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Witted   Listen
adjective
Witted  adj.  Having (such) a wit or understanding; as, a quick-witted boy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Witted" Quotes from Famous Books



... as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned upon her and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other's perverted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. There ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... My quick-witted attendant fully appreciated the compliment I was paying to the costume of his race, and began more sedulously to arrange the folds of the one only garment which remained to me. Whilst he was doing this, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... curious to note the effect of the alcohol upon the dentist. It did not make him drunk, it made him vicious. So far from being stupefied, he became, after the fourth glass, active, alert, quick-witted, even talkative; a certain wickedness stirred in him then; he was intractable, mean; and when he had drunk a little more heavily than usual, he found a certain pleasure in annoying and exasperating Trina, even in abusing and ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... girls— fresh, natural and charming. One of them has a fine face with eyes of blue, just like those Bradley liked to paint—and the other two are good looking enough. They have, however, no conversation—lots of talk and gossip; much of it, too, amusing and quick witted, but it wants thought. They all come from Kentucky, where they are now going. Colonel Stewart is, I think, from Louisiana. He talks little, and does not interest me. Mr. Stone is a voluble high-spirited Northern man, with Southern tendencies. He says that the men who started this secession, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... was the rough diamond—the epitome of common sense! Why, he was a half-witted, impertinent, overbearing booby, and his author longed to get him across his knee, and correct him in the good old way. But meantime the point of the young warrior's sword was getting unpleasantly near the left breast-pocket ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... named Abou Temam, and he was a man of understanding and good breeding, quick-witted and truthful in all his affairs, and he had wealth galore. Now there was in his land an unjust king and a jealous, and Abou Temam feared for his wealth from this king and said, 'I will remove hence to another place where I shall not be in fear.' So he made for the city ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... year was marked by the same sort of disorder. Because a half-witted Negro attempted to murder a white man, a large mob stirred up the city again. There was a repetition of the beating of Negroes and of the destruction of property while the police, as the year before, were so inactive as to give rise to the charge that they were accessories ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson

... whole night. At times one could scarcely get any sleep for the continual drone they made, like the hum of gigantic bees around their hives. One thing certain was that we had almost complete control of the air and both out-numbered and out-witted the enemy to a marked extent. (p. 081) It was most unpleasant to hear the noise of the hostile planes drawing nearer, for one could not mistake the beat made by the German machines. The amount of bombing experienced by us ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose

... seem to claim credit due to another. Dan it was—Dan of the strong arm and the soft smile, Dan the wise hater of all useless labour, sharp-witted, easy-going Dan, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... Lycosa trails the bag of eggs hanging to her spinnerets. The reader will remember the experiments described in the preceding section, particularly those with the cork ball and the thread pellet which the Spider so foolishly accepts in exchange for the real pill. Well, this exceedingly dull-witted mother, satisfied with aught that knocks against her heels, is about to make us ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... Catulus, on the matter itself, moved me a good deal, being the discourse of a learned and ingenious and quick-witted man, and of one who passes over nothing which can be said for his side; but still I am not afraid but that I may be able to answer him. But no doubt such authority as his would have influenced me a good deal, if you ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... could be believed. "De gal don't know no mo'n ter tell dest whut she done heard." She truly was slow-witted and slow-spoken, but Isham, her step-father, was cook to the Gresham brothers, the beaux of the neighborhood, who kept bachelor's hall. His mother had been their Mammy—hence his inherited privilege of knowing rather more about his young masters ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... thing!" said Bruce, looking after her commiseratingly; "and a stranger might think her no more nor half-witted. But she has sense enough, poor crittur! and, I reckon, is just as smart, if she war not so humble and skittish, as any of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... between them. The humorous epitaph of the grandson "whose word no man relies on" might have served for them all. But of this unhappy family Charles I. was eminently the dreamer. He lived in a world of his own, and was slow in rendering thought into action; and this made him rely upon the quick-witted but unwise and unscrupulous Buckingham, [5] who was silly enough to make feeble attempts at unpopular warfare without consulting Parliament. During each of Charles's first four years there was an angry session of Parliament, in which, through the unwillingness ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... observed, were George Hewlett's daughters, the most civilised, if the dullest-witted, of the flock. Polly, Betsy, and Judy were the children of Dan Hewlett. As a rule, all the old women of the parish were called Betty, all the middle-aged Lizzie, and the ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... observed an unusual light streaming out of the window of Old Mountain Moggy's hovel. Believing that the hut must be on fire, she hurried up towards it, though she feared that she should be too late to render any effectual assistance to its half-witted inmate. So indeed she would, had not another person most providentially arrived before her. On looking in at the window as she passed she saw a young gentleman—a tourist, she supposed—kneeling down by the side of the poor creature; ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston

... determined to 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 obey the directions of Servius Tullius. ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... occasion, Tilly was more knowing than Laura; but on this alone; for when Laura once grasped what they were driving at, she was as nimble-witted ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... correctly, and be furnished with all the essentials of a decent education at a very moderate cost; "children on the usual terms." And there is a delightful clause to say that "if anyone is too dull-witted to learn at all, no payment will be accepted, be it Burger or Apprentice, ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... of rhythmic motion and dreamy chanting than are the natives of the far north. The keen-witted Japanese girl had learned this by watching their native dancing. She had once visited an island in the Pacific and had learned while there a weird song and ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... at the beginning well disposed towards Charles. They had some points in common; and among them a quick sense of humour and a turn for business. But the member for Hull must soon have recognised that there was no place for an honest quick-witted ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... existed, or if it did exist, it was some bleak mountain pointed out in a map. When I reflected on the character of this guide, I derived but little comfort or encouragement: he was at best evidently half witted, and was by his own confession occasionally seized with paroxysms which differed from madness in no essential respect; his wild escapade in the morning of nearly three leagues, without any apparent cause, and ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... as noon the following day before chambermaid or clerk tried to rouse the supposed occupant of the empty room. In all likelihood it would be later than noon. He would have at least twelve hours' start, even though the authorities were nimble-witted enough to join up the smaller mystery of an abandoned suit case belonging to one man and an abandoned outfit of clothing belonging to another, with the greater and seemingly unconnected mystery of the vanishment of the suspect in the Sonntag homicide case. Long before ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... countess,—"this is all very pretty, and looks very well; but tell me, are we to trust that fellow Dimitri? Can we do without him? I should say not when it comes to the finale; and is it not dangerous to keep him out of our confidence, being such a sharp, keen-witted fellow? Nay, more, as he has stated his wish to serve you in any way, it is only treating him fairly. He knows the little dwarf who has been here so often; indeed, they were fellow-servants in the Czartorinski family, for he told me so. I would ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... my tame sweetheart that he was merry and quick-witted; he had not come to woo, he said, but to listen to the princess's wisdom. And the end of it was that they fell in ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various

... Mal," he said, mastering his own shrinking by remembrance of how the strong-witted man could often master the brain unhinged; "my impression is that you want change. Suppose you and I take a run. What do you say ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... overcrowding! And the dirt! And the pigs themselves! They were positively uncanny. There was something almost human about them. They were all heads and no bodies. It was just as though the other half of the wits of the half-witted boy who looked after them had distributed itself among the whole herd. I could have wept when I thought how my purse and my swill-tub had been emptied to keep such puny monstrosities in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various

... was evidently sharp-witted also. Finding that the door might not be closed, she threw ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... in regard to something, as is said (Metaph. v, text. 25). But that anyone should be well or ill disposed to an act of the intellect is due to some disposition of the body: wherefore also it is stated (De Anima ii, text. 94) that "we observe men with soft flesh to be quick witted." Therefore the habits of knowledge are not in the intellect, which is separate, but in some power which is the act of some ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... his subtle smiles—those peculiar smiles of the Oriental which make the keenest-witted man of the West feel that he is little better than ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... raised her eyebrows. She spoke in a clear, audible voice. "Some half-witted creature. I have never set eyes ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... deficiency of scholarlike ability to push on, but that, as the poet of the Seasons lay in bed, because 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 ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... responsibility. But they have 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 ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... no wonder that men and women of culture and refinement are driven to suicide from the constant dread of insanity. Idiocy, however, is more frequent amongst the natives, and in one povarnia we found a poor half-witted wretch who had taken up his quarters there driven away from the nearest stancia by the cruelty of its inmates. This poor imbecile had laid in a store of putrid fish and seemed quite resigned to his surroundings, but we persuaded him to return to his home with us. This was an exceptional ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... was, that M'Clutchy, who perfectly understood the half-witted character of his son—for be it known that worthy Phil was considered by those who had the honor of his acquaintance, as anything but an oracle—did not feel himself justified in admitting the said Phil to full confidence in all his plans ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... Cat, 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 when he eats ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... is, indeed, more strange than that which tells how this nimble-witted alien adventurer, with his poetic temperament, his weird Eastern imagination and excessive Western cynicism, his elastic mind which he himself described as "revolutionary," and his apparently wayward but in reality carefully regulated unconventionality, succeeded, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... Meanwhile, I will do this: In the north there dwells a man mighty in all things and blown up with pride. He is named Ospakar Blacktooth. His wife is but lately dead, and he has given out that he will wed the fairest maid in Iceland. Now, it is in my mind to send Koll the Half-witted, my thrall, whom Asmund gave to me, to Ospakar as though by chance. He is a great talker and very clever, for in his half-wits is more cunning than in the brains of most; and he shall so bepraise Gudruda's beauty that ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... frequent. On this account, according to the proverbs, the Ahir is held to be treacherous and false to his engagements. They are also regarded as stupid because they seldom get any education, retain their rustic and half-aboriginal dialect, and on account of their solitary life are dull and slow-witted in company. 'The barber's son learns to shave on the Ahir's head.' 'The cow is in league with the milkman and lets him milk water into the pail.' The Ahirs are also hot-tempered, and their propensity for drinking often results ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... to prepare the way for a French marriage, to strengthen the friendly feeling of the powerful Louis XIV., who had been married to a Spanish wife. Scarcely had the promise for this marriage between Louis's niece Marie Louise and the half-witted Charles been made, when, suddenly, Don Juan sickened and died, and the queen-mother Mariana was again in power. There were dark hints of poison; it was insinuated that Mariana knew more of the affair than she ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... so on to the top. If at the head there were God, it would be well; but man is there, and consequently the whole society is a gigantic mistake. To be a sincere member of it, a man must be a half-witted fool, a religious fanatic, or a rogue for whom no duplicity is too scurrilous, even ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... wires; and, to use an elegant expression of your own, he twists them all round his thumb. Critically, if superiority in mere intellect and strong self-will, or even success in the object he designs, constitute a hero, the clear-witted, audacious, subtle Ancient has entirely the upper hand of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... 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 ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... leaning forward to observe the antics of a tumbler who had spread his carpet beneath the trees, when the abate's face suddenly rose to the surface of the throng and his hand thrust a crumpled paper between the curtains of the litter. Odo was quick-witted enough to capture this missive without attracting the notice of his grand-aunts, and stealing a glance at it, he read—"Cavaliere, I starve. When the illustrious ladies descend, for Christ's sake beg a scudo of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... harmony at Quebec till the carnival approached, when Frontenac, whose youthful instincts survived his seventy-four years, introduced a startling novelty which proved the signal of discord. One of his military circle, the sharp-witted La Motte-Cadillac, thus relates this untoward event in a letter to a friend: "The winter passed very pleasantly, especially to the officers, who lived together like comrades; and, to contribute to their honest enjoyment, ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... is all I've got to say.' This speech, which astonished them all exceedingly, remained unanswered for some few moments, during which Urmand had sunk back into his niche. Michel Voss was not ready- witted enough to reply to his guest at the moment, and George was aware that it would not be fitting for him, the triumphant lover, to make any reply. He could hardly have spoken without showing his triumph. During this short interval no ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... short for her breadth of beam, and is not armed. Smugglers do not arm now—the service is too dangerous; they effect their purpose by cunning, not by force. Nevertheless, it requires that smugglers should be good seamen, smart active fellows, and keen-witted, or they can do nothing. This vessel has not a large cargo in her, but it is valuable. She has some thousand yards of lace, a few hundred pounds of tea, a few bales of silk, and about forty ankers of brandy—just as much as they can land in one boat. All they ask is a heavy ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Who shall now sneer at Puritanism, with the "Defence of Unlicensed Printing" before him? Who scoff at Quakerism over the "Journal" of George Fox? Who shall join with debauched lordlings and fat-witted prelates in ridicule of Anabaptist levellers and dippers, after rising from the perusal of "Pilgrim's Progress?" "There were giants in those days." And foremost amid that band of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... Catherine of Braganza in Charles the Second's day, so the son felt pity and gave what support he could to poor bullied and bewildered Queen Anne. To him her queenship was truly the lesser thing, her helpless, somewhat heavy-witted and easily wavering womanhood the greater; and there were those who feared him, for such reasons as few men in his position ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Tartar.] Yet their subtility is more than may seeme to agree with their barbarous condition. By reason they are practised to inuade continually, and to robbe their neighbours that border about them, they are very pregnant, and ready witted to deuise stratagems vpon the sudden for their better aduantage. As in their warre against Beala the fourth, king of Hungarie, whome they inuaded with 500000. men, and obtained against him a great victorie. Where, among other, hauing slaine ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt

... well believe it," he replied, for he saw to cross-examine this quick witted woman would be forever useless. "And in happier times I could wish it ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple

... world involve Dick, and could even her love for her sisters induce her voluntarily to give him up? Phillis, who was quick-witted, read the doubt in a moment, and ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... 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

... sharpness of 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 ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... Brittany for over a year, and people had ceased to associate their names. The witnesses who made this statement were not of a very reputable sort. One was an old herb-gatherer suspected of witch-craft, another a drunken clerk from a neighbouring parish, the third a half-witted shepherd who could be made to say anything; and it was clear that the prosecution was not satisfied with its case, and would have liked to find more definite proof of Lanrivain's complicity than the statement of the herb-gatherer, who swore to having seen him climbing the wall of the park on ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... last second from a clutch, seeing Mormon charging, swung a vicious uppercut. He made the mistake of underestimating Mormon, thinking him slow-witted. He found his wrist in a vise, his arm twisted, bent down across the thick ridge of the cowman's shoulder, the powerful heave of Mormon's back. His own impetus served against him. Mormon shifted grips, he cupped Russell's elbow with his right palm and crowded all his energy into one dynamic effort ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... charged into the thick gardens that held his captive cousin. His action was quicker than Isabelle's captors had anticipated; for, halting ere they rode within the city, the Saracens had placed her within one of the little palisaded towers scattered through the gardens for the purpose of defence. Quick-witted and ready-eared, the little lady ceased her sobs as she heard through the trees the well-known "Beausant!" the war-cry of the Knights of the Temple, and the ringing shout of "A Baldwin to the rescue!" Leaning far out of the little tower, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... how dull-witted these countrywomen are. And she and I had no time to spare. So we worked out a little scene in a hurry ... and she really didn't act it so badly. It was all in the right key: ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... walk to Willowbrook, and what were the chances of her getting lost if she should try it? I thought I spoke in such a guarded way that Seth would not have the least idea what I meant; but he must have been very quick-witted, for he understood in a minute. He did not let me know it, though, and ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May

... upon her ladyship in order to impart to her the good news. Yet, instead of welcoming him, she only treated him with resentment and scorn. He knew the quick flash of those eyes, he had seen it before on other occasions. This was not the first time they had quarrelled, yet he, keen-witted and cunning, had always held her powerless to elude him, had always compelled her to give him the sums he so constantly demanded. That morning, however, she ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... 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. Bosher, 'It's the same girl, take ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison

... the canoes were thickly infested with them. They were a light gray animal, larger than the common gray squirrel, with beautiful bushy tails, which made them strikingly resemble the squirrel, but in cunning and deviltry they were much ahead of that quick-witted rodent. I have known them to empty in one night a keg of spikes in the storehouse in Yamhill, distributing them along the stringers of the building, with apparently no other purpose than amusement. We anticipated great fun watching the efforts ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... teaches the purification of personal egoism through love, I joyfully acknowledge the doctrine of Beatrice. But the fact that Beatrice stands, as it were, on the chariot of the Church, that, instead of pure, simple doctrine, she preaches keen-witted ecclesiastic scholasticism, made her appear to me in a colder light, although the poet assures us that she shines and glows for ever. At last she became indifferent to me; and although as a mere reader I acknowledge that Dante has ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... 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 link between blood and blood, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... among grass or undergrowth on a dark night a rabbit of ordinary intelligence might reasonably hope to escape detection—their real purpose might be cleverly masked until it was too late. Leisurely approaching the object of attack, lulling the suspicions of a dull-witted sentinel or patrol by stopping now to cull a leaf, now to wash a whisker, the well-trained rabbit would have no difficulty in creeping to within striking distance. Then suddenly rushing forward and throwing its whole weight against the nearest wheel of the cannon it would tilt it from its ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various

... nothing on earth,—and, so his enemies said, of nothing elsewhere; eaten up by conceit; fond of law, but fonder, perhaps, of dominion; soft as milk to those who acknowledged his power, but a tyrant to all who contested it; conscientious, thoughtful, sarcastic, bright-witted, and laborious. He was a man who never spared himself. If he had a case in hand, though the interest to himself in it was almost nothing, he would rob himself of rest for a week should a point arise which required such labour. It was the theory of Mr. Dove's life that he would ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... the missionars of Glamerton would have nothing to say for themselves on that day, if they did not purify themselves on this. From the faint light of the stars he passed into the dull illumination of the tallow candles, and took his place in silence behind their snuffer, who, though half-witted, had yet shown intelligence and piety enough for admission into the community. The church slowly gathered, and at length Mr Turnbull appeared, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... chance to take revenge. The new King, Louis XVI, had for Foreign Minister Count de Vergennes, a diplomat of some experience, who warmly urged supporting the cause of the American Colonists. He had for accomplice Beaumarchais, a nimble-witted playwright and seductive man of the world who talked very persuasively to the young King and ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... 'If a sharp-witted wight e'er tried mankind, * I've eaten that which only tasted he:[FN257] Their amity proved naught but wile and guile, * Their faith I ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... pathetic sentiment, but valuable for its vivid expression of Italian feeling toward the Austrians. These the Italians hated as part of a stupid and brutal oppression; they despised them somewhat as a torpid-witted folk, but individually liked them for their amiability and good nature, and in their better moments they pitied them as the victims of a common tyranny. I will not be so adventurous as to say how far the beautiful military music of the Austrians tended to lighten the burden of a German garrison in ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... when the door of the cabin was suddenly thrown open and a monster appeared on the threshold, a spectral thing in the darkness, furry, with the head of an ox, Thomas Lincoln shrank back aghast; little Abraham, quicker-sighted and quicker-witted, slipped behind the creature, pulled at its furry mantle, and revealed a forest Diana, a bold girl who amused herself playing demon among the ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... and poetic commentary on the story in Samuel. There we get the bare facts of the assassins prowling by night round David's house; of Michal's warning; of her ready-witted trick to gain time, and of his hasty flight to Samuel at Ramah. In the narrative David is, as usual at this period, passive and silent; but when we turn to the psalm, we learn the tone of his mind as the peril bursts upon him, and all the vulgar craft and fear fades ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... and piety of all the villages around us; said the postillion—it is but three years ago, that the sun did not shine upon so fair, so quick-witted and amiable a maid; and better fate did Maria deserve, than to have her Banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate of the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... Pretoria this afternoon with Betty and the sick nurse. We were stopped at the station while the officials examined our handbags for cannon. This delay would have been irritating, but the men were so universally good-natured—little dull-witted, with no appreciation of fitness, but good-natured. We drove at once to the Grand Hotel, and I went to bed that I might look rested when I saw my husband on the morrow. Lady de Wet and Dr. Messum, the prison physician, called to ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond

... one among them who has the means to continue the family estate, with the exception of our kindred grandson, Pao-y alone, who, though perverse in disposition and wayward by nature, is nevertheless intelligent and quick-witted and qualified in a measure to give effect to our hopes. But alas! the good fortune of our family is entirely decayed, so that we fear there is no person to incite him to enter the right way! Fortunately ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... to that place having completed their inspection, were about taking leave, when they were attracted by "little Joe," a bright, intelligent boy pupil, and immediately asked him if he could distinguish colors in the above-mentioned way. The quick-witted little fellow assumed the serene dignity of a sage and calmly answered, "Of course I can," whereupon the gentlemen stood in a row and offered Joe the tempting bait of one dollar if he would tell each one ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... do, and in return offered him a tract of land which he did not own, and from which he intended to push the settlers if they should take possession of it. And Captain Smith had no intention of giving either cannon or grindstones to Powhatan, so the shrewd old savage and the quick-witted Captain were well matched ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... not clearly audible, and silence ensued. But Temistocle had heard quite enough. He was a quick-witted fellow, as has been seen, much more anxious for his own interests than for his master's, though he had hitherto found it easy to consult both. Indeed, in a certain way he was faithful to Del Ferice, and admired him as a soldier admires his general. ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... a poor half-witted creature, who was one of the first in the town to lose a child," the door-porter replied; "and the shock of it has ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... Diemen's Land, went on a whaling cruise to the South Seas. The influence which Sarah Purfoy had acquired over him had, however, irretrievably injured him. It was as though she had poisoned his moral nature by the influence of a clever and wicked woman over a sensual and dull-witted man. Blunt gradually sank lower and lower. He became a drunkard, and was known as a man with a "grievance against the Government". Captain Frere, having had occasion for him in some capacity, had become in a manner his patron, and had got him the command of a schooner trading from Sydney. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... popular and just betrothed to a star of musical comedy, hears suddenly that he isn't Max Doran at all, but a pauper changeling, and that the real child of his parents (if I make myself clear) is a dull-witted girl who has been spirited away to Africa—I said to myself, now there is an exciting time ahead. So there was, but not in the way I had expected. For when Max goes out to Africa to find the missing one he finds her all right, but himself gets involved in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various

... made to Mr. Adams, who was found less scrupulous and had promptly formed the "unholy coalition." This wretched publication, made a few days before the election in the House, was traced to a dull-witted Pennsylvania Representative by the name of Kremer, who had (p. 171) obviously been used as a tool by cleverer men. It met, however, the fate which seems happily always to attend such ignoble devices, and failed ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... and finally her chickens disappeared down German throats. The poor old woman, refusing to leave the locality in which her life had been passed, had wandered about for days in the rain and mud, until cold, hunger, and sorrow had made her light-witted. Then while roaming aimlessly over the fields she had come upon the body ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... with any chapter of fiction. How his wife packed him into the chest supposed to contain the folios of the great oriental scholar Erpenius, how the soldiers wondered at its weight and questioned whether it did not hold an Arminian, how the servant-maid, Elsje van Houwening, quick-witted as Morgiana of the "Forty Thieves," parried their questions and convoyed her master safely to the friendly place of refuge,—all this must be read in the vivid narrative of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... had great faith in woman's wit, and especially a Frenchwoman's, and it suddenly struck me if this one should prove as quick-witted as most of her kind, she would know how to secure my admission into the palace; and if she should prove as kindly disposed as I believed the sight of gold and a pleasant word might make her, then ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... she ordered something done or spent some money in a way that excited the astonishment of Willy Croup—the sharper-witted Betty had gone home, for, of course, Mrs. Cliff could not be expected to be able to afford her company now. But in attempting to account for these inconsiderable extravagances, Mrs. Cliff was often obliged to content herself with admitting that while she had been abroad she ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... this time 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 round the heads of villains ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... land with his books on education; and, uniting his appeals for educational reform with strictures upon the validity of the Scriptures, he incurred the sore displeasure of Goetze, Winkler and others of their class. They replied to him, but he was always ready-witted, and the press groaned under his repeated and sometimes ribald rejoinders. He told the nation, in an Address to the Friends of Humanity, that the old excesses would soon be done away with, since he was about to publish ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... bewilder, moider^, fluster, muddle, dazzle; throw a sop to Cerberus. Adj. inattentive; unobservant, unmindful, heedless, unthinking, unheeding, undiscerning^; inadvertent; mindless, regardless, respectless^, listless &c (indifferent) 866; blind, deaf; bird-witted; hand over head; cursory, percursory^; giddy-brained, scatter-brained, hare-brained; unreflective, unreflecting^, ecervele [Fr.]; offhand; dizzy, muzzy^, brainsick^; giddy, giddy as a goose; wild, harum-scarum, rantipole^, highflying; heedless, careless &c (neglectful) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... "The quick-witted girl saw the force of these suggestions, and ran after her paramour. She succeeded in her mission. He fears the coming outbreak, whispers of which are now heard everywhere. He has recalled the order for ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... 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 are infirm.-A father offended ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... least, they are willing. But I don't want any except a capable one. Not so much experienced, as quick-witted and intelligent. You may as well know, Mr. Calhoun, since you are to look after my affairs, that my late husband was of strictly plain habits. He was almost frugal in his ideas of how little womankind should be indulged in any luxuries or unnecessary comforts. This did not incommode ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... how it is that I have only now acquired a clear conception of what these gentry are, when I had almost daily before my eyes in this town such an excellent specimen of them—my brother Peter—slow-witted and hide-bound in prejudice—. (Laughter, uproar and hisses. MRS. STOCKMANN Sits coughing assiduously. ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen

... 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 ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... we marvel if, after leaving generation after generation to grow up uneducated and underfed, there should be developed a heredity of incapacity, and that thousands of dull-witted people should be born into the world, disinherited before their birth of their share in ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... diversity of method in Madame Bovary, though the story is so simple. What does it amount to, that story? Charles Bovary, a simple and slow-witted young country doctor, makes a prudent marriage, and has the fortune to lose his tiresome and elderly wife after no long time. Then he falls in love with the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, a pretty and fanciful young woman, who marries him. She is deeply bored by existence ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... Manicamp was keen-witted enough, and perfectly understood that he had done quite sufficient to produce a good opinion of his conduct; it was now only a question of persevering in such a manner as to regain the good graces of the king. "Speak, monsieur," he said to Saint-Aignan; "I have ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... kind. He was certainly extremely able, although his somewhat boisterous personality and entirely non-committal conversation did not give at the first meeting with him the impression of his being the sagacious and keen-witted politician that he really was. Was it his laugh that people disliked? Was it his voice? It could not have been his intelligence, which was excellent, nor yet his moral character, which was blameless. In fact, in a quiet way, Pateley had been a hero, for ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... Scot) that men who wear skirts are not men, (forgetting the Spaniards) that women who smoke cigars are not women, and to settle numberless other matters in so silly a manner that a ten year old, half-witted school boy, after three minutes light thinking, could be depended upon to ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... kind of orange-box without bottom, on the floor, upon an American oilcloth mattress; and with a piece of leather for a coverlet. Most previous schemes for employing the unemployed upon colonies and waste land had failed because of the men put upon them, who were drunken, lazy, and half-witted. By General Booth's scheme there was process of selection which would weed out those individuals: and she thought photography might be employed in getting to know bad ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker

... was only twenty-seven years old, but he was already in local repute as a "character." As a boy he was thought to be half-witted or "natural," and, as is the case with such unfortunates in small country towns where everybody knows everybody, he was made a common sport and jest for the keener, crueler wits of the neighborhood. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... come on the morrow dawn to sing an alba under the casement of the bridal chamber. The bride, too, this new wife that had taken my own lady's place by my lord's side, she, come but yesterday from her thick-witted Bohemia, and whom, never loving, I might always truly pity, spoke me fair and besought me to make verses thenceforth in praise of none save her. I answered as best I might, but I fear me my speech came but falteringly, what with my heart beating against my ribs like the ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... volume are of a Ballad 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 Old Dotard. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... As to being a "keen-witted pessimist out and out," the Reverend Dr. Abbott's "horrid example" has shown me the following sentence:—"Pessimism is as little consonant with the facts of sentient existence as optimism." He says he published it ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... so sorry to hear it," answered Mrs. Marsden. Then noticing a sly twinkle in the man's eyes, utterly out of keeping with his words, the quick-witted woman instantly caught on ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea

... extraction. But this is only on the surface, and Bernard MacAnulty was a typical example of this. No braver or more generous Irishman ever breathed, and he had a fund of humour which would have done credit to the quickest-witted Connaughtman or Munsterman that ever lived. Though the Ulster accent is generally regarded as a hard one, I never thought it was so with my friend. Perhaps this is owing to my partiality as a County Down man, which, though ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... words, he clapped my grandfather on the shoulder, and encouraged him to be as true-hearted as he was sharp-witted, and he could not fail to earn both treasure and trusts. So my grand-father left him, and went to the Widow Rippet's in the Grass-market; and around her kitchen fire he found some four or five discarded ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... without a first thought, began to throw his saddle off, but was quickly prevented by a quicker witted soldier, but the action was not quick enough. Colonel Boone had observed without appearing to do so, the normal condition of the back of the horse, and something had flown to his mind, that "all was not right on the Wabash," and he concluded to keep ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... certain private variations of his own, until he reached the splendid monument erected to the miserly old Duke of Brunswick, who showered his scraped-up millions upon an alien city, to spite his own fat-witted Brunswickers, and so escaped the blood-fleshed talons of ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... project. Every new light is the birth of a new system, the dawn of a new world outstripping and overreaching himself. The last opinion is the only true one. He is wiser to-day than he was yesterday. Why should he not be wiser to-morrow than he was to-day?—Men of a learned education are not so sharp-witted as clever men without it; but they know the balance of the human intellect better; if they are more stupid, they are more steady, and are less liable to be led astray by their own sagacity and the overweening petulance of hard-earned and late-acquired wisdom. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... "You're too quick-witted, Alwyn, positively you are!" he remonstrated with a frankly humorous smile.. "But as it happens, you're perfectly right! Not ONE critic, but THREE,—three of our most influential men, too—thought you WERE dead!—and that 'Nourhalma' was a posthumous ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... such quiet humor about his adventures with the Texas Rangers among the cactus-studded plains of the Lone Star State, it is hard even for one who knows the truth, to realize that this man is one of the greatest of detectives, or rather one of the most capable, resourceful, adroit and quick-witted knights of adventure who ever set forth ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... Georgian seals which he had acquired in the way of business, and he had had the keys gilt, turned to a dull gold colour, to match the seals. It was possible, just possible, that they might escape the notice of these thick-witted ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... far more learning than most young men of your rank, and as Harold rightly thinks much of such knowledge, you are likely, if you live, to learn more. But better than this, so far as your prospects are concerned in the troubled times that may be coming, you are quick witted and ready. I hear that you are already very proficient in arms, and a match for most grown men. Best of all, so far as your future happiness is concerned, you have a kind heart and a good disposition. You could scarce be a page of Earl Harold's and not be a true Englishman ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... and kind, but the frantic effort she made at times, in public, to be profound or chic must have touched the great man on the raw. He sought, however, to protect her, and at public gatherings used to keep very near to her in order that she should not fall into the clutches of some sharp-witted enemy and be lead on into unseemliness of speech. The scoffs of critics and the ready-made gibes and jeers of the mob were to her gospel truth; her husband's genius was a vagary to be stoutly endured. So for many years she was inclined to pose as one to be pitied—and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... back into the nave, ever and anon pointing out some portion of the edifice more ancient than the rest, and when I asked him how he knew this, he said that he had learnt it from the archaeologists, who could read off such things like a book. This guide was a lively, quick-witted man, who did his business less by rote, and more with a vivacious interest, than any guide I ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... their doubts. Young men, serious young minds, always will have their doubts. They want to earn their convictions. I hope the day will never come when young men will not insist on seeing things. These young men were quick-witted and ready with repartee and counter-argument, and I saw in each eye a glint of an ideal. The debate was strong, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... take lessons in detecting from Shermlock Hollums, and I did. He says to me, when I'd finished the course, 'Mike, I hate to say it, but I can't call you a rival. You're so far ahead of me in detective knowledge that I'm like a half-witted child beside you.' That's what my old friend and teacher, Shermlock Hollums, ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... chill-hearted shaken-witted thing, 'Plaining his little span. But of proud virgin joy the appropriate birth, The Son of ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... friends as sharp-sighted as an eagle, or the Epidaurian serpent? But, on the other hand, it is your lot that your friends should inquire into your vices in turn. [A certain person] is a little too hasty in his temper; not well calculated for the sharp-witted sneers of these men: he may be made a jest of because his gown hangs awkwardly, he [at the same time] being trimmed in a very rustic manner, and his wide shoe hardly sticks to his foot. But he is so good, that no man can be better; but he is your friend; but an immense genius ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... in the vast area of speculation the shudder of the threatened break had been felt, 'the Manderson crowd' had stepped in and held the market up. All through the week the speculator's mind, as shallow as it is quick-witted, as sentimental as greedy, had seen in this the hand of the giant stretched out in protection from afar. Manderson, said the newspapers in chorus, was in hourly communication with his lieutenants in the Street. One journal was able to give in round figures ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... to be afraid of this amorous and jealous, half-witted woman, and flew into a rage, like brutes do; and one night, he even went so far as to strike her, so they sent for me. When I arrived she was writhing and screaming, in a terrible crisis of pain, anger, passion, how do I know what? Can one ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... 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

... ever drawn out a line of beauty and to its unwieldy tales that divided against themselves as they moved down the cycles in the same attitude as towards the Roman catholic religion, the attitude of a dull-witted loyal serf. Whatsoever of thought or of feeling came to him from England or by way of English culture his mind stood armed against in obedience to a password; and of the world that lay beyond England he knew only the foreign legion of France in ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... bridled up suspiciously, as if the question were a preliminary to their detection in some old evil deed. Others utterly failed to comprehend the question; and a few pityingly tapped their own foreheads, and shook their heads at the two half-witted English holiday-makers. But no one could tell ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... the time to which you allude, the son and daughter of an acting trustee, and each of them between sixty and seventy years of age, and they assure me that the donkey was introduced. One of them says it was mounted by a half-witted man, seated with his face towards the tail of the beast, and having several hats piled on his head. Neither of my informants was, however, present at these edifying services. I believe that no movement was made in the church on either Sunday, until the whole of the authorised ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... involuntarily towards the corner of the room occupied by Lewis Flagg's bed and other belongings, and Seabrooke caught the look. Quick-sighted and quick-witted, he drew his own inferences and attacked ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... of ingratiating himself with everyone, and of getting what he wanted, that inspired the slower-witted Eli and Hercules with awe and admiration; until one day he took it into his head to long for Dame Fossie's celebrated black and ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... rural life of combined seemliness and economy. He met my advances politely enough, but with an air of suspicion which offended me. I began by disliking him for it: afterwards I set it down as an unpleasant feature in the local character. I was doubly mistaken. Farmer Hosking was slow-witted, but as honest a man as ever stood up against hard times; and a more open and hospitable race than the people on that coast I never wish to meet. It was the caution of a child who had burnt his fingers, not once ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... suggested to me that she would make any English showman's fortune, if he could only exhibit her stuffed. At the cottage they called her 'La Grosse Normande.' Not knowing her by any other name, I always so addressed her. She was not very quick-witted, but I think she a little resented my familiarity, and retaliated by comparisons between her compatriots and mine, always in a tone derogatory to the latter. She informed me as a matter of history, patent to all nurses, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... French service were very numerous, and were drawn chiefly from the class of lesser nobles. A well-informed French writer calls them "a generation of petits-maitres, dissolute, frivolous, heedless, light-witted; but brave always, and ready to die with their soldiers, though not to suffer with them."[373] In fact the course of the war was to show plainly that in Europe the regiments of France were no longer ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... atmosphere, are getting too nervous, haggard, dyspeptic, extenuated, unsubstantial, theoretic, and need to be made grosser. John Bull, on the other hand, has grown bulbous, long-bodied, short-legged, heavy-witted, material, and, in a word, too intensely English. In a few more centuries he will be the earthliest creature that ever the earth saw. Heretofore Providence has obviated such a result by timely intermixtures ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... The 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 by his infinite art. And the shaggy rough-maned steed is broken to ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... still their numbers were increasing; and as a pause came in the fearful din, we plainly heard through the still air the boom of our own great bell, ringing for the midnight mass. At that sound, Father Cassimer's countenance fell for the first time. He knew the bellman was a poor half-witted fellow, who would not be sensible of his absence; and then he turned to have ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various

... frankly into the matter," resumed the quick-witted Calabrian, cheerfully, and with an air of sudden confidence to the expectant Annina, "I begin to see more probability of our understanding each other's meaning. Deign, bella donna, to go into my poor cabin, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... frown of his face Before me, the hurtle of hell Behind, where, where was a, where was a place? I whirled out wings that spell And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host. My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell, Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast, To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... 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 shall ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... was some applause. Before it had subsided Abel Leonard, one of the quickest-witted of Mr. Simpson's workers, was on his feet, gesticulating ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... where we're going," said Angela. "She's a quick-witted girl, and I shan't worry. I mean to be happy in spite of everything—and because ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... dust-choked from work in the rag room. That same pallor promised ill for future generations in Chippewa. But they had a rather appealing, wistful fragility. Their eyes generally looked too big for their faces. They possessed, though, a certain vivacity and diablerie that the big, slower-witted ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... Osbond, who, however, is more generally known by the dignified title of 'King John.' He was carpenter on board the sixty-gun ship Sceptre, which was wrecked off this coast some yearn ago. Like Juan, he escaped the sea, and like Juan he found a Haidee. Being well-favoured and sharp-witted, he won the heart and the hand of a wealthy Dutch widow, whose dollars he afterwards, in some bold but successful speculations, turned to good account. He is said to have laid out ten thousand pounds on these—to every one but himself—inhospita ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various

... but it is always as dark as with us in the twilight. The people have no king of their own, nor are they subject to any foreigner, and live like beasts. [They are dull of understanding, like half-witted ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... Isak had no talent for quarrelling, and his wife had grown readier-witted to answer back. A thorough good quarrel took a long time to grow with Isak, heavy stub of a man as he was; he found himself all entangled in her words, and could say next to nothing himself; and besides, he was fond of her—powerfully in love was Isak. And it was not often he had any need ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... dog most closely associated with my father was the above-mentioned Polly, a rough, white fox-terrier. She was a sharp-witted, affectionate dog; when her master was going away on a journey, she always discovered the fact by the signs of packing going on in the study, and became low-spirited accordingly. She began, too, to be excited by seeing the study prepared ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... him on the hip and thigh so he flew after the Doctor like a grey-whiskered sky-rocket, with a ha-ha! cut in two in the middle. "Woosh!" says old Windy as he comes up. "Hi, there cooky! I'll beat you ashore!" He was a handy-witted old Orahanna, that Windy, and you didn't put the kybosh on him easy. So it went with all of us. That ram come out of no-where-at-all another night and patted me on the stummick so I pretty near fainted. I tried to twist his cussed head off his shoulders, but he'd knocked the wind out ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... 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. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... helpful to some readers to know that when Napoleon refers to the 13th Vendemaire, (5th Oct. 1795) that was when he, as a young officer was given the task to defend the Convention against a royalist uprising. He was quick-witted and got hold of some guns in time, loaded them with grape-shot, placed them in front of the Parisian church of Saint-Roch and completely eliminated the superior royalist ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... first sight, and she had clasped the little man to her bosom with a motherly caress. She had always loved weak creatures. Kittens and puppies had ever found a welcome and a meal at Rena's hands, only to be chased away by Mis' Molly, who had had a wider experience. No shiftless poor white, no half-witted or hungry negro, had ever gone unfed from Mis' Molly's kitchen door if Rena were there to hear his plaint. Little Albert was pale and sickly when she came, but soon bloomed again in the sunshine of her care, ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... below the salt, it was such a faint and stale joke that noboby dared to laugh at the innuendoes of the unfortunate wag, and a sickly smile was the best applause he could muster. Once, indeed, when Guffo, the goose-boy (a half-witted poor wretch), laughed outright at a lamentably stale pun which Wamba palmed upon him at supper-time, (it was dark, and the torches being brought in, Wamba said, "Guffo, they can't see their way in the argument, and are going TO THROW A LITTLE ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... was intelligent; intelligence, as the Count had said, being perfectly compatible with progress. The millionaire could put two and two together as fast as most men; he was celebrated, even among his quick-witted compatriots, for an uncanny faculty of walking round people without getting off his chair. Common sense, he ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... the alarmed Rector answered only by a groan—a groan so expressive that his quick-witted mother heard ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant



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