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More "Astute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... occupied in horse-stealing or thimble-rigging on bush race-courses, had spent the intervening time in gaol. Pinkerton, who was an American of a somewhat similar type to Cheyne, but of a more villainous nature, was an expert burglar, and a very fitting companion to the astute and well-educated Forreste, and the Jew, ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... auld beird gray" is mentioned by Gawain Douglas, in his Palice of Honour, which the Shepherd can hardly have read, and Scott identified this Maitland with the ancestor of Lethington; his date was 1250-1296. On the whole, even the astute Shepherd, in his early days of authorship, could hardly have laid a plot so insidious, and the question of the authenticity and origin of the ballad (obvious interpolations apart) remains a mystery. Who could have forged it? It is, as an exercise ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... was, above all, an astute and well-balanced man, was a scamp of a temperate sort. This is the worst species; hypocrisy ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... they had sold out their interest in the alleged silver mine to Wiles and Pedro for a few hundred dollars,—succumbing to what they were assured would be an active opposition on the part of the Americanos. The astute reader will easily understand that the accomplished Mr. Wiles did not inform them of its value as a quicksilver mine, although he was obliged to impart his secret to Pedro as a necessary accomplice and reckless coadjutor. ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... American lines, anyway," said the astute Scots engineer of the gin-mill; "it's my belief ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... does not appear whether they were English or American, attempted his conversion; but the astute savage, after listening to their eloquent statements of the power of faith, pressed on them as a crucial test to throw themselves from the top of an adjacent precipice, making his reception of their religion contingent on their arrival unhurt at its base. He built large heiaus, amongst ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... the English colonists awakened to the importance of the valley of the Ohio, and adventurous frontiersmen of Virginia and Pennsylvania were already forcing their way into its wilderness, when France's ambition barred the way to their further progress. That astute Canadian, Governor La Galissonniere, in 1749, recognised the importance of the Ohio in relation to the Illinois and Mississippi, and sent Celoron, a captain in the French service, to claim possession ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... also so quick in discovering the merits of the generals opposed to him, that some of his most notable victories were obtained by his skill in detaching them from their service or by ruining their reputation by some intrigue more astute than honorable. Yet, all deductions made, Tsin Chi Hwangti stands forth as a great ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Courts, which had made incredible solicitations to him while he wavered, began, as soon as his purpose was fixed, to draw back,—a fatality due to the phlegmatic temper of the Spaniard, dignified by the name of prudence, joined to the astute politics of the house of Austria. You may observe at the same time that the Count, who had continued firm and unshaken three months together, changed his mind as soon as his enemies had granted what he asked; which exactly ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... does the more facile conduct of business permit industry and extra-industrial life to go on with less perturbation; but the resulting elimination of disturbances and complications calling for an exercise of astute discrimination in everyday affairs acts to make the pecuniary class itself superfluous. As fast as pecuniary transactions are reduced to routine, the captain of industry can be dispensed with. This consummation, ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... the struggle before them was likely to be the life-and-death struggle of the Southern Netherlands; they knew that there was risk of their being surrounded so that relief from without would be impossible; they knew that their assailant was one of the most astute and unconquerable of men, by far the greatest general of the sixteenth century. Therefore they proceeded to do just what our Republican Congress, under such circumstances, would probably have done, and just what the New York Tribune, if it had existed in those days, would have advised them to ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... for her success had excited her and she had never looked lovelier. She was at the other end of the table and Mrs. McLane and Mrs. Ballinger sat beside him. She interested him for the first time and he adroitly drew her history from his mentor (not that he deluded that astute lady for an instant, but she ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... analogy between the Chinaman's pigtail and the prehensile appendage of that very astute little animal, the monkey, for the proud possessors of either of these grotesque physical adornments lose social caste the moment they are bereft of them. That there are reasons to believe that the tail of the monkey is his credentials to the polite society of ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... Wellington Bry's strong point. The lady (whose consort was known as "Welly" Bry on the Stock Exchange and in sporting circles) had already sacrificed one husband, and sundry minor considerations, to her determination to get on; and, having obtained a hold on Carry Fisher, she was astute enough to perceive the wisdom of committing herself entirely to that lady's guidance. Everything, accordingly, was well done, for there was no limit to Mrs. Fisher's prodigality when she was not spending her own money, and as she remarked to her pupil, a good cook was ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... by such boldness (which, as you know, is never displeasing to you women), led captive by the conqueror's glance, by the astute yet candid air which Charles Edward can assume when he chooses, the lady rose, took the arm of her self-constituted escort, and went downstairs, but on the threshold she stopped ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... Coronation. As a masterpiece of diplomacy, where can you find its superior in our history? Did the King suspect its vast importance? No. Did his ministers? No. Did the astute Bedford, representative of the English crown? No. An advantage of incalculable importance was here under the eyes of the King and of Bedford; the King could get it by a bold stroke, Bedford could get it without ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... they discussed the matter with Judge Atkins without telling the details of the jollification, which doubtless he was astute enough to guess at. The result was that messages were sent to all the police precincts, and a detective was put on ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... be so very serious a matter, for Doctor Eberbach had just read something aloud at which the young Nuremberg ambassador, Lienhard Groland, could not help laughing heartily. It seemed to amuse the others wonderfully, too, and even caused the astute Dr. Peutinger to strike his clinched fist upon the table with the exclamation, "A devil of a fellow!" and Wilibald Pirckheimer to assent eagerly, praising Hutten's ardent love for his native land and courage in battling for its elevation; but this Hutten ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to tatters. It was so much put about, so constantly dinned into Lord Blackadder's ears, that he was goaded into a perfect fury, and was at length determined, by hook or by crook, to put away his wife, leaving it to certain astute and well-practised solicitors to manufacture a ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... a philosophical religion the Saint-Simonian school was not only true to its master's teaching but obeying an astute instinct. As a purely secular movement for the transformation of society, their doctrine would not have reaped the same success or inspired the same enthusiasm. They were probably influenced too by the pamphlet of Lessing to which Madame de Stael had invited attention, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... been Atahuallpa's purpose is not improbable. It explains his conduct in not occupying the mountain passes, which afforded such strong points of defence against invasion. But that a prince so astute, as by the general testimony of the Conquerors he is represented to have been, should have made so impolitic a disclosure of his hidden motives is not so probable. The intercourse with the Inca was carried on chiefly ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... unparalleled for astronomical purposes, has no observatory. The largest telescope in the city is about five feet long, but the astute professor of natural philosophy in the Jesuit College who has charge of it had not the most distant idea that an eclipse of the sun would occur on the 29th of August, and an eclipse of the moon ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... in college, not so much by hard study as by skilful veneering, and had taken great pains to stand well with the Faculty, at least one of whom, Byles Gridley, A. M., had watched him with no little interest as a man with a promising future, provided he were not so astute as to outwit and overreach himself in his excess of contrivance. His classmates could not help liking him; as to loving him, none of them would have thought of that. He was so shrewd, so keen, so full of practical sense, and so ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... his spirit-breaking. The explanation was probably the correct one. He was in the habit of wearing flowers in his coat and it was impossible that the convict should have obtained one by any other means. Had it been a fig of tobacco now, the astute Commandant knew plenty of men who would have brought it into the prison. But who would risk a flogging for so useless a thing as a flower? "You'd better not pick up any more, Jack," he said. "We don't grow flowers for your amusement." And contemptuously flinging the rose over the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... had wreathed about his big head. The slim, dark Captain's smile took on an amiable expression. Might he know why I was addressed as "Young Ulysses" by my friend? and immediately he added the remark with urbane playfulness that Ulysses was an astute person. Mills did not give me time for a reply. He struck in: "That old Greek was famed as a wanderer—the first historical seaman." He waved his pipe vaguely ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... one Peter the carpenter. At this point Matilda's turn came and she died. All this had happened in the interval of two months since the last manor court was held. The steward of the manor claimed a heriot from Wyninge's land and another from Oberward's. But the astute Peter was equal to the occasion: he pleaded that, according to the custom of the manor, no heriot could be levied from a widow till she had survived her husband a year and a day, and he demanded that the court rolls should be searched to confirm or correct his assertion. I suspect he knew ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... Vice-Chancellor of New Jersey, to be invalid on the ground that George's doctrines are "in opposition to the laws"; and this decision has bred an uproar in the press which is reviving popular attention all over the country to the doctrines and to their author. He is astute, persevering, as much in earnest as Mr. Davitt, and as familiar with the weak points in the political machinery of the United States as is Mr. Davitt with the weak points in the political machinery of Great ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... leader of the potato-bug dance in "Fol-de-Rol," and at length to the part of the maid "'Toinette" in "The King's Bath-Robe," which captured the critics and gave her her chance. And when we come to consider Miss Carrington she is in the heydey of flattery, fame and fizz; and that astute manager, Herr Timothy Goldstein, has her signature to iron-clad papers that she will star the coming season in Dyde Rich's new play, ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... now, but I didn't then. Nay, I even laughed at Ching Wang's ignorance when speaking to Tim Rooney, whom I met as I retreated from the galley, telling him that I wondered how the generally astute Chinaman could really fancy he was propitiating Buddha, or whoever else he believed in as his sovereign deity, by burning a few scraps of tinsel paper to do honour ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... circumspect and cold. The psychological labyrinths of Stendhal, the analytical detours of Duranty seduced him, but their administrative, colorless and arid language, their static prose, fit at best for the wretched industry of the theatre, repelled him. Then their interesting works and their astute analyses applied to brains agitated by passions in which he was no longer interested. He was not at all concerned with general affections or points of view, with associations of common ideas, now that the reserve of his mind was more keenly developed and that he no longer admitted aught but superfine ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... with Senator Platt—those meetings which caused so much alarm and suspicion among over-righteous reformers—took place while Roosevelt was Governor. Mr. Odell nearly always accompanied the Senator, as if he felt afraid to trust the astute Boss with the very persuasive young Governor. Having Mrs. Robinson's house as a shelter, Theodore could screen himself from the newspaper men. There he could hold private consultations which, if they had been referred to in ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... do my best to further her holy plans—he! he!—but I confess I begin to doubt of their being successful here—you put me out; old Fraser of Lovat! I have heard my father talk of him; he had a gold-headed cane, with which he once knocked my grandfather down—he was an astute one, but, as you say, mistaken, particularly in himself. I have read his life by Arbuthnot, it is in the library of our college. Farewell! I shall come no more to this dingle—to come would be of no utility; I shall go and labour elsewhere, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... she saw that the situation was not hopeless. There was one thing that might be done, and that successfully accomplished the game would be in her hands. Ralph must be made to go to Barport. A few days with Dora at the seaside, with some astute person there to manage the affair, would settle the fate of Mr. Ralph Haverley. At this thought her eyes sparkled, and she began to feel hungry. At this important moment she did not wish to occupy her mind with prattle and chat, and ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... he abandoned hope of getting direct evidence against McDougall himself. That astute lawyer had been careful to have nothing whatever to do with actual bribery or corruption, and he was crafty enough to disassociate himself from direct dealing with agents. Indeed, Keith himself was in some slight doubt as to whether McDougall had any actual detailed knowledge ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... then and there, but Hurd, more astute, interrupted his angry speech. "We'll see about that later, Mr. Pash," he said, soothingly; "meanwhile, what did you ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... Selpdorf posed as the suave, sympathetic, good-natured friend of those with whom he came in contact; Counsellor, as a man of no account, a rugged soldier, honest, strong, outspoken, a good agent to act under the direction of more astute brains, but if left to his own resources ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... of Turkey, son of Sultan Mahmud II., was born on the 9th of February 1830, and succeeded his brother Abd-ul-Mejid in 1861. His personal interference in government affairs was not very marked, and extended to little more than taking astute advantage of the constant issue of State loans during his reign to acquire wealth, which was squandered in building useless palaces and in other futile ways: he is even said to have profited, by means of "bear'' sales, from the default ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... him, she forgot that the boy whom she had brought up was no longer a child, and thus she unpardonably ignored his rights as a man. And now Miss Josephine's disapproval was vindicated, and her own casuistry was doubly punished. Miss Rieppe's astute journey of investigation—for her purpose had evidently become suspected by some of them beforehand—had forced Miss Eliza to disclose the truth about the phosphates to her nephew before it should be told him by the girl ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... was completely convincing. Ailsa expanded under the warm kindliness of his tone in a manner which surprised even herself. Hitherto this man had never appealed to her. She knew her husband's regard for him. She had always seen in him an astute man of business, with a strength of purpose and capacity always to be relied upon. But the sentiments he now expressed were surprising, and came as a welcome display such as she would never ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... cars advantageously, the railroads find it much better to rent them, or simply to haul them on a mileage. The business is a specialty in itself, and requires most astute generalship to make it pay. Cars have to be sent to Alabama in February and March; North Carolina a little later; then West Virginia. These same cars then do service in the Fall in Michigan. It naturally ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... had preserved in an old kodak book had impressed her by the big eyes (which he had probably grown up to by now). However, in the last month, when her winter visit to Sally had been decided on, he had assumed the proportions of a worthy adversary. Children, most astute of match-makers, plot their campaigns quickly, and Sally had played a clever correspondence sonata to Isabelle's excitable temperament. Isabelle had been for some time capable of very strong, ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... company of singers was a magnificent combination of musical talent, and the presentation of opera in every way admirable, the enterprise had a sickly existence for a time, and it was not until it had passed through various vicissitudes, and came finally into the hands of the astute Lumley, that the enterprise was settled on ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... sovereign people struggle at Washington in keen debate, inspired by the hostile sections of the Union. They quarrel over the slavery interests in the great West. Keen Tom Corwin, loyal Dix, astute Giddings, Douglass the little giant, and David Wilmot fight freedom's battle with the great apostle of State rights, Calhoun. He is supported by President Polk, the facile Secretary of State Buchanan, and that dark Mississippi man of destiny, Jefferson Davis. The fiery Foote and all the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... land wrester forced the town of Southampton to accept the insignificant sum of L10 for the greater part of forty miles of beach—a singularly profitable transaction for Smith, who cleared in one year L500, the proceeds of whales taken there, as he admitted to Bellomont.[17] Henry Beekman, the astute and smooth founder of a rich and powerful family, was made a magnate of the first importance by a grant from Fletcher of a tract sixteen miles in length in Dutchess County, and also of another estate running twenty miles along the Hudson and eight miles inland. ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... the Hog's Back he saw the Happy Family bunched around some object on the creek-bank, and he heard the hysterical screaming of the Kid up in the house, and saw the Old Man limping excitedly up and down the porch. A man less astute than Andy Green would have known that some thing had happened. He hurried down the last slope, galloped along the creek-bottom, crossed the ford in a couple of leaps and pulled up beside ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... advocates. Naturally, the change was urged most strongly by all those whose sons and daughters were sickly or malformed, and so were doomed to die in the very blossom of their years. It was urged by the nobles because the more astute among them perceived the possibility of so manipulating it that it would result in the creation of a distinctively servile class; and the priests urged it because they also perceived a way by which it might be made to provide more victims for sacrifice ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... the astute and unscrupulous instructor expected, and he determined to pursue his advantage and effect, if possible, the complete corruption of his pupil in a single ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... was arranged. Now, it had been settled the night before that Mr. Markrute should shoot with the Duke and the rest of the more serious men; but early in the morning that astute financier had sent a note to His Grace's room, saying, if it were not putting out the guns dreadfully, he would crave to be excused as he was expecting a telegram of the gravest importance concerning the new Turkish loan, which he would be ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... shaking his fist at the flag and furiously impatient at Chinese slowness, the wily Chinese were engaged upon other, more important matters. Hauling down the flag could wait; it was less urgent. The astute Chinese, with admirable foresight, hastily "acquired" the German concessions in Tientsin and Hankow for themselves—acted with remarkable intelligence and great haste, almost undue haste, before any of the foreign powers could "acquire" or "protect" these concessions for themselves; ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... simple and tactful, left no doubt as to their meaning. There was nothing in them which could be challenged, could be construed into active criticism of men or things; and yet much he said was horrifying. It made Achmet Pasha sit up aghast, and Nahoum Pasha, the astute Armenian, for a long time past the confidant and favourite of the Prince Pasha, laugh in his throat; for, if there was a man in Egypt who enjoyed the thrust of a word or the bite of a phrase, it was Nahoum. Christian though ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... came they to Ali Baba's house, and the captain craved lodging for himself and his beasts. Surely would Ali Baba have been captured, tortured, and put to death but for his maid, the faithful and astute Morgiana, who discovered men in the jars, and, boiling cans of oil, poured it upon them one by one, and so delivered her master. But the captain had escaped, and Ali Baba still went in great fear of his life. But when he returned, disguised so that he might have puzzled ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... delayed by the rising of the Chickahominy. He had fought a hard fight at Seven Pines; and the constant interference of Jackson had kept him waiting for McDowell. But, at the same time, he had displayed an excess of caution which was perfectly apparent to his astute opponent. He had made no attempt to use his superior numbers; and Lee had come to the conclusion that the attack on Richmond would take the same form as the attack on Yorktown,—the establishment of great batteries, the massing of heavy ordnance, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... will make an admirable judge, the most upright of public servants, the most devoted of deputies. And where would you find a sailor bolder, more adventurous, more astute than my Rene will be a few years hence? The little rascal has already an iron will, whatever he wants he manages to get; he will try a thousand circuitous ways to reach his end, and if not successful then, will devise a thousand ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... was to reduce that state to a degree of material poverty, political insignificance, and intellectual torpidity unknown before in her experience. Civil war was long delayed; the political necessities and the astute policy of Charles V., the conservative instincts and patriotic scruples of Luther, and the doubtful position of many of the German provinces and cities, long prevented any attempt by the emperor to enforce the orthodoxy required by the Diet of Worms, and induced ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... ask him more about my foster-cousin Manetho? Egyptians are more astute than affectionate. Would he cleave to my poor uncle for these last eighteen years merely for love? Why did he transfer that money so soon after we sailed? Ten to one, he has in his own hands the future as well as the present disposal of Doctor Hiero Glyphic's fortune! ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... things of the kingdom of God, so far as he had learned them out of the Holy Scripture. Very instructive and affecting it was, when, as sometimes, the aspiring philosopher, the uncompromising logician, the astute economist, the grave and learned dogmatist, renounced these and all other accomplishments of nature, or rather made them subservient to the greater accomplishments of grace. Then we admired, even to tears of thankfulness, how the wise man, in becoming a fool, becomes ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... a tall young man, thin, with a rosy face, a long nose, and a mouth almost from ear to ear, had the air of an astute but jolly person, and laughed at everything said to him. He was liveliness personified. When they entered his office ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... told Stafford what the situation was, that astute banker—who had been in many a ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... hands, would prove the key to a vastly larger situation involving more main-line mileage almost than there were spikes in the aforesaid dinky jerkwater. It was so simple that he had almost laughed aloud when it came to him. No wonder those astute and ancient enemies of his had passed ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... the Jews, oh most astute and yet most slow-witted master! The ten tribes have been upon me, and I have been harried and wasted, bound, ravished, and despoiled. Never was Agag, king of Amalek, more completely in the hands of the chosen, and the sole ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Alan Hawke, and therefore, he very delicately played his wary fish, the sybaritic young swell of the staff. Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther's reserve soon melted under the skillful bonhomie of the astute Alan Hawke. An easy-going patrician of the staff, he was in the magic circle of the viceroy. The heir to an inevitable fortune, and already vested with substantially stratified deposits at "Coutts" and Glyn, Carr and Glyn's, he would have been envied by most luckless mortals the heavy balances ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... colonial prejudices which, discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are, in the Governor of a mixed community, nothing less than calamitous. More than amply did he justify the evil reports with which rumour had heralded his coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James Longden, who was, on the whole, only a constitutionally timid man, Governor Irving threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the Sugar Interest, by whom he had been helped into his high office, and whose ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... Gordon, as soon as that astute managing editor arrived, as to the handling of the difficult situation. The Ledger, always cynically intolerant of any effort to better the city government, as savoring of "goo-gooism," which was its special bete noire, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... faithfully set down by Popova, was carried away to the secret police of Morovenia, said to be the most astute in the world. They were instructed to watch all trains and guard the frontier and, as soon as they had their prisoner safely put away in the lower dungeon of the municipal prison, they were to notify the Governor-General, ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... Tannis. He sent her to school for four years in Prince Albert, bound that his girl should have the best. A High School course and considerable mingling in the social life of the town—for old Auguste was a man to be conciliated by astute politicians, since he controlled some two or three hundred half-breed votes—sent Tannis home to the Flats with a very thin, but very deceptive, veneer of culture and civilization overlying the primitive passions and ideas ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... were watching my progress from behind the green paper curtains of their 'sittin' room' windows, might possibly judge from my speed, that I had been called to a patient at last. Vain hope! idle precaution! every one of those astute matrons knew at least as well as myself the errand upon which I was bound, and far better than I, as I own in all humility, the state of health in the neighborhood, which precluded all possibility of any professional ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... transient smile passed over his face as he saw how neatly Aunt Eliza had deceived his astute sister. ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... had lately noticed, had become "as thick as two thieves," and were much in each other's company. Some act of kindness had endeared the "infantry" to his more astute and experienced associate, who had taken him under his patronage ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... should not be forgotten, for Richard Cromwell was formally taken to task for having the temerity to go to Hampton to hunt the deer! Then, despite the temptation it might prove, the Long Parliament offered Hampton Court to General Monck, but that astute man, thinking it a dangerous gift, would accept no more than the custody and stewardship of it for life—and was thus able to hand it over to Charles the Second on the accomplishment of that Restoration, in which he probably already regarded himself ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... early the next morning and walked briskly to Captain Tappken's office. Punctually at ten o'clock I announced myself at the Admiralty and after the usual procedure with the door man, I was received by Herr von Stammer, private secretary of Captain Tappken. A very astute and calculating gentleman is Herr von Stammer. Suave, genial, talkative, he has the plausible and unstudied art of extracting information without committing himself in turn. A marvelous encyclopædia of devious Secret Service ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... music-hall, the cafe chantant, or whatever place mademoiselle and her astute adviser may select as a safe haven wherein to avoid police espionage during the many months which must ensue before they dare to make the slightest effort to dispose of the ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... that Becky Sharp had appropriated to herself the money which he had given her to restore poor Miss Briggs' stolen property, he is not indignant at the deception. The admiration of the noble rogue is only increased for the woman who has shown herself to be possessed of a more astute roguery than ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... World." This is plain enough. What will be the final form of settlement we do not even conjecture. It is probable that the Emperor does not himself know. With our fortunes so unsettled, and with so many European jealousies to conciliate, even his astute genius may well be puzzled as to the wisest policy. But it is of no consequence what particular government France may impose upon the conquered State,—monarchical, vice-regal, or republican,—Maximilian, a Bonaparte, or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... so unworldly? The phrase rankled in her conscience like a thorn. And in what respect were those Society mothers less managing than the nun? she asked herself. Could any of them have been more astute, more eager, more bent on hooking the desirable parti for their girls than she had shown herself just now? And was this, again, an unworldly voice whispering to her that the publicity ensured by a paragraph penned by this gossip-loving little lady ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... his admiration for his young antagonist, however, one cannot help noticing that the generous and modest but astute counsel for the defence ended ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... and more stupid than usual. They were merely a few lines on the weather, the Emperor's health, or his desire to hear that his wife was "cheerful and happy." But, alas! cheerfulness and happiness were not for her! Too astute to be hoodwinked, she understood that her husband still had a friendly feeling for her but that his love was dead. In the eyes of a jealous woman, friendship is a slight thing. What does she care for the esteem and attentions of a friend who ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... astute lawyer and judge, was a believer in witchcraft, and entertained views on this subject similar to those of Mr. Forbes, as will appear from the following particulars of the trial of Rose Cullender and Ann Duny in 1664. These women were accused ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... superior in power," (in the first instance) "the whim of the populace was ascertained and the way in which their humour was to be dealt with, and" (in the second instance) "those persons were accounted astute in their generation and wise who made themselves thoroughly conversant with the disposition of the Senate and the aristocracy; then when a change took place in the Government" (from the Republic to the Empire), "there was the same state of things as when a King was the ruler":—"Igitur, ut ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... returns to cover near the carcass and lies down, or he wanders slowly and with satisfaction toward his happy home. In the latter case the hyenas, jackals, and carrion birds seize their chance. The astute hunter can often diagnose the case by the general actions and demeanour of these camp followers. A half dozen sour and disgusted looking hyenas seated on their haunches at scattered intervals, and treefuls of mournfully humpbacked vultures sunk in sadness, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... incorrigible, and while they seem the cleverest at first prove ultimately the least intelligent. They depend less on circumstances, but do not respond to them so well. In some nations everybody is by nature so astute, versatile, and sympathetic that education hardly makes any difference in manners or mind; and it is there precisely that generation, follows generation without essential progress, and no one ever remakes himself on a better ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... higher, mental life of a people chiefly through the medium of their economic and social life; hence its ultimate effects should be traced through the latter back to the underlying cause. But rarely has this been done. Even so astute a geographer as Strabo, though he recognizes the influence of geographic isolation in differentiating dialects and customs in Greece,[25] ascribes some national characteristics to the nature of the country, especially to its climate, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... that cool judgment, and that capacity to comprehend political grievances which were confessedly the characteristics of this eminent British statesman. Happily for Canada he was followed by a keen politician and an astute economist who, despite his overweening vanity and his tendency to underrate the ability of "those fellows in the colonies"—his own words in a letter to England—was well able to gauge public sentiment accurately ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... anew. Father willing to part, girl frightened—commenced to cry. The astute Charley brought out some new trade. Tirau's eye here displayed a faint interest. Charley threw her, with the air of a prince, a whole piece of turkey twill, 12 yards—value three dollars, cost about 2s. 3d. Tirau put out a little hand and drew it ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... the port without being observed, and if observed the inevitable consequence of being sunk, probably with all on board. The agent, having in mind his own considerable interest, played discreetly on the vanity of the commander, and laughed at the notion of an astute person like him allowing himself to be trapped; appealed to his nationality, and the glory of having run out of a port that was severely blockaded. The captain cut this flow of greasy oratory short by stating that for the moment he was ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... philosophical thought, and of legislation as well as poetry, from being swept away by the deluge of revolution. Confucius showed his wisdom by the high value he set upon the poetry of his native land, and his name must be set side by side with that of the astute tyrant of Athens who collected the poems of Homer and preserved them as a precious heritage to the Greek world. Confucius has given us his opinion with regard to the poems of the Shi-King. No man, he says, is worth speaking to who has not mastered ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... seem guilty of Constance's indiscretion if I politely wonder how it was that so astute a judge as Miss MARIE LOeHR accepted this play. Actor-managers, of course, have been known to produce indifferent work for the sake of a good acting part for themselves. If that was her motive I think she must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... silently; and as she worked she dreamed, and the dream was visible on her face, had any one been astute enough to understand it. She was working a lace collar to wear with a certain blue blouse, and upon that flimsy keystone was erecting an air-castle. She was going to the Elliot Academy, wearing ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... had their faces prepared for the market. Sometimes, it is recorded, a slave, after months of painful preparation, had the audacity to run away with his own head before the day of sale and decapitation. Astute vendors occasionally tried the more merciful plan of tattooing "plain" heads after death in ordinary course of battle. But this was a species of fraud, as the lines soon became indistinct. Such heads have often been indignantly pointed at ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... movements of political parties in New York State from 1774 to 1861, and embraces a series of brilliant character studies of the leaders, most of them of national importance, who, from the days of George Clinton, have drawn the attention of the nation to New York. The astute methods and sources of power by which George Clinton, Hamilton, Burr, DeWitt Clinton, Van Buren, Seymour and Thurlow Weed each successively controlled the political destiny of the State are ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... brazen effrontery of the ambassador's scoundrelly servant in passing himself off for a man of condition formed the point of departure for every conversation. It was discovered that there were but three persons present who had not suspected him from the first; and, by a singular paradox, the most astute of all proved to be old Mr. Bicksit, the traveler, once a visitor at Chateaurien; for he, according to report, had by a coup of diplomacy entrapped the impostor into an admission that there was no such ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... back from Berlin, having by an astute and not very creditable transaction secured the Island of Cyprus for the British Crown, besides compelling Russia to forego some of the fruits of her victory over Turkey, he met with a reception of extraordinary enthusiasm. A conqueror returning from the wars ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... you know, on the upstair passage there still is that queer slit through which the old abbots used to watch the monks at their devotions. Finding the shutter unlocked, the astute Thomas followed their example, as well as he could, for he says there was no light in the chapel except that of the fire, by which presently he made out your figure, Miss Fregelius, sometimes playing the violin, and sometimes singing, and that ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... longing to consort with the ghosts of an ancient line, as artistic appreciation of the mellowness, the dignity, the aristocratic aloofness of walls that have sheltered, and furniture that has embraced, generations and generations of the dead. To mere wealth, only his astute and incomparably modern brain yielded respect; his ego raised its goose-flesh at the sight of rooms furnished with a single check, conciliatory as the taste might be. The dumping of the old interiors of Europe into the glistening shells of the United States not only roused him almost ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... of these two forces. The single snowflake is to the indifferent eye something infinitesimal, too small to take individual notice of, once it reaches the ground. For most of us it hardly has any separate existence, however it may be to more astute observers. We see the flakes in the mass, and we judge by results. Now firstly, to talk of results, the filling up of a hollow, unless the drifting snow is simply picked up from the ground where it lay ready from previous falls, proceeds itself rather ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... THEIR part of the bargain, grew melancholy, wretched, nay, so absolutely dishonorable as to seek for every means of breaking through their agreement. The Englishman living in a country where the lawyers are more astute than any other lawyers in the world, took the advice of a Mr. Bagsby, of Lyon's Inn; whose name, as we cannot find it in the "Law List," we presume to be fictitious. Who could it be that was a match for the devil? Lord ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his manner was a little ridiculous, so that even Mrs. Lee, who was herself a warm reformer, sometimes went over to the other side when he talked. No sooner had he now shot his little arrow at the Senator, than that astute man saw his opportunity, and promised himself the ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... become ports of deposit for American products, whence they were conveyed in British ships to Great Britain and her dependencies, to which the Act forbade American vessels to go. The effect was to give the carrying of American products to British shipping, in precise conformity with the astute provisions of the Navigation Acts. British markets were reached by a broken voyage, the long leg of which, from Amelia and Halifax to Europe and elsewhere, was taken by British navigation. It was stated that there were at a given moment ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... in the reality of the transference of strong mental or physical impressions on the mother into physical changes in the child she is bearing is very ancient and widespread. Most writers on the subject begin with the book of Genesis and the astute device of Jacob in influencing the color of his lambs by mental impressions on his ewes. But the belief exists among even more primitive people than the early Hebrews, and in all parts of the world.[189] Among the Greeks there is a trace of the belief in Hippocrates, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... good fortune," said the Regent, turning to a man seated at another table at some distance, whose wily, astute countenance, piercing eye, and licentious expression of lip and brow, indicated at once the ability and vice which composed his character. "So like my good fortune, is it not, Dubois? If ever I meet with a tolerably pleasant fellow, who does not disgrace me by his birth or reputation, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... even that was full of difficulties. After all, the Homoeans were still the strongest party in 365. They were in possession of the churches and commanded much of the Asiatic influence, and had no enmity to contend with which was not quite as bitter against the other parties. They also had astute leaders, and a doctrine which still presented attractions to the quiet men who were tired of controversy. Upon the whole, the Homoean policy was the ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... divided, yet, as man to woman, though divided still united, and thus forming even in the cold regions of space a perfect image of our terrestrial existence? Who can say that our romantic French friend was altogether wrong in thus explaining the astute ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... and measures of his administration. At that meeting, which took place in less than a month after Lincoln's election, or early in December, 1860, Lincoln became convinced that war was imminent between the North and the South. Mr. Weed was a very astute man, and had a wonderful knowledge of what was going on. He told Lincoln of preparations being made in the Southern States that could mean nothing less than war. It was a serious time with all of us, of course, but Lincoln took it with the imperturbability ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... stand out definitely on one political side or the other. He was urged, at the end of September, to receive the inevitable torchlight procession planned in his honor by the Union of Norwegian Students. He was astute enough to see that this might compromise his independence, but he was probably too self-conscious in believing that a trap was being laid for him. He said that, not having observed that his presence ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... Russia repented of her generosity. She sought to regain control in Korea. She sent M. Pavloff, an astute and charming statesman, to Seoul, and a series of intrigues began. Yi Yung-ik sided with the Russians. ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... aver that the Dauphin Louis actually thought of obtaining a dispensation for marrying her. In the unsettled condition of the Church, when it was divided by the last splinterings, as it were, of the great schism, perhaps the astute Louis deemed that any prince might obtain anything from whichever rival Pope he chose to acknowledge, though it was reserved for Alexander Borgia to grant the first licence of this kind. To Jean the idea was simply abhorrent, alike as ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... adventures have finished. We are to contemplate a condition, not to watch the events that ultimate in it. Our detective, or anyone else, may of course meet with haps and mishaps on his way to the solution of his puzzle; but an astute writer will not color such incidents too vividly, lest he risk forfeiting our preoccupation with the problem that we came forth for to study. In a word, One ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... was entirely alone. It was impossible to make a guess as to the tribe to which he belonged, though Deerfoot suspected, without any particular reason, that he was an Assiniboine. As to how he came to be by himself, and traveling southward, no theory could be formed by the astute Shawanoe. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... day. Austria could do little for France but France could do much for Austria. So Austria worked for this alliance. It is a story of intrigue. Usually in France the King carried on negotiations with foreign countries only through his ministers, who knew the real interests of France. Now the astute Austrian statesman, Kaunitz, went past the ministers of Louis XV to Louis himself. This was the heyday of Madame de Pompadour, the King's mistress. Maria Theresa condescended to intrigue with this woman whom in her heart she despised. There is still much mystery in the ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... off by this will be to miss one of the pleasantest books of the season. What I might call true fiction has always held a peculiar charm for me. In the present work that clever writer, KATHARINE TYNAN, has been lucky and astute enough to find an ideal heroine, ready made to her hand, in the person of the charming woman who married DEAN DELANY. Upon the basis of her diaries and letters the romance has been built up, with the excellent result of a blend of art and actuality that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... pressed for an audience that very evening. A private one was at length granted them by the commander, in presence of one or two of his officers. The half-king reported the result of it to Washington. The venerable but astute chevalier cautiously evaded the acceptance of the proffered wampum; made many professions of love and friendship, and said he wished to live in peace and trade amicably with the tribes of the Ohio, in proof of which he would send down ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... quid quid debet judicare. Deligens igitur inquisitor et subtilis investigator sapienter quasi astute interrogat a peccatore quod ignorat, vel ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... Hill, and the solicitor came down for the purpose. My father and Ouvry were sitting over their wine when the old man was announced. 'We had better go in to him,' said my father. 'No, no,' said the astute lawyer. 'John,' said he, turning to the butler, 'show him into the study, and take him a bottle of the old port.' Then turning to my father, 'A glass of port will do him good; it will soften him.' After waiting about twenty minutes ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... townsmen.[109:2] In Pennsylvania, the coming of the Germans and the Scotch-Irish in such numbers caused grave anxiety. Indeed, a bill was passed to limit the importation of the Palatines, but it was vetoed.[109:3] Such astute observers as Franklin feared in 1753 that Pennsylvania would be unable to preserve its language and that even its government would become precarious.[109:4] "I remember," he declares, "when they modestly declined intermeddling ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... plundered and caroused for a week, and had hardly re-embarked when they met a small vessel having on board the governor of the island. She made a desperate fight, but was taken at last, and with her a rich booty. They thought to put the governor to ransom but the astute official deceived them, and, on pretence of negotiating for the sum demanded,—together with "four or six parrots, and as many monkeys of the sort called sanguins, which are very beautiful," and for which his captors had also bargained,—contrived to send instructions to his wife. Hence ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Suppose some astute lawyer could find some informality in the law authorizing the issue and sale of the bonds representing the British consols; would any member of either House propose in Parliament to repudiate such bonds, and would not such a motion cause his immediate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... rumour whispered the name of Nuth. Were I to say that this turned his head, there are those to whom the assertion would give pain, for his associates hold that his astute judgment was unaffected by circumstance. I will say, therefore, that it spurred his genius to plan what no burglar had ever planned before. It was nothing less than to burgle the house of the gnoles. And this that abstemious man unfolded to Tonker over a cup of ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... were too astute to offer battle. While the English were employed at Berwick, Sir James Douglas led their main force into the heart of Yorkshire. Douglas hoped to capture Queen Isabella, who was staying near York. A spy betrayed this design ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Alphonso saluted guiltily—evidently the astute Cockerell had "touched the spot"—and was turning away, when suddenly the billeting officer's eye encountered an illegible scrawl at the very ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... issues in regard to which there was a difference of view. This was a species of tactics not unknown to political parties, and might be used with great effect if Mr. Chase should be the nominee. The astute men who advocated his selection saw that the great need of the Democracy was to secure a candidate who had been unquestionably loyal during the war, and who at the same time was not offensive to Southern ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... polished as an icicle, and quite as cold. He may be very accurate and astute and profound, but certainly he is not half ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... with a firm gait. His characteristics are preserved by the artist to admiration; and his majestic front exhibits an attitude surpassing every other, that I have ever seen of the human skull. As a specimen for the craniologist, Red Jacket need not yield his pretensions to those of the most astute philosopher. He will long live by the painting of Weir, the poetry of Halleck, and the fame of his ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... The astute Fukara sheukh surpass all men in their coffee-drinking courtesy, and Zeyd himself was more than any large of this gentlemen-like imposture: he was full of swaggering complacence and compliments to an humbler person. With what suavity could he encourage, and gently ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Powhatan," should be crowned with all due ceremony, just at a time of year when every hand in the colony was needed for attending to the crops. Smith and Newport had just come to a reasonable understanding with that astute savage, by which he treated them with real respect; and the attention paid him by his "brother James," as he proceeded to call the King of England, rather turned his head. He liked the red cloak sent him, but had no idea what a crown meant. The raccoon skin mantle ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... writer states, with a dash of humour, that after a preliminary training on the sea, the bold deerstalker and mountaineer would have to transform himself into a courtier to receive and entertain a King of the French, and play the part of a staid and astute diplomatist. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... second day the doctor set out to cover as much ground as possible. He was astute enough to recognise the wisdom of moving on before his customers had time to compare notes. Before noon, he sold six bottles of the Healing Mixture for influenza, two bottles of the Rheumatic Balm, and one ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Yet the astute man of the world knows more than one way of ruining and disgracing simple-hearted, true-souled young fellows. Not even Satan is credited with appearing often in evil guise ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... October the "Ranger" left Portsmouth, and made for the coast of France. Astute agents of the Americans in that country were having a fleet, powerful frigate built there for Jones, which he was to take, leaving the sluggish "Ranger" to be sold. But, on his arrival at Nantes, Jones was grievously disappointed to learn that the British ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Premier has been as dumb as a graven image ever since. England has many enemies in different parts of the world, but I must confess that this speech by the Austrian Premier came as a surprise. There must have been something hidden, which is not visible from the outside. The Premier is too astute a man not to know exactly what his words meant, and he was under no delusion as to the manner in which England would take them. It is a case, then, of, 'When I was so quickly done for, I wonder what I was begun for'—that is ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... energetic Great Russian empire-builders and not the half-dreamy, half-astute, sympathetic descendants of the Free Cossacks that I wanted to study, I soon abandoned my idea of settling in the Holy City on the Dnieper, and chose Moscow as my point of observation; and here, during several years, I spent regularly some ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Mathurin. Tabary, who seems to have been very much Villon's creature, had ordered the supper in the course of the afternoon. He was a man who had had troubles in his time, and languished in the Bishop of Paris's prisons on a suspicion of picking locks; confiding, convivial, not very astute—who had copied out a whole improper romance with his own right hand. This supper-party was to be his first introduction to De Cayeux and Petit-Jehan, which was probably a matter of some concern to the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... morbid state of mind and of that habit of thought which would associate with every cause an effect of similar magnitude. Santa Ana welcomed him with friendly enthusiasm, and was ready to listen to his plans. That wily and astute politician, who was always abreast of progress and never in its lead, recognized in Estenega the coming man, and, knowing that the seizure of the Californias by the United States was only a question ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... incompetent as ever represented a great power, Gambier, Goulburn, and Adams. To face these the United States had sent John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, Henry Clay, James Bayard, and Jonathan Russell, as able and astute a group of players for great stakes as ever gathered round a table. In these circumstances the British representatives were lucky to secure peace on the basis of the status quo ante. Canada had hoped that sufficient of the unsettled Maine ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... Vice-Royalty. Colonel Miller, whose promotion after the affair of Cancha Rayadu had been rapid, was sent with a small but active force to land at Arica and operate in the Southern Provinces, where by astute strategy and several brilliant successes he confirmed his high reputation. San Martin soon after followed with the main army, escorted by the Chilian squadron under command of Lord Cochran; in running down the coast, he took in Colonel ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Once more the astute Tom produced his pin; and sticking it under the end of my minute-hand, disengaged it from its fellow and bent it back into its proper position. Instantly, as if by magic, the life rushed back into my body; my circulation started afresh, and my heart beat ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... the raw flesh. And now behold this gentleman, very wisely replaced in office by the French, paying us a morning visit in European clothes. He was the man of the most character we had yet seen: his manners genial and decisive, his person tall, his face rugged, astute, formidable, and with a certain similarity to Mr. Gladstone's only for the brownness of the skin, and the high-chief's tattooing, all one side and much of the other being of an even blue. Further acquaintance increased our opinion of his sense. He viewed the Casco in a manner then ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came East an odd thing happened. When he came East and they found that every word which they had read with such approval was the literal truth, and not just the industry of an astute press-agent, they were nonplused. Even suspicious, I believe. And ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... profane the loftiest prerogative with which civilized society can invest mankind, and sacrilegiously extinguish, in the name of justice, that sacred spark which only Jehovah's fiat kindles. To the same astute and unchanging race, whose relentless code of jurisprudence demanded 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life,' we owe the instructive picture of cautious inquiry, of tender solicitude ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... lifetime of Milneh, Russian influence was ever in the ascendant. The familiar roughness of tone and manner assumed by that Prince towards his uncultivated people procured for him great weight; while his astute cunning, his hatred of Turkey, and his Russian bias, would have given a most valuable ally to that power, had she procured his restoration before her armies crossed the Pruth. Fortunately no opportunity presented itself for him ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... have sufficed to give currency to his lines as to Greek Hexameters. In general, they are neither one thing nor another. Some few of them are dactylic verses—English dactylics. But do away with the division into lines, and the most astute critic would never have suspected them of any thing more than prose."—Pioneer, p. 111. The following are the last ten lines of the volume, with such a division into feet as the poet is ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... applied to him, as in Shakespeare's case, or that his mental sensitiveness approaches downright insanity, as in Shelley's. This fact, curiously enough, has escaped the observation of an otherwise extremely astute observer, namely Havelock Ellis. In his study of British genius he notes the fact that most men of unusual capacities are the sons of relatively old fathers, but instead of exhibiting the true cause thereof, he ascribes it to a mysterious quality whereby ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... should stand the least excused, and might retain the esteem or at least the pity of a man like Dr. Urquart, failed me utterly. Here at least was the end of my discoveries. I learned no more, till I learned all; and my reader has the evidence complete. Is he more astute than I was? or, like me, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... intrigue, and while he employed every artifice to undermine Lodovico's influence both at the other courts of Italy and in France, he sent ambassadors to congratulate the Moro on his son's birth, and only expostulated in a friendly manner with his kinsman. Lodovico himself, however, was too astute not to see the dangers which threatened him, and he became doubly anxious to form a close alliance with the Pope, and with his old enemies the Signory of Venice. Early in 1493, Alexander VI., now Lodovico Sforza's firm friend, proposed a new alliance between himself, Milan, and Venice to the Doge ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... traditions of the league. They were in fact professed orators, high in honor and influence among the people. To a huge stock of conventional metaphors, the use of which required nothing but practice, they often added an astute intellect, an astonishing memory, and an eloquence ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... a village in Jamaica, they plundered and caroused for a week, and had hardly re-embarked when they met a small vessel having on board the governor of the island. She made a desperate fight, but was taken at last, and with her a rich booty. They thought to put the governor to ransom but the astute official deceived them, and, on pretence of negotiating for the sum demanded,—together with "four or six parrots, and as many monkeys of the sort called sanguins, which are very beautiful," and for which his captors had also bargained,—contrived ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... dominion. At least it has appeared that these Imperial statesmen have so persuaded themselves after very mature deliberation; and they have showed great concern to persuade others of the equity of their Imperial claim to something more than the law would allow. These sagacious, not to say astute, persons have not only reached a conviction to this effect, but they have become possessed of this conviction in such plenary fashion that, in the German case, they have come to admit exceptions or abatement of the claim only when and in so far as the campaign of equitable ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... hitherto never been allowed the aristocratic privilege and dignity of being tattooed, had their faces prepared for the market. Sometimes, it is recorded, a slave, after months of painful preparation, had the audacity to run away with his own head before the day of sale and decapitation. Astute vendors occasionally tried the more merciful plan of tattooing "plain" heads after death in ordinary course of battle. But this was a species of fraud, as the lines soon became indistinct. Such heads have often been indignantly pointed at by enthusiastic connoisseurs. Head-sellers ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... hopeless to try and pass Charlotte off as either pretty or sweet. So she became clever as the only remaining alternative. Ernest never knew what particular branch of study it was in which she showed her talent, for she could neither play nor sing nor draw, but so astute are women that his mother and Charlotte really did persuade him into thinking that she, Charlotte, had something more akin to true genius than any other member of the family. Not one, however, of all the friends whom Ernest had been inveigled into trying to inveigle ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... Blondet, hoped to obtain for him when he himself should retire. But President du Ronceret, in underhand ways, was thwarting the old man's plans, and working indirectly upon the Blandureaus. Indeed, if it had not been for this affair of young d'Esgrignon's, the astute President might have cut them out, father and son, for their rivals ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... immense capacity for ignoring. In her way, she lived the glorious life of fantasy, lapped in the freshest and most beautiful illusions. Not but what she saw through every one of them, her own and other people's; for Lady Cayley's intelligence was marvellously subtle and astute. But the fierce will by which she accomplished her desires urged her intelligence to reject and to destroy whatever consideration was hostile to the illusion. It was thus that she ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... thee." "Good," quoth then Guasparruolo, "we are quits, Gulfardo; make thy mind easy; I will see that thy account is set right." Gulfardo then withdrew, leaving the flouted lady to hand over her ill-gotten gains to her husband; and so the astute lover had his pleasure of his greedy mistress ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... no less honest, fearless, or public-spirited than the recent one; it only remained to be seen whether he were not less astute and cautious. Coming to the office as he did, he was absolutely unfettered, which, in one of so frank a temperament, might prove a danger. He was more popular with the people than with politicians. Though highly educated and used to the best associations, he was more approachable than ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... vociferously encored. Nay, they would have had it three times if they could, but though Sir DRURIOLANUS sets his face against encores, allowing not too much encore but just encore enough, he, as an astute Manager, cannot see why persons who have paid to hear a thing only once should hear it three times for the same money. No; if they like it so much that they want it again, and must have it, and won't be happy till they get it, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... as the champion of Protestantism against Popery, and who combined in himself a remarkable mixture of qualities seldom found existing in one person. He was brave to excess and apparently reckless in action, and yet astute, prudent, and calculating in council. With a manner frank, open, and winning, he was yet able to match the craftiest of opponents at their own weapons of scheming and duplicity. The idol of the Huguenots of France, he was ready to purchase ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... the most part well enough executed to give (fidelity granted) a notion of life as it is among the remarkable inhabitants of Utah. Nor let the connoisseur, who detects the shortcomings of some of these pictures, fancy that he has discovered a flaw in the armor of the doughty Artemus. That astute gentleman knows their worth as well as anybody else, and while he ostensibly extols them, as a showman is bound to do, he every now and then holds them up to ridicule in a vein of the deepest irony. In one case a palpable error of perspective, by which a ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... should be crowned with all due ceremony, just at a time of year when every hand in the colony was needed for attending to the crops. Smith and Newport had just come to a reasonable understanding with that astute savage, by which he treated them with real respect; and the attention paid him by his "brother James," as he proceeded to call the King of England, rather turned his head. He liked the red cloak ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... have been put to the Chamber, "Will the estimates pass or not pass?" The smallest initiative on the part of the board of Management was commented on; everything in Baron Hulot's department was carefully noted. The astute State Councillor had enlisted on his side the victim of Marneffe's promotion, a hard-working clerk, telling him that if he could fill Marneffe's place, he would certainly succeed to it; he had told him that the man was dying. So this clerk was ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... would give us but slight encouragement. They may allow us just to hear their voices, but when we approach them they will speak with subdued breath, and almost inaudibly. Beware, however, lest among these you chance to encounter some astute artiste, who, under a surface that is smooth, conceals a current that is deep. This sort of lady, it is true, generally appears quite modest; but often proves, when we come closer, to be of a very different temperament from what we anticipated. Here is one drawback ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... comparatively young man a lawyer who had early made a mark in politics and had been astute enough to shake off the thraldom of the bosses before the popular uprising against them. Now he was the candidate of the Reform League for governor and a good stiff campaign he was ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... declivities, or panting upward when the trail climbed to higher altitudes. There was no doubt at all that the man who had dynamited the dam was certain of his having evaded all followers, and indeed he would have done so with men less trained and astute. ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... object was to create what it was hoped would be an impossible situation in view of the relations between Senator Tillman and myself. I regarded the action as simply childish. It was a curious instance of how able and astute men sometimes commit blunders because of sheer inability to understand intensity of disinterested motive in others. I did not care a rap about Mr. Tillman's getting credit for the bill, or having charge of it. I was delighted to go with him or with any ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... and facile brush, considerable versatility in the treatment of monotonous subjects, and a never-failing sense of humour. His white-cowled monks, some of them with the rosy freshness of boys, some with the handsome brown faces of middle life, others astute and crafty, others again wrinkled with old age, have clearly been copied from real models. He puts them into action without the slightest effort, and surrounds them with landscapes, architecture, and furniture, appropriate to each successive situation. The whole is ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... by the fact that there figured amongst the commissioners no less a person than the chief of the senate Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, beyond all question the foremost man of Rome,[913] the highest embodiment of patrician dignity and astute diplomacy. The pressing appeal of Adherbal's envoys, the ugly rumours which were circulating in Rome, urged the commissioners to unwonted activity. Within three days they were on board, and after a short interval had landed at Utica in the African ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... movement, slow at first, but swift and irresistible when the mass has come to consciousness of its own tendency, which has always confounded astute persons who have been interested only in particulars. It is a movement like that of the Mississippi at flood-time. The great river flows within its banks as long as it can. But the time comes when the barriers are too frail to hold back the mighty waters. Then the river makes, very quickly, ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... theory with a philosophical religion the Saint-Simonian school was not only true to its master's teaching but obeying an astute instinct. As a purely secular movement for the transformation of society, their doctrine would not have reaped the same success or inspired the same enthusiasm. They were probably influenced too by the pamphlet of Lessing ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... away, but when he was out of the rancher's sight he broke into a dry smile. He was an astute young man and knew his business, which was merely to investigate and follow the instruction of his chiefs at Regina. Unembroidered facts were what they required in the first instance, but later he ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... mighty one and the story of it is fairly well known, but a few pertinent facts are essential as a background to Mr. Nelson's part in it. For more than thirty years George B. Cox controlled the city by all the devices known to the wily, astute politician. Few presumed to run for any office on the Republican ticket without his approval. Unburdened by shame, he declared, "I am the Boss of Cincinnati ... I've got the best system of government in this country. If ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... months later I learned, by piecing together certain facts, that old Morley Tarrant was an expert photographer and maker of printer's "blocks." Slowly it became plain that Rayne, having been betrayed by the astute American crook, had met him in Edinburgh and with devilish malice aforethought, had contrived to get him to handle the glass cube which served as a paper-weight, and which I had quite innocently conveyed to the old hunchback, ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... of his brother; he marched against him and gave him battle. But he was beaten, and he fled with his wife Cleopatra; and they shut themselves up in the city of Antioch. Grypus and Tryphaana then laid siege to the city, and the astute Tryphaana soon took her revenge on her sister for coming into Syria to marry the brother and rival of her husband. The city was taken; and Tryphaana ordered her sister to be torn from the temple into which she had fled, and to be put to death. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... save by consent of Parliament or by military prowess. At the Restoration the royal prerogative was dead, and nothing in Charles II.'s reign tended to diminish the power of Parliament in favour of the throne. Charles was an astute monarch who did not wish to be sent on his travels again, and consequently took care not to outrage the nation by any attempt upon the liberties of Parliament. Only by the Tudor method of using Parliament as the instrument ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... will instruct you, be assured of that, What discipline and what obedience be! He sent me words, at least, of other pitch Than this astute idea of liberty You have rehearsed here like a boy ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Even such an astute man of the world as Lord Crawford she makes her devoted slave, ready at any moment to place his purse and services at her disposal, to the extent of breaking the news of her marriage to the Duke, her brother, and begging for his approval and favour; ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... will now believe with me that in all misfortunes there is an element of luck, for your father has committed an act of imprudence which will yet cost him dear. It is very strange that so astute a man as the Duke de Champdoce should have allowed his passion to ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... Papineau, and had the insurrection been successful, both French and English would by this time have been subjected to their control, and M. Papineau would have found that he had only been a tool in the hands of the more astute and ambitious Americans. Such is my conviction: but this is certain, that whatever may have been the result of the former insurrection, or whatever may be the result of any future one (for the troubles are not yet over), the English in Upper Canada ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... necessary to recollect that we are not dealing with the phenomenon of the inability of very astute literary people to recognise at once a startling new sort of beauty. When Robert Browning lent the best poems of Keats to Mrs. Carlyle, she read them and returned them with the remark that "almost any young gentleman with a sweet tooth might be expected to write such things." Mrs. Carlyle ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... power of argument, and cogency of appeal, testified to us the great things of the kingdom of God, so far as he had learned them out of the Holy Scripture. Very instructive and affecting it was, when, as sometimes, the aspiring philosopher, the uncompromising logician, the astute economist, the grave and learned dogmatist, renounced these and all other accomplishments of nature, or rather made them subservient to the greater accomplishments of grace. Then we admired, even to tears of thankfulness, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... most astute, most deadly enemy could not see was that subtle message of understanding that passed at once between Marguerite and the man she loved; it was a magnetic current, intangible, invisible to all save to her and to him. She was prepared to see him, prepared ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... tasselled Hessian top- boots. And on one occasion at least he gave proof of a certain dexterity of conduct which deserved to be remembered. He went out of bounds, and a master, riding by and seeing him on the other side of a field, tied his horse to a gate, and ran after him. The astute youth outran the master, fetched a circle, reached the gate, jumped on to the horse's back and rode off. For this he was very properly chastised; but, of what use was chastisement? No whipping, however severe, could have eradicated ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... The more astute of the Douglas delegates were struck with the dismay of a new revelation. Their cause was lost—their party was gone. Senator Pugh, of Ohio, resented the dictation of the advocates of slavery in a warmth of just indignation. He thanked God that at last a bold and honest ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... resolved to make an attempt to liberate that Vice-Royalty. Colonel Miller, whose promotion after the affair of Cancha Rayadu had been rapid, was sent with a small but active force to land at Arica and operate in the Southern Provinces, where by astute strategy and several brilliant successes he confirmed his high reputation. San Martin soon after followed with the main army, escorted by the Chilian squadron under command of Lord Cochran; in running down the coast, he took in Colonel Miller with his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... later a moving cloud of dust marked their progress down the trail in the direction of Rocky Springs. Presently, however, the dust subsided. The astute riders of the plains were giving no chances away; they had left the tell-tale trail and rode on over the grass at ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... will thrust him into a pauper's grave, and another will fill his place. Even negro-slavery was more noble than this: it was to the master's interest that the slave should be well fed. Capital was shrewd, selfish, experienced, astute, strong: labor was kept in ignorance lest it might learn its worth, its rights; it was half-starved that it might be weak; it was driven from pillar to post with a more cruel than slave-driver's whip, that it might never be able ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... how to take you. Most of it treats you as though you were a two-dollar a day laborer; some of the more astute are puzzled. One February I walked out of the North Country on snowshoes and stepped directly into a Canadian Pacific transcontinental train. I was clad in fur cap, vivid blanket coat, corded trousers, German stockings and moccasins; and ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... the Confederate privateers to ravage the ocean was the "Shenandoah," originally an English merchant-vessel engaged in the East India trade. She was large, fast, and strongly built; and the astute agent of the Confederacy knew, when he saw her lying in a Liverpool dock, that she was just calculated for a privateer. She was purchased by private parties, and set sail, carrying a large stock of coal and provisions, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... instincts of the middle-class from which he came; and the penury, the hack work which Cronshaw did to keep body and soul together, the monotony of existence between the slovenly attic and the cafe table, jarred with his respectability. Cronshaw was astute enough to know that the young man disapproved of him, and he attacked his philistinism with an irony which was sometimes playful ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... one of those dignified, astute, tall, gray-bearded, and keen-eyed men, whom we find in the picture galleries of the middle ages, dressed in a suit of stately black, with the golden chain of his order, and riband of the Fleece, "I was very ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... entrees (unaware of the powerful passport to favour which she possessed), she found it difficult to account for the eagerness with which the ordinarily unapproachable Marie greeted the appearance and courted the society of the astute Duchess; nor did she for an instant dream that by facilitating the intercourse between them, she was undermining the fortunes of a brother whom ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... work and charges for twenty, then John and some other backers support the transaction. Billy buys land to a heavy extent, and refuses to build on it; houses are risky property, and Billy can wait. An astute company meet at William's house and take supper in luxurious Roman style; then James casually suggests that the east end of the town is a disgrace to the council. Until the block of houses in Blank Street is pulled down and a broad road is run ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... over the Continent. The one desire of France was the concentration of power, that there might be safety abroad and order at home. To ensure this, more was required than the genius of even the most vigorous and astute ministers in the world. Neither Richelieu, who was a bishop, nor Mazarin, who was a foreigner, could be identified with the State. What was wanted had been wanting in France for half a century—the personality of the king, monarchy personified, with as much splendour, as much authority, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... and thinking that she did not understand! She made the mental observation that all men were natural born liars, and most guilty when they appeared to be most innocent. "Character," indeed! Did they think to blind her to the true situation of things? Oh, astute woman! ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... was a slight wisp of a fellow, scarcely above middle height, with a lean, astute countenance, prominent of nose and cheek-bones, and with lank, black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. His mouth was long, thin-lipped, and humorous. He was only just redeemed from ugliness by the splendour of a pair of ever-questing, luminous eyes, so dark as to be ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... running brooks,' because they are so used to seeing merely sermons in books and only stones in running brooks. Sir Philip Sidney had a saying, 'Look in thy heart and write;' Massillon explained his astute knowledge of the human heart by saying, 'I learned it by studying myself;' Byron says of John Locke that 'all his knowledge of the human understanding was derived from studying his own mind.' Since multiform nature is all about us, originality ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... seventeen years old, slight in figure, and certainly a person that you would not pass without making some commendatory remark upon her good looks and modest appearance. She was not, however, what she appeared; she was beyond measure cunning and astute, and, as it proved, inordinately ambitious. My father, who was naturally of an amorous disposition, was attracted by her, and very soon was constantly in the dairy, and his attentions were so marked, that the other servants used to call her 'my lady.' A few months after my father ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... the peace of his mind, cruelly tortured by the coming scandal, he was kept busy day and night with plans for his retirement—for he had come to that grim conclusion. To go on seeing all those people who had known him as a 'long-headed chap,' an astute adviser—after that—no! The fastidiousness and pride which was so strangely, so inextricably blended in him with possessive obtuseness, revolted against the thought. He would retire, live privately, go on buying pictures, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... reverence for the powers that be. They were instrumental in holding the untrained passions of the common herd in check, by a wholesome fear of summary vengeance from the gods, so that this pageantry of magic, the outward priestly show, was more of a politic development than a spiritual necessity, an astute but, philosophical method of enabling the educated few to govern the uneducated many. And it was only when the educational and initiatory rites of the temple became corrupt, and the priest became the persecuting ally of the king—when, ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... words sounded in Poussin's ears, Frenhof er drew a green serge covering over his "Catherine" with the sober deliberation of a jeweler who locks his drawers when he suspects his visitors to be expert thieves. He gave the two painters a profoundly astute glance that expressed to the full his suspicions, and his contempt for them, saw them out of his studio with impetuous haste and in silence, until from the threshold of his house he bade them "Good-by, ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... been concerned in the assassination of my father, he had dreaded my aunt's penetration beyond all things. Their relations had been formal, with an undercurrent of enmity on her part which had assuredly not escaped a man so astute as he. If he were guilty, would he not have feared that my aunt would have confided her thoughts to me on her death-bed? The attitude that he should assume towards me, at and after our first interview, would be a proof, complete in proportion to its suddenness, and he must ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... two later, when rumors of threatened violence began to trickle in over the telephone wires, a Tribune man called, in passing, at the general offices in the Coosa Building, and was promptly put to sleep by the astute Dyckman, who, for reasons of his own, was quite willing to conceal the true state of affairs. Yes, there was a suspension of active operations at Gordonia, and he believed there had been some hot-headed talk among the miners. But there would be no trouble. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... is hardly to be imagined that he would keep the matter dark because, if he mentioned it, people would think Dandolo acted throughout from motives of personal vengeance. This would be to regard Villehardouin a- a very astute ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... deliberately exclude the previous waste of war and confiscation. She had but twenty years of commercial freedom, and, despite her brilliant success in that period, she had not time to accumulate capital to any great extent. But Grattan's Parliament had shown itself extraordinarily astute and steady of purpose in its economic policy. Had its guidance continued—conservative taxation, adroit bounties, and that close scrutiny and eager discussion of the movements of industry which stands recorded in its Journal—the manufactures of Ireland would have weathered the storm. But the ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... down before the German legation, shaking his fist at the flag and furiously impatient at Chinese slowness, the wily Chinese were engaged upon other, more important matters. Hauling down the flag could wait; it was less urgent. The astute Chinese, with admirable foresight, hastily "acquired" the German concessions in Tientsin and Hankow for themselves—acted with remarkable intelligence and great haste, almost undue haste, before any of ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... with the Khalifa in Omdurman. Osman was wily and experienced, and his counsel, had it been listened to by his chief, would have added to the difficulties of carrying the Mahdist stronghold by assault. I have some knowledge of that astute ex-slavedealer and trader's ways in the Eastern Soudan and elsewhere. He, many years ago, even condescended to honour me with his correspondence and an invitation to join the true believers, i.e., the Mahdists. I have no doubt he meant well, but the land and the dervishes were alike ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... the more astute among the people had certainly thought for a while that the cannon was a humbug, that it was useless either to royalist or to republican, in fact, that it would never go off at all. But these sceptics were cured of their infidelity at Thouars, when they saw the ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... woman, whom you didn't invite to your picnic. Yesterday morning the incident of the cayman became known through the town. The Muse of the Civil Guard is as astute as she is malignant and she guessed that the pilot must be the bold person who threw her husband into the mudhole and who assaulted Padre Damaso. As she reads all the reports that her husband is to receive, scarcely had he got back home, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... magnitude of the canvass nothing need be said. The appeal was to the people, and the verdict was worthy of the tribunal. Upon an occasion of his own selection, with the advice and approval of his astute Secretary, soon after the members of Congress had returned to their constituents, the President quitted the executive mansion, sandwiched himself between two recognized heroes,—men whom the whole country delighted to honor,—and, with all the advantage which such company ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... embraced her Majesty again and again. The yacht lay still, and there was the most beautiful moonlight reflected on the water. The Queen and the Prince walked up and down the deck, while not they alone, but the astute statesman Aberdeen, congratulated themselves on how well this little visit had prospered, in addition to the complete success of the German tour. With the sea like a lake, and sky and sea of the deepest blue, in the early morning the yacht weighed anchor for ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... the Cobbler's stall. They soon caught the same scent which had been followed by the lawyer's clerk. They arrived at Mrs. Saunders's; there the two men would have been at fault like their predecessor. But the female was more astute. To drop the metaphor Mrs. Saunders could not stand the sharp cross-examination of one of her own sex. "That woman deceives us," said Mrs. Crane on leaving the house." They have not gone to London. What could they do there? Any man with a few stage juggling tricks can get on in country villages ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fortune took my breath away. With that sum in my hands I need fear no enemies. People are arrested in nine cases out of ten, not because the police are astute, but because they themselves run short of money; and I had here before me in the despatch-box a succession of devices and disguises that ensured my liberty. Not only so; but, as I felt with a sudden and overpowering thrill, with ten thousand pounds in my hand, I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Buckingham, indeed, was almost the only man in the Lords who said anything for Bacon, and, alone, he voted against his punishment. But considering what Buckingham was, and what he dared to do when he pleased, he was singularly cool in helping Bacon. Williams, the astute Dean of Westminster, who was to be Bacon's successor as Lord Keeper, had got his ear, and advised him not to endanger himself by trying to save delinquents. He did not. Indeed, as the inquiry went on, he began to take the high moral ground; he was shocked at the Chancellor's ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... of difficulties. After all, the Homoeans were still the strongest party in 365. They were in possession of the churches and commanded much of the Asiatic influence, and had no enmity to contend with which was not quite as bitter against the other parties. They also had astute leaders, and a doctrine which still presented attractions to the quiet men who were tired of controversy. Upon the whole, the Homoean policy was the easiest for ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... sounding lead, the gunboat then cautiously groped her way into the harbour and came to an anchor about half a mile from the beach upon which lay the four big war canoes and our apology for a boat. The sight of these not only suggested to the astute commander that at last he had got upon our track, but also confirmed his surmise as to the state of affairs ashore; and no sooner was the anchor down than he dispatched a heavily-armed boat, the officer of which was instructed to make his way instantly to the cave and investigate. The meeting ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... outstretched hand and shook it quite limply. There had been a momentary contraction of the brows while he asked himself if astute rivals might not have been tampering with this young fellow and trying to buy the firm's secrets. An instant's reflection, however, reassured him. Alban had no secrets worth the name to sell, and did he possess them, money would not buy them. "Half mad but entirely honest," was Mr. Tucker's ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... general verdict, but Dr. Weston declared that Mary Louise was not too young to give her property to the home, and then he hinted wisely of other things she might give. The astute old man was a good judge of human nature, especially human nature as exemplified by a board of women managers. He had held back the fact that Mary Louise also intended to endow the home. He was determined to have her put on the board first, and also her ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... Mahomedan life in Bombay. As the majority of the middle-class Musulmans and all the poorer class live in chals or "malas," each family occupying one or at most two rooms in a building, the passages, corridors and staircases of these human warrens become the chosen paths of those astute mendicants who disdain not, when chance offers, to turn their hand to a little quiet thieving. Even as they fare upon their rounds, you catch the welcome call of the vendor of "jaleibi malpurwa," who sells wheat-cakes fried rarely in ghi and generally in oil, and the "jaleibi" a sort of macaroni ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... and laughing loudly and awkwardly. But they were received there with icy dignity. As a rule they did not even see the widow, and even if she happened to be present she treated them with withering disdain, so that they withdrew, stammering and confused. Melanie was too astute to indulge in any compromising whims. While the front room remained obscure, save in the corner where the few townsfolk rattled their dominoes, she personally waited on the gentlemen of the divan, showing herself amiable without being free, merely venturing in moments of familiarity ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... had returned to Haddon, and though he was well satisfied, upon the whole, with the result of his mission, yet he clearly perceived the real state of affairs, and was far too astute not to make strenuous efforts ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... elaborate the stupidest scenario you ever yawned through) have called for a Scandinavian design and I have promised it, and shall paint it at Penhouet. Then, the great attraction, the tableaux vivants. That is where I lay in wait for our astute Duke. I will spare you details of nine of the tableaux. There are to be twelve, but Esperance appears only in three, which are the best. In one she represents Andromeda fastened to the rock, and Perseus ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... have thought that, if Lee were cut off from Richmond, the Army of Northern Virginia would be reduced to starvation, and become absolutely powerless. It never entered his head that the astute commander of that army had already, in anticipation of the very movement which McClellan was now making, established a second base at Staunton, and that his line of supply, in case of necessity, would not run over the open country between Richmond and Gordonsville, but ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... should treacherously deliver it into the hands of the revolutionists. Such a temptation was not to be resisted. A cunning scribe, who could imitate the handwriting of Mercurelli, made a copy of an ancient Bull of Pius VI., adapting it to the circumstances of the time. To the great confusion of the astute chancellor and his associates, the Italian ministers, the forgery was discovered, and the sage statesmen befooled in the sight of all Europe by a common felon. Nothing, however, was to be left undone that was calculated, as the conspirators conceived, to secure the election of a Pope who would ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... his intrigues has never been written. We find the persecuted and astute lad either in communication with Rome, or represented by shady adventurers as employing them to establish such communications. At one time, as has been recently discovered, a young man giving himself out as James's ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... arranged business for the morrow to their satisfaction, these astute personages, who, like their party generally in America, at that period, seemed to have acted on an entirely false estimate of the intelligence and spirit of the common people, now rose and retired to their respective ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... the ambassador's scoundrelly servant in passing himself off for a man of condition formed the point of departure for every conversation. It was discovered that there were but three persons present who had not suspected him from the first; and, by a singular paradox, the most astute of all proved to be old Mr. Bicksit, the traveler, once a visitor at Chateaurien; for he, according to report, had by a coup of diplomacy entrapped the impostor into an admission that there was no such place. However, ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... of impoverished white plebeians and black serfs; these constitute a situation out of which may be evolved country gentlemen, loud-lunged and jolly fox-hunters, militia heroes, men of boundless domestic heartiness and social grace, astute and imperious politicians, fiery orators, and, by and by, here and there, perhaps after awhile, a few amateur literary men—-but no literary class, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... it appears most probable certain," said the astute Oriental within his soul, "that inhabitants of these wilderness places have ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... States was taking form, and the slave-catchers claimed to hunt their prey through the Northern States, without regard to the rights of freemen or the law of the land. Taney had long been known as an astute and skilful lawyer, a man of ability and learning in his profession—as ability and learning are commonly gauged. He had been Attorney-General of Maryland, and in 1831 had been appointed Attorney-General of the United ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... determine the amount of the western variation of the needle. It is possible that both the Chinese and Arabs discovered the magnetic powers of the loadstone, although the latter in their long voyages may have allowed the knowledge they possessed to have been drawn from them by the astute Chinese; or, vice versa, the Arabs may have obtained the knowledge which the Chinese already possessed, and kept it secret from the western nations. We all remember the wonderful adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, as narrated in the Arabian Nights—how the ship in which he sailed was attracted ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... very far off indeed; they grew tired of him and went away,—the wife, like Lady Byron, refusing to go back to such an aimless, rhapsodizing vagabond. With her natural decision of mind, aided and encouraged, very likely, by her astute relatives, she thought she saw good reasons for breaking and setting aside the contract which had united them; and no doubt the poor woman must have felt the hardship of living with such a melancholy outlaw. Having nothing ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... this time war-correspondents were not greatly loved by the military authorities, and they were having considerable difficulty in getting near anything, and the time, Jimmy said, was coming when they would be cleared neck and crop out of Belgium. My astute sister-in-law had calculated on all this and on her own part ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... Secretary Lethington of Queen Mary's reign; played a prominent part in the various movements of his time, but gained the confidence of no party; he adhered to the party of Moray as against the extreme measures of Knox, and proved a highly astute ambassador at the English Court; he connived at Rizzio's murder, but regained Mary's favour, and when she fled to England he, though joining with the new government, acted in her interest and formed a party to restore her to power; he and Kirkcaldy of Grange were forced to surrender, however, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... The astute lawyer placed himself with his back to the window; it was the natural position of the master of the apartment; but it also gave him the advantage of seeing his companion's face in full light. Ellinor lifted her veil; it had ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... For testimony as to his life and character in the Argentine she had the evidence of Miss Jarrott, while on the subject of his business abilities—no small point with a New York business man, as she was astute enough to see—there could be no better authority than Conquest himself, who, as Stephens and Jarrott's American legal adviser, had had ample opportunity of judging. She was gratified to note that as her story ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... horse-stealing or thimble-rigging on bush race-courses, had spent the intervening time in gaol. Pinkerton, who was an American of a somewhat similar type to Cheyne, but of a more villainous nature, was an expert burglar, and a very fitting companion to the astute and well-educated Forreste, and the ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... disturbing the confidence of those on whose approval his reputation rested; and moreover he was sustained by the thought that one glance at his book would let them into its secret. In fact, so sure was he of this that he wondered the astute Harviss had cared to risk such speedy exposure. But Harviss had probably reflected that even in this reverberating age the opinions of the laboratory do not easily reach the street; and the Professor, at any rate, was not bound to offer advice ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... morning by Colonel Parker's orderly, a tough, thick-set, astute old soldier, who expounded the unwritten laws of the army for the benefit of the young Frenchman as he ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... they are the Swiss of the community; the Kruboys, and further south the Kabenda-men being the 'Paddies.' It is popularly said that while the Aku will do anything for money, the Ibo will do anything for revenge. Both races are astute in the extreme and intelligent enough to work harm. Unhappily, their talents rarely take the other direction. In former days they had faction-fights: the second eastern district witnessed the last serious disturbance in 1834. Now they ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... he found, to his horror, that these sinister manifestations were even more marked than in his club. The restored happiness of Jean was a bad sign, very ominous under the circumstances. It is true that she professed complete ignorance of their father's movements, but Andrew was too astute a lawyer to pay much attention to what people said; it was how they behaved that he went by; and Jean's conduct was suspicious. Why should she be smiling while this dark cloud hung over their reputations? The like of that looked very ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... witnesses of the scene during the shower, nor had heard it spoken of. As the majority was already informed, and well informed, too, on the matter, the acknowledged favor with which she was regarded had attracted to her side some of the most astute, as well as the least sensible, members of the court. The former, because they said with Montaigne, "How do I know?" and the latter, who said with Rabelais, "Perhaps." The greatest number had followed in the wake of the latter, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and adopt their mothers' religion, everything would be open to them. All followers of the Prophet have an equal chance, and one may be a soldier today, a bey tomorrow, and a pasha a year hence, if he be brave, or astute, or capable in any way beyond his fellows. Men like these warders would be ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... can be until the effervescence of youth and hope are over). She had accepted her position of old maid and universal benefactress, and sustained it nobly, gracefully. She was thoroughly well-bred and agreeable, very vivacious, astute, and intelligent, rather than intellectual, yet she had the capacity (had her training been different) to have been both ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... as he stood in the shadow of the deep porch. Every detail of the capture was made known to him, the whole plot laid bare, as she had heard it from the lips of the men who had borne Cuthbert ashore, and had then been so cunningly plied with heating liquor by the astute old woman that they had babbled freely of those very things that Tyrrel would fain have had held secret as the grave, at least for ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... real reason for not selling out to the astute Mr. Cohen he had kept to himself. His wife's hints concerning Scarford and her discontent in Trumet were his reasons. These were what troubled him most. He liked Trumet; he liked its quiet, easy-going atmosphere; he liked ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the matter with Judge Atkins without telling the details of the jollification, which doubtless he was astute enough to guess at. The result was that messages were sent to all the police precincts, and a detective was ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... divine Providence. The seamen and skippers of the port did not hold the same view as the owner, so they set themselves to make it very difficult for Macgregor to get a crew, and had he not been an astute man of affairs, great loss and inconvenience would have ensued. The local union was very strong, very active and intensely popular. All its official machinery was thrown into the policy of obstruction, and all its ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... severe and distant. He was so used to being frowned upon, reproved, and held at the point that he was quite blind to the change it signaled. He bent his eyes on his horse's mane. He thought of the King's words as to the kerchief and longed for a bit of his astute penetration and wonderful tact, that he might solve this provoking riddle beside him and lead up to what was beating so fiercely in his breast. In his perplexity ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... into Sandwick Bay. These whales were all beautifully cooped in the narrow inlet and stranded on the beach, when lo! the local landowners, citing some old statute, claimed from the fishermen a share of the spoil. Mr. Sinclair, indignant and astute at once, took upon himself the championship of the fishermen, and managed matters so admirably that the lords of the soil were completely worsted in the Edinburgh law-courts. Flushed with such signal success, he put the whole story into metre. A ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... "I like Venn well enough," he answered at last. "He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is clever too, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But really, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... roughly speaking, was the success of the voyage—for me; and he, I apprehended, had nothing to lose. Our intimacy matured rapidly, and before many words had been exchanged I perceived that the excellent Hermann had been making use of me. That simple and astute Teuton had been, it seems, holding me up to Falk in the light of a rival. I was young enough to be shocked at so much duplicity. "Did he tell you that in so many words?" I asked ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... fine buildings and public monuments look as if they required to have their faces washed, but Sligo buildings are fair and clean. We pass a rather nice building, suppose it a school, but we are informed it is the rent-office of the late Lord Palmerston. That astute nobleman showed his usual good sense, if it was his choice, to own lands in the sunny vales of Sligo instead of the hungry hills of Leitrim. If some have greatness thrust upon them, some in the same way inherit lands. Out of the town ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... administration. At that meeting, which took place in less than a month after Lincoln's election, or early in December, 1860, Lincoln became convinced that war was imminent between the North and the South. Mr. Weed was a very astute man, and had a wonderful knowledge of what was going on. He told Lincoln of preparations being made in the Southern States that could mean nothing less than war. It was a serious time with all of us, of course, but Lincoln took it with the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... For once, however, that astute observer was wrong. When Mrs. Demorest had reached the house she slipped into her own room, and, bolting the door, drew from her bosom a letter which SHE had picked from the cactus thorn, and read it with a flushed face and ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... been astute enough to give out that he came not to claim a crown, but only a right to be put in nomination for it. To the mind of the Londoner, such quibbling failed to commend itself, and the citizens lost no time in putting their ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... little child." A casual but close observer, who visited him on board the flag-ship in New Orleans, wrote thus: "His manners are mild and prepossessing, but there is nothing striking in his presence, and the most astute physiognomist would scarcely suspect the heroic qualities that lay concealed beneath so simple and unpretending an exterior; unless, indeed, one might chance to see him, as we did shortly afterward, just on receipt of the news from Galveston, or again on the eve of battle at Port Hudson. ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... excellent. So are the ethics of the common law of England. But the scheme of creation upon which those ethics are built! Well, it really is to me the most astonishing thing that I have seen in my short earthly pilgrimage, that so many able men, deep philosophers, astute lawyers, and clear-headed men of the world should accept such an explanation of the facts of life. In the face of their apparent concurrence my own poor little opinion would not dare to do more than lurk at the back of my soul, were it not that I take courage when ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... head signified tacit denial, and the astute Scotsman knew better than to insist. Meeting Wyndham at the gate, he ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... indulgence of his private sympathies with his public repute for loyalty. The old ladies, however, were serious obstacles to the establishment of these decorous records. They wished not only to give but to talk freely, and the more the husband wisely preached "policy" and an astute prudence, the more certainly were his cob-webs of caution torn into shreds by the trenchant ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... from the shore, had been doing in his cabin the greater part of the night. They did not believe, as the doctor intimated, that they were functionaries of the law, taking instructions for his last will and testament; though the astute surgeon had sent a note to Mr Farmer, the first-lieutenant, with what he thought infinite cunning, to know, in case of anything fatal happening immediately to the writer, whether his friend would prefer to have bequeathed to him the testator's ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... frightfully astute to think of such a thing. It's quite on the cards he will do that. He'll use every weapon ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... the young Robespierre was thorough in the end. His were the suggestions and the enterprises, the political conceptions, the military plans, the devices to obtain ways and means. It was probably his advice which was determinative in the scheme of operations finally adopted. With an astute and fertile brain, with a feverish energy and an unbounded ambition, Buonaparte must attack every problem or be wretched. Here was a most interesting one, complicated by geographical, political, naval, and military elements. That he seized it, considered it, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... absolutely his own master. Examinations are periodically held, at which he may appear or not, as he chooses. The University is a great unsympathetic machine, taking in a stream of raw-boned cartilaginous youths at one end, and turning them out at the other as learned divines, astute lawyers, and skilful medical men. Of every thousand of the raw material about six hundred emerge at the other side. The remainder are broken in ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... numbers), and the one within was credited with being assisted by the Forces. It is well said that that which passes out of one mouth passes into a hundred ears, and before dawn had become dusk all the early and astute were following the inspired hermit's example. They who conducted the lotteries, becoming suddenly aware of the burden of the hazard they incurred, thereat declared that upon the venture of Lao Ting's success there must be ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... Huguenots in his own and neighbouring provinces. It is true that he fought at Jarnac against Coligny, but the admiral had met him in the court of the Valois before these wars, and knew him to be an abbe joyeux, without prejudices, if ever there was one. The astute chronicler played his cards so well as to keep on safe terms with both sides, and it was by this diplomacy of their lord and abbot that the inhabitants of Brantome escaped the sword and the rope when Coligny and his terrible German mercenaries entered ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... lately noticed, had become "as thick as two thieves," and were much in each other's company. Some act of kindness had endeared the "infantry" to his more astute and experienced associate, who had taken him under his ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... sudden downfall and restoration of Germany in Turkish favor. With reason does the Kaiser give Ambassador von Bieberstein, "the ablest diplomat in Europe," constant access to the imperial ear, regardless of foreign-office red tape. During the heyday of the Young Turk party's power, this astute old player of the game was the dominant ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... fatto suo, e piu laudato, et estimato piu valente homo, et piu celebrato, et chi fa il contrario vien detto di esso; quel tale e una bona persona, ma non val niente? Et se ne sta cum quel titulo solo di bona persona.—Chi va bonamente vien trata da bestia." Two years after this speech the astute Florentine authorised The Prince to ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... inscrutable once more, astute and suave politician again, and passing about the table he bowed over her hand ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... an outline thick yet compact, with a round head set on a neck in which, at the first chance, prosperity would be likely to develop a red crease. His face, with its rounded surfaces, and the sanguine innocence of a complexion belied by prematurely astute black eyes, had a look of jovial cunning which Undine had formerly thought "smart" but which now struck her as merely vulgar. She felt that in the Marvell set Elmer Moffatt would have been stamped as "not a gentleman." Nevertheless something in ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... Perennis was plotting the Emperor's assassination and the elevation to the Principate of one of his two sons. This project of his, which he was furthering by astute secret machinations, had come to the knowledge of a loyal member of the Emperor's retinue. He had written of it to a brother of his, Centurion [Footnote: See Note D.] of the Thirteenth Legion, entitled "Victorious" ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... other the teaching mostly bears upon matters connected with the next. In the last-mentioned class of establishment the young people get up early and have very little material food to eat. So Mrs. Ingham-Baker wisely sent her daughter to the worldly school. This astute lady knew that girls who get up very early to attend public worship in the dim hours, and have poor meals during the day, do not as a rule make good matches. They have no time to do their hair properly, and are not urged so much thereto as to punctuality at compline, or whatever the ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... questioned ever since the story of time began. Obstacles of every nature are placed in the way of legalized inspection, and evasion and subterfuge, masterly enough to furnish a congress of diplomatists with ideas, are in daily practice. Years of experience make the inspector no less astute, and ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... wherever it was possible, for warfare. Gold still ruled in politics, but it was spent in bribery. To the ambitious military schemes of Gian Galeazzo Visconti succeeded the commercial cynicism of Cosimo de' Medici, who enslaved Florence by astute demoralization.[1] The spirit of the age was materialistic and positive. The Despots held their state by treachery, craft, and corruption. The element of force being virtually eliminated, intelligence at last gained undivided sway; and the ideal statecraft of Machiavelli was realized with ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... granted him for one year. At the end of that time the Company of One Hundred Associates was to resume the privileges of its charter. Thus it happened that, in 1633, Champlain was reappointed Governor of New France by the astute Richelieu. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... St. Mathurin. Tabary, who seems to have been very much Villon's creature, had ordered the supper in the course of the afternoon. He was a man who had had troubles in his time, and languished in the Bishop of Paris's prisons on a suspicion of picking locks; confiding, convivial, not very astute—who had copied out a whole improper romance with his own right hand. This supper-party was to be his first introduction to De Cayeux and Petit-Jehan, which was probably a matter of some concern to the poor man's muddy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... well to imitate them with caution," said the General. "He was a most intrepid and astute observer. In the bush they would not have captured him. The clearings toward the sea make the work arduous and full of danger. It is only for men of your strength and courage. Major Bartlett knows the part of the line which Colonel Binkus traversed. He will be going out that way to-morrow. ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... master smitten down by the object of that master's love and his own hatred. How he came to recognize in the bride of another man the owner of the name he so often saw hovering on the lips of his master, is a question to be answered by more astute students of the laws of perception than myself. Probably he spent much of his time at the loophole on the stairway, studying his master till he understood his every ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... is doubtful if the most inventive could have put into words. The general opinion expressed—out of Minky's hearing, of course, but to the accompaniment of deep libations of his most execrable whisky—was that, personally, that astute trader was, for some unaccountable reason, rapidly qualifying for the "bug-house," and that the only thing due from them was to display their loyalty to him by humoring him to the extent of discounting all the "dust" ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Such things are never attempted in this age of the world. Captain Dugald was far too astute to break the laws. I will tell you just how it was, as it came to my knowledge. My town house fronted immediately on Prince's Street. You know what a thoroughfare that is? My bedroom and dressing room were on the second ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... fact, philosophical thought, and of legislation as well as poetry, from being swept away by the deluge of revolution. Confucius showed his wisdom by the high value he set upon the poetry of his native land, and his name must be set side by side with that of the astute tyrant of Athens who collected the poems of Homer and preserved them as a precious heritage to the Greek world. Confucius has given us his opinion with regard to the poems of the Shi-King. No man, he says, is worth ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... the present, circumstances appear to be charged with vital and intelligent properties, working out and solving problems which have disturbed and puzzled the wisest and most astute. At such times impertinent intermeddlers abound, who claim to interpret the oracles, and who would hasten the birth of events by acting as midwife. It is impossible to dispose of or silence such people. We should be careful that we are not ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... this point Matilda's turn came and she died. All this had happened in the interval of two months since the last manor court was held. The steward of the manor claimed a heriot from Wyninge's land and another from Oberward's. But the astute Peter was equal to the occasion: he pleaded that, according to the custom of the manor, no heriot could be levied from a widow till she had survived her husband a year and a day, and he demanded that the court rolls should be searched to confirm or correct ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... development of Gaul was without doubt an effect of the Roman conquest; but an effect that neither Caesar, nor any other man of his times had foreseen or willed, but which Augustus was first to recognise in the winter of 15-14 B.C., and to which, astute man that he was, he gave heed as he ought; that is, not as due his own merit, but as an unexpected piece of good fortune. I have already said that one of the greatest cares of Augustus, as soon as the civil wars were finished, was to reorganise the finances of the Empire; that to find ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... of the shears severed the very last lock, and left me—morally speaking—as bald as a billiard ball. Henceforth I was at her mercy and would have divulged, without a scruple, the uttermost secrets of my principal, but that that astute gentleman had placed me ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... come close enough for that astute individual to make out that he wore the same uniform young Gladwin had been masquerading in and he made capital of this ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... terms of the new sovereign, praising him for allowing the Speaker to take the oaths at an unusually early hour in order to suit the convenience of members, a graceful act, which Mr. Brougham declared he hailed as a happy omen of the commencement of an auspicious reign. The astute K. C.'s object did not escape the penetrating eye of HB, who forthwith represented him as The Gheber Worshipping the Rising Sun, in whose smiling face we recognise the unmistakable lineaments of William the Fourth. The sun proved ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... ambitious statesman. From what he saw in the other camp, he may well have concluded that Najib had some far-seeing scheme on foot, which kept him from sincerely forwarding the proposed treaty. Certainly that astute Rohilla was ultimately the greatest gainer from the anxieties and sufferings of the campaign. But the first act of hostility came from the Bhao, who moved up stream to ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... and reflected with some satisfaction that they were matters on which he also had no desire to talk. His real object was to penetrate the Minister's mind in quite another direction, and he saw that this astute diplomatist had not the slightest suspicion of what he was after. This, of course, gave the tactical advantage ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... cheering. Of wild would-be Scuttlers he proves the mad craze, And of Governments prone to small-beering—small-beering. Sullen Boers may prove bores to a man of less tact, A duffer funk wiles Portuguesy—tuguesy; But Dutchmen, black potentates, all sorts, in fact, To RHODES the astute come quite easy—quite easy. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... the intelligence very shortly, and nipped in the bud her evident intention of lingering by declaring herself "busy," which that astute young person, seeing no signs ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... from Sir Francis Lennox that morning. The pink missive had apparently put her in an excellent humor, though, after reading it, she crumpled it up and threw it in the waste-paper basket, from which receptacle, Louise Renaud, her astute attendant, half an hour later extracted it, secreting it in her own pocket for private perusal at leisure. She ordered her brougham, saying she was going out on business,—and before departing, she took from her dressing-case certain bank-notes ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... depart; but knowing that if he returned spike the sixth would not wait long for its head, he at once raised the district of Rudnick, and ended the terrible war which had been begun under much less favourable auspices, by the more valiant but less astute Kara Georg. ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... of it, the literature of the day, the chatter of afternoon teas, the gossip of the hour. Before she was fifteen she saw the indiscretion of her childish frankness, and realised that it might easily be detrimental to her ambitions. She said no more of her plans for her future, and even took the astute tone of carelessly treating as a joke her vulgar little past. But no titled foreigner appeared upon the horizon without setting her small, but business-like, brain at work. Her lack of wealth and assured position made her situation ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... alliance with the Pope. The pressure desirable for this purpose could now be supplied by means of the very danger with which the Papacy was threatened by the great German heresy, and against which Rome so sorely needed the aid of a temporal power. At the same time, Charles was far too astute to allow his regard for the Pope, and his desire for the unity of the Church, to entangle his policy in measures for which his own power was inadequate, or by which his authority might be shaken, and possibly destroyed. ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... by Popova, was carried away to the secret police of Morovenia, said to be the most astute in the world. They were instructed to watch all trains and guard the frontier and, as soon as they had their prisoner safely put away in the lower dungeon of the municipal prison, they were to notify the Governor-General, who ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... market-place; the echo in the cathedral to which the gaping tripper listens with astonishment leaves me unmoved; and in the church of Santa Catalina, which contains the last work of Murillo, upon which he was engaged at his death, I am more interested in the tall stout priest, unctuous and astute, who shows me his treasure, than in the picture itself. I am relieved now and again to visit a place that has no obvious claims on my admiration; it throws me back on the peculiarities of the people, on the stray incidents of the street, on ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... our astute and accomplished friend is worth a page or two. And first, as to his color. Asirvadam comes from the northern provinces, and calls the snow-turbaned Himalayas cousin; consequently his complexion is the brightest among Brahmins. By some who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... lacking. Here is a new party, which is to make its second appeal to the people. Where its strength will lay, whom it will select to be the standard-bearer of its radical platform, these are questions that baffle the most astute observers. ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... I ask him more about my foster-cousin Manetho? Egyptians are more astute than affectionate. Would he cleave to my poor uncle for these last eighteen years merely for love? Why did he transfer that money so soon after we sailed? Ten to one, he has in his own hands the future as well as the present disposal ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... another in his black satin ascot. He was one of the grand old bluffers of those good old days. As gullible as a schoolboy, he had managed, with his sharp eye and knowing air and twisted blond mustaches, to pass himself off for an astute financier, and the Denver papers respectfully referred to him as ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... side; and, after having been confined for a few weeks, he could go to Paris for a few months, and then return, as if the Graftons had never crossed his eye, rid of a troublesome mistress and a troublesome friend. His position was certainly a good one; but Sir Lucius was astute, and he determined to turn this Shumla of his Grace. The quarrel must have been about her Ladyship. Who could assign any other cause for it? And the Duke must now be weak with loss of blood and anxiety, and totally unable to resist any appeal, particularly a personal ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... determined to make his own will felt in the choice of Ministers and the direction of affairs, had succeeded his grandfather in 1760. Too {35} astute to violate the fast-bound tradition of the British constitution that he must govern only through Ministers, he saw that to have his own way he must secure political servants who, while acting as Cabinet Ministers, should ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
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