"Shrewdness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by now seemed to have recovered in part. He was looking at the boys in a peculiar way; Max could not decide on the spur of the moment whether it was wonder or shrewdness that he saw there as the predominant trait of the man's features. But at any rate, since he had recovered his breath to some extent, he should be capable of speaking, and explaining how it came about he found himself in ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... stationary, or nearly so as became his high quality, he took the initiative in compliments, and had nearly every diplomatic man walking apart in the adjoining room, in a political aside, in less than twenty minutes. He had a countenance of shrewdness, and I make little doubt is a better man in a bureau than in a drawing-room. His colleague, the foreign minister, M. de Damas, and his wife, came next. He was a large, heavy-looking personage, that I suspect throws ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ass eats at my table, and treats me with contempt The Countess dieted the vanity according to the nationality The letter had a smack of crabbed age hardly counterfeit The commonest things are the worst done The thrust sinned in its shrewdness The power to give and take flattery to any amount The grey furniture of Time for his natural wear Those numerous women who always know themselves to be right Thus does Love avenge himself on the unsatisfactory Past To be both generally blamed, and generally liked To ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he had married a woman without a penny, as gallantly as he had conquered his poverty and achieved his own independence, so bravely he went in and won the great City prize with a fortune of a quarter of a million. And every one of his old friends, and every honest-hearted fellow who likes to see shrewdness, and honesty, and courage succeed, was glad of his good fortune, and said, "Newcome, my boy" (or "Newcome, my buck," if they were old City cronies, and very familiar), "I ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he had shown in danger, the shrewdness and wit he continually evinced, and the varied capacities he certainly possessed, Charles II. might have made his reign illustrious, had not his love of ease and detestation of business rendered him indifferent to all things so long as he was free to ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... the warning her natural shrewdness gave her. But perseverance undermined it. Bassett so often threw out hints of what he would do some day, mixed with warm protestations of love, that she began almost to hope he would marry her. She really liked ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... words when they are the "nimble servitors" of genius and passion. In conclusion we may say, that, in the combination of accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual perception,—in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and sentiment,—and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,—"The Pearl of Orr's Island" does not yield to any book which Mrs. Stowe has heretofore contributed to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... three days," he mused. "Not bad for you, Sam; and good stuff at that"—for Sam was a judge of men. He was a squatter and as rich as Croesus. His big, bony frame spoke of strength, while his eye and face told the tale of shrewdness and resource. He was forty, and successful. Three hundred miles of land was chartered as his own. His sheep were counted in thousands, and his brand as familiar as a postage stamp. Yet, in all his struggles for success, Sam had found time to be a patriot. He had served as a Tommy in the African ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... pleased to call Bartlemy's "friend to his counsel," the whole party soon knew not where to go; for the old man had lost the energy with which he had escorted them to London, and seemed to have sunk back into the semi-helpless mixture of shrewdness and credulity which he appeared when Hugo and Humphrey had first met him. One thing, and one only, seemed to engross most of his attention, and that was Humphrey's mole. And he was ever prating of the fortune it was sure ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... still remained. He did not know that he had long ago lost for ever the power of seeing her with a normal vision. He imagined in his simplicity, which disguised itself as chill critical impartiality, that he was adding her up with clear-sighted shrewdness... And then she was a mother! That meant a mysterious, a mystic perfecting! For him, it was as if among all women she alone had been a mother—so special was his view of the influence of motherhood upon her. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... estate was in capable hands, and he congratulated himself upon having struck ore where he had least expected to find it. He supervised the whole of West's work for a time, but he soon suffered this vigilance to relax, for the man's shrewdness far surpassed his own. He settled to the work with a certain grim relish, and it was a perpetual marvel to Babbacombe that he mastered it from the outset ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... gallery of that large building were filled with one of the most respectable-looking audiences, men and women, I have ever seen. Among the speakers of the evening were Cobden and Fox. Cobden in physiognomy and appearance might almost pass for an American, and has a certain New England sharpness and shrewdness in his way of dealing with a subject. His address was argumentative, yet there was a certain popular clearness about it, a fertility of familiar illustration, and an earnest feeling, which made it uncommonly impressive. Fox is one of the most ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... this should have happened is not surprising, not so much through want of liberality in such patrons, although for the most part they are least liberal where they should be the very opposite, as through the timidity and excessive modesty, or rather, to be more exact in this case, the lack of shrewdness of Baldassarre. To tell the truth, in proportion as one should be discreet with magnanimous and liberal Princes, so should one always be pressing and importunate with such as are miserly, unthankful, and discourteous, for the reason that, even as in the case of the generous importunate asking ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... shape of the top he used to play with, and the child exclaimed, "That's a good top." "Why do you not then play with it?" he was answered. "Set you it up for me, and I will play with it." This is just the fancy which we might expect in a lively child, with a shrewdness in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... servant to himself, proud of his shrewdness. "He's a spy sent to keep us in view! That isn't quite the thing, either, to be spying Mr. Fogg, who is so honourable a man! Ah, gentlemen of the Reform, this shall ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... nobleman had given her a New Year's present of bon bons, every 'sugared particle' being folded in a five-pound Bank of England note. The paper added some rough witticism, and informed the nobleman that his 'assiduities' would be ineffectual, saying that 'the lady, with true Yankee shrewdness, accepts all offerings at her shrine, but ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... acquitted by the council of state, and what the former refused to grant was to be purchased from the latter. The council of state, indeed, subsequently retorted the charge on the two other councils, but it forgot that it was its own example that corrupted them. The shrewdness of rapacity opened new sources of gain. Life, liberty, and religion were insured for a certain sum, like landed estates; for gold, murderers and malefactors were free, and the nation was plundered by a lottery. The servants and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... very despondent, indeed, when the canvas on which our eyes were fixed suddenly shook and the calm figure of a woman stepped out before us, clad in the simplest garb, but showing in every line of face and form a character of mingled kindness and shrewdness. She was evidently on the lookout for the doctor, for she made a sign as she saw him and returned ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... power smiles at his shrewdness, and is frank with information so that he will not be tempted to ask someone else. The Barlow Suburban has an agreement with the state which is called a charter, he explains, which will be forfeited if cars are not run for a certain number of days. "So I can buy ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... but proportionately their mistakes seem to be as of old. In the North of England last year I was specially engaged to appear before a literary society, and I supposed, by their paying me to go so far, they were, with Northern shrewdness, acquainted with the article in which they were investing. On these special occasions it is strange that a chairman is considered a compliment to the performer, and most certainly it affords the entertainer himself amusement. For ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... tablet of powdered biscuit, discreetly administered, may be as beneficial therapeutically as any relic of a holy saint, because the healing force in either case is wholly mental, and resides in the patient. The exceptional notoriety achieved by Paracelsus was largely due to his shrewdness in pandering to the love of the marvellous, while ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... the Gipsies do not mind your presence, but rest assured that though he may lie on his side with his back turned, the cunning jucko is carefully noting all you do. The abject and humble behaviour of a poor negro's dog in America was once proverbial: the quaint shrewdness, the droll roguery, the demure devilry of a real Gipsy dog are ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... start; he bought the block, the sidewalk of which he had swept; every man who stood in his way he removed this way or that. He was dishonest, but his dishonesty was of a Napoleonic order. He was uneducated, but he possessed that exact knowledge of mankind that makes leaders; and his shrewdness was the result of caution and suspicion. But like all men of his breed, he hated with peculiar venom the well-born; he loved to grapple with them, to wrest their idleness from them, to compel them to work ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... short, stout, and of a pale and very plain countenance. It could not be now said that she was deficient in mind, but she was slow in its operations. She displayed, indeed, a more than ordinary depth of reflection, and a shrewdness of observation, but the evidences of-this came forth in a very quiet way, and were observable only to her mother and sister. To all besides she was extremely reserved: she was timid to excess, and shrunk from public notice into the society of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... man about whose lack of religion there could be no doubt. He was a big, bluff, and rather coarse-grained man, not over-scrupulous in business, but upon the whole as honest and trustworthy as the bulk of humanity. By dint of sheer hard work and shrewdness he had risen to a position of wealth and importance, and, as self-made men are apt to do, laid much more stress upon what he owed to himself than upon what he owed to his Creator. In his own rough way, that is to say in somewhat the same fashion ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... child cogitated over the situation, but, as is the Indian's habit, without a word to her grand parent of what was occupying her mind. The old woman saw she was absorbed in some mental problem, and, with the shrewdness of the aborigine, guessed the subject, and sought to divert her thoughts into other channels. It was in vain, for one evening, after their simple meal of herbs, the girl, gathering courage, in the increasing dusk, asked abruptly, after a ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... us who are grateful to Mr. Leacock as an intrepid purveyor of wholesome food for laughter have not failed to recognize that he mingles shrewdness with levity—that he is, in short, ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... better defence than stout leather jerkins, led them into a trap. At the battle of Courtrai the knights charged into an unsuspected ditch, and as they fell the burghers with huge clubs beat out such brains as they could find within the helmets. It was subtlety against stupidity, the merchant's shrewdness asserting itself along new lines. King Philip had to create for himself a fresh nobility to replenish ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... 'that its owner will starve in this thievish land.' Travel teaches e'en the young wisdom. Time was I had turned and fled this impostor as a pestilence; but now I listened patiently to pick up crumbs of counsel. And well I did: for nature and his adventurous life had crammed the poor knave with shrewdness and knowledge of the homelier sort—a child was I beside him. When he had turned me inside out, said he, 'Didst well to leave France and make for Germany; but think not of Holland again. Nay, on to Augsburg and Nurnberg, the Paradise of craftsmen: thence to Venice, an thou wilt. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... path, his bridle was caught by a half-naked lad, whom the rider at once recognized as an emissary he had often before employed to be the bearer of secret intelligence, and who, under an affectation of being half-witted, concealed much shrewdness of observation and ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... the article, and fresh paint; they had no ancestors whose feelings, as founders of galleries, it was necessary to consult; no critical gentlemen and writers of valuable works to snub them when they were in spirits; nothing to lead them by the nose but their own shrewdness, their own interests, and their own tastes—so they turned their backs valiantly on the Old Masters, and marched off in a body to the ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... list before him. This done, he got him to fill out his report to the crown lands department, to write several letters to the firms he dealt with in Toronto, and one to his daughter, which was original in matter and expression. Archie recognized the shrewdness and ability of this unlettered man, who carried on with ease several lines of business in addition to his farm. After supper he made Archie sit beside him and asked if he would not give up his notion of taking up land and hire with him. Finding he was determined to have a home of his own, ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... the while—God forgive me!—I was under the impression that your father was letting things slide, and was doing nothing to save the estate and to provide for you, he was speculating and investing; and doing it with a skill and a shrewdness which could not have been surpassed by the most astute and business-like of men. His judgment was almost infallible; he seems scarcely ever to have made a mistake. It was one of those extraordinary cases in which ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... than almost any other. Her simple, hearty, joyous, and affectionate nature endeared her to all. She was the delight of children, the favourite of poets and princes. To the last retaining her enthusiasm and simplicity, mingled with great shrewdness and knowledge of character, "Frau Aja," as they christened her, was at once grave and hearty, dignified and simple. She had read most of the best German and Italian authors, had picked up considerable desultory information, and had ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... and eloquent exhorters. She was afterward of great service to others, who are now efficient exhorters and members of the church. Up to the time of the burning of Hampton, she was engaged in instructing children and adults, through her shrewdness and the divine protection eluding the vigilance of conservators of the slave law, or, if temporarily interfered with, again commencing and prosecuting her labors of love with cautious fearlessness, and this in the midst of the ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... sheathed his sword, and awaited daybreak. When the morning came, the old prince, in sad distress, bade his retainers lead him to the bank; and there he saw a huge badger, with his head cut off, lying dead by the roadside; and the prince was lost in wonder at his son's shrewdness. But the retainer did not know what to make of it, and still had his doubts. The prince, however, returned home, and sending for his son, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... years, to teach two or three nights every week, in a school for colored adults, established by a society of young men. In process of time, he became known to everybody in Philadelphia as the friend and legal adviser of colored people upon all emergencies. The shrewdness, courage, and zeal, with which he fulfilled this mission will be seen in the course of the following narratives, which I have selected from a vast number of similar character, in which ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... the two extremes of excess and defect, each of which is a vice. Thus an excess of wisdom becomes shrewdness and cunning and deceit; while a defect means ignorance. The true wisdom consists in the middle way between the two extremes. Similarly courage is a mean between foolhardiness and rashness on the side of excess, and cowardice on the side of defect. Temperance is ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... widow with a child in her arms. His person was robust, his manners rustic, not clownish. ... His countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. There was a strong expression of shrewdness in his lineaments; the eye alone indicated the poetic character and temperament. It was large and of a dark cast, and literally glowed when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... conversationally, Lucia was getting on very fast with Flossie in the present; and Rickman's abstraction did not make things easier. Therefore she was a little relieved when Miss Roots joined them, and Rickman, startled into consciousness, got up and left the room. He feared that lady's sympathy and shrewdness. Nothing could be hidden from ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... best. And there is no doubt what that something is. It is the[Greek: spoudaiotaes] the high and excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of things and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of life has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chiefly which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the increasing demands of our modern ages upon ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... spirit, Mrs. Brace," he was saying, in ingratiating tone; "and your shrewdness. I've followed all you said, in the papers. And I'm in hopes ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... breast, and looked but a small place. It bled little, yet would not heal; and slowly became inflamed in wider circles. Inwardly it burned him as with a consuming fire, his strength was sapped out from him and his eyes began to lose their shrewdness. No longer could he split an arrow at forty paces, ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... Coleman went to the office of the proprietor of the Eclipse. Coleman was one of those smooth-shaven old-young men who wear upon some occasions a singular air of temperance and purity. At these times, his features lost their quality of worldly shrewdness and endless suspicion and bloomed as the face of some innocent boy. It then would be hard to tell that he had ever encountered even such a crime as a lie or a cigarette. As he walked into the proprietor's office he was a perfect semblance of a fine, inexperienced youth. People ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... about it. In this, however, he partly failed; for although I was no hand at fence, and would not tell him a falsehood, I managed so to hold my peace that he put himself upon the wrong track, and continued thereon with many vaunts of his shrewdness and experience, and some chuckles at my simplicity. Thus much however, he learned aright, that I had been in the Doone valley several years before, and might be brought upon strong inducement to venture there again. But as to the mode of my getting in, the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... upon the platform. At first they thought that he was a gentleman who appeared to apologise for the absence of the showman. They had pictured to themselves a coarse old man, with a damp eye and a puckered mouth, one eyebrow elevated an inch above the other to express shrewdness and knowledge of the world—a man clad in velveteen and braid, with a heavy watch-chain, large rings, and horny hands, the touter to a waxwork show, with a hoarse voice, and over familiar manner. The slim gentleman in evening dress, polished manners, and gentle ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... was not a party could really produce tranquillity. A grave question therefore arose, whether the money entrusted to Breadalbane should be paid directly to the discontented chiefs, or should be employed to satisfy the claims which Argyle had upon them. The shrewdness of Lochiel and the arrogant pretensions of Glengarry contributed to protract the discussions. But no Celtic potentate was so impracticable as Macdonald of Glencoe, known among the mountains by the hereditary appellation of Mac ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... widow was not without her share of instinctive shrewdness. Neither had she, unobservant though she was, been within sight of her son's character for twenty-eight years without having unconfessed, unformed misgivings concerning it. "You mustn't bother about these things now, ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... in vast mercantile transactions, requiring the most thorough exercise of the best faculties of the mind. He studies the markets of the world, and buys and sells with uniform shrewdness and success. In all the relations of life he conducts himself with the utmost propriety and consideration for the rights and feelings of others. The most complete study of his character and acts fails to show the existence of the slightest ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... offer you one hundred thalers instead of the cross." "How much is the cross worth?" asked the soldier. "Three thalers." "Very well, then, your highness, I'll take the cross and ninety-seven thalers." Bismarck was so surprised and pleased by the ready shrewdness of the reply that he gave the man both the ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... so mistakes, he will be sure to say,—I made that loss because I relied too much upon this characteristic, or because I did not allow its proper weight to the absence of some other,—because I thought his shrewdness or his honesty, his enterprise or his economy, would save him: implying that he had observed some non-conformity to his standard, but had relied upon some excellency in excess to make up ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... projects, and was among his most valuable counsellors whether in peace or war. In force of character and in personal bravery she was scarce inferior to her heroic husband, and yet she lacked not discretion or even shrewdness. She was the idol of the Swedish people, and before many years were passed was to have an opportunity ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... It was the face of a man with a very set creed, and inclined to be satiric towards innovations, examined by him and rejected full fifty years ago. One felt that a brain not devoid either of subtlety or aesthetic quality had long given up all attempts to interfere with conduct; that all shrewdness of speculation had given place to shrewdness of practical judgment based on very definite experience. Owing to lack of advertising power, natural to one so conscious of his dignity as to have lost all care for it, and to his devotion to a certain lady, only closed by death, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... world and its people in all its phases, and I prided myself on my shrewdness, but without my knowledge of the stairway in the wall, I would have sworn that Yolanda had played a trick on me by leading me to believe that she was the Princess Mary. Even with full knowledge of all the facts, I found myself doubting. ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... his tail, capered about in front of Annie, and then with a wonderful shrewdness ran before her to the broken wall, where he stood with his head bent downward and his eyes fixed on ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... Years ago he decided that society was in a low state, now he calls on all men to put their shoulders to the wheel and lift it out of the Slough of Despond, where it has been floundering to no purpose for so long. His investigations are aided by a keen shrewdness, that bespeaks the practical man, who knows where to find the vulnerable heel of circumstance, and aims at it his swiftest arrows. In his essay on Wealth this sharp practical insight hardens every sentence. The sentimentalist, who believes, with ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... claim to use it, if necessary. But no one can help observing in the course of events the strange way in which, in almost all cases, the "wheel comes full circle." [Greek: Drasanti pathein]—Chi la fa, l' aspetti,[58] are some of the expressions of Greek awe and Italian shrewdness representing the experience of the world on this subject; on a large scale and a small. Protestants and Catholics, Churchmen and Nonconformists, have all in their turn made full proof of what seems like a law of action and reaction. Except in cases beyond debate, cases where no justification is ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... cohabitation with the more beautiful women, should be deceived whilst the lots are being led out of the city by the magistrates, so that at all times the women who are suitable should fall to their lot, not those whom they desire. This shrewdness, however, is not necessary among the inhabitants of the City of the Sun. For with them deformity is unknown. When the women are exercised they get a clear complexion, and become strong of limb, tall and agile, and with them beauty consists in tallness and strength. Therefore, if any woman dyes ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... game. They took him a prisoner oncet, and instead of killin' him, they was about ready to make him chief—he pretended all the while as how he'd like that—when he got away from 'em. He was such a good fellow that them Injuns admired his shrewdness, and they let him do about what he pleased. So he ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... several persons entered for the purpose of enjoying the comfort of the fire and for the sake of conversation, for the house was a kind of news room, where the principal speaker was the host, a man of some shrewdness and experience, who had served as a soldier in the British army. Amongst others was the officer who commanded at the gate. After a few observations, this gentleman, who was a good-looking young man of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Bob?" cried the tall one, and Crosby patted his bump of shrewdness happily. "Who ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... poor queen, who was greatly disappointed at having brought into the world such a hideous brat. And indeed, no sooner did the child begin to speak than his sayings proved to be full of shrewdness, while all that he did was somehow so clever ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... Tibertus.[61] At that time nearly all the petty sovereigns of Italy retained such men in their service; and Tibertus, having studied the mathematics with great success at Paris, and delivered many predictions, some of which, for guesses, were not deficient in shrewdness, was taken into the household of Pandolfo di Malatesta, the sovereign of Rimini. His reputation was so great, that his study was continually thronged either with visitors who were persons of distinction, or with clients who came to him for advice; and in a short time he acquired a considerable fortune. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Sadie. Now I want to take off my hat when I think of her. But it's puzzling. A girl without polish, taste, or accomplishments marries a man who has them all. She has no particular talents; nothing, in fact, except some beauty, rude integrity, and native shrewdness. Yet she, so to speak, works wonders. Puts Bob on his feet and leads him on, when nobody else could have pulled him ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... however, for want of introductions, Mr. Gawtrey found it difficult to get into society. The nobles, proud and rich, played high, but were circumspect in their company; the bourgeoisie, industrious and energetic, preserved much of the old Lombard shrewdness; there were no tables d'hote and public reunions. Gawtrey saw his little capital daily diminishing, with the Alps at the rear and Poverty in the van. At length, always on the qui vive, he contrived ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... subject of National Character, about which more nonsense, and often very mischievous nonsense, has been and is talked than upon any other topic, Hume's observations are full of sense and shrewdness. He distinguishes between the moral and the physical causes of national character, ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... Randolph, half smiling, yet wondering at her unlooked-for serious shrewdness as he glanced toward ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Pericles, also, Anaxagoras was intimate. They, therefore, might rather be credited, who report, that Themistocles was an admirer of Mnesiphilus the Phrearrhian, who was neither rhetorician nor natural philosopher, but a professor of that which was then called wisdom, consisting in a sort of political shrewdness and practical sagacity, which had begun and continued, almost like a sect of philosophy, from Solon; but those who came afterwards, and mixed it with pleadings and legal artifices, and transformed the practical part ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... arose a very thick smoke and dust, as the fire was choked with the fall of the bank; but as the suffocated materials were now gradually consumed, a plain flame brake out; on which sudden appearance of the flame a consternation fell upon the Romans, and the shrewdness of the contrivance discouraged them; and indeed this accident coming upon them at a time when they thought they had already gained their point, cooled their hopes for the time to come. They also thought it would be to no purpose to take the pains to extinguish ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... get them? crept the question through her mind, Since keen enemies were watching for what prizes they might find: And she paused a while and pondered, with a pretty little sigh; Then resolve crept through her features, and a shrewdness fired ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... fool than I thought him, and mistakes his native weakness of mind for originality. If you had heard the imbecile nonsense he talked to me for political shrewdness, and when he had shown me what a very poor creature he was, he made me the offer of himself! This was so far honest and above-board. It was saying in so many words, "You see, I am a bankrupt." Now, I don't like bankrupts, either of mind or money. Could he ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Jarriquez also had his share in this rehabilitation of an innocent man? If, in spite of all the shrewdness of his analytical talents, he had not been able to read the document, which was absolutely undecipherable to any one who had not got the key, had he not at any rate discovered the system on which the cryptogram was composed? Without him what ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... however, this gentle-breathing south-east wind will act more mildly; it will woo you to the country, induce you to sit down in a shady place, smoke, and 'muse.' That incarnate essence of enterprise, business, industry, economy, sharpness, shrewdness, and keenness—that Prometheus whose liver was torn by the vulture of cent per cent—eternally tossing, restless DOOLITTLE, was one day seen asleep, during bank hours, on a seat in the Villa Madama. The scirocco ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... for the privilege of handing his hat to an attendant as the rent of a working-man's flat. He complains brightly that he is hard up, and that if somebody or other at Westminster does not look out the country will go to the dogs. He is no fool. He has the shrewdness to float with the current because it is a labour-saving process, but he has sufficient pluck to fight, if fight he must (a brief contest, for he would soon be toppled over). He has a light nature, which would enable ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... fetters; and Mrs. Deland, with all her understanding, does not illuminate them. The movements of her imagination are cumbered by a too narrow—however charming—cage. Her excellence belongs to the hours when, not trying to transcend her little Pennsylvania universe, she brings accuracy and shrewdness and felicity to the chronicles of small beer in Old Chester Tales and Dr. Lavendar's People. These strictures and this praise she earns by her adherence to the parochial cult of ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... was something even in the calm expression of those perfectly-formed rings of smoke and in the very way in which, he sipped his liquor, and most of all in the observant glitter of his eye, which spoke of a penetration and shrewdness very far out of the common. More and more young Barter wished that he had not ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... man of great penetration and shrewdness, duly appreciated these circumstances; indeed he has often surprised us by his correct judgment of the character of individuals amongst the traders of our own party, although his knowledge of their opinions was in most instances obtained through the imperfect medium ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... complimented Rubens on his shrewdness in getting so much money for the wares, and Rubens gave a banquet to his friends in token of the great sale to the Britisher. It was a lot of money, to be sure, but the Englishman realized the worth of the collection better than did Rubens. We have a catalog of the collection. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... touch of his sentiment. Having tried each of these poems before more than a hundred audiences, Mr. Saxe has fairly earned the right to face critics fearlessly; and, indeed, the poems themselves so abound in sense, shrewdness, sagacity, and fancy, in sayings so pithy and wit so sparkling, are so lull of humor and good-humor, and flow on their rhythmic and rhyming way with so much of the easy abandonment of vivacious conversation, that few critics will ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... how much St. Croix's story loses in my telling. The simple expressions, the grace of the narrative, were its charm: and these, alas! I can neither translate nor imitate, no more than I can convey the strange mixture of deep feeling and levity, shrewdness and simplicity, that constituted ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... specimens of the Emperor Joseph's correspondence forcibly demonstrate the vigour, shrewdness, and originality of his mind, and complete the portrait left of ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... joined them. When about half-way, four British officers, mounted and fully armed, stopped them. Prescott jumped over the low stone wall, made his escape and alarmed Concord. Dawes was chased by two of the officers until, with rare shrewdness, he dashed up in front of a deserted farm-house and shouted, "Hello, boys! I've got two of ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... director of the Surete, had telegraphed orders for the arrest of Sir Hugh and his daughter. But, thanks to the shrewdness of Fetherston, who had lingered in the vicinity to afford them protection if necessary, they had succeeded in escaping only a single hour before ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... Now, how can you say so, father?" said his daughter, who had shrewdness enough to see that her father ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Valorsay was anything but unsophisticated, and his natural shrewdness had been rendered much more acute by the difficulties with which he had recently been obliged to contend. M. Fortunat's confusion had not escaped his keen glance; and this last suggestion aroused his suspicions at once. "What!" he said, slowly, and with an air of evident ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... over the door, and I got an idea in my head that he was a long, thin individual, with black hair and whiskers. But he wasn't. He was of medium size, well built, and had an air of shrewdness and of business about him. He was waiting on trade, so I sat down and watched him and took notes of the stock. When he was through with his customer he came forward and met me pleasantly, spoke well of our house, but said he was just getting in a bill of revolvers and cartridges, ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... Left free to choose their own trading port, they made the mistake of selecting Hirado, which was eminently unsuited to be a permanent emporium of interstate commerce. Nevertheless, owing partly to their shrewdness, partly to their exclusive possession of the Spice Islands, and partly to their belligerent co-operation with the English against the Spaniards, they succeeded in ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... of a river hot by standing in them at their devotions, or walking unscathed through the fiercest storms.[1151] They were soon regarded as more expert magicians than the Druids themselves. They may have laid claim to magical powers, or perhaps they used a natural shrewdness in such a way as to suggest magic. But all their power they ascribed to Christ. "Christ is my Druid"—the true miracle-worker, said S. Columba. Yet they were imbued with the superstitions of their own age. Thus S. Columba sent a white stone to King Brude ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... yourself without intending to. Please give me credit for some shrewdness. If you had been a welcome suitor, you would have had no difficulty in raising twice two hundred thousand dollars in Chicago. Then, too, I remember the story you told me at Kalvik, your mental attitude— many things, in fact. Oh, it was ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... Meadows, didst thou not stand aghast! Five thousand a year refused! Grandmamma would have had a fit if she had not conceived a conviction, that imparted a look of shrewdness to her mild, simple old face. Of course Mr. Kendal was only holding off till the young man was a little older. He could have no intention of letting his daughter miss such a match, and dear Lucy would have her carriage, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... consequence of the entire pre-occupation of this walk of life by a regularly drilled and educated corps of young Americans, bred up avowedly with no other pursuit; who talk, think, dream of nothing else than fortune by marriage; and with a shrewdness and intelligence of calculation that entirely distance the foreigner, (but which seem wonderfully after the nuptials to forsake them in stocks of another description,) know at a glance the value, expectations, hopes, and dependencies ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... so irresistible as to awaken universal enthusiasm. Thus would His kingdom be set up in magnificence; and the man whom the king would delight to honour would surely be the humble follower by whose shrewdness and audacity the ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... an interloper, a waif who had drifted in from nowhere in particular, and who, because of a willingness to do a man's work for no wages at all, was allowed a place at table and a bunk over the wagon-shed. Farmer Perkins, more jealous of his reputation for shrewdness than of his soul's salvation, would point to ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... the wisdom, the experience, the er—the shrewdness to conduct the affairs of government. You have no idea how many wheels within wheels ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... though small and emaciated, shows evidence of unusual muscular strength; the head is bald, the features are refined, and the mouth still bears an expression characteristic of shrewdness and cunning.* ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the moral lesson is the substance, and all descriptions and incidents but accessories, as in "The Pilgrim's Progress." A fable is generally briefer, representing animals as the speakers and actors, and commonly conveying some lesson of practical wisdom or shrewdness, as "The Fables of AEsop." A parable is exclusively moral or religious, briefer and less adorned than an allegory, with its lesson more immediately discernible, given, as it were, at a stroke. Any comparison, analogy, instance, example, tale, anecdote, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... sir, on the whole; but we were attacked by the Malay pirates, and I should certainly not be here to tell the tale, at present, had it not been for the quickness and shrewdness of a lad, who had been shipwrecked ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... type so common in England; sturdy, and yet not coarse; middle-sized, deep-chested, broad-shouldered; with small, well-knit hands and feet, large jaw, bright grey eyes, crisp brown hair, a heavy projecting brow; his face full of shrewdness and good-nature, and of humour withal, which might be at whiles a little saucy and sarcastic, to judge from the glances which he sent forth from the corners of his wicked eyes at his companion on the other side of the window. He was evidently prepared for a day's ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... are common instead of "I am" and "you are." In some localities along the Mississippi River "slough" is pronounced as if it were "slew." These are, of course, only laxities, and not the result of ignorance. Though learning commands much respect, persons of high education are comparatively rare, but shrewdness and general capacity, together with the will to work and the ambition to succeed, are more universal than with us. I have been pleased to observe that "gentlemen of leisure" and moneyed young men without ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... one port to another, both which ports shall belong to, or be in possession of France or her allies." The peculiar hardship of this order for American shipowners is revealed by the papers of Stephen Girard of Philadelphia, whose shrewdness and enterprise were making him one of the merchant princes of his time. One of his ships, the Liberty, of some 250 tons, was sent to Lisbon with a cargo of 2052 barrels and 220 half-barrels of flour which cost the owner $10.68 a barrel. Her captain, on entering port, ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... metropolis. The fact that he was content with the limitations of a practice in a city of 3,500 inhabitants, Fairberry, his home town, was of itself indicative of his indolence. And yet, when he took a case, he manifested gifts of shrewdness that would have made many another lawyer of much greater ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... against England, the master of calculation. The miraculous fights against the commonplace, German spirit against English shrewdness, imperturbable heroism against crafty statesmanship. Even those people who now think that they are fighting in the name of civilization against us barbarians, will shortly discover their mistake, ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... upon it. Such was never the image that Cassandra had in her mind's eye when she cried, "O, Apollo—O, Apollo!" And this was your friend, forsooth, with his novel ideas upon poetry! Yet this vulgar piece of human mechanism is not without a little cunning shrewdness, characteristically marked in his little pig-eye; and I must tell you one piece of criticism of his, and an emendation, not unworthy the great Bentley himself. Yet I know not why I tell you, for you know it well already, I suspect; for he told me he had been talking with ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Todbury's education may have been deficient in other matters, but one thing he knew, and knew thoroughly—the disposition of his people. He knew just what weaknesses, longings, and desires their recent bondage had left with them, and with admirable shrewdness contrived to meet them. He knew that in preaching they wanted noise, emotion, and fire; that in the preacher they wanted free-heartedness and cordiality. He knew that when Christmas came they wanted ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... but he smiled with secret contempt for all those poor beggars who were so utterly deficient in shrewdness that they clung, like simpletons, to their crude style, when it was so easy to conquer the crowd. Had it not sufficed for him to break with them, after pillaging them, to make his own fortune? He benefited by all the hatred that folks had against them; his pictures, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... and Mac agreeing with a "Right ho!" a preliminary hand-shake was exchanged before "getting to business"; and then, as each made a great presence of mentally reviewing his team, each eyed the other with the shrewdness of ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... to my baggage, which he had brought down, having much need of his rooms, and carefully set in the office. This put an end to our acquaintance, as well as left me without courage enough to request the loan I had contemplated. I own the whole thing was done with much shrewdness, and was a decided improvement on being kicked into the street. But though I was neither a rogue nor a highwayman, I took up my valise and proceeded into the street, feeling like one whose dignity was never ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... old man wrung his hands, while Amyas, bursting with laughter, rode off down the park, with the unconscious Yeo at his stirrup, chatting away about the Indies, and delighting Amyas more and more by his shrewdness, high spirit, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Maggie's native shrewdness suggested her simplest summer gown as likely to have committed the fewest errors, and the invaluable stupidity of Miss Grierson aided her toward correctness if not originality. When Dick came he was delighted with her appearance. On the way out he was ebulliently ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... was the shrewdest fellow he had ever met with,—not unlike Wylde, in fact; he had the same way of sticking his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat. Mr. Tulliver was not by any means an exception in mistaking brazenness for shrewdness; most laymen thought Stelling shrewd, and a man of remarkable powers generally; it was chiefly by his clerical brethren that he was considered rather a full fellow. But he told Mr. Tulliver several stories about "Swing" and incendiarism, and asked his advice about feeding ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... very much worn and tired; the lines, indeed, of vast responsibilities, intricate questions, and demands of life and death, cut deeper than ever upon his dark brown face; yet all the old goodness, tenderness, sadness, and canny shrewdness, underneath the furrows. (I never see that man without feeling that he is one to become personally attach'd to, for his combination of purest, heartiest tenderness, and native western form of manliness.) By his side sat his little boy, of ten years. There were no soldiers, only a lot of civilians ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... test of character or shrewdness or courage. Sharp distinctions are made, that require a child of parts ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... business college hall after an interesting lecture on physiognomy, "which politicians, as a rule, do not consider. Of course any man of intelligence who plays long at the game of politics comes to possess a certain kind of shrewdness in judging human nature; but very few of them are able to recognize and define the subtile constitutional influences which predetermine the success or failure of the aspirant for political honors. Such influences, ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... Cornish lads, find me a Scotchman who will put me on my back, and I'll write you a cheque for a hundred pounds, my boy. We English opened the trade of the world to your little two millions and a-half up in the north there; and you, being pretty well starved out at home, have had the shrewdness to take advantage of it; and now, by Jove, you try to speak small of the bridge that carried you over. What did you do towards licking the Spaniards; eh? And where would you be now, if they had not been licked in 1588, eh? Not in Australia, my boy! A Frenchman is conceited enough, but, by George, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... consequences had fled from Eyemouth, and after casting about as a common sailor in various merchant ships, had been captured by a Moorish vessel, and had found it expedient to purchase his freedom by conversion to Islam, after which his Scottish shrewdness and thrift had resulted in his becoming a prosperous itinerant merchant, with his headquarters at Bona. He expressed himself willing and anxious to do all he could for his young countryman; but it would be almost impossible to do so unless ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and almost fatalistic conviction of Daniel Boone that he was called to be a pathfinder for the new nation in America. His courage, reverence, rugged honesty, and unselfishness, his childlike simplicity that was mixed with a certain shrewdness, at least in his dealings with the Indians, are, however, qualities in which the historians ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... which I waited as a felon awaits sentence. But it did not come. Instead, he set himself to examine more closely the thing I had told him. He probed it with a question here and a question there, and all of a shrewdness that revealed the extent of his knowledge of humanity, and the infinite compassion and gentleness that must be the inevitable fruits ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... was acquiring at the university the knowledge necessary for a clergyman, David Deans, by shrewdness and skill, gained a footing in the world and the possession of some wealth. He had married again, and another daughter had been born to him. But now his wife was dead, and he had left his old home, and become a dairy farmer about half a mile from Edinburgh, and the unceasing industry ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... very strange! This head of mine hits upon more good ideas in an hour than a cool fellow like that has in a year, and yet I am beaten by him—and if I am honest I can not but confess that it was not his luck alone, but his shrewdness that gained the victory. He may be off as soon as he likes with his proud Hera—I can find a dozen Aphrodites in Alexandria in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... your mission, be sure that you shall die and in such a fashion that will make you think of yonder boat as a pleasant bed, and with you this woman Amada and her uncle Peroa, and all your kin and hers; yes," he added with a burst of shrewdness, "and even that abortion of a dwarf to whom I have listened because he amused me, but who perhaps is more ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... when it was found that the kingdom was not large enough to pay it. The net-work of the nobility, hemmed in by the net-work of the bourgeoisie,—the antagonism of two protected races, one protected by fixed institutions, the other by the active patience of labor and the shrewdness of commerce,—produced the revolution of 1789. The two races almost reunited are to-day face to face with collaterals without a heritage. What are they to do? Our political future ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... with the masses, they need no genius to perpetuate themselves. The masses care not what they are so long as they are. Figureheads for Frankenstein, they need only shriek themselves blue and their will, will be done. Shrewdness, intelligence, are qualities non-essential since virtue, no longer feeding upon shrewdness and intelligence, fattens upon its own ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... Corbin told me I'd be sure to win, and I took eleven different exceptions, and the judge decided against me on every single one. I thought I was gone sure—but, by thunder, he instructed the jury in my favour! It took me a long time to see the shrewdness of that; you see, it goes to the higher courts, and they see that the judge has given the losing side every advantage, and has decided purely on the evidence. And of course they haven't the witnesses before them, and don't feel half so well able to judge of the evidence, and so they let the decision ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... currency that they were acting a part in concert. It was necessary, by all means, to guard against such an idea. This may be the key to interpret the arrest and proceedings against Mary Warren. If it is, the affair, it must be confessed, was managed with great shrewdness and skill. She conducted the stratagem most dexterously. All at once she fell away from the circle, and began to talk against the "afflicted children," and went so far as to say, that they "did but dissemble." Immediately, they cried out upon ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... combination proceeds a Wakan influence so powerful that no human being unassisted can resist it." Wonderful indeed must be the magic power of these Dakota Druids to lead such a man aa the Rev. S. R. Riggs to say of them: "By great shrewdness, untiring industry, and more or less of actual demoniacal possession, they convince great numbers of their fellows, and in the process are convinced themselves, of their sacred character and office." Tahkoo ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... occupations. Going about among the well-to-do houses, he talked with masters and servants and picked up ideas which made him the man of the world of the family, the shrewd head. We shall presently see that in making love to Rigou's servant-girl, Jean-Louis deserved his reputation for shrewdness. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... gathered over a thousand people—a motley and variegated crowd, that the South only can produce. The odd and often coarse jargon, the infinite variety in appearance and character, suggested again that humanity is a very tangled problem. The shrewdness and accuracy, however, with which the most ignorant count their tickets and reckon their dues on their fingers, is a trait characteristic of all, and, having received the few shillings, which mean a luxurious Sunday, they ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... badly-fitting clothes, rather tumbled linen, imperfectly brushed hair and hat, and some want of that fresh cleanliness and finish of general appearance which went to my idea of a gentleman's outside. I found him a warm-hearted, cold-mannered man, with a clear, strong head, and a shrewdness of observation which recalled the Rector to my mind more than once. The tones of his voice made me start sometimes, they were so like the voice that I could never hear again in this life. He spoke always in the broad dialect into which the Rector was ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... be with us, and his brother," replied Philippe. "But now I ask you to bear witness to the shrewdness of your friend Philippe in entertainment. I bethought me that, as we were to have with us the master of the Messasebe, it were well to have with us also the typified genius of that same Messasebe. 'Twas but a little conceit of my own. And why—mon enfant, what is it to you? What do ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... expanse of blue burst into sight. There, in the lap of its steel-coloured mountains, basking in the gorgeous tropical sunshine, lay the great lake Tanganyika. The goal had been reached; by his daring, shrewdness and resolution he had overcome all difficulties. Like the soldiers in Tacitus, in victory he ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... those chiefs who were not at all inclined to anything like piety were yet anxious to procure schools and churches that their people should not miss the temporal advantages of knowledge, which with their natural shrewdness they were not slow to recognize. "We are all children," they said, "groping in the dark. Give us this light and we will do ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... of his voice, he spoke with bitterness, as did the others. Every day the feeling was growing stronger that the rustling must be stopped if they were going to continue to run cattle. The thieves had operated with a boldness and a shrewdness that fairly outwitted the ranchers. Enough horses and cattle had been driven across the line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the established ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners faced the option of going broke ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... name was Elshender the Recluse; but his popular epithet soon came to be Canny Elshie, or the Wise Wight of Mucklestane-Moor. Some extended their queries beyond their bodily complaints, and requested advice upon other matters, which he delivered with an oracular shrewdness that greatly confirmed the opinion of his possessing preternatural skill. The querists usually left some offering upon a stone, at a distance from his dwelling; if it was money, or any article which ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... would have been more likely to have been recognised as a veritable person of this world by Jennet Device, than such a name as Johan a Style; which, though very familiar at Westminster, would scarcely have its prototype at Pendle. But Jennet Device, young as she was, in natural shrewdness was far more than a ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... this crisis recovered his old business shrewdness, and the advice that he gave Mme. de Dey was full of prudence and wisdom. After the two had agreed together as to what they were to do and say, the old merchant went on various ingenious pretexts to pay visits to the principal houses of Carentan, announcing wherever he ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... young, and who strive with all their might to talk most delightfully, that the charms of their conversation may efface the marks of the crows' feet; but 'all these I passen by, and nameless numbers moe.' And now comes the Hon. Mrs. Downe Wright, a person of considerable shrewdness and penetration—vulgar, but unaffected. There is no politeness, no gentleness in her heart; but she possesses some warmth, much honesty, and great hospitality. She has acquired the character of being—oh, odious thing!—a clever woman! There are two descriptions of clever women, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... a slit for a mouth, is nearly as comical as that matchless performer's. When aided by Ben's singular mobility of feature, his knowing winks and grins and shrugs and nods, together with a certain dry shrewdness, a habit of saying sharp things, and a marvellous gift of impudence, it forms as fine a specimen as possible of a humorous country boy, an oddity in embryo. Everybody likes Ben, except his butts (which may perhaps comprise half his acquaintance); and ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford |
