... wily Indians were very numerous, they would scarcely venture, we concluded, to assault the fort in the daytime, and would probably, on discovering that those they were chasing had got safe within the walls, halt at a distance till ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... jaws,—he would tear them to pieces. So your ladyship will perceive that Juon Tare's castle is provided with a very strong guardian against thieves and wild beasts—but who can guard it against the wily and the insinuating? Fatia Negra is a guest of longstanding at the hut in the ice valley, and never goes thither empty handed. He brought the woman pearls and coral which she innocently hung about her person. How was she to know whether such trinkets were worth thousands or whether ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... of the respective governments, and was hardly construed to mean the same thing during two successive reigns. On the whole, this singular interview seems to have been consented to on the part of the wily Scot, principally with a view to sound the dispositions ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... and managing the material interests of the society, Mother Saint Perpetua could have vied with the shrewdest and most wily lawyer. When women are possessed of what is called business talent, and when they apply thereto the sharpness of perception, the indefatigable perseverance, the prudent dissimulation, and, above all, the correctness and rapidity ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... I, "but 'neath this attitude of mind is a wily cunning and desperate, bloodthirsty courage and determination worthy any pirate or ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... Katharine. While he painted, Knipp, [Of Mrs. Knipp's history, nothing seems known; except that she was a married actress belonging to the King's house, and as late as 1677, her name occurs among the performers in the "Wily False One."] and Mercer, and I, sang. We hear this night of Sir Jeremy Smith, that he and his fleet have been seen at Malaga; ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... The wily Judas watches near The Master's path to-day, That he may into wicked hands The Eternal Lord betray, Who in the desert lone and dread Supplied the ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... named for a wily old chief of that name, who became an outlaw to be reckoned with. He once led a cavalcade of his sanguinary followers against the newly made non-Mormon town of Corinne, Utah; but a Mormon who had been notified of the proposed massacre, by a coreligionist, likewise ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... fire would find in this strip fuel to carry it even at this green season of the grass the wily Pawnees had known. This was cheaper than assault by arms. They would wither and scatter the white nation here! Worse than plumed warriors was yonder broken undulating line ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... annual rent of 1,500 pagodas (say Rs. 5,250). The Emperor's officers argued that the rent ought to have been larger, but the Company, conforming to the spirit of corruption that was in fashion, were wily enough to send by a Brahman and a Mohammedan conjointly a sum of Rs. 700 'to be distributed amongst the King's officers who keep the Records, in order to settle this matter.' The village of Vepery—variously called in olden documents Ipere, Ypere, ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... engaged in chasing the wild cattle. This compelled the Buccaneers to associate in larger bands, and to add Spaniards to their list of game. The word massacre on the maps of the island marks places where sanguinary surprises were effected by either party; but the Spaniards lost more blood than their wily antagonists, and were compelled to abandon all their settlements on the northern and northeastern coasts and to fall back upon San Domingo and their other towns. The Flibustiers blockaded their rivers, intercepted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... only the Mephistopheles of the office, debauching his editor's guileless mind with all the wily ways of the old journalistic hand; he was of real use in protecting Raphael against the thousand and one pitfalls that make the editorial chair as perilous to the occupant as Sweeney Todd's; against the people who tried to get libels inserted ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... in some ridiculous way as though he were almost responsible for her plight himself. Perhaps he had done wrong to wait so long. Yet, even his quick eyesight had failed to discover the knockout drops or powder which the wily Shepard had slipped into that disastrous glass of beer. Maybe his interference would have saved her from this unconscious stupor, indeed, he felt morally certain that it would; but Bob knew in his ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... through the workaday world that day, and everybody had his "envelop" in his pocket. It is a pleasant sensation to feel the stiff-cornered envelop tucked safely away in your vest pocket, or in the depths of your stocking, where Henrietta had hidden hers safe out of the reach of the wily pickpocket, who, she told me, was lurking at every corner and sneaking through every crowd on that Saturday evening, which ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... Dane disguised in armour. It was true he carried the cross upon his banner, and claimed the benediction of the successor of St. Peter; true also he spoke the speech of France, and claimed a French paternity; but the lust for dominion, the iron self-will, the wily devices of strategy, bespoke the Norman of the twelfth, the lineal descendant of the Dane of the tenth century. When, therefore, tidings reached Ireland of the battle of Hastings and the death of Harold, both the apprehensions and the sympathies of the country were ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... impression; and it was not till, in his occasional silence, his features settled into their natural expression that she fancied she detected in the quick suspicious eye and the close compression of the lips the tokens of that wily, astute, and worldly character, which, in proportion as he had risen in his career, even his own party reluctantly and mysteriously assigned to one of ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... disposition on the part of many of the Indians, with whom Mahtawa was no favourite, to applaud this speech; but the wily chief sprang forward, and, with flashing eyes, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... diction of Johnson, and allowed Goldsmith to say, "Dear Doctor, if you were to write a story about little fishes, you would make them talk like whales," and the mud ball has stuck. The average man is much more willing to take the wily Boswell's word for it than to read ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... present his chief fault is inaccuracy of direction, but that will soon vanish. Both these halves are excellent in defence. Again, Hooker (3rd XV) is a very useful scrum half, but slow in attack. For the full-back position we have that wily old veteran Ariffin (2nd XV), whose kicking has distinctly improved since last year. He tackles as well as ever. Sellick (3rd XV) is a useful back, but weak ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... sit beside him and name the Greeks he points out, among whom she recognizes, with bitter shame, her brother-in-law Agamemnon, Ulysses the wily, and Ajax the bulwark of Greece. Then, while she is vainly seeking the forms of her twin brothers, messengers summon Priam down-to the plain to swear to the treaty, a task he has no sooner performed than ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... all, I cannot bear These proofs of love—they seem to mock it; There, false one, take your lock of hair— Nay, do not ask me for the locket. Insidious girl! that wily tear Is useless now, that all is ended: There is thy curl—nay, do not sneer, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... mainly for the pleasure it gives him to see his name in print, and to know that he is talked about, deserves to be squelched. For aught I know, though, Dr. Detmers has been misrepresented by the wily Frenchmen. What has Dr. Loring to ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... coop up and keep down on earth a space That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul) —To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast; Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term,— And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such:— The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) Three samples of true snake-stone—rarer ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater," and wanted to have the privilege of selecting the pretty Eva Brownlie to put in the pumpkin shell, "for," argued Nat, "that is the only way any fellow will ever be able to keep the wily Eva." ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... of the wily submarine is by no means a one-sided game. Our small craft generally manage to have a credit balance on their side, but Fritz is no fool, and is not the sort of person to go nosing round an obvious trap, or to walk blindfold into a snare. Sometimes ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... people some one hissed, then some one else joined in, and, before the judge and officers could restore order in the room, the indignant crowd had greeted Sharpman's words with a perfect torrent of groans and hisses. Then the wily lawyer realized that he was making a mistake. He knew that he could not afford to gain the ill-will of the populace, and accordingly he changed the tenor of his speech. He spoke generally of law and justice, and particularly of the weight ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... thus large and frank in my reflections anent the death of the bailie, because, poor man, he had outlived the times for which he was qualified; and, instead of the merriment and jocularity that his wily by- hand ways used to cause among his neighbours, the rising generation began to pick and dab at him, in such a manner, that, had he been much longer spared, it is to be feared he would not have been allowed to enjoy his earnings both with ease and honour. However, he got out of the world ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... the manner of Whittal, who is of greater age, how little of that taught, can withstand the wily savage." ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... brilliant gauzes, with draperies of dirty curtain muslin over tawdry brocaded caftans. Their paler children swarmed about them, little long-earringed girls like wax dolls dressed in scraps of old finery, little boys in tattered caftans with long-lashed eyes and wily smiles, and, waddling in the rear, their unwieldy grandmothers, huge lumps of tallowy flesh who were ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... was already ruinous. Such as it was, the Frenchmen took possession. They made their fires and slung their kettles on the neighbouring shore. Here they were soon afterwards joined by a small party of friendly Indians, consisting of about forty Hurons from Quebec, under their brave and wily chief Etienne Annahotaha, and five Algonquins led by Mituvemeg. Daulac made no objection to their company, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... detrimental to our mutual interests. The danger is not in their landing and living in this country but in their speedy appearance at the ballot-box, there becoming an impoverished and ignorant balance of power in the hands of wily politicians. While we should not allow our country to be a dumping-ground for the refuse population of the old world, still we should welcome all hardy, common-sense laborers here, as we have plenty of room and work for them.... The one demand I would make for this class is that they should not ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... at him, made no reply, being indeed staggered by the thoroughness with which he imagined the wily Flower ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... and we must look for the causes which have so long procrastinated the issue of the contest in the vast extent of the theater of hostilities, the almost insurmountable obstacles presented by the nature of the country, the climate, and the wily ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Mistaking the crafty suggestions of Scaurus for a genuine appeal to high motives, flattered by it, and by the confidence of the Italians, he thought that he could educate his party, and by his personal influence induce it to do justice to Italy. But this conservative advocate of reform was not wily enough tactician for the times in which he lived, or the changes which he meditated. His attempts to improve on the devices of Saturninus and Gracchus were miserable failures; and the senators who used him, or ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... her mother were occupants of the box. Little attention was paid to the play going on by Paul, who kept up a running conversation in English mixed with French, with the charming girl at his side, but wily diplomat that he was, he got in an occasional remark to her mother in German. At the close of the performance, Paul offered his arm to the young lady, while the Austrian officer took the mother in tow. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... returned the hermit, in a tone of tender sadness; "I deeply regret the harshness and wrong I visited upon you in the wild fury of that early disappointment, for I have learned no act of yours influenced Major Howard against my suit. It was the wily artfulness of my rival, who breathed specious tales of my unworthiness in the ear of the brother, and caused her, the fair, unsuspecting girl, to turn from me and give ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... succeeded in making the commissioners believe that he was sincere in what he said. To encourage him in his good resolutions, the department commander and staff presented him with a uniform coat and sash and a brigadier-general's hat. How the wily old scoundrel must have laughed in his sleeve when he saw how completely he had bamboozled some of our ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... the clients, instead of the allies, of Rome. Though Hyrcanus was recognized by Pompey as the high priest and ethnarch of Judea, and his wily counselor, the Idumean Antipater, was given a general power of administering the country, they were alike subject to the governor of Syria, which was now constituted a Roman province. Moreover, the Hellenistic cities along the coast of Palestine and on the other ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... to the village of Tibur near by. This caused great embarrassment: no religious services could be held, and scarce any state ceremony properly conducted. The senate thereupon sent an embassy to induce them to return,—in vain: the angry musicians were inflexible. The wily ambassadors then called the inhabitants of Tibur to their aid, and these pretended to give a great feast to welcome the flute-players. At this feast the musicians were all made very drunk; and, ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... among the broken hills, and in the majestic forests, of yore, the wily Indian and his dusky mate, held undisputed possession; and many are the incidents, yet unwritten, of tragic and thrilling interest, that transpired around the red men's camp-fire, ere the white man disturbed their ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... six weeks, so as the sooner to see the girl who could inspire her with such admirable ideas of her own magnanimity. She even grew quite enthusiastic upon her husband's account, almost sentimental about him. This much the wily Angioletto (who did not study character for nothing) had allowed for ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight truth, the remorseless truth is there, between the lines, where the author is raking dust upon it, the result being that the reader knows the author in spite of his wily diligences. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... green-coated Boches among their camouflaged fortresses of spatterdocks and lily pads. The muskrat goes scouring the water, searching for booty near the river's bank or submerges like a submarine when discovered by a noisy convoy of Senegalese boys on the bank. A wily weasel, no doubt considered by those cliff-dwellers, the kingfishers, as one of the "Ladies from Hell," was being hustled out of their dugout at the point of the bayonet. No matter about the "kilts"; if he ever had them they were lost by ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... and the Trojan captain [125-159]shall take refuge in the same cavern. I will be there, and if thy goodwill is assured me, I will unite them in wedlock, and make her wholly his; here shall Hymen be present.' The Cytherean gave ready assent to her request, and laughed at the wily invention. ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... the king lay his confessor and chief adviser, one Simon, a wily and ambitious priest, who was the prime agent, if not mover, in this attempt to overturn the reigning power. No other individual was suffered to remain through the night in the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... his cousins had a glimpse of this wily Mexican leaping on his horse, and, surrounded by a number of evil-looking men, riding ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... nothing. But we can assert that Christianity does not require us to believe those chapters of Genesis to contain historic truth. It may be allegorical truth. It may be a parable, representing how every little child comes into an Eden of innocence, and is tempted by that wily serpent, the sophistical understanding, and is betrayed by desire, his Eve, and goes out of his garden of childhood, where all life proceeds spontaneously and by impulse, into a world of work and labor. If ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... "What a wily person you are!" Porfiry tittered, "there's no catching you; you've a perfect monomania. So you don't believe me? But still you do believe me, you believe a quarter; I'll soon make you believe the whole, because I have a sincere liking for you ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... on various pretexts to the principal families of Carentan, to all of whom he mentioned that Madame de Dey, in spite of her illness, would receive her friends that evening. Matching his own craft against those wily Norman minds, he replied to the questions put to him on the nature of Madame de Dey's illness in a manner that hoodwinked the community. He related to a gouty old dame, that Madame de Dey had almost died of a sudden attack of gout in the stomach, but had been ...
— The Recruit • Honore de Balzac
... behavior; while Lee takes eminent rank as a gallant Captain of Cavalry, the eye and the wing of the southern liberating army under Greene; Marion is proverbially the great master of strategy—the wily fox of the swamps—never to be caught, never to be followed,—yet always at hand, with unconjectured promptness, at the moment when he is least feared and is least to be expected. His pre-eminence in this peculiar and most difficult of ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... the flea of the wolf and the wolverine; Yea, our hearts were light as the parasite of the ermine rat we slew, And the great musk ox, and the silver fox, and the moose and the caribou. And we laughed with zest as the insect pest of the marmot crowned our zeal, And the wary mink and the wily "link", and the walrus and the seal. And with eyes aglow on the scornful snow we danced a rigadoon, Round the lonesome lair of the Arctic hare, by the light ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... spirits who, with Captain John Smith, braved the pestilential swamps and wily Indians of Virginia, there were some lovers of literature, the most prominent of whom was George Sandys, who translated Ovid's "Metamorphoses" on the banks of James River. The work, published in London in 1620, was dedicated to Charles I. and ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... yourself out. I said it so she'd appreciate things, of course, but she took it quite differently from what I had intended she should take it, and seemed quite cut up about it. Then she went away in that wily, impulsive fashion." ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... General Sebastiani, who was then hurriedly dispatched to the hotel of M. Talleyrand in the Rue St. Florentin. Talleyrand had been one of the firmest supporters of Legitimacy. Louis Philippe sought his advice. The wily statesman, who had lived through so many revolutions, had not yet left his bed-chamber, and was dressing. He, however, promptly returned the sealed ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... terrible retribution in store for your libels on our sex! How I do long to meet some woman brave and wily enough to marry and tame you, my chivalric cousin! to revenge the insults you ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... visit her by night. But that the suspicious Fifanti lying near by in wait, and having seen the Cardinal enter, followed him soon after and attacked him, whereupon the Lord Gambara had slain him. And then that wily, fiendish prelate had sought to impose the blame upon the young Lord of Mondolfo, who was a student in the pedant's house, and he had caused the young man's arrest. But this the Piacentini would not endure. They had risen, and threatened the Governor's life; and he was fled to Rome or Parma, whilst ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... it mean? From out their lethargy At last awaking, searchers in hot haste, Some in the saddle, some afoot with hounds, Scoured moor and woodland, dragged the neighboring weirs And salmon-streams, and watched the wily hawk Slip from his azure ambush overhead, With ever a keen eye for carrion: But no man found, nor aught that once was man. By land they went not; went they water-ways? Might be, from Bideford or Ilfracombe. Mayhap they were in London, who ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... moveless. What a contrast to that exciting hour, which Sir Henry was conjuring up again; when the clang of arms, and crash of squadrons, commingled with the exulting shout, that bespoke the confident hope of the wily Carthaginian; and with that sterner response, which hurled back the indomitable spirit of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... godlike beauty, His eye ranging over all that still infinity of His own works, over all that wondrous line of figures, which seemed to express every gradation of spiritual consciousness, from the dark self-condemned dislike of Judas's averted and wily face, through mere animal greediness to the first dawnings of surprise, and on to the manly awe and gratitude of Andrew's majestic figure, and the self-abhorrent humility of Peter, as he shrank down into the bottom of the skiff, and with convulsive palms and bursting ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... parties, at Madrid, he is spoken of as a man not naturally vicious, but equally prone to good or evil, according to the direction impressed upon him towards either of these two ends, arising from a wily indolence of character, that, conscious of its own inability, throws itself on another. Leave him, say they, but the name of king, his secretaries, his valets, and his favourite amusements,—give him his Havanna cigars, (a lot of which he sends daily to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... out of sight down an obscure path that led into the brush where the bird was hidden. Though our ways differ, or rather, perhaps, because our ways differ, we are able to study in company. Certainly this circumstance proved available in circumventing the wily chat, and that happened which had happened before: in fleeing from one who made herself obvious to him, he presented himself, an unsuspecting victim, to another who sat like a statue against the wall. To avoid his pursuer, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... at the edge of the woodland in which he knew his wily foe lay hidden, Zagonyi halted his command. He spurred along the line. With eager glance he scanned each horse and rider. To his officers he gave the simple order, "Follow me! do as I do!" and then, drawing up in front ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... legislatures and common councils, and whose manipulation of street railways in Philadelphia and other cities were so notorious a scandal; John Wanamaker, combining piety and sharp business;—these were three of them. But they were no match for the much more powerful and wily Vanderbilt-Morgan forces. They were compelled under resistless pressure to throw over their Reading stock at a great loss to themselves. Most of it was promptly bought up by J. P. Morgan and Company and the ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... by their Espyal, doe lay their souldier-like Hounds, his borne enemies, in ambush betweene him and home, and so with Har and Tue pursue him to the death. Then master Reignard ransacketh euery corner of his wily [23] skonce, and besturreth the vtmost of his nimble stumps to quite his coate from their iawes. He crosseth brookes, to make them lose the sent, he slippeth into couerts, to steale out of sight, he casteth and coasteth the countrie, to get the start of the way; and if hee be so met, as he find ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... least have the art to conceal their art, and not obtrude the conviction that they are more anxious to display themselves than inform their readers; and let them, above all things, consent to be intelligible to the plainest capacity; for though speech, according to the averment of a wily Frenchman, was given to us to conceal our thoughts, no one has yet ventured to extend the same mystifying definition to the ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... taught me that women have a very definite object in view when they let on as if they had changed their minds," was the judicial opinion of Mr. Cornell. "Maybe they don't realize it, but they are as wily as the devil when they think, and you think, and everybody else thinks, they're behaving like an angel. It's not for me to say whether you should go to see her or not, but I believe I would if I were in your place. Maybe she has ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... soon this silly little fly, Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by; With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew, Thinking only of her brilliant eyes and green and purple hue, Thinking only of her crested head. Poor, foolish thing! at last Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... the Hooghly I have bowled the wily googly, I have heard the howdah's howl at Hyderabad; On a rickshaw I've gone sailing, with my boomerang impaling Hooded cobras on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... that this task has its difficulties. Any one will divine that nice work is necessary here, cautious work, wily work, and that there is entertainment to be had in watching the magician do it. There is indeed entertainment in watching him. He arranges his facts, his rumors, and his poems on his table in full view of the house, and shows you that everything is there—no deception, everything fair and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... this sarcastic query, the wily old man pretended to believe in this excuse; but he suspected some treachery and he resolved to watch his treasure ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... it with Burne-Jones's tall angels and copies of the mosaics from Ravenna. He has also built a comfortable rectory, which he has filled with rare bric-a-brac. They say that no one is a better match for the wily dealers in antiquities than the reverend gentleman, and the pert little cabmen don't dare to try any of their tricks ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... arose,' answered the wily old soldier softly, 'I do not see—speaking as a man—how any request of yours could be refused. But I cannot answer for my nation. Still, if the occasion arose——' he hesitated as if searching for words, but in reality, waiting for his companion ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... was Santiago, the port in which the flea-like squadron of Admiral Cervera was bottled up, and there was a deadly fear in our hearts that the wily Spaniard would sally forth to battle before we could ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... this cuckoo which has thus bewitched all the poets? What is the personality behind that "wandering voice?" What the distinguishing trait which has made this wily attendant on the spring notorious from the times of Aristotle and Pliny? Think of "following the cuckoo," as Logan longed to do, in its "annual visit around the globe," a voluntary witness and accessory ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... of all the field. Him after long debate, irresolute Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark, As from his wit and native subtlety Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed, Doubt might beget of diabolick power Active within, beyond the sense of brute. Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief His bursting ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... prolific in jests. The circumstance which had given a new expansion to the numerous ideas germinating in his fertile brain was, that he had just perceived that Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente was, like himself, dressed in rose-color. We would not wish to say, however, that the wily courtier had not know beforehand that the beautiful Athenais was to wear that particular color; for he very well knew the art of unlocking the lips of a dress-maker or a lady's maid as to her mistress's intentions. He cast as many killing glances at Mademoiselle Athenais as he had bows of ribbons ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... drawn up in the court. Among them he discerned some of his own guards, distinguishable by their high crowned turbans. His wonder was still further increased by the excessive good humour of Garrofat and his wily brother Doola. Smilingly they waited while slaves bore in the great table; and with exclamations of delight greeted Bright-Wits as he demonstrated his success in mastering the ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... hand often leads us to our destinations by winding and unexpected paths. It is strange to record that Micah's first opportunity, in the task he had set before himself, came to him by way of Egypt and an Ethiopian usurper. The ambitions of that wily Pharaoh led directly to the fall of Samaria and to the Commoner's ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... Castle Inn, and to have a middle-aged and apparently respectable attorney for a travelling companion. Or, if her ladyship did ask herself those questions, she was content with the solution, which the tutor out of his knowledge of human nature had suggested; namely, that the girl, wily as she was beautiful, knew that a retreat in good order, flanked after the fashion of her betters by duenna and man of business, doubled her virtue; and by so much improved her value, and her chance of catching Mr. Dunborough and ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... I'll take yours," began the wily little man, but neither Rhodes nor Thaxton waited to ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... fortune which is so often its attendant. His contest therefore with Antonius and Sextus Pompeius was the contest of cunning with bravery; but from his youth upward he was accustomed to overreach, not the bold and reckless only, but the most considerate and wily of his contemporaries, such as Cicero and Cleopatra; he succeeded in the end in deluding the senate and people of Rome in the establishment of his tyranny; and finally deceived the expectations of the world, and falsified ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... plain that he has slain More than the sword and spear, With wily art he charms the heart ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... yet, when I came just now, you put on high airs and mighty side, and remained reclining on the stove-couch! You saw me well enough, but you paid not the least heed to me! Your whole heart is set upon acting like a wily enchantress to befool Pao-yue; and you so impose upon Pao-yue that he doesn't notice me, but merely lends an ear to what you people have to say! You're no more than a low girl bought for a few taels and brought in here; and will ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... language. After the first shock of this indifference is past, it is not to be questioned but it flatters with an illusion, which a stare of amazement would forbid, reducing the encounter to a vulgar reality at once, and I could almost believe it in those wily and amiable folk to intend the sweeter effect of their unconcern, which tacitly implies that there is no other tongue in the world but Italian, and which makes all the earth and air Italian for the time. Nothing else ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... remains concealed from view. It is obeyed without being recognized, or if for a moment it be brought to light, it is hastily cast back into the gloom of the sanctuary. "The will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age. To the eyes of some it has been represented by the venal suffrages of a few of the satellites of power; to others by the votes of a timid or an interested minority; and some have even discovered it in the silence of ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... on, shake off all this dull sloth, away with sluggishness, yes, and get back that old gift of guile of yours! Save your master: mind you don't do the same as other servants that use their wily wits to gull him. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... cannot be true; intelligent women who feel bound to give the preference to either, may decide according to their own judgment which is more worthy of an intelligent woman's acceptance. My own opinion is, that the second story was manipulated by some wily Jew, in an endeavor to give 'heavenly authority' for requiring a woman to obey the man she married." Lillie Devereux Blake takes still another horn of the dilemma. She says: "In the detailed description of creation we find a gradually ascending series. 'Creeping ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... way," said the wily Negget as they approached the cottage. "I just want to have a look at that pig ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... replied Simontault, "that a good, gentle and simple woman is more readily deceived than one who is wily and wicked." ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... wrath fiercely waxes. Reduction of Taxes? Low Rents? More improvements in modes of production? Pooh! SAUNDERS and RILEY must be far more wily to get him to yield to their Red Rad seduction. He stands midst his ruins (like MARIUS) making of faith in Protection an open confession. 'Tis Duties on Food will alone do us good, nought else can ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... character and mode of thinking of those whom he addressed. If he were standing before four judges, all of different but decided characters—and all continually interrupting him with questions and suggestions, a close experienced observer could detect, in full play, in this wily advocate, the quality which has just been mentioned. He was never irritable, or disrespectful to the bench, however trying their interruptions; but calm determination was always accompanied with courteous deference for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... speak of treason, but I am one of the traitors myself! Did not the good Knight leave me in charge to make my rounds constantly in the Castle, while he slept after his long watching? and lo, there comes that wily rascal, the Seneschal, Sanchez, with his ''Tis a cold night, friend John; the Knight wakes thee up early; come down to the buttery, and crack a cup of sack in all friendliness!' Down then go I, oaf that I was, thinking that, may be, our ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the whole of English history that any one expressed the least desire to see—Oliver Cromwell, with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy; and one enthusiast, John Bunyan, the immortal author of the Pilgrim's Progress. It seemed that if he came into the room, dreams would follow him, and that each person would nod under his golden cloud, "nigh-sphered in Heaven," a canopy ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... strategy and statesmanship compelled victory. He was almost always assured of victory before he proceeded to battle. He knew no fear. A thousand lives would have been a small gift had he the power to lay them on the altar of his cause. He pitted the perfection of details against the wily strategy of his own colour and the pompous superiority of the white man's tactics. On the trail care was taken to cover up or obliterate his footprints. When a fire became necessary he burned fine dry twigs so that the burning of green boughs would not ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... had been foreseen by the wily negro—it was to swim off to the boats which were riding astern, and to fire at him or Jack, if they attempted to haul them up alongside and defend them. To get into the boats, especially the smaller one, from out of the water, was easy enough. Some of the men examined their priming and held the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Annie-Many-Ponies, woman-wily though she was by nature, had little learning in the devious ways of lovemaking. Eyes might speak, smiles might half reveal, half hide her thoughts; but the tongue, as her tribe had taught her sternly, must speak the truth or keep silent. Now she bent ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... grave divines; and here Is Nature's secretary, the philosopher: And wily statesmen, which teach how to tie The sinews of a city's mystic body; Here gathering chroniclers; and by them stand Giddy fantastic ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... struck Flint, which caused him to turn pale. He tore open the letter; but it was not the one for which he would have given half his fortune. Oh! sagacious, wily, ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... tempest. It was a peculiarity of Aggodagauda, that he had an only child, a daughter, who was very beautiful, whom it was the aim of this enemy to carry off, and he had to exert his skill to guard her from the inroad of his great and wily opponent. To protect her the better, he had built a log house, and it was only on the roof of this that he could permit his daughter to take the open air, and disport herself. Now her hair was so long, that ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... learn," Field told himself. "I wonder what yonder wily oriental would think if he knew all that I have discovered lately. I suppose one of his favourite ballet girls is in the piece. Pretty piece, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... modern days used in a bad sense, as a freethinker, etc. So Dalilah the Wily is noted ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Moreover, the wily black squirrel had privately told them that their father and mother intended to turn them out of the nest very soon, and make provision for a new family. This indeed was really the case; for as soon as young animals can provide for themselves, their parents turn them ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... Douglas, he is excellent; and those who have witnessed his performance of sir Archy M'Sarcasm and sir Pertinax M'Sycophant, will unite with us in paying him the tribute of applause for his correct personification of the wily Scotchman.—His talents do not seem calculated for genteel comedy ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... have raised immediate and insurmountable opposition. He therefore proposed that Isabella should marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, while Montpensier married Isabella's younger sister, the Infanta Fernanda; and pray, what possible objection could there be to that? The wily old King whispered into the chaste ears of Guizot the key to the secret; he had good reason to believe that the Duke of Cadiz was incapable of having children, and therefore the offspring of Fernanda would inherit the Spanish ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... care, Day by day you roamed the jungle, Felt the sunshine, sniffed the air; Life, methinks, was passing fair; But of that no mortal tongue'll Tell. Perhaps you never thought If it bored you or enraptured Till the wily hunter caught You and all your friends and brought Home to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... then; but be careful that this wily peddler does not get out in the folds of her petticoats." He then continued his walk, giving similar orders to each of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Manley grew wily, and began to plan far in advance. He rode here and there, quietly keeping his own cattle well down toward the river. There was shelter there, and feed, and the idea was a good one. Just before the river broke up he saw to it that a few of his ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... game out of thick coverts or protecting the camp when committed to their charge. They were possessed of great keenness of scent, were fierce, courageous, and very powerful animals, and could endure the intense heat of a tropical sun. They could follow the wily ocelot, making their way noiselessly through the dense palmetto-scrub, and could fearlessly ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... pawnbroker bullied and battled for a while; but he gave up his money at last, and the dispute ended. Thus it will be seen that Diabolus had rather a hard bargain in the wily Gambouge. He had taken a victim prisoner, but he had assuredly caught a Tartar. Simon now returned home, and, to do him justice, paid the bill for his dinner, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... believe. He plainly perceived that the wily Tartar wished to deprive Russia of all its armed men, that he might the more easily reduce it again to subjection. Rather than see his country ruined, the patriotic prince determined to disobey, and to offer himself as a victim by seeking alone the camp of Usbek, the great khan, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... with his ruthless, vengeful bow, He points it at me and shoots high and low. Ah! whither shall I from his anger flee; Where from his darts and wily ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... Perhaps was but the child of art, The guile of one, who long hath played With all these wily nets of heart. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... I'm jest going to Washington, not to Heaven, in this here rig. When I git into Heaven it'll be 'cause I'm hiding behind that black silk skirt of your shroud, honey, if I'm as naked as borned," was the admiring, wily and also wholly sincere answer to Mammy's fling ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a fortnight's badgering. Who wouldn't put up with a bit of discomfort for that. The wily Hun had handed him over far more substantial terrors than these gentlemen were likely to command and his pay for enduring them had worked out at approximately three pound ten a week. He fell to considering in what manner he would invest his earnings ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... wound among a group of low, rugged hills, which browed the more level country around the station; but which fork had been chosen for the purpose, the most experienced hunter of them all was unable to determine, as the wily savages had left not a tell-tale trace behind, and the two streams seemed equally favorable to the success of the stratagem in question. In order, then, to double their chances of overtaking the enemy, though it would double the odds against themselves ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... pushed hard for a decision, and, at last, after a period of about three months, the famous cause was brought before the court, and the successor of the dead-alive President having given his vote for the defender, the wily Warden carried his point, and secured to him and his heirs, in time coming, the fine barony in dispute, which, for aught we know to the contrary, is in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... contentment in one happy combination; a band of flamingoes; eagles and vultures; the harpy—that Picton of the birds—looking defiance as he stands, with upraised crest, flashing eye, and clenched talons, over his food; the wily otter; the amiable seal, which carries us to the seas and rocks of much-loved Shetland, with their long, winding voes, their bird-frequented cliffs, and outlying skerries; the Indian thrush, which reminds one of ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... so from his looks," answered the beguiled young Doctor's wily mother. "A man always do have that satisfied martyr-smile when he thinks he are doing something just to please a woman. Now, honey-child, you ain't got nothing to do but frill out your own sweet self; and make a job of it while you are about ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the city. Thence he made his escape to Santa Barbara, through the aid of true and sagacious friends; was sheltered and protected there by another—Jack Powers, one of the Stevenson's regiment, a fearless, dare-devil, desperate, wily man, accustomed to wild adventures, and hair-breadth escapes, whose own many exploits, including pursuit and search, will some day find publication, to rival the most interesting and exciting narratives ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... confidence in her regard was never misplaced; but yet, amidst the dangers of his profession, he sighs for his abode of domestic happiness, where the breath of calumny never entered, and where the wily and lustful seducer, if he dared to put his foot, shrunk back aghast with shame and confusion, like Satan when he first beheld the primitive innocence and concord between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It adds a zest to the toils of the peasant, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... this room," replied the apparition, "my worldly ruin was worked, and I and my children beggared. In this press, the papers in a long, long suit, which accumulated for years, were deposited. In this room, when I had died of grief, and long-deferred hope, two wily harpies divided the wealth for which I had contested during a wretched existence, and of which, at last, not one farthing was left for my unhappy descendants. I terrified them from the spot, and since that day have prowled by night—the only period at which ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Glendower, who at first had vainly endeavoured to shake off his hand, now turned towards him, though at the moment it was too dark to see his countenance, the wily speaker continued, "Yes, Glendower, if by that name I must alone address you, take all I have: there is no one in this world dearer to me than you are. I am a lonely and disappointed man, without children or ties. I sought out a friend who might ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... formidable personage, and one would have thought any thing but an amiable one. Over Maria's gentle kindness he could domineer as loftily as he would cringe in cowardly humiliation to the boisterous effrontery of that unscrupulous and wily stock-jobber, "my son Jack." With the tyranny proper to a little mind, he would trample on the neck of a poor meek daughter's filial duty, desiring to honour its parent by submission; and then, with consistent meanness, would lick the dust like a slave before an undutiful only son, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... began the wily detective, seeming to observe everything with eyes that seldom had the appearance of looking at anything, "I think you will recall that we ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... hark! a rap comes gently to the door. Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad came o'er the moor, To do some errands and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; With heart-struck anxious care enquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; Weel-pleased the mother hears ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... blasphemous imagination, that he might have described this earth as a golden globe animated by a demon. Fashioned in a mould as marvellous as that golden orb, and animated in like manner by a devilish and wily ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... wilderness, and gives a picture of Iroquois life and warfare, historically true. The description of life in the wilderness, of the intrigue and cunning necessary in dealing with the French and Indians, of repeated encounters where ultimate success depends on quick wit and wily cleverness, makes fascinating reading for ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... own view, that the objectionable scene should be entirely remodelled or, better still, cut out altogether. The reverend dignitary was supposed to be extremely short-sighted and wandering, moreover, in his mind, from sheer decrepitude. Perhaps he was wily beyond the common measure of man. Be that as it may, he witnessed the spectacle but allowed nothing to escape his lips safe a succession of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Maiden, sweetest when oblong, Does inner flame Now smoulder in thy soul to hear my song Repeat thy name? Or does thy huge and ponderous heart object The advances of my passion, and reject My love because it's airy and elect? O wily Stack! ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... said Hugo, with a wily avoidance of any direct answer, "that it is very painful to hear you talk of leaving ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... whether the Governor's plans would carry. He would undoubtedly act with precision, he would follow every detail of campaigning to the delight of the tacticians, he would make a great splash,—and then? How about the wily chiefs of the Senecas and Onondagas and Mohawks? They had hoodwinked La Barre into signing the meanest treaty that ever disgraced New France. Would Denonville, too, blind himself to the truth that shrewd minds may work ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... in a moment, if he could be supplied with proofs," rejoined Powell Seaton, with emphasis. "Governor Terrero is a wily, smooth scoundrel who is well served by men of his own choice stamp. Terrero is wealthy, and backed by many other wealthy men who have been growing rich in the diamond fields. In fact, though they are wonderfully smooth about ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... similar to the ejaculations of the Pantomime Clown in after years. (See Gammer Gurton's Needle, Act II., Sc. 3, and "The Devil is an Ass," by Ben Jonson, Act I., Sc. 1.) The following passage occurs in "Wily Beguiled," 1606. "Tush! feare not the dodge; I'll rather put on my flashing red nose, and my flaming face, and come wrapped in a calfe's skin, and cry 'Ho! ho! ho!'" Again, "I'll put me on my great carnation nose, and wrap me in a rousing calf's-skin suit, and come like some hob-goblin, or ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... the old man's mood as they were busied in defending a settler's fort, insecurely constructed of stones and sticks, and altogether roofless, garrisoned by a number of pebbles, while a poke full of wily Indian kernels of corn ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... benefactor from the West Indies a case of pineapples in which a colony of centipedes had bred so generously that they routed every servant from the unfortunate lawyer's house, and dwelt hideously and permanently in his kitchen. "A purchase is cheaper than a gift," says a wily old Italian proverb, steeped in the wisdom of ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... the sight of the magnificent scale on which the arrangements had been made; the indignation of Duryodhana in consequence, and the preparations for the game of dice; the defeat of Yudhishthira at play by the wily Sakuni; the deliverance by Dhritarashtra of his afflicted daughter-in-law Draupadi plunged in the sea of distress caused by the gambling, as of a boat tossed about by the tempestuous waves. The endeavours of Duryodhana to engage Yudhishthira again in the game; and the exile ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... reflect more credit upon the Republic than that of Mr. Pierce. Mr. B.'s inaugural address has been published in this country, and is, in its way, a contradictory curiosity. He urges, in diplomacy, "frankness and clearness;" while, to his fellow-citizens, he offers some very wily diplomatic sentences. Munroe doctrine and manifest destiny are not named; but they are shadowed forth in language worthy of a Talleyrand. First, he glories in his country having never extended its territory by the sword(?); he then proceeds to say—what everybody ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... named was something less than the London value, but its acceptance would have perpetually endowed the victoria, and perhaps—. If the malicious Harwood had not passed the word that the offer was a ruse of the wily Crocker, we all believed that she would have accepted. Indeed, we regretted her obduracy. It would have been such a capital way out, with no sacrifice of her scruples nor waiver of our collective impressiveness. So Harwood came in for ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... ambassador reached France, Henry of Navarre had perished by the knife of Ravaillac, and Marie de' Medici, that wily, cruel, and false Italian, was regent during the minority of her son, Louis XIII. The Jesuits were now {61} all-powerful at the Louvre, and it was decided that Fathers Biard and Ennemond Masse should accompany Biencourt to Acadia. ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... sight of the approaching party they sprang to their arms, which of course lay handy, for in those regions, at the time we write of, the law of might was in the ascendant. The appearance and conduct of Unaco, however, deceived them, for that wily savage advanced towards them with an air of confidence and candour which went far to remove suspicion, and when, on drawing nearer, he threw down his knife and tomahawk, and held up his empty hands, ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... between Ted, the skilled huntsman and wolf exterminator, and the wily wolf, whose scarred hide told of many battles with bull and dog, wild cat and man, serpent of the desert, and the eagles of the mountains, when, in his dire hunger, he had ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... assisted the Longobards against the Greeks, the Venetians found it to their interest to cultivate the friendship of the latter, until, in the twelfth century, they mastered the people so long caressed, and took their capital, under Enrico Dandolo. The privileges conceded to the wily and thrifty republican traders by the Greek Emperors, were extraordinary in their extent and value. Otho, the western Caesar, having succeeded the Franks in the dominion of Italy, had already absolved the Venetians from the annual tribute paid the Italian kings for the liberty of traffic, and had ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... said some hard words, and has been guilty of some detestably treacherous actions; but all will probably be settled by the benign influence of Mr. Seward's despatches, which, as everyone knows, are perfectly irresistible. How the wily Palmerston must ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... a bronze statue was the wily ape-man, for well he knew how wary is Pisah, the fish. The slightest movement would frighten him away and only by infinite patience might he be captured at all. Tarzan depended upon his own quickness and the suddenness of his attack, for he had no bait or hook. His knowledge of the ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mention: P. II., Pope from 1458 to 1464, was of the family of the Piccolomini, and is known to history as AEneas Sylvius, and under which name he did diplomatic work in Britain and Germany; as Pope he succeeded Callistus III.; he was a wily potentate, and is distinguished for organising a crusade against the Turks as well as his scholarship; the works which survive him are of a historical character, and his letters are of great value. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... THE LOTOS CLUB: I am under the deepest feeling of gratitude to Mr. Whitelaw Reid for having torn the mask from the face of the stealthy conspirator, for having exposed the wily plotter and insidious libeller, and defied the malignant Copperhead. [Applause.] I thought that I had long ago been choked with that venom; but no, it rises still and poisons all that belongs to his otherwise happy condition. Gentlemen, I am indeed an enemy of the United States. I am ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... twist, twist, With fingers dainty and small; Let the wily net be quietly set, That the ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... The wily bookseller, Pasvogel, without loss of time, sate down quietly to business: he ran through a cursory retrospect of all the works any ways moving or affecting that he had himself either published or sold on commission;—took a flying survey of the pathetic in general: and in ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... intrigue to the accomplishment of that end. This minister, also called Vishnugupta, is famous as a writer on Nity or "rules of government and polity", and the reputed author of numerous moral and political precepts commonly current in India. Nanda is slain by the contrivances of this wily Brahman, who thus assists Chandragupta to the throne, and becomes his minister. Rakshasa refuses to recognise the usurper and endeavours to be avenged on him for the ruin of ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... "He was a wily and a clever man, this fellow that's lying behind us," he muttered. "He pulled our hair over our eyes to some purpose with his tale of Lady Carstairs and her bicycle—but I'm forgetting," he broke off, and drew me aside. "There's ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher |
