"Witted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Florence was not a little harassed in its peace and its comfort, if not in its wisdom and its power, by the unneighborly and unmannerly conduct of the people of Arezzo. These intolerant and intolerable folk were not only so purblind and thick-witted as not to realize the immeasurable supremacy of the city of Florence for learning, statesmanship, and bravery over all the other cities of Italy put together, but had carried the bad taste of their opinions into the still worse taste of offensive action. For a long time past Arezzo had pitted itself ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... way out, the slow old transport, in which a wing of the regiment was carried, was attacked by two French privateers, who would have either taken or sunk her, had it not been for a happy suggestion of the quick-witted lad. For this he gained great credit, and was selected by General Fane as one of his aides-de-camp. In this capacity he went through the arduous campaign, under General ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... so it was. When my sister came in last night to tell me how a young thing from Littlebourne had come to her house, having run away from home seemingly, I should never have seen my way to finding out the truth. But then women are quicker-witted than men, though they are not so steady-headed. And my sister says, 'She must have come across the fields somehow.' And I says, 'I met a slip of a girl in the wood, and made believe that I was going to shoot her.' And says Mrs. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... quick-witted, and found a way to make herself understood without difficulty; for, if the right word was wanting, she described the thing cleverly with her fingers, and by all sorts of signs, which amused Silvio exceedingly; ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... spare any member.-4. Christ pleads his right in heaven to give it to whom he will.-Christ will; Satan will not; Christ's will stands.-5. Christ pleads Satan's enmity against the godly.-Satan is the cause of the crimes he accuses us of.-A simile of a weak-witted child.-6. Christ can plead those sins of saints for them for which Satan would have them damned.-Eight considerations to clear that.-Seven more considerations to the same end.-Men care most for children that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "Luddites" dates from 1811, and was applied first to frame-breakers, and then to the disaffected in general. It was derived from a half-witted lad named Ned Lud, who entered a house in a fit of passion, and destroyed a couple of stocking-frames. The song was an impromptu, enclosed in a letter to Moore of December 24, 1816. "I have written it principally," he says, "to shock your neighbour [Hodgson?] who ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... swimmin's foine, by the same token," was the immediate response of the ready-witted Irish lad, who never took trouble by the forelock, believing there was always time enough for ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... combination. Bakkus sang his ballads and an occasional humorous song of the moment to Andrew's accompaniment on mandolin or one-stringed violin, and Andrew conjured and juggled comically, using Bakkus as his dull-witted foil. A complete little performance, the patter and business artistically thought out and perfectly rehearsed. They wore the conventional Pierrot costume with whited faces and black ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... stated, Lord Denman was the presiding judge; there was a special jury; the attorney-general, Sir W. Follet, and Mr Wightman appeared for the noble plaintiff; and the keen-witted and exquisitely polished Mr Thesiger (now Lord Cholmondeley), Mr Alexander, and Mr W. H. Watson for the defendant. A great many of the nobility were present, together with several foreigners ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... exactly what you will say: Friday, went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings—plain black shoes—appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... for every disease of the mind, specific remedies might be found in appropriate studies and exercises. Thus, for "bird-witted" children he prescribes the study of mathematics, because, in mathematical studies, the attention must be fixed; the least intermission of thought breaks the whole chain of reasoning, their labour is lost, and they ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant! He threw down the golden apples, and received back the sky from the head and shoulders of Hercules, upon his own, where it rightly belonged. And Hercules picked up the three golden apples, that were as big or bigger ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... there is but one law in the world. The weakest goes to the wall. The men are sharper-witted than the creatures, and so they get the better of them and use them. They may call it just if they like; but when a tiger eats a man I guess he has just as much justice on his side as the man ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... resembled his father in many respects. When he went home, the old gnome told his son about Lois, and tried to impress on his mind the same lesson he had taught the young girl. Huckleberry was a very good little chap, but he was quick-witted and rather forward, and often made his father very angry by guessing his riddles; and so he needed a good deal of ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... around. Poor creature; Amory supposed she had never before been noticed in her life—possibly she was half-witted. While she accompanied them (Kerry had invited her to supper) she said nothing which could discountenance such ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... brings me to the moral of my discourse. Don't despair, if you are a duffer, for you may cure yourself of it, if you will only think and take your time. If we are not quick-witted, it does not follow we have no wits, and if we only use them carefully, we shall be no greater duffers than ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Maker, a Tapster, a Drunkard, a Rectified Young Man, a Young Novice's New Younger Wife, a Common Fiddler, a Broker, a Jovial Good Fellow, a Humourist, a Malapert Young Upstart, a Scold, a Good Wife, and a Self-Conceited Parcel-Witted ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... applied, when she would drop her work, dive among the pink innocents, and hold one up by its unhappy leg, undisturbed by its doleful cries, while she settled its price with a blue-gowned, white-capped neighbour as sharp-witted and shrill-tongued as herself. If the bargain was struck, they slapped their hands together in a peculiar way, and the new owner clapped her purchase into a meal-bag, slung it over her shoulder, and departed with her squirming, squealing treasure ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... Christmas Day. "We may have a sermon on any other day," said the London apprentices, who did not always go to hear it, "why should we be deprived on this day?" "It is no longer lawful for the day to be kept," was the reply. "Nay," exclaimed the sharp-witted fellows, "you keep it yourselves by thus distinguishing it by desecration." "They declared," says Dr. Doran, "they would go to church; numerous preachers promised to be ready for them with prayer and lecture; and the porters of Cornhill ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... action of real importance, and conceded that the perfection of any art, whether it be that of verse-making or of rope-dancing, is at best a by-product of life's conduct; at worst, you probably would not be lonely. No; you would be at one with all other fat-witted people, and there was no greater ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... had done by way of cutting Turkish noses, and unweariedly they would announce how their own blood was undiluted and heroic. If Greater Serbia was to be created it was surely they who—but Nikita, their keen-witted ruler, was not so certain. The Karageorgevi[vc] were no longer being treated by Europe as outlaws; by his constitutional methods King Peter had not only effected vast and needed improvements in his country, but was gradually winning for himself and it, if not a general esteem, at ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... tough," cried Prescott, "to be deprived of the help of one of the bravest, quickest-witted men in the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... (Rome), and sack that city also, but were deterred by a pilgrim whom they met. He told them that the city was so far away that he had worn out two pairs of iron-soled shoes in coming from thence. The Normans, believing this tale, which was only a stratagem devised by the quick-witted pilgrim, spared the Eternal City, and, reembarking in ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... his father could bear it no longer; and now Norman was too young to be likely to have much chance of being of the number. There were eight decidedly his seniors, and Harvey Anderson, a small, quick-witted boy, half a year older, who had entered school at the same time, and had always been one step below him, had, in the last three months, gained ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... indesinent triumph, vncessaunt ioie and delightful iettings aboute these rare and vnseene chariots, and being once vndertaken, it is as vneasie to leaue off: besides the notable companie of yoong youths, and the increasing troups of innumerable faire and pleasant Nymphs, more sharpe witted, wise, modest, and discreet, then is ordinarily seene in so tender yeeres, with their beardles Louers, scarce hauing downy cheekes, pleasantly deuising with them matters of Loue. Manie of them hauing their torches burning, others pastophorall, some with ancient spoiles vppon the endes of ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... old Keene to you—the old buffalo!" he replied; "and I'll describe the girls now if you like. Mary is a gawk, Sophia is as yellow as a duck's foot, and Lenore is half-witted." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... was compelled to go into hiding with a price upon his head. Unlike his father, he was very ready-witted, free with his tongue, even boisterous upon occasion, and of very great bodily strength. These qualities stood him in good stead during the long period of his wandering and when lying in ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the boys wanted him to do. Before Timothy Turtle—who was somewhat slow-witted—before he realized what their plan was, Johnnie Green and his friend Red had slipped one noose around his head and another around his body. And after turning their captive right side up they staked him out upon the sand so that he could ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... trained that critter to do a few tricks," was the answer. "You must think I'm purty dull witted. Why, you begun with an example that made the horse paw the ground four times. Your next question required five strokes of the critter's foot. Then came six, and you followed it up with seven. Come, come, Mr. Merriwell, you're not ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... to slink away—he was too cool and ready-witted. He calmly lit a pipe and wandered around, seemingly in a listless manner; but, at the proper moment, he moved away from the beach and soon disappeared ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... engagements, which draw them away. Pity relapses into a corner and silence. Thereupon two men of a very different type take the boards. The first comer is Freewill, a careless, graceless youth by his own account; Imagination, who follows, is worse, being one of those hardened, ready-witted, quick-tempered rogues whom providence saves from drowning for another fate. He is sore, this second fellow, with sitting in the stocks; yet quite unrepentant, boasting, rather, of his skill in avoiding heavier penalties. That others come to the gallows is owing to their ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... to impute the dirtiest motive that we can find; but how many self-interested men do we know who would have had quickness and daring to do such a thing? Men who are thinking about themselves are not generally either so quick-witted, or so inclined to throw away a good cloak, when by much scraping and saving they have got one. I never met a cunning, selfish, ambitious man who would have done such a thing. The reader may; but even if he has, we must ask him, for Queen Elizabeth's sake, to consider that this young Quixote ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... it. That is what I cannot understand;—men who ought to be keen-eyed and quick-witted. That magistrate believes it. I saw men in the Court who used to know me well, and I could see that they believed it. Mr. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... an entirely gratuitous and, using the word in its original sense, impertinent suggestion. Nothing I had said seemed in any way to imply that I was thinking of chess. As a matter of fact, I detest the game and never play it. I suppose I am slow-witted, but it did not occur to me for quite a long time, that, being a Scotch Presbyterian, the mention of bishops was more likely to call up to her mind the pieces which sidle obliquely across a chessboard than living men of lordly degree. I was ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... of a cock, they calls him the 'Lord High Keeper!'—I'll tell ye a joke about that fellow," said he, pointing to a man alighting from a red-wheeled buggy—"he's a werry shabby screw, and is always trying to save a penny.—Well, he hires a young half-witted hawbuck for a servant, who didn't clean his boots to his liking, so he began reading the Riot Act one day, and concluded by saying, 'I'm blowed if I couldn't clean them better myself with a little pump-water.'—The next day, up came the ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... busied among his cousin's books with equally lawless and undisciplined independence. The easy-going Don Juan, it is true, attempted to make good his rash promise to teach the boy Spanish, and actually set him a few tasks; but in a few weeks the quick-witted Clarence acquired such a colloquial proficiency from his casual acquaintance with vaqueros and small traders that he was glad to leave the matter in his young kinsman's hands. Again, by one of those illogical sequences which make ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... was the backbone of our occupation, and tolerable enough; but the far greater proportion of our time was consumed by visitors—whole-souled, grand fellows no doubt, and as sharp as a needle, but to me unfortunately not diverting. Some were apparently half-witted, and must be talked over by the hour before they could reach the humblest decision, which they only left the office to return again (ten minutes later) and rescind. Others came with a vast show of hurry and despatch, but I observed it to be principally show. The agricultural ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... revenged herself upon him for the world. The cool, audacious self she exhibited in the camps of the Philistines was never shown to Griffith; in her intercourse with him she was only a slightly intensified edition of the child he had fallen in love with years before,—a bright, quick-witted child, with a deep nature and an immense faculty for loving and clinging to people. Dolly at twenty-two was pretty much what she had been at fifteen, when they had quarrelled and made up again, loved each other and romanced ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... heavily, and waddled along in silence—Sanin speculated in what way had this booby succeeded in catching a rich and beautiful wife. He was not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever; at school he had passed for a dull, slow-witted boy, sleepy, and greedy, and had borne the nickname 'driveller.' It ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... what should wise folk do with him? These men be weaker-witted than mere fools When they fall mad once; yet by Mary's soul I am sorrier for him than for men right wise. God wot a fool that were more wise than he Would love me something worse than Chastelard, Ay, and his own soul better. ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was Nelly. Once she was a bright little thing, but she had fallen on her head, and though she did not seem much hurt at first, she became half-witted, and was now an idiot. As she grew older she was sometimes inclined to be mischievous. Lawry might have watched over her, but she was so active and quick that she could easily get away from him. She knew well that it hurt him to move, ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... not, of course, find favor among typical eighteenth century writers. Indeed, they would have seen more reason in ascribing their clear-witted verse to an ice-pack, than to the bibulous hours preceding its application to the fevered brow. We must wait for William Blake before we can expect Bacchus to be reinstated among the gods of song. Blake does not disappoint us, for we find his ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... he 'had no motive for rising,' Joe Atlee felt that there need be no urgency about taking a degree which, when he had got, he should be sorely puzzled to know what to do with. He was a clever, ready-witted, but capricious fellow, fond of pleasure, and self-indulgent to a degree that ill suited his very smallest of fortunes, for his father was a poor man, with a large family, and had already embarrassed himself heavily by the cost ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... effect, she would make her such recompence as she her self should confesse she had not done pleasure to an ingrate or vnthankefull woman. Emilia which had the brute to be one of the moste subtile and sharpe witted dames of all Thurin, slept not during the time of her prescription. But after she had searched an infinite number of meanes to come to that which she desired, there was one that semed moste expedient for that purpose, and of least ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... Pitcairn, who was with the first detachment. The relief party as finally made up comprised about twelve hundred men, with two six-pounder field-pieces, under Lord Percy. Percy went out through Roxbury with his band playing Yankee Doodle, and as he went a quick-witted lad reminded him of Chevy Chase. More than once before night Percy must have thought of the Whig youngster. He was momentarily delayed at the Cambridge bridge, where the Committee of Safety had taken up the planks, but had frugally stored ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... a shepherd, nor can children be left without tutors, or slaves without masters. And of all animals the boy is the most unmanageable, inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated; he is the most insidious, sharp-witted, and insubordinate of animals. Wherefore he must be bound with many bridles; in the first place, when he gets away from mothers and nurses, he must be under the management of tutors on account of his childishness and foolishness; then, again, being a freeman, he must be controlled ...
— Laws • Plato
... course in Strings. Among other things impossible for birds to do, these orioles tied a knot in the end of a string to prevent its fraying in the wind! If the whole idea were not too preposterous for even a half-witted child to believe, one might ask, What in the name of anything and everything but the "Modern School of Nature Study" do orioles know about strings fraying in the wind and the use of knots to prevent it? They have never had occasion to know; they have had no experience with strings ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... dull-witted young lord, "I shall count the hours until you go to Spain. You will send me some 'touru', for I am very ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... yelled and cursed vehemently, stepping on somebody else. A small-sized panic and melee ensued forthwith. More of the animals took alarm, and Algy was frightened half to death. His pony, a wall-eyed, half-witted brute, stampeded in the crowd. Then Algy was presently ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... Pole had added, very properly. The people of Exeter had expressed such an opinion, and had been quite just in doing so. I do not know how it happens, but it always does happen, that everybody in every small town knows which is the brightest-witted in every family. In this respect Mrs. Pole had only expressed public opinion, and public opinion was right. Lucy Robarts was blessed with an intelligence keener than that ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... have stated, this little river was very crooked. The cunning wolves well knew this, and so a couple of them made a short cut through the woods, to intercept their prey at a spot ahead of him. As an inspiration, the quick-witted lad took in the situation. He had heard much already about the cunning of these grey wolves in hunting in relays the moose and other species of deer, and by having some of their numbers sent on ahead or stationed in narrow defiles to intercept their prey. So, suspecting the trap being laid for ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... there seemed to be considerable of truth in this discovery of the quick-witted chum. There were certainly ashes there, a little heap of them, and these could not have been left behind when the former occupant of the cabin deserted his home years ago; for the winds of winter, sifting in through the partly open ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... slow-witted animal must renew his head-gear. He must lose the deformity, his pride, and cultivate another. In spring, when the first anemone trembles to the vernal breeze, the moose nods welcome to the wind, and as he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... "was delightfully simple. It is a little more difficult to decide what Miss Deringham, who is a quick-witted young woman, did with the tea. As you are quite aware, she did not drink it. Still, that is not the question. I'll write you out a little list of what is wanted—I used to know a little about china once, you see, and you tell Horton to send it on to Vancouver. How much would ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... looking more bravely than ever up into his eyes. "Why should you think you were so much the cleverer of the two as to get all the good out of our bargain? I am not going to allow that you were so much the more quick-witted and clear-sighted. Women are said to be as quick-witted as men. Perhaps it is not I who ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... of our prospects out of jail. This sixteenth-witted District Attorney you have in this county had the idea he could charge Stephen Gresham with the killing. I had a time talking him out of it, and I'm still not sure how far I succeeded. And I was trying to get a line on where those pistols ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... lived as true Woodpeckers should, the Flickers always were a bit sharper-witted and more independent than most of their relatives. For one thing they had discovered that ants were fine eating and that great numbers of them were to be found running up and down the trunks of certain trees. ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... and was too quick-witted to fall unawares into the trap which Lesley had laid for him. A war of words was the very thing in which he and Ethel most delighted; and it was usually quite easy to induce brother and sister to engage upon ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the day and its adventure things had cleared themselves like the sky after rain, and a luminous and quiet meaning had gradually dawned upon me. But this day's work was destined to end in confusion worse confounded. Before we left that house, ten minutes afterwards, one half-witted touch was added which rolled all our minds in cloud. If Rupert's head had suddenly fallen off on the floor, if wings had begun to sprout out of Greenwood's shoulders, we could scarcely have been more suddenly stricken. And yet ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... returned some two months from Poland, when, upon a drear October evening, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury, my Lady Sarah, the flower girl, and "Betty," the half-witted boy, made their way about half-past nine o'clock to the deserted stage of the Regent Theatre, and there by the courtesy of the watchman, distantly related to Sarah, began their preparations ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Tonine was naturally quick-witted, but she did not know either how to read or to write. She was enchanted to see herself become rich (for she thought herself so) without a soul at Muran being able to breathe a word against her honour. I passed three weeks in the company of this ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... help myself! Let me tell you. That night at Oraibi when I first knew that Elijah had gone down there to rescue Bauer and Van Shaw I learned how much he meant to me. I believe I would have gone there myself if Mr. Masters and your father had not been quick witted enough to take the rope the workmen had left out there by the great rock cistern, the first one in all Oraibi. When the three men were pulled up you remember Mr. Clifford was the last. I know that I pulled with ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... evermore of the mutinous son who had already thrown off his authority; on the other hand, there was much in Gabriel, mutinous and even menacing as he had lately become, that promised an unscrupulous tool or a sharp-witted accomplice, with interests that every year the ready youth would more and more discover were bound up in his plotting father's. This last consideration, joined, if not to affection, still to habit,—to the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the play together, and afterwards looked in at Lady ALICIA PARBOIL's dance. Dear Lady ALICIA, how plump she was, and how good-natured, and how well she married her fiddle-headed daughters. Her husband too, that clumsy, heavy-witted oaf, how cunningly and how successfully withal she schemed for his advancement. Quid plura? you knew her well, she was devoted to you. I only speak of her to remind you that it was in her hospitable rooms that GERVASE BLENKINSOP ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... hastily at his servant, and felt assured that the quick-witted negro was in possession of his secret. "You may go," said he, "and mind, never let me hear of your commenting ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... peasantry are taught to read and write, and the result of this burden, which their fathers bore not, is that they become fools. I cannot say this too plainly: An Egyptian who has had reading and writing thrust on him is, in every case that I have met with, half-witted, silly, or incapable of taking care of himself. His intellect and his health have been undermined by the forcing of education."[2210] Petrie's doctrine is that each generation of men of low civilization can be advanced beyond the preceding ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... called "The Turn of the Screw." It is one of the most powerful things ever written, and it is one of the things about which I doubt most whether it ought ever to have been written at all. It describes two innocent children gradually growing at once omniscient and half-witted under the influence of the foul ghosts of a groom and a governess. As I say, I doubt whether Mr. Henry James ought to have published it (no, it is not indecent, do not buy it; it is a spiritual matter), but I think the question so doubtful that I will give that truly great man a chance. ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... an unrelenting and merciless mistress bent on breaking and bowing down to the dust the haughty spirit of a once-loved but rebellious favourite, whom, though he has deeply offended, she yet wishes to bring once more under her yoke; and of the calm, keen-witted looker-on, watching the dangerous game, not without personal interest, but with undisturbed presence of mind, and doing his best to avert an irreparable and fatal breach. How far he honestly did his ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... of the most interesting of the Territorial records—a summons whereby civilization was called before the bar of primitive man. These presents being signed and sealed, a messenger was sought for their delivery. None better offered than a half-witted sheepherder commonly known as Willie, who chanced to be in town by buckboard from the lower country. This much accomplished, the meeting ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... thought was how to punish sixty girls, but she was quick-witted, and bidding them resume their seats, she gave them another lecture, and then said: "Since you are all guilty, you ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... the admiration of her subordinates; the informing spirit and regulating will of every step that was taken. She never lost her head, or her patience, or her sweet quiet; though she was herself as busy as a bee and at the same time constantly directing the activity of the others. Wise, and quick-witted, and quick to remember, her presence of mind and readiness of resource seemed unfailing. So, as I said, before Saturday night came, an immense deal of work was accomplished, and done in a style that needed not to be done over again. All which, however, was ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... Clark, the half-witted boy Asa Hall—their faces seemed to stare at me out of the blackness. They must be dead! Why, I had seen Kennedy fall, the heedless feet crunching his face, and Asa Hall tossed into the air and shot at as he fell. Eloise! Eloise! I covered ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... attention which Julian applied, could not discover if Bridgenorth spoke seriously or ironically to the above purpose. He was, however, quick-witted beyond his experience, and was internally determined to endeavour to discover something of the character and the temper of him with whom he spoke. For that purpose, regulating his reply in the same tone with Bridgenorth's observation, he said, that not having the advantage to know ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... well known allegiance to the emperor obliges me to tear out the very roots of treason at the first suggestion of its presence in our midst. I have long suspected Sextus, who was a cross-grained, obstinate, quick-witted, proud young man—a lot too critical. I am convinced now that he and Norbanus were hatching some kind of plot between them—possibly against the sacred person of our emperor—a frightful sacrilege!—the suggestion of it makes me shudder! There is, of course, no doubt ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... discovered, as our people must also discover in the Philippines, that a civil service examination does not disclose all the qualities needed by rulers of men. The Hindu is very similar in character, disposition and talent to the Filipino; he has quick perceptions, is keen-witted, cunning and apt at imitations. He learns with remarkable ease and adapts himself to new conditions with great facility, but no amount of those qualities can make up for the manly courage, the sterling honesty, the unflinching determination and tireless energy of the British ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... made overtures of renewed friendship to Caius. Jim was the same as of old—athletic, quick-witted, large and strong, with his freckled face still innocent of hair; the red brush stood up over his unnaturally high forehead in such fashion as to suggest to the imaginative eye that wreath of flame that in some old pictures is displayed ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... end; they are almost as rare as poets. The vast majority think not of their youth at all, or, glancing backward, are unconscious of lost opportunity, unaware of degradation suffered. Only by contrast with this thick-witted multitude can I pride myself upon my youth of endurance and of combat. I had a goal before me, and not the goal of the average man. Even when pinched with hunger, I did not abandon my purposes, which were of the mind. But contrast that starved lad ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... bewrayed; but these presently after brake down and laid waste their houses, and fled deeper away into their mountain. They harbour ill-will toward men, and withhold from them their help. That herdsman which had betrayed the Dwarfs turned sickly and half-witted, and so continued until his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... Richard burst out into a hearty fit of laughter, the first which he had for some time indulged in. "Why what a thing is conscience," he said, "that through its means even such a thick-witted northern lord as thou canst bring thy sovereign to confess his folly! It is true that, did they not propose themselves as fit to hold my leading-staff, little should I care for plucking the silken trappings off the puppets thou hast shown ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... think that the civilized world had had lessons enough, ever since that seventh century burning of the Alexandrian library by the Caliph Omar, with that famous but apocryphal rhetorical dilemma, put in his mouth perhaps by some nimble-witted reporter:—"If these books agree with the Koran, they are useless, and should be burned: if not, they are pernicious, and must not be spared." But the heedless world goes carelessly on, deaf to the voice of reason, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... battle of wit against disinterested wit. For, self-delusively, he was beginning once more to regard all organized society and its ways as a mere inquisitorial process which the adventurous could ignore and the keen-witted could circumvent. Warfare, such as his, must be ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... the original company were still in the parlour, having gambled furiously all the while without ever washing or undressing. Time was non-existent for them, and their consciousness was exercised only in watching the faces of the cards and counting up points. But the dull-witted farmers were quite equalled by the polished scholar, the great orator, the brilliant wit, Charles Fox. It was nothing to Fox if he sat for three days and three nights at a stretch over the board of green cloth. His fortune went; he might lose at the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... a wrinkled pippin. It was the face of a Roman mother, tight-lipped, brown-eyed, and fierce. You may understand the kind of woman she was from the hands she employed on the farm. They were smugglers and night-malefactors to a man—and she liked that. The decent, slow-witted, gently devious type of rustic could not live under her. The neighbours round declared that the Lady Mary Kemp's farm was a hotbed of disorder. I expect it was, too; three of our men were hung up at Canterbury on one day—for ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... superiority of Divine Power and Wisdom, but who have delivered themselves a little too positively about 'monads' and 'atoms,' and ultimate constituents of the universe. They have sometimes been not a little scandalized, as well as laughed at, when some half-witted, muddle-headed followers, glad to escape their trial, pretended to have founded systems of Pantheism, or what is just the same thing, Atheism, on some of their too obscure definitions. One man declared that he could do nothing without ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... a museum, a menagerie, a botanical garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea. Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... their faith, or at least their hope, in them did not immediately die. Billy Clagget put out his shingle as notary public, and Gus Oliver put out his as probate judge. Sam Clemens and Tillou, with a fat-witted, arrogant Prussian named Pfersdoff (Ollendorf) set out for Carson City. It is not certain what became of the wagon and team, or of the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... authority, for nothing so surely undermines all respect for law in the mind of the masses as exhibitions of insincerity, inconsistency, and Pharisaism by those invested with power. The people are not so slow witted as the few who take pride in their superior brilliancy imagine. They quickly detect insincerity or hypocrisy; but unfortunately, they frequently do not discriminate between the offender and the office in the nation or the communion which ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... he said, meeting the nobleman's eyes with a frank, straightforward gaze, "I am not dull-witted. I see that you have read the meaning of my action, and even though it call down your anger on my head, I will confess myself to you. Your niece was the cause of my walking past and rudely staring at your windows. I love her, and unless some more favoured suitor has already won her heart, I have ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... word of Herkimer's defeat had brought General Arnold with a strong body of militiamen to the rescue. While still some distance away this commander thought that he might create a false alarm in the English camp. A half-witted fellow, who went by the name of Hon-Yost Schuyler, had been captured and was in Arnold's camp. He was freed on condition that he should go to the English camp and give an exaggerated account of the new force which was coming ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... breaking in her skull, and causing a pressure upon her brain, from which in her old age she is suffering still. This pressure it was which caused the fits of somnolency so frequently to come upon her, and which gave her the appearance of being stupid and half-witted in those early years. But that brain which seemed so dull was full of busy thoughts, and her life problem was already trying ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... returned very much to their usual condition. Even poor Lawrence Brindister, who had behaved with courage and a considerable amount of judgment when the castle was attacked, very speedily again became the half-witted creature he generally appeared, and once more resumed ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Sharp-witted Sage Had heard these sayings of The Shah, he said, "Oh Shah, who would not be the Slave of Lust Must still endure the Sorrow of no Son. —Lust that makes blind the Reason; Lust that makes A Devil's self seem Angel to our Eyes; A Cataract ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... I say. You must expect a body to be suspicious, if you treat him as you're treating me." Loudon must have told this man the story with which he had been fobbed off about the half-witted Kennedy relative. Would Dobson ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... over her enjoyment, and when she had satisfied her hunger, applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learned tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... he. "We have got our case—one of the most remarkable in our collection. But, dear me, how slow-witted I have been, and how nearly I have committed the blunder of my lifetime! Now, I think that with a few missing links ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also aspires to lead the entire rural community ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... taught him ethics and religion, how to read the starry sky, song and dance and the rhythm of music. Above all, they evoked in men a sense of immortality, of a destiny beyond the tomb. Nevertheless, they had enemies at once stupid and cunning, keen-witted but short-sighted—the dark force of evil which still weaves the fringe of crime on the borders of ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... light-witted birds of the air, the beasts of the weald and the wood He traps with his woven snare, and the brood of the briny flood. Master of cunning he: the savage bull, and the hart Who roams the mountain free, are tamed ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... very pleasant people, kindly and simple. There was a half-witted youth called Krop. He used to fill his mouth with large brass-headed nails. I did not dare to go near him, for he always tried to bite my arms. One day I learned that he had died. My grandmother bought me black silk mittens ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is trying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... realm, review its crimes, politics, discoveries, and inventions, and are entertained by their jesters, who, I have it on the authority of a current advertisement, all democratically smoke the same kind of tobacco. 'You know 'em all, the great fun-makers of the daily press, agile-brained and nimble-witted, creators of world-famed characters who put laughter into life. Such live, virile humans as they must have a live, virile pipe-smoke.' There are, to be sure, some who find in this agile-brained and nimble-witted mirth an element of profound melancholy; it seems often a debased coin of ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... company of pilgrims should all be found in every minister's ministry as he leads his flock on from one Sabbath-day to another, rightly dividing the word of truth. Our ministers should have something in their successive sermons for everybody. Something for the children, something for the slow-witted and the dull of understanding, and something specially suited for those who are of a quick apprehension; something at one time to make the people smile, at another time to make them blush, and at another time to make the water stand in ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... a fashion that I could not get to the door, she began to make lamentations and to call down curses on me. Ah! she did not know that I was listening. I too squatted by Noma's head, and grew quick-witted in my fear. Now that the woman was there I was not so much afraid of the dead man, and I remembered, too, that he had been a great cheat; so I thought I would make him cheat for the last time. I placed my hands beneath his shoulders and pushed him up so that he sat upon the ground. The woman ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... a spirit, armed as it was for purposes of defence with a rare gift of irony and a very shrewd insight into the weaknesses and noisy falsettos of life, was sure to be misunderstood. The dull and coarse witted found Locker hard to make out. He struck them as artificial and elaborate, perhaps as frivolous, and yet they felt uneasy in his company lest there should be a lurking ridicule behind his quiet, humble demeanour. There was, indeed, always an element ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... sentry looked at me cunningly. His face lapsed into a broad grin. Growling "danker!" (thank you!) he calmly took it and lighted up. From this incident I discovered that even a thick-skulled, dull-witted German infantryman has ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... The Persians were a keen-witted and observant race, inured to all kinds of hardships in their occupation as mountain shepherds, and they were born warriors. The type preserved on the monuments differs but little from that which still exists ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... It was true, and down at the very, very bottom of my heart I knew it myself. When I thought I had won the prize I was only really happy for a few minutes; after that I grew frightened, for I knew it was a mistake, and that I was not really a genius at all, only a rather sharp-witted girl, a ready girl,"—she gave a dreary little laugh—"who could pick up other people's ideas, and string them together as if they were her own. The girls weren't clever enough to know the real from the sham, but Mr Rawdon knew it at once. He saw how—how—" (she ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Quick-witted Lottie, on seeing Hemstead and hearing his table-talk, had modified Addie Marchmont's suggestion in her own mind. She saw that, though unsuspicious and trusting in his nature, he was too intelligent to be imposed upon by broad farce. Therefore, ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... quick-witted that her mother often suspected she knew the secret which concerned herself. Sometimes she talked too much of M. de Camors; sometimes she talked too little, and assumed a mysterious air when ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... introduced to the President, the latter made known to him, through the interpreter, the substance of a proposal. The keen-witted Indian, perceiving that the treaty taught “all Turkey” to the white man, and “all Crow” to his tribe, sat patiently during the reading of the document. When it was finished, he rose with all his native dignity, and in a vein of true Indian eloquence, in which he was unsurpassed, declared ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... quick-witted, and it used to amuse me enormously the way he behaved when, as sometimes happened, I trod upon his foot accidentally, or fell over him in the dark. Knowing that he had never had a voluntary blow from me in his life, he would leap enthusiastically over me and lick my ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... obstinate feuds and still more obstinate problems. Militarism, nationalism, socialism and communism were well known, the preachers of some of these doctrines being loud, ignorant and popular. The defence of a maritime empire against a military oligarchy was twice attempted by the most quick-witted people in history, who failed to save themselves on both occasions. Antecedently then we might expect to find some lessons of value in the record of a people whose experiences were ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... from pure habit and dropping with fatigue the moment they stopped. The majority belonged to the militia, men of peaceful pursuits, retired tradespeople, sinking under the weight of their accouterments; quick-witted little moblets as prone to terror as they were to enthusiasm, as ready to attack as they were to fly; and here and there a few red trousers, remnants of a company mowed down in one of the big battles; somber-coated artillerymen, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... wrench the crown from him after destroying the king. They therefore sent two shepherds into his presence, who pretended to wish advice about a matter in dispute. While one engaged Tarquin's attention, the other struck him a fatal blow with his axe. The queen was, however, quick-witted enough to keep them from enjoying the fruit of their perfidy, for she assured the people from a window that the king was not killed but only stunned, and that for the present he desired them to ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... was our eccentric character; not a crank, not an egotist, not an enthusiast and not a Socialist, but just a plain, good-natured, shrewd-witted Irishman, who, for some reason, liked to live at the Farm. He never joined the Association or the Phalanx but just stayed on as a permanent boarder. He was the newsman and general gossip of the place, going about from house to house and from group to group, working a ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... material. Our public system, when economies are concerned, first considers money, property. It seems sometimes as if our free individualistic plan of government were, after all, adapted for the minority of the bright-witted." ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... people on the farm, all the people of the village, every one in the parish knew the boy and his story. From his gentleness and lovingkindness to live things, there were who said he was half-witted; others said he saw ghosts. The boys of the village despised, and some hated him, because he was so unlike them. They called him a girl because where they tormented he caressed. At this he would smile, and they durst not lay hands ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... received with an important air of helplessness, or a helpless air of importance,—whichever the reader may please to term it, evincing at once gratified vanity, and profound trouble of mind. The sharp-witted Primate of Saint Andrews had foreseen the deficiencies of the Abbot of St. Mary's, and endeavoured to provide for them by getting admitted into his Monastery as Sub-Prior a brother Cistercian, a man of parts and knowledge, devoted to the service of the Catholic Church, and very capable not only ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... him at liberty, he being bidden on peril of life not to divulge who he really was. This seed well sown, the astute duchess laid her plans to bring it to fruitage. A handsome youth was brought into her presence, a quick-witted, intelligent, crafty lad, with nimble tongue and unusually taking manners. Such, at least, was the story set afloat by Henry VII., which goes on to say that the duchess kept her protege concealed until she had taught him thoroughly the whole story of the murdered prince, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Italians will see no sign of decay about them. They are the quickest-witted people in the world, and at the same time have much more of the old Roman steadiness than they are generally credited with. Not only is there no sign of degeneration, but, as regards practical matters, there is every sign of health ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... to forecast whether any particular act will seem ridiculous to any particular class, or how long the sense of incongruity will in any case persist. Acts, for instance, which aim at producing exalted emotional effect among ordinary slow-witted people—Burke's dagger, Louis Napoleon's tame eagle, the German Kaiser's telegrams about Huns and mailed fists—may do so, and therefore be in the end politically successful, although they produce spontaneous laughter in men whose conception of good political manners is based upon the idea ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... laughed again. Clarges was a mystery to him, as to many others. Half-witted he sometimes called him, though on other occasions he stood in awe of his bright, candid, fearless nature, and ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... everyone as "Dick o' the Cow," the reason probably being that his wife helped to eke out his scanty wages by keeping three cows, and selling their milk to the honest burghers of Carlisle. He was a harmless, light-hearted fellow, whom some men called half-witted, but who was much cleverer than he appeared ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... be readily understood that in such unfavourable circumstances my manner, my behaviour with people, was more than ever marked by unnaturalness and constraint. Even Madame Ozhogin—that creature dull-witted from her birth up—began to shun me, and at times did not know in what way to approach me. Bizmyonkov, always polite and ready to do services, avoided me. I fancied even at that time that I had in him a companion in misfortune—that he too ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... immediate observation was named Pierre Canet. He was brought up in a rich, middle-class, and conservative family, hermetically sealed against any new idea: they were magistrates and officials who had distinguished themselves by crabbing authority or being dismissed: thick-witted citizens of the Marais who flirted with the Church and thought little, but thought that little well. He had married, for want of anything better to do, a woman with an aristocratic name, who had no great capacity for thought, but did her thinking no less well than he. The ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... a good-looking chap of thirty or thereabouts, an American to the core,—bright-eyed, keen-witted, smooth-faced, virile. From boyhood's earliest days he had spent a portion of his summers in Europe. Two or three years of his life had been employed in the Beaux Arts,—fruitful years, for Brock had not wasted his opportunities. He had gone in for architecture ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... Johnson, but she could not enter into our feeling. Indeed, all the wild poetry of her maternal and primitive nature seemed to cast itself about this hapless boy; and if we had listened to her we should have believed there was no one so agreeable in society, or so quick-witted in affairs, as Hippolyto, when he chose. She used to rehearse us long epics concerning his industry, his courage, and his talent; and she put fine speeches in his mouth with no more regard to the ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... an unholy desire to revenge himself on the horse. He was a thin, long-legged, dirty child, with thick, coarse, bristly red hair. He seemed only half-witted, and stuttered as though ideas were unable to form in his ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant |
