"Clever" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of real conversation furnished the staple materials of entertainment at the Attic table of the period, fill up a large portion of these comedies. The authors of them wrote not like Eupolis and Aristophanes for a great nation, but rather for a cultivated society which spent its time, like other clever circles whose cleverness finds little fit scope for action, in guessing riddles and playing at charades. They give us, therefore, no picture of their times; of the great historical and intellectual movements of the age no trace appears in these comedies, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... gone out to work, leaving only the sick ones, and the English and French, sometimes there were not enough well prisoners for "Suppentragen," for the British were clever in the matter of feigning sickness. The Revier was in charge of a doctor and a medical Sergeant, who gave exemption from work very easily. Then there were ways of getting sick which were ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... a jolly, rollicking, idiotically adoring creature who spent her days wriggling and curvetting at his feet, her silly pink tongue dabbing at him, her moist eyes beaming through her tangled fringe. She was not very clever, being one of those amiable fool dogs whose quality of heart is their chief recommendation, but she had a certain wisdom ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... on the narrow confines of the sloping ledge they struggled fiercely, heaving, panting, with muscles cracking, each seemingly possessed with a grim determination to thrust the other into the abyss. Now Buck was uppermost; again Lynch, by some clever trick, tore himself from Stratton's hold to gain ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... letter; she huddled it up. So much more important a love-letter seems to a girl than to a man. Springrove was unconsciously clever in his letters, and a man with a talent of that kind may write himself up to a hero in the mind of a young woman who loves him without knowing much about him. Springrove already stood a cubit higher in her imagination than he did ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... of Darragh — or Hal Smith, as he supposed him to be, a well-born young man gone wrong. Europe was full of that kind. To Quintana there was nothing suspicious about Hal Smith. On the contrary, his clever recklessness confirmed that polished bandit's opinion that Smith was a gentleman degenerated into a crook. It takes an educated imagination for a man to do what Smith had done to him. If the common crook has any imagination at ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... remain till I have to come back here and fetch the family. And, along there in August, some time, you let on that you are going to Mexico, and I will let on that I am going to Spitzbergen, and then under cover of this clever stratagem we will glide from the trains at Worcester and have a time. I have noticed that Providence is indifferent about Mexico and Spitzbergen. Ys ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... positive instructions, Mr. Ooma would now be in Holloway, awaiting his trial on a charge of murder. Look at the facts. 'Rabbit Jack' can identify him. He knew how to use the Ko-Katana. He knew the Japanese tricks of wrestling, which enabled him to make those two clever attacks on the two cousins. He has some power over Mrs. Capella, which brings her to him at eleven at night in a distant quarter of London. He made Jiro write the typed letter in my possession. He sent Jiro to Ipswich to attend Mr. David's second trial when the first ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... I never liked John Farnaby," the clerk began. "An active young fellow and a clever young fellow, I grant you. But a bad servant for all that. False, Mr. Ronald—false to ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... critics may give of Poe and his writings, they must all agree that he is original. He is a clever writer in a limited field. His writings have a glow and burnish that have their origin in his fondness for sensations, color, and vividness of details. He loves mystery and terror,—not the fancies and fears of ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... a loud, clear voice to shoot him at the next sound he made. In spite of his imminent danger Marche-a-Terre showed not the slightest emotion. The commandant, who was studying him, took note of this apparent insensibility, and remarked to Gerard: "That fool is not so clever as he means to be! It is far from easy to read the face of a Chouan, but the fellow betrays himself by his anxiety to show his nerve. Ha! ha! if he had only pretended fear I should have taken him for a stupid brute. He and I might have made a pair! ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her son, who, he asserted, would become a clever man, if he were ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... 'Gad, that's clever enough!' said Torpenhow over his shoulder, as Dick brought out of the paper with three twirls of the brush a very fat back and labouring shoulder pressed ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... I know how you look at me on ordinary occasions, and I see how you look at me now. You are a very clever lawyer; but, happily for the interests that I commit to your charge, you are also a thoroughly honest man. After twenty years' experience of you, you can't deceive me. You bring me bad news. Speak at once, sir, ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... him. He was born at Jceritune in Warwickshire, and was sent by his parents to Evesham, and afterwards to Peterborough, where he gave great indications of learning. His schoolmaster, who was an Anglo-Saxon named Erventus, was a clever calligraphist, and is said to have been highly proficient in the art of illuminating; he instructed Wulstan in these accomplishments, who wrote under his direction a sacramentary and a psalter, and illuminated the ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... coincidences may have greatly helped a man, yet if they have done for him only what possibly from his own abilities he might have effected for himself, his good luck will excite less attention, and the instances be less remembered. That clever men should attain their objects seems natural, and we neglect the circumstances that perhaps produced that success of themselves without the intervention of skill or foresight; but we dwell on the fact and remember it, as something strange, when the same happens to a weak ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... he was unacquainted with a second dialogue bearing the same name. Moreover, the mere existence of a Greater and Lesser Hippias, and of a First and Second Alcibiades, does to a certain extent throw a doubt upon both of them. Though a very clever and ingenious work, the Lesser Hippias does not appear to contain anything beyond the power of an imitator, who was also a careful student of the earlier Platonic writings, to invent. The motive or leading thought of the dialogue may be detected in Xen. ...
— Alcibiades I • (may be spurious) Plato
... you, of course," he whispered to his victim, the next time they met, and the Brahmin went in terror of his life. He was a very clever young person and had passed an astounding number of examinations in the course of his brief career. But he was not courageous, and his "education" had given him skill in nothing practical, except in penmanship, which skill he had ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... indulge long in chimeras, but he had achieved the Empire over formidable rivals, and he had successively not only conquered, but captured almost every potentate who had arrayed himself in arms against him. Clement and Francis, the Dukes and Landgraves of, Clever, Hesse, Saxony, and Brunswick, he had bound to his chariot wheels; forcing many to eat the bread of humiliation and captivity, during long and weary years. But the concluding portion of his reign ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is so like a son to me; and if he has no friends belonging to him, that is better than bad friends.' And Ellen herself, from looking on him as a mere boy, as she had done at their first acquaintance, had come to thinking no one ever had been so wise or so clever, far less so good, certainly not so fond of her—so her answer was no great wonder. Then they were to be prudent, and wait for some dependence; and so they did till Mr. Shaw recommended Paul Blackthorn ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... signing his abdication, General Diaz was well enough to leave Mexico City. In the early hours of the morning three trains drew up filled with his own solders and friends, in the middle one of which the ex-President, his wife, the clever and beautiful Carmelita, Colonel Porfirio Diaz, his son, with his young wife, several children, and their ten-days-old baby, were seated. Along the route the train came upon a force of seven hundred rebels. A sharp encounter ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... supplied with baskets of provisions for a feast, which they had kindly arranged to give the Indians at the conclusion of their work. The roughly extemporised tables looked most inviting when all was spread out, and two or three of the Indian women were most active and clever in getting everything ready. When the feast was over the Indians gathered in a circle, and I expressed to them my pleasure that we had got thus far with our work, and told them that I hoped we should soon now, with ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... and, climbing thence to the cross above, miss your footing on a beam, and fall headlong with none at hand but Uncle Michai—the good uncle who, scratching the back of his neck, and muttering, 'Ah, Vania, for once you have been too clever!' straightway lashed himself to a rope, and took your place? 'Maksim Teliatnikov, shoemaker.' A shoemaker, indeed? 'As drunk as a shoemaker,' says the proverb. I know what you were like, my friend. If you wish, I will tell you your whole history. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... of correcting these proofs, my attention has been called to a foolish essay on my grandfather by Mr. Lytton Strachey, none the less foolish because it is the work of an extremely clever man. If Mr. Strachey imagines that the effect of my grandfather's life and character upon men like Stanley and Clough, or a score of others who could be named, can be accounted for by the eidolon he presents to his readers in place of the real human being, one ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... at this late day to be as clever as Jack," the colonel said, in some bewilderment. "But why not more succinctly state that the Escurial is not a dromedary, although there are many flies in France? For what on earth has Jack to do with crucial points and ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... the colonel met during the afternoon had heard of Squire Reddick's good joke of the morning. That he should have sold Peter to the colonel for life was regarded as extremely clever. Some of them knew old Peter, and none of them had ever known any harm of him, and they were unanimous in their recognition and applause of the colonel's goodheartedness. Moreover, it was an index of the colonel's ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast forever One grand, ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... sewing his own clothes, and they were really well made! "An Eastern Potentate" he called himself, or a Khedive, and ran to riot in a jumble of orders and jewellery and gold chains. Trousers and jacket were pale cinnamon with scarlet facings and a red turbash, and how well the clothes fitted! clever Mr B.; he knows so much about many subjects, and can sew! He and my Judge acquaintance were arguing last night. The Judge is a Cornishman. When you get a highly educated Cornishman and an Irishman together, however long they have been in England, and they begin to talk, it's worth while ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... dinner!... And there, look at this.... Well, my boy," the old prince went on, addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. "A fine fellow—your friend—I like him! He stirs me up. Another says clever things and one doesn't care to listen, but this one talks rubbish yet stirs an old fellow up. Well, go! Get along! Perhaps I'll come and sit with you at supper. We'll have another dispute. Make friends with my little fool, Princess Mary," he shouted after Pierre, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Two lawyers, each clever in his own way, were watching every move with the faithfulness of brooding hens. Both realised, of course, that the great fight would take place in England; they were simply active as outposts in the battle of wits. They posed amiably as common allies in the fight ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... at anything funny in what you say,—the occasional inarticulate sounds that are put in at the close of your sentences, as if to delude you with a show of attention. The non-receptive mind is occasionally found in clever men; but the men who exhibit it are invariably very conceited: they can think of nothing but themselves. And you may find the last-named characteristic strongly developed even in men with gray hair, who ought to have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... gradation by which the Saxon and Norman styles of architecture were abandoned, for the more enriched and beautiful order that has conferred so much celebrity on the ecclesiastical architects of this country."[9] The clever writer in The Crypt remarks "the history of the science appears so easy and natural according to Dr. Milner's hypothesis, and so many difficulties must be softened down, so many discordances reconciled, according ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... a clever woman, and knew how to put two and two together; and it had not escaped her that Rico was quite another person within a short time, and looked very differently too. Mrs. Menotti had always dressed him very nicely ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... "of course, he's always right; he's a Christian, he's generous! Yes, vile, base creature! And no one understands it except me, and no one ever will; and I can't explain it. They say he's so religious, so high-principled, so upright, so clever; but they don't see what I've seen. They don't know how he has crushed my life for eight years, crushed everything that was living in me—he has not once even thought that I'm a live woman who must have love. They don't know how at every step he's humiliated ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... spurious interest in the remaining five millions, and wrote several clever letters in a vein of cheap satire, indirectly suggesting the pathos of my position, but indicating that I was broad-minded enough to find intellectual entertainment in the scenes, persons, and habits of London in the dead season. I even did rational ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Rudolph Rayne was indeed well illustrated by the clever trap which he had set for me by the instrumentality of that pretty woman-thief, Betty Tressider, who called ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... the sympathy, if not the counsels, of friendship might have been grateful. A clever woman might have afforded even more than sympathy; some happy device that might have even released him from the mesh in which he was involved. And once Coningsby had turned his horse's head to Park Lane to call on Lady Everingham. But surely if there were a sacred secret ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... One thing is clear, that whoever is behind this telephone trickery is very clever, and very conceited over that cleverness. It may be a costly vanity. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... London and come to Hatton where he can be under your constant care. Will you accept this charge? I do not mind telling you that it is your duty. These looms and spindles any clever spinner can direct right, but it takes a soul to save ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... that of the writer, and those whom she wished to aid. Jacob had an adopted son, William Henry Jackson, also free, who had come North. Harriet determined to sign her letter with William Henry's name, feeling sure that Jacob would be clever enough to understand by her peculiar phraseology, the ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... can serve you in the enterprise you are going to undertake, because I trust you can catch the murderer right in his nest. To do that, I'll not conceal from you that I think your agents will have to be enormously clever. They will have to watch the datcha des Iles at night, without anyone possibly suspecting it. No more maroon coats with false astrakhan trimmings, eh? But Apaches, Apaches on the wartrail, who blend themselves with the ground, with the trees, with the stones ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... semblance of life by the grotesque humour of the English Novelist. But dear little Dot, who was rather of the dumpling's shape—"but I don't myself object to that"—and good, lumbering John Peerybingle, her husband, often so near to something or another very clever, according to his own account, and Boxer, the carrier's dog, "with that preposterous nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, describing circles of barks round the horse, making savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops,"—all bear upon ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... she will have to be tremendously clever and say all sorts of brilliant things, and that puts a great burden on the author. If you proclaim boldly at the start that she's a beauty, the illustrator has got to look after her, and the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... poetry, and art, that there was no room in it for ambition. All the most brilliant men of Rome were found at his table,—Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Varius were among his friends and constant associates. He was a fair specimen of the man of pleasure and society,—liberal, kind- hearted, clever, refined, but luxurious, self-indulgent, indolent, and volatile, with good impulses, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... special inclinations were towards mechanical problems, and had he been able to follow his own wishes there is little doubt but that he would have entered on the profession of an engineer. It is probable that there was a great deal more in his wishes than the familiar inclination of a clever boy to engineering. All through the pursuit of anatomy, which was the chief business of his life, it was the structure of animals, the different modifications of great ground-plans which they presented, that interested him. But the opportunity ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... in custody; taken to Vienna. And then, at the best, months of waiting in the psychopathic ward of a great institution where the influence of Herr Schwartzmann would not be slight. And, meanwhile, Schwartzmann would have his ship. Clever! But not clever enough. He would fool them, he ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... that Atlanta would have influence in the election, and as always clever above its contemporaries in the delicate process of face-about to save its prestige, arrived in October at the point where it could join in prediction of Lincoln's re-election. It did so by throwing the blame on the Democratic platform ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... the voice before gave out; the owner tried to make a pout do duty for it. "Of course I'm there," she said; then pending another inspiration she was silent. Everybody waited for her to rise again to the level of her reputation for clever things, and the general expectation expressed itself in a subdued creaking of stiff linen above the board, and the low murmur of silken ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... was sent to a rudimentary day school of girls and boys, taught by a Mr. Bowers, where he seems to have learnt nothing save to repeat monosyllables by rote. He next passed through the hands of a devout and clever clergyman, named Ross, under whom according to his own account he made astonishing progress, being initiated into the study of Roman history, and taking special delight in the battle of Regillus. Long afterwards, when standing on the heights of Tusculum ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... we are furnished by our authorities is, that Mazdak claimed to authenticate his mission by the possession and exhibition of miraculous powers. In order to impose on the weak mind of Kobad he arranged and carried into act an elaborate and clever imposture. He excavated a cave below the fire-altar, on which he was in the habit of offering, and contrived to pass a tube from the cavern to the upper surface of the altar, where the sacred flame was maintained perpetually. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... at the potters' wheel, and proved so clever, that ere long they became famous for the beautiful patterns and excellent workmanship of their wares; so much so, that the story of the handsome young potter who had been found in a clay-pit soon became noised abroad; and although the Prince had wisely never breathed ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... many guns, and not too high charged, or high built, the privateers would load their muskets, and row down to engage her. The best shots were sent into the bows, and excused from rowing, lest the exercise should cause their hands to tremble. A clever man was put to the steering oar, and the musketeers were bidden to sing out whenever the enemy yawed, so as to fire her guns. It was in action, and in action only, that the captain had command over his men. The steersman endeavored to keep the masts of the quarry ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... beside him. "A very clever trick, that ledge," he said. "Malmsworth thinks to elude us, but he never shall, eh, Mr. Wordsley?" There were tears ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... directed to a large box, or often a big bowl, where they may deposit whatever offerings they can spare, and it must be said that their religious ideas are so strongly developed that they will dispose of a considerable portion of their money in this fashion.... The Lamas are very clever in many ways, and have a great hold over the entire country. They are ninety per cent of them unscrupulous scamps, depraved in every way and given to every sort of vice. So are the women Lamas. They live and sponge on the credulity ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... so cleverly that the law cannot take hold of him, wins an envied reputation as a "smart man," and stories of this species of smartness are told admiringly round every stove. Smartness is but the initial stage of swindling, and the clever swindler who evades or defines the weak and often corruptly administered laws of the States excites ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... painted up, and opening post-office, cafes, and bazaars of camp-followers; but they are not radically neat in their ways. In a few days or weeks their settlement is a place of stench, turning to disease; and thus it was, that, notwithstanding their fresh bread, and good cookery, and clever arrangements, they were swept away by cholera and dysentery, to an extent unrevealed to this day, while the British force, once well fed and clothed, had actually only five per cent sick from all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... know where he gits it, ma'm, tho' his mother was a smart woman, but he's th' clever la-ad, ma'm; ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... a kind, and some of his songs show it. It certainly was not up to the mark of the "Young Irelanders," one of whom attacked him on one occasion, when he made the clever retort that "the fount from which he drew his patriotism was a more genuine source than a fount of Irish type"—alluding to the plentiful use of the Gaelic characters in "The Spirit of the Nation," the world-famed collection ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... northward, and she hauled in a little to fetch the easternmost of the islands, among which she was about to cruise. A Greek pilot had been taken on board on the Zone's first entering the Archipelago. He was a clever old fellow, and he undertook to carry the ship in safety through all the dangers with which she would be surrounded. Zappa had once plundered a ship of which he had charge, and he was doubly anxious to get hold of him. All the officers were on deck with telescopes in hand, sweeping ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... you about Jules, and I suppose he told you I wasn't to know on any account! Poor old dad! Instead of feeling he's my father, d'you know what I feel? I feel as if I was his mother. He's so clever; he's frightfully clever; but he was never meant for this world. He's just a beautiful child. How in Heaven's name could he think that a girl like me could be intimate with Irene, and not know about the things that were in ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... reservoir to abandoning what to them is not only sacred but precious ground. The human mind can adjust itself to almost any conditions and associations, and a cultured Parsee will endeavor to convince you by clever arguments that their method is not only humane and natural, but the best sanitary method ever devised of disposing of ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... light. Not for a moment did it occur to them that Nancy could regard a proposal from Samuel as anything but an honour; to them she might behave slightingly, for they were of her own sex, and not clever; but a girl who prided herself on intellectual attainments must of course look up to Samuel Bennett with reverence. In their unworldliness—of a truth they were good, simple creatures—the slight difference of social ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... muttered. "It's just as I thought. Pretty clever of the old Tory to bring these girls along to peek about and find out all they can," but the girls did not hear him until he stood beside them, and then his scowl was gone and he spoke pleasantly: "A good many rifles ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... I have had no opportunity to speak with Mrs. Harrington yet, but the fate of the poor girl we have left behind hangs heavily on my spirits. James Harrington, too, seems depressed. Is it—can it be? No, no, no! A thousand times no! How dare I form it in thought? Still, she is beautiful, clever, elevated by her intelligence far above some of my own order. She has caressing ways, too, when it pleases her to assume them, and a look out of those almond-shaped eyes when she is pleased or grieved, that troubles even me with ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... the piazzas, am I wanting to myself: this way of proceeding is better; by doing such a thing I shall live more comfortably; by this means I shall render myself agreeable to my friends; such a transaction was not clever; what, shall I, at any time, imprudently commit any thing like it? These things I resolve in silence by myself. When I have any leisure, I amuse myself with my papers. This is one of those lighter foibles [I was speaking of]: to which if you do not grant your indulgence, a numerous ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... clever people, Mr Beveridge generally followed the line of least resistance. He slipped his arm through his attendant's, shouted a farewell apparently to some imaginary divinity overhead, and ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... a year ago. The story of how the girl and boy came, and how the two old women, who had many years ago been so clever in the management of children, failed utterly with the "young African savages", as a lady neighbour twenty miles distant described Terry and Turly, need not be told. There had been utter dismay in Trimleston House: and ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... together on the top of the Acropolis, and Daedalus, murder that comes from jealousy in his heart, threw his nephew down. Down, down he fell, knowing well that he was going to meet a cruel death, but Pallas Athene, protectress of all clever craftsmen, came to his rescue. By her Perdrix was turned into the bird that still bears his name, and Daedalus beheld Perdrix, the partridge, rapidly winging his way to the far-off fields. Since then, no partridge has ever built or roosted ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... men only. These may belong to any nationality, and obtain their professional or artistic training free of charge. The exhibition of students' work sufficiently proclaims the excellence of the teaching. Here we saw very clever studies from the living model, a variety of designs, and, most interesting of all, fabrics prepared, dyed and ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the serious Republicans draw the sword and growl with words of thunder, the Figaro flashes lightning, and laughs and swings its light lash most effectually. It is inexhaustible in clever sayings as to "the best republic," a phrase with which poor Lafayette is mocked, because he, as is well known, once embraced Louis Philippe before the Hotel de Ville and cried, "Vous etes la meilleure ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... marriage, however, will not come off. The Marquis d'Aubrion will never give his daughter to the son of a bankrupt. I went to tell Grandet of the steps his uncle and I took in his father's business, and the clever manoeuvres by which we had managed to keep the creditor's quiet until the present time. The insolent fellow had the face to say to me—to me, who for five years have devoted myself night and day to his interests and his honor!—that ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... I don't. I've never been in the boy's secrets, or I might have been more to him. But that's not to say nobody could win them. Any clever boy getting on for sixteen years should have plenty of ideas, and if you could find them, it might save a lot ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... said, "that's what comes of greediness and of trying to be too clever. Now, perhaps, you will learn to ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... "I'm very clever, of course I know that"—but it was a thing, in fine, this author made nothing of. "Lord, what rot they'd all be if I hadn't been I'm a successful charlatan," he went on—"I've been able to pass off my system. But do you know what it ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... behind Mary. Mr. Clacton himself had been vaguely impressed by something in Mary's behavior towards him. He envisaged a time even when it would become necessary to tell her that there could not be two masters in one office—but she was certainly able, very able, and in touch with a group of very clever young men. No doubt they had suggested to her ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... father Meri was a scribe of the great temple of Ptah, and I was brought up to his trade in the school of the temple, where I copied many rolls and also wrote out Books of the Dead which I adorned with paintings. Indeed, in this business I became so clever that, after my father went blind some years before his death, I earned enough to keep him, and my sisters also until they married. Mother I had none, for she was gathered to Osiris while I was still very little. ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... means that suggested themselves to him. The design was bad. Granted. We are not talking about goodness, but about cleverness. So, very significantly, in the parable the person cheated cannot help saying that the cheat was a clever one. The 'lord,' although he had suffered by it, 'commended the unjust steward, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Grace. But you have not explained yet how the idea first got into her head; and, more than that, how it is that she is acquainted with my name and address, and perfectly familiar with Grace's papers and Grace's affairs. These things are a puzzle to a person of my average intelligence. Can your clever friend, the doctor, account ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... as we reached the head of the staircase. 'You had better come home with me now, and two or three of my fellows shall go on to your lodging with you. Do you know, my friend,' he continued, looking at me keenly, 'you are either a very clever ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Prince was at Kew, so the message was delivered to Prince George(53) himself. The child, with great good sense, desired the Bishop to give his duty and thanks, and to assure the King that he should always obey him; but that, as his father was out of town, he could send no other answer. Was not it clever? The design of not giving one riband to the Prince's children had made great noise; there was a Remembrancer(54) on that subject ready for the press. This is the Craftsman of the present age, and is ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... about the trial going on in the Civil Court as of a case well known to himself, mentioning the judges and a celebrated advocate by name. He was saying that it seemed wonderful how the celebrated advocate had managed to give such a clever turn to the affair that an old lady, though she had the right on her side, would have to pay a large sum to her opponent. "The advocate is a ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... violence. He is ready; the man has been destroyed and a new instrument of violence has been created. And all this is done every year, every autumn, everywhere, through all Russia in broad daylight in the midst of large towns, where all may see it, and the deception is so clever, so skillful, that though all men know the infamy of it in their hearts, and see all its horrible results, they cannot throw it ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... for granted they have, my son," said Dickenson. "They really are clever at that sort of thing. I say, I'm glad I ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... parts of the island. In fact, Il Duca and Tato are drawn from life, although they did not have their mountain lair so near to Taormina as I have ventured to locate it. Except that I have adapted their clever system of brigandage to the exigencies of this story, their history is truly related. Many who have travelled somewhat outside the beaten tracks in Sicily will frankly vouch ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... bent upon being 'uninterruptedly sublime'; and we must take him as he wills and as we find him. He loses of course; and we suffer. But none the less do we cherish his society, and none the less are we interested in his processes, and enchanted (when we are clever enough) by his results. He lacks felicity, I have said; but he has charm as well as power, and, once his rule is accepted, there is no way to shake him off. The position is that of the antique tyrant in a commonwealth once republican and ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... are very good craftsmen in Spanish fashion, and make everything at a very low cost. Although the silversmiths do not know how to enamel (for enamel is not used in China), in other respects they produce marvelous work in gold and silver. They are so skilful and clever that, as soon as they see any object made by a Spanish workman, they reproduce it with exactness. What arouses my wonder most is, that when I arrived no Sangley knew how to paint anything; but now they have so perfected themselves ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... joined his party, induced by the opinion they had of his merits, of which they themselves had been spectators, in the time that he had been bred up among them. But there was a man, named Diopithes, at Sparta, who had a great knowledge of ancient oracles, and was thought particularly skillful and clever in all points of religion and divination. He alleged, that it was unlawful to make a lame man king of Lacedaemon, citing in the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... how you answer them whether I give you up to the police or take the law into my own hands. And let me tell you that the latter course would be much simpler for me. And I would take it, too, did I not feel that you were a very clever and exceptional man; did I not have a sort of sneaking admiration for your detestable ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... landlord whether any fine horses could be got near at hand; also, if he knew of some smart-looking, clever men-servants who wanted places. By chance the landlord was able to provide him with both. As he had now got everything he wanted, he set out on the finest horse that was ever seen, with two servants, for the nearest town. There he bought some grand suits of ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... a clever man can forget the proprieties to such a degree, and expose himself to the secret judgments which must be formed of him, in spite of himself ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... may fill up your picture as you like. And such for ever is Mr. Macaulay's principle of art. It is not the elimination of error that he seeks for, but an artistic balance of conflicting forces. And this he pursues throughout: deposing the dignity of the historian for the clever antithesis of the pamphleteer. At last, on this great and important point of religious history—a point which more than any other influences every epoch of English progress, he arrives at ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... complete. She had not supposed the girl knew John's estimate of her work. John was usually so clever about keeping out of sight when he insisted upon anything unpleasant that it had never occurred to Elizabeth that Hepsie was aware that John insisted upon having her do things which he felt that Hepsie could not be trusted to do unwatched. There was nothing more to be said. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... and Mackenzie was free, racing over the cluttered floor in wild uproar, bending, side-stepping, in a strained and terrific race. Carlson picked up the table, swung it overhead until it struck the ceiling, threw it with all his mighty strength to crush the man who had evaded him with such clever speed. A leg caught Mackenzie a glancing blow on the head, dazing him momentarily, giving Carlson the opening ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... reflection, to suspect that she is quite clever enough to have discovered that I hate her—and that many of the aggravating things she says and does are assumed, out of retaliation, for the purpose of making me angry. That ugly face is a double face, or I am ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... singing at the same time some songs of a plaintive character. An idea now occurred to me to have an instrument made according to my own plans, which should be nothing less than a violin. Almah was delighted at the proposal, and at once found a very clever workman, who under my direction succeeded in producing one which served my purpose well. I was a good violinist, and in this I was able to find solace for myself and for Almah for many ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... fellow at heart, but this bootlegging and trailing around with Bill Talpers will get him in trouble yet," replied the agent. "He's pretty clever, or Plenty Buffalo's men would have ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... care that you run no risk," Malcolm said. "Surely such a clever head as I see you have can contrive some way ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... plate, an occasional resource is in buying and how soon does washing enable a selection of the same thing neater. If the party is small a clever song ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... after all, he's a nice little fellow: His eyes are dark brown and his hair is pale yellow; And though not very clever or tall, it is true He is better than many, if ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... (deception) 545; alternative, loophole; shift &c (substitute) 147; last shift &c (necessity) 601. measure, step; stroke, stroke of policy; master stroke; trump card, court card; cheval de bataille [Fr.], great gun; coup, coup d'etat [Fr.]; clever stroke, bold stroke, good move, good hit, good stroke; bright thought, bright idea. intrigue, cabal, plot, conspiracy, complot^, machination; subplot, underplot^, counterplot. schemer, schemist^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... not only by Farrar's article, but by all those solemn sermons, articles, and books which make their appearance from all sides directly there is anywhere a glimpse of truth exposing a predominant falsehood. At once begins the series of long, clever, ingenious, and solemn speeches and writings, which deal with questions nearly related to the subject, but skillfully ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... faith in righteousness returns, and we know that Christ was right, that for ever and for ever it is true that better than to be rich, or to be clever, or to be famous, is it to be true, to be pure, ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... broken. He did hear a step. He kept on, as before, and in the deep shadow he turned. He saw a man just faintly outlined. One of the riders had been watching him—had followed him! Slone had always expected this. So had Lucy. And now it had happened. But Lucy had been too clever. She had not come. She had found out or suspected the spy and she had outwitted him. Slone had reason to be prouder of Lucy, and he went back to his cabin free from ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... heart on helping you and the child. It is too bad, because, practically speaking, we owe everything to her. There is little doubt that the inquiry set on foot by her scared the Thomas fellow into flight. And she has worked night and day to aid us. She is a very clever woman, Captain Whittaker, and a good one. You can't thank her enough. Here! what are ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... any fool can point out flaws, said Goethe (who certainly had a great mind, whatever his heart was like),—it takes a clever man to discern excellencies. A good talker makes other people feel they are much cleverer than they had before realized; they are at their best, thanks to the listener who draws out the best side of them. It is delightful to be with some people—you ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... and flogged. He stated his business to the patrol, who was well acquainted with him but all to no purpose. I spoke to the patrol about it afterwards: he said he knew the negro, that he was a very clever fellow, but he had to whip him; for, if he let him pass, he must another, &c. He stated that he had sometimes caught and flogged four in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... which he was transferred to another, and then, in January, 1802, to another, where he continued his clerkship with a Mr. Hoffman, who had a young wife, and two young daughters by a former marriage. With this family Washington Irving, a careless student, lively, clever, kind, established the happiest relations, of which afterwards there came the deep grief of his life and a ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... clever nowadays that I am sure there will be someone clever enough to object that, if what I have said is true, there would be a great draught, for the air would be rushing past us. But, as a matter of fact, the air goes with us too. If you are inside a railway ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... of eyelids and nostril, and a certain cruel, sensuous fulness of the lips and jaw told the dark tale, and Christine wondered how she could ever have been taken in, except that the woman before her was as clever as she was cruel and unscrupulous. A tingling horror stole through her veins as she stood there, sustaining a malignant glance and listening dumfounded to an insolent inquiry as to what further spying she ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... railing bitterness which sprang from injuries of his own. Addison, a real gentleman, disowned the defense, and this, with other slights suffered or imagined by Pope's jealous disposition, led to estrangement and soon to the composition of Pope's very clever and telling satire on Addison as 'Atticus,' which Pope did not publish, however, until he included it in his 'Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,' many ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Miss Blandford, fair as I ever thought you, the air of your native land has given additional lustre to your charms!—[Aside.] If my wife looked so—Ah! but where can Bob be?—You must know, miss, my son is a very clever fellow! you won't find him wasting his time in boyish frivolity!—no; you will find ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... ornaments,—for pictures, or statues, or furniture, or architecture,—a moral quality?" Yes, most surely, if a rightly set liking. Taste for any pictures or statues is not a moral quality, but taste for good ones is. Only here again we have to define the word "good." I don't mean by "good," clever—or learned—or difficult in the doing. Take a picture by Teniers, of sots quarrelling over their dice; it is an entirely clever picture; so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done equal to it; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is an expression ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... which formed the entry of the house. Once in the "ruai," however, great preparations were made by the inmates for his welcome. Some beautifully-worked mats (in the manufacture of which the Kanowits are very clever) were spread out on the floor, and siri and betel-nut produced; and while the Resident was holding his "Bechara" (or Court business), surrounded by a ring of admiring natives squatted around him, L. and I slipped away with ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... little. "Wasn't it a clever bit of work? Didn't he get fame there by defeating one of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... architect, Brother Michel; and one day, when I was talking with the Resident in Tai-o-hae (the chief port of the island), there were shown in to us an old, worn, purblind, ascetic-looking priest, and a lay brother, a type of all that is most sound in France, with a broad, clever, honest, humorous countenance, an eye very large and bright, and a strong and healthy body inclining to obesity. But that his blouse was black and his face shaven clean, you might pick such a man to-day, toiling cheerfully in his own patch of vines, from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was perfectly good, and so even was the biscuit and flour, which had been preserved, I conclude, by the cold from the weevils and the rats. The only animals which had visited the ship were the bears. They had not failed to scent out the good things she contained, but not having been clever enough to lift the hatches off, they had, fortunately for us, been unable ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Hero Sutton, "the city maiden." When Hero assumed the guise of a quaker, Clever called himself Obadiah, and pretended to be a rigid quaker also. His constant exclamation was "Umph! "—S. Knowles, Woman's ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... semi-scientific terminology also chokes off the ordinary reader, and one might say sometimes after reading their articles what an American trapper in the Rocky Mountains said to me about some University man whom he had been escorting for the season. "He was that clever," he said, "that you could not understand what he said." But in spite of these little peculiarities all of us who have wanted light in the darkness have found it by the methodical, never-tiring work of the Society. Its influence was one of the ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... like nature to the uninitiated," says a clever writer, "will probably show the most attention to the ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... the clever fellow he was, managed to Convince El Bizco that he was the most gifted of the three for the work. The cross-eyed thug, out of sheer vanity, always undertook the most difficult part of the task, seizing the booty, while Vidal and Manuel ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... "You clever people," she went on, "must be my guides, for New York is rather new to me—we have lived West so much. You are all such authorities on social matters that I shall have to depend on you for many things. You'll ...
— Mrs. Christy's Bridge Party • Sara Ware Bassett
... city. The last evening was given over to a banquet which taxed the capacity of the big convention hall. There were toasts and speeches and patriotic songs, and the presentation of the international pin, set with jewels, by the ladies of Budapest to Miss Schwimmer. She said in a clever acceptance that the women had done what the men never had succeeded in doing; it was the desire of all Hungarians to make this city the resort of the world and the women of the world had been the first to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... be made to see that they cannot forever keep what they have created. If a man invents a steam engine worth to the world at large ten thousand billions, he is allowed to keep his property only seventeen years, under our patent laws. Shall we allow a clever highway robber of a commercial organizer to keep the proceeds of his energy for himself and ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... nuts were once more safely hidden but two or three, these latter he carried to the top of a stump close beside the hole in the maple, and proceeded to make a meal. The stump commanded a view on all sides; and as he sat up with a nut between his little, hand-like, clever fore-paws, his shining eyes kept watch on every path by which ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... everybody by clownish names', to all her other gallants, seems not to have forgotten Mirtilla's marriage with Sir Morgan Blunder. The very names call attention to the plagiarism. The Intrigues at Versailles is none the less a clever and witty comedy, but a little ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... are the beggars to make a muddle. Their plans are clever enough, but they don't work, and then they make a mess of things much ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... the ax, and Wild Water, with the clever hand and eye of the woodsman, split the egg cleanly in half. The appearance of the egg's interior was anything but satisfactory. Smoke felt a premonitory chill. Shorty was more valiant. He held one of the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... are," grimly. "I'm right over you now, 'way up. Been locating their primary intake. They've got a dozen ships around it, and have guards posted all along the corridors leading to it; and those guards are wearing masks! They're clever birds, all right, those amphibians—they know what they got back there and how they got it. That changes things, girl! If we use gas here we won't stand a chance in the world of getting old Bradley. Stand by to jump when I open ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... with an air of modest reserve more in keeping with her youth and dainty dimpling beauty than with her errand, her appearance produced an astonishment none of which the gentlemen were able to disguise. This the clever detective, with a genius for social problems and odd elusive cases! This darling of the ball-room in satin and pearls! Mr. Spielhagen glanced at Mr. Cornell, and Mr. Cornell at Mr. Spielhagen, and both at Mr. Upjohn, in very evident distrust. As for Violet, she had eyes only for Mr. Van Broecklyn ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... demonstrate that if I was to secure his active co-operation, I must make it perfectly clear to him that it would be distinctly to his interest to give it me. Then there was Miss Onslow. She was a woman of a delicate and refined nature, of a magnificent courage certainly, clever, and resourceful; and thus far capable, perhaps, of affording valuable suggestions, but by no means to be involved so tangibly in any scheme against the men as to expose her to their vengeful fury in ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... Such a burst of laughter shook the room As might dispel a desert anchorite's gloom. Flushed faces keen and clever Contorted wildly; such mirth-moving shape Was taken by that genial histrion's jape As ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... Mary Ogden—Mary Zattiany—always a notable figure in the capitals of Europe. Her husband was in the diplomatic service until he died—some years before I saw her in Paris. She was far too clever—damnably clever, Mary Ogden, and had a reputation for it in European Society as well as for beauty—to get herself compromised. But there were stories—that must be it! She had a daughter and stowed her away somewhere. No two women could be as alike as that ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... people had no voice in their election. I speak with assurance on this subject, because I have witnessed the proceedings in my district. I do not desire to reflect upon the personnel of the delegation from Mobile, which is composed of clever and honorable men, but whatever may be their political course, they will not act as the true representatives of the sentiments and feelings ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... l'inspiration, attendu qu'un livre peut-être inspiré sans être dogmatique, et que s'il n'est pas dogmatique par son contenu il ne saurait regler le dogme." But this contention savours somewhat of clever special pleading in order to evade the force of opposing evidence. Loisy, however, for a Roman Catholic, is a wonderfully frank and fair writer ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... said. "But I'm always making mistakes. I've never made anything else. That's why I'm nothing more than 'Old Abel' to the Carmody people. Nobody but you and your grandfather ever calls me 'Mr. Blair.' Yet William Blair at the store up there, rich and respected as he is, wasn't half as clever a man as I was when we started in life: you mayn't believe that, but it's true. And the worst of it is, young Felix, that most of the time I don't care whether I'm Mr. Blair of old Abel. Only when you play I care. It makes me feel just as a look I saw in a little girl's eyes ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... He wrote very clever articles in the Harkov Gazette, and was preparing to be a professor. Well, I read a great deal and attended the student's societies, where you hear nothing that is commonplace. I was working up for six months, but as one ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... facile technique. When Carlotta Patti visited the Pacific coast she especially engaged him to act as her accompanist for her concert tour. Although his time has mainly been devoted to teaching, he has found opportunity to do clever and characteristic work as a composer. Conspicuously successful have been his "Gata and Danga Habanera" and his "Trip to Spain," the latter being for piano and orchestra. He has written many piano compositions, ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... clever young writer, by no means confining herself to the graceful poems, stories, and sketches that she dashes off with such ease, but evincing talent and tact in her more thoughtful magazine articles. She is now, she tells me, at work upon ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... Ah, my own, my darling, it is often that I think of you and feel my heart sink. How is it that YOU are so unfortunate, Barbara? How is it that YOU are so much worse off than other people? In my eyes you are kind-hearted, beautiful, and clever— why, then, has such an evil fate fallen to your lot? How comes it that you are left desolate—you, so good a human being! While to others happiness comes without an invitation at all? Yes, I know—I know it well—that I ought not to say it, for to ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... get up to-day," she said at last, to Madame's great delight. She never ventured to exert any authority over her beautiful and clever daughter-in-law—not even the authority of a mildly expressed wish. She was willing to be to Felicita anything that Felicita pleased—her servant and drudge, her fond mother, or her quiet, attentive companion. ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... our scholars lessons in practice, who prefer to have them good rather than clever, never demand the truth lest they should conceal it, and never claim any promise lest they should be tempted to break it. If some mischief has been done in my absence and I do not know who did it, I shall take care not to accuse Emile, nor to say, "Did you do ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Miss Newson, ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and take no heed of it. And if the person should say anything to you, be civil to him or her, as if you did not mind it—so you'll take the clever person's laugh away." In speaking his eyes became fixed upon her dress, still sown with wheat husks. "There's husks and dust on you. Perhaps you don't know it?" he said, in tones of extreme delicacy. "And it's very bad to let rain come upon clothes when there's chaff on them. It washes in and spoils ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... late autumn, these "creatures that once were men" gathered in the eating-house of Vaviloff. They were well known there, where some feared them as thieves and rogues, and some looked upon them contemptuously as hard drinkers, although they respected them, thinking that they were clever. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... night a far reaching understanding had come to her. It came out of her conclusion to strike a blow at the child's oversensitiveness by a full dose of ridicule; by accusing her of affectation, a clever playing to the gallery; this when the night was early, and the mother still aching with weariness from the day's many tasks. And then as the hours wore on, and the quiet soothed her weary nerves, the knowledge came, flashing out of the ether, ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... duty to your Majesty, and thanks your Majesty much for the very clever and interesting etchings which your Majesty most kindly sent him yesterday evening. Lord Melbourne will ever treasure them as remembrances of your Majesty's kindness and regard, which ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... quite comme il faut. I have dined with them several times at the Russie. The baroness is English. Miss Harleth calls her cousin. The girl herself is thoroughly well-bred, and as clever as possible." ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... said the King. "You are only a boy. Now I have grown old enough to think that it requires a very clever man to know exactly what there is behind a woman's pleasant smiling face. This one looks plump and comfortable and honest; but there's no knowing. Now, if we had Leoni here he'd fix her with that quiet eye of his, and search her through ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... self-effacing phantom of a lover. All were in great form; but, next to Miss GLADYS COOPER, whose natural charm and ingenuous espieglerie were a perpetual delight, I offer my profoundest compliments to the short but extraordinarily clever performance of Mr. H. R. HIGNETT as Trotter's man Francis. This is the day of stage valets, but he was an exceptional treasure. To a quiet taste for philosophy he added an infinite tact; and by the lies which he poured into the telephone to cover his master's breach of engagement ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... pocket, and rode over to Damelioc. Mr. Burke had for six years been Lord Killiow, in the peerage of Ireland, and for two years a Privy Councillor. He received Martin affably. He recognised that this yeoman-looking fellow had been too clever for him, and bore ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
