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More "Keenness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... weighed little with me. The diffidence born of inexperience and of strangeness to London and the Court was wearing away; the desire for another's arm to lean on and another's eyes to see with gave way before a young man's pride in his own arm's strength and the keenness of his own vision. There was sport afoot; aye, for me in those days all things were sport, even the high disputes of Churches or of Kingdoms. We look at the world through our own glasses; little as it recks of us, it is to ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... confession of truth, as it should seem, that this imitation of masters—indeed, almost all imitation which implies a more regular and progressive method of attaining the ends of painting—has ever been particularly inveighed against with great keenness, both by ancient ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... small bull-dog was as good as a large one. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; for, in proportion to his size, he has strength: and your argument would prove, that a good bull-dog may be as small as a mouse.' It was amazing how he entered with perspicuity and keenness upon every thing that occurred in conversation. Most men, whom I know, would no more think of discussing a question about a bull-dog, than of ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Alvarez were walking up and down, but not together, on the sunny side of the court-yard. It was the only spot, they declared, in the whole island where they could be sheltered from the biting keenness of the wind, and feel any of the warmth to which they were accustomed in their own country. Both were anxious to hear whether a son or daughter was born to the lady of the mansion. Pedro Alvarez was certainly the ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... into it. And what can be a more monstrous anachronism than to turn a flat-headed savage into a clever, self-conscious, argumentative utilitarian of the eighteenth century; working the social problem out in his flat head with a keenness, a consistency, a grasp of first principles, that would have entitled him to a chair in the institute of moral sciences, and entering the social union with the calm and reasonable deliberation of a great statesman taking a critical step in policy? Aristotle was wiser ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... our time, but I never heard one to be compared with him in grasp, subtlety and agility. He could examine and cross-examine with consummate dexterity. In arguing points of law he had the tenacity of a bull-dog and the keenness of a sleuth-hound. He always fortified himself with a plethora of "cases." The table in front of him groaned with a weight of law. Here as elsewhere he was "thorough." An eminent jurisprudist once remarked to me, "there is little gleaning to be ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... repellant. The Northland gives a keenness and zest to the blood which cannot be obtained in warmer climes. Naturally so, then, the friendship which sprang up between Corliss and Frona was anything but languid. They met often under her father's roof-tree, and went many places together. ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... not narrow, it takes in every phase of training that is essential to produce a well developed and useful life. It touches and tints industrial training with a brighter and richer glow. It quickens the faculties of the mind, adds keenness to the power of perception, forms permanent habits of industry and strengthens the will ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... America needs such men. Heaven only knows where they are to rise from, when the call is made! I do not mean to disparage mercantile pursuits; they afford constant opportunities for the exercise and display of keenness and clearness of intellect, but do not require the peculiar gifts so essential in statesmen. Indolence is unpardonable in any avocation, and I would be commended to the industrious, energetic merchant, in preference to superficial, so- called, 'professional men.' But Eugene had rare educational ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... explaining the orders and then leaving us to our own devices by departing for the rest of the day to the wagon lines on the pretext that he had a birthday to celebrate. He had many of them. This plan was much to our liking, and tremendous keenness was displayed by all. Great pains were taken to carry out everything to the letter, and the signallers also carried out their part with equal spirit. The gun detachments at this time rose to a high pitch of proficiency ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... particularly of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... up seventeen sins, and yet usury is none of them; but many preachers can not reckon up seven deadly sins, except they make usury one of them." Filmer followed Fenton not only through his theology, but through his political economy, with such relentless keenness that the old doctrine seems to have been then and there practically worried out of existence, so far ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... his looks were not of a kind at once to tickle the fancy of such as she. Yet Dante looked at her curiously, though without ostentation, as one whose way it is instinctively to observe all men and all women with an exceeding keenness and clearness ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Piers and Lady Feversham set out, for their home in Norfolk. No sign of annoyance was shown from the parsonage, except that Arthur was not at home when the wedding took place; and that Lysken, whom Lucrece graciously requested to be one of her bridesmaids, declined, with a quiet keenness of manner which any one but Lucrece ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... keenness of his ecclesiastical training, guessed the intensity of the evil produced by Luna. But for the moment his egoism was stronger than his reflection. Let them talk—what did it matter? It was only a little ebullition of pride in those people, nothing more. All ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... quiescent, than when it is in motion. In any great trouble, any terrible suspense, look at our sleepless nights! We lie, and toss, and turn; and say, When will the night be gone? In the day we can partially shake it off, walking hither and thither; the keenness of the anguish ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... slangy little chap who took so familiar an attitude toward him—this was the judge's "ministerial" friend! Yet, had there not been mention of "ritualistic work" and "Early Christians" in his conversation? And this woman of whom he spoke,—it took no great keenness of perception to see that the "strawberry blonde" must be the "child of six or eight years" whom he had called "Daisy," and sometimes "Strawberry!" Here was confirmation of Alvord's suspicion, if his allusion to the violation of an "obligation" expressed suspicion. Here ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... have not lost their steadiness nor his eyes their keenness," said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered forehead of ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in fact anxious, to forget the part it took in connection with the rebellion-losses legislation, and to win that support in French Canada without which it could not expect to obtain office. The ablest man in its councils was already John Alexander Macdonald, whose political sagacity and keenness to seize political advantages for the advancement of his party, were giving him the lead among the Conservatives. The Liberals had shown signs of disintegration ever since the formation of the "Clear Grits," whose most conspicuous members were Peter ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... wondered things which all her sisterhood have long ached over, she saw Osborn looking at the black-haired woman too, and in his eyes there was a light of admiration, a keenness, a speculation which drew the tired lines from his face and left it eager once more. It was the male look which once he had looked only for her. With a heart beating sharply she recognised and wanted it again, but she felt strangely impotent. She in her dyed gown, her gamin of a hat, with her ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... the fashion of the times, in red kirtle and cloak, and armed as yet only with a gilded helmet, surmounted with a pair of hawk's wings, and a sword girt to his side. His face, though regular and handsome, would have been rather too grave and reserved but for the keenness of his eyes, and a very pleasant smile which at times lit up his ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... the critic, whom I intimately knew—and I believe he meant little harm! His friends imagined even that this was the solitary attempt at wit he had ever made in his life; for after a lapse of years, he would still recur to it as an evidence of the felicity of his fancy, and the keenness of his satire. The truth is, he was a physician, whose name is prefixed as the editor to a great medical compilation, and who never pretended that he had any taste for poetry. His great art of poetical criticism was always, as Pope expresses a character, "to dwell in decencies;" ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... not high descended, Nor was born of noble lineage, Yet have I a sword of keenness, Gleaming brightly in the battle. 280 This is surely high descended, And has come of noble lineage, For the blade was forged by Hiisi And by Jumala 'twas polished, Thus am I so high descended. And I come of noblest lineage, With my sword so keenly sharpened ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... may also have been above normal. In the same way Nietzsche, in his writings, shows a marked sensibility, and especially antipathy, as regards odors, which has by some been regarded as an index to a real physical sensibility of abnormal keenness; according to Moebius, however, there was no reason for supposing this to be the case.[46] Huysmans, who throughout his books reveals a very intense preoccupation with the exact shades of many kinds of sensory impressions, and an apparently abnormally keen sensibility ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... made. She spoke of her own youth, of historic flirtations in the early twenties, of great beaux she had known, and of famous recipes that had been handed down for generations. Everywhere he felt her wonderful keenness of perception, that intuitive understanding of men and manners which had kept her for so long the reigning ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... how to read at all. She said, in reply, that this might do for men, but that women were far more conscientious, and, if they were once compelled to vote, they would wish to know what they were voting for. This seemed to me to contain the whole philosophy of the matter; and I respected the keenness of her suggestion, though it led ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... complain that we are not as big as elephants, as swift as stags, as light as birds, as strong as bulls; that the skins of seals are stronger, of hinds prettier, of bears thicker, of beavers softer than ours; that dogs excel us in delicacy of scent, eagles in keenness of sight, crows in length of days, and many beasts in ease of swimming. And although nature itself does not allow some qualities, as for example strength and swiftness, to be combined in the same person, yet they call it a monstrous thing that men are not compounded of different and inconsistent ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... his captive, who glared at him with bloodshot eyes that glittered in the moonlight. He tested the keenness of his blade, shook back his shaggy hair, and with a sudden twist removed the gag from the old man's jaws, choking back, at the same moment, with pitiless hands, the cry which rose to his lips. Then he bent over, so that the bulk of ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... are dominant in the wild creatures that are necessary for the survival of the species—strength, speed, sharpness of eye and ear, keenness of scent; all wait upon ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... revived all the young painter's fears; he colored as he looked at Adelaide's mother, but he saw nothing in her countenance but the expression of the frankest good-nature; no double meaning marred its charm; its keenness was not perifidious, its humor seemed kindly, and no trace of remorse disturbed ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... scarcely to have been the subject of serious impressions before her seventeenth year. Until that time she enjoyed the pleasures of the world with few misgivings and with a keenness of relish which led her to think herself, as she says, "the happiest creature on earth." She adds, "I so far surpassed my friends in gayety and mirth, that some of them were apprehensive I had but a short time to continue in my career of folly, and should be suddenly cut off. ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... memoirs afford us the harshest and most repulsive views of Napoleon's character that we have yet seen. His affectionate consort was undoubtedly discerning, and used her keenness of perception with proper diligence to discover all her husband's faults. We have never shared in the excessive and extraordinary admiration with which the character of this man-hater and earth-spoiler is regarded in this land of liberty; but it ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... remaining portion being the joint fabrication of his friends Wilson and Lockhart.[39] This singular production produced a sensation in the capital unequalled in the history of any other literary performance; and though, from the evident personalities and the keenness of the satire, it had to be cancelled, so that a copy in the pages of the magazine is now a rarity, it sufficiently attained the purpose of directing public attention to the newly-established periodical. The "Chaldee Manuscript" appeared in the seventh number of Blackwood's Magazine, published ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... show what's in his hand," said "Peachy," when the moment for prayer arrived. "Peachy" was not unfamiliar with religious services, and had, with unusual keenness of observation, noted that when a man undertook to pray he must, if he be true, reveal the soul ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... design was in some way to compare what remained of the two apples—although I do not presume to fathom the depths of your detective system. Still, I have heard of many of your cases, and profoundly admire the keenness you exhibit. I am thought to be a keen man myself, but, although I was able, to some extent, to hold my own to-night, I admit that your acumen in this case alone ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... gift of second sight, which, according to the testimony of my old nurse, had belonged to several of my ancestors, had been in my case transformed in kind without losing its nature, transferring its abode from the sight to the hearing, whence resulted its keenness, and my fear ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... permanent. The average patient's poor memory is made worse by his agitation and attention to it, and his conviction that he cannot remember. The fear of forgetting often wastes mental energy which might otherwise provide keenness of memory. If the nurse ties up some pleasant association with the things she wants the sick man to remember, and disregards his painful effort to recall other things, then—unless the mind is disordered—he will often find normal memory ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... friends who know all about each other, aren't we, Mr. Robert Carruthers?" and in her gay answer to that Mr. Buzz I detected a challenge as her eyes of blue flowers in snow looked into mine with the keenness of a knife, to detect if I had yet been told aught of her by my Uncle. And in the answering look of friendliness I gave her was concealed also a knife of great keenness, which came from a brain with which I hoped to do to ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... muscular creature with four legs, the whole previous existence of which had depended upon its agility, or the subtle, slow, snake, which moves under ordinary circumstances not very much faster than a clammy worm? As I watched with all possible keenness a grey blur followed by bewildering wrigglings and contortions indicated a new manoeuvre. Then instead of two reptiles at right angles, there appeared to be but one, and with a tail at each end. The head of the lizard was in the jaws of the death-adder. The fatal quickness of the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... is foaming with his Wrath, in Mar. 12.43. The unclean Spirit seeks rest, and finds none. But we give rest unto the Devil, by wrath one against another. If we would lay aside all fierceness, and keenness, in the disputes which the Devil has raised among us; and if we would use to one another none but the soft Answers, which turn away wrath: I should hope that we might light upon such Counsels, as would quickly Extricate us out of ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... scenes of Germantown and Monmouth,—the reduction of the forts at Verplanck's Ferry, and the forays led against New Bedford and the Vineyard,—all these familiarized him with the bloody fruits of civil strife. But they never blunted for one moment the keenness of his humanity, or warped those sentiments of refinement and liberality that always distinguished him. Within the limited range of his narrow sphere, he was constantly found the friend and reliever of the wounded or captive Americans, and the protector and benefactor of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... XV., which marked the keenness of his wit and the elevation of his sentiments, were quoted with pleasure ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... alluded to him as a companion, suitable to preach to the Colored people. Dr. Rush, allowing for his illiteracy—for he could not read—pronounced him the greatest orator in America. He was small in stature and very black; but he had eyes of remarkable brilliancy and keenness; and singular readiness and aptness of speech. He travelled extensively with Asbury, Coke, and Whiteworth. He afterward travelled through New England. He excelled all the whites in popularity as a preacher; sharing with them in their public services, not only in Colored but also ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Thank you very much." He turned away, but again he paused. "You would be doing me a very great favour, madam," he said, "if Mr. ——" He checked himself and looked at her with sudden keenness. "Do you happen to know ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... before the sufferer; his caresses excited no distrust, for they arose purely from the feeling which leads a mother to kiss her wounded child; a desire to demonstrate in every possible way the truth of his feelings, and the keenness of his wish to pour balm into the lacerated mind of the unfortunate. As Evadne regained her composure, his manner became even gay; he sported with the idea of her poverty. Something told him that it was not its real evils that ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... for a moment on these texts. We are all—as I said earlier on—involved in work belonging to our place and station; we are tied to some degree in the bonds of action. But that fact need not imprison our inner minds. While acting even with keenness and energy along the external and necessary path before us, it is perfectly possible to hold the mind free and untied—so that the RESULT of our action (which of course is not ours to command) shall remain indifferent and incapable of unduly affecting us. Similarly, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... acknowledged of infinite wit and most excellent fancy; one who gave peculiar grace to the jest, and could set the table in a roar with flashes of merriment: but wit and humour were not his only excellencies; he possessed a keenness of satire, that made Folly hide her head in the highest places, and Vice tremble in the bosoms of the great: but now, blessed with that affluence which genius and prudence are sure to acquire in England, ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... godsend to the neighborhood, Dr. Bowdler saw. Untrained people enjoy a sickness with more keenness and hearty good-feeling than you do the opera. The Doctor had providently brought a flask of brandy in his pocket. He went on tiptoe up the creaking stairs and gave it to Jane. She was standing, holding the handle of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... this, his building is a town, His pond an ocean, his parterre a down: Who but must laugh, the master when he sees, A puny insect, shivering at a breeze! Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around! The whole a labour'd quarry above ground; 110 Two Cupids squirt before: a lake behind Improves the keenness of the northern wind. His gardens next your admiration call, On every side you look, behold the wall! No pleasing intricacies intervene, No artful wildness to perplex the scene; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... listen. Where her opinions and sentiments tallied with mine, it was her extreme good sense, her exquisite taste and feeling, that delighted me; where they differed, it was still her uncompromising boldness in the avowal or defence of that difference, her earnestness and keenness, that piqued my fancy: and even when she angered me by her unkind words or looks, and her uncharitable conclusions respecting me, it only made me the more dissatisfied with myself for having so unfavourably impressed her, and the more desirous to vindicate my character ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... called, and the young man came with his little black colley, to which, as soon as he had conversed with the guide, he said something in Erse. The dog set off in a sneaking sort of manner up the hill, and, when he showed any degree of keenness, we hastened to follow, lest he should set up the birds; but the lad advised us 'to be canny, as it was time eneuch when Lud came back to tell.' In a short space Lud made his appearance on a knoll, and sat down, and the shepherd ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... Courtier eyed the 'facts' with such suspicion, the keenness of everyone about the business struck him as really splendid. They went at it with a will. Having looked forward to it for months, they were going to look back on it for months. It was evidently a religious ceremony, summing up most high feelings; and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... buildings or alterations of any sort, and as the rooms assigned to us were in no way suitable for our use, it was evident that his generous support must be regarded as only a temporary and passing assistance. We perceived the evil of our situation in all its keenness, but we saw no way out ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... his advances with an ominous scream, and Hitty hurried into the house to give him to the servant's charge, while she returned to the sitting-room, where the old man had seated himself in the rocking-chair, and was taking a mental inventory of the goods and chattels with a momentary keenness in his look that no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... origin from the Esquimaux of Labrador, for they nearly resemble that people. They are short, and somewhat corpulent; and have broad faces, flat noses, thick lips, black hair, and a yellowish tawny complexion. The keenness of the wind and the glare of the snow, render them subject to painful disorders in the eyes: they are also afflicted with many diseases, which tend to render them short lived. They are a quiet, orderly, and good-humoured people; but of a cold, phlegmatic, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... impulsive Emilia the good lady was far more merciful. With all Aunt Jane's formidable keenness, she was a little apt to be disarmed by youth and beauty, and had no very stern retributions except for those past middle age. Emilia especially charmed her while she repelled. There was no getting beyond ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... circle of their neighborhood, this sort of mental dualism witnessed with remarkable frequency, though generally regarded as anomalous and unaccountable, rather than the result of an organic law. In some, the morbid element, without affecting the keenness of the intellect, is more active, intruding itself on all occasions, characterizing the ways and manners, the demeanor and deportment. Under the influence of peculiarly adverse circumstances, they are liable to lose occasionally the unsteady balance between the antagonistic forces ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... she had taken dead children from frenzied women's arms. Just as the Butterfly Man had shown the country folks to Laurence, so now Madame showed them both the mill folks, the poor folks, the foreigners in a small town disdainful of them; and she did it with the added keenness of her woman's eyes and the diviner kindness ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... seventeenth century, and throughout the eighteenth there was a gradual progress toward religious liberalism. The population steadily increased, and New England's unremitting struggle with a not too friendly soil, her hardihood upon the seas, and her keenness in trade, became proverbial throughout the country. Her seaport towns were wealthy. The general standards of living remained frugal, but extreme poverty was rare. Her people still made, as in the earliest days of the ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... never met anyone who impressed me so much with a sense of GREATNESS as Professor Sebastian. And this was not due to his scientific eminence alone: the man's strength and keenness struck me quite as forcibly as his vast attainments. When he first came to St. Nathaniel's Hospital, an eager, fiery-eyed physiologist, well past the prime of life, and began to preach with all the electric ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... lead to any refinement of the senses of touch, hearing or smell, but to a greater keenness in the interpretation of the information furnished by these senses. Diderot says, "the help which our senses reciprocally afford to each other, hinders their improvement," and so the person in possession of all the senses regards the blind man as a marvel of intelligence and skill, ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... place himself on the judgment-seat with a touch of his old confidence, and to sentence poor authors with sufficient airs of infallibility. Sometimes, indeed, the reflection that he is representing not an invariable tradition but the last new aesthetic doctrine, seems even to give additional keenness to his opinions and to suggest no doubts of his infallibility. And yet there is a change in his position. He admits, or at any rate is logically bound to admit, the code which he administers requires modification in different times and places. The old critic spoke like ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... that I MUST be stopped, come what will. To know that I am no match for this individual energy and keenness, or this organised and steady system! Come across the street, here, and, entering by a little shop and yard, examine these intricate passages and doors, contrived for escape, flapping and counter- flapping, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... reader adds to this sketch, even in the winter time, occasional tourists under the Procuratie, at the caffe, and in the shops, where the shop-keepers are devouring them with the keenness of an appetite unsated by the hordes of summer visitors. I hope that the reader also groups me fishermen, gondoliers, beggars, and loutish boys about the base of St. Mark's, and at the feet of the three flag-staffs before the church; that he passes me ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... God," "The Insight of Love," "Salvation for the Lost Condition," "The Bad Mind makes a Bad Element," and "The Wrath of the Lamb," which illustrate so well the union in Dr. Bushnell's mind of practical sagacity and force of thought with keenness and reach of spiritual vision, that we select them from the rest as particularly worthy of the reader's attention. Indeed, to have written these discourses is to have done the work of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... up his bent shoulders, and pushed back a lock of gray hair and stared about, shaking, bewildered. The ringing voice, the word that had flashed as if out of a larger atmosphere—the place was yet full of these, and the shock of it added a keenness to his misery. His figure swung sideways; he fell on the cushions of the sofa and his arms stretched across them, his gray head lying heedless; sobs that tore roots came painfully; it was the last depth. Out of it, without ...
— The Lifted Bandage • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... however, incapable of avenging myself if I have been offended, or if my honour demanded I should resent an insult put upon me; on the contrary, I feel clear that duty would so well discharge the office of hatred in me that I should follow my revenge with even greater keenness than ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... the edge of his bunk, produced the captured knife, and commenced to sharpen it slowly, without ostentation, on the sole of his shoe. It was already of a razor keenness. It was a carving knife evidently stolen from the galley of the ship; it had been ground so often that the steel which remained was thin and narrow. A sharp blow with that knife would drive it to the handle through human flesh. As he passed it slowly ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... practices already received. His observations upon diseases of cattle and upon horsemanship were doubtless based on experimental knowledge; for he was a rare and ardent sportsman, and possessed all a sportsman's keenness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... who proverbially embodied in himself this quality of wisdom. "The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord searching out the innermost parts." The allusion is clearly to intellectual powers. There is in man the same quality of mental keenness that searches into things as is in God. It is often dulled, gripped by a sort of stupor, so overlaid you would hardly guess it was there. But, too, as we all know, it often shines out with a startling brilliance. ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... was a very mournful consolation, for in every thought and act of the whole work, the memory of Marian was so intimately woven, that her loss was felt with double keenness. Every effort was doubly difficult; every obstacle was doubly great; every discouragement doubly hopeless, because she was not there with her very presence inspiring hope and energy—and every success was robbed of its joy, because ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... who a year before had driven the pink car, in this serious young professional clad in the Mercury's racing gray and bearing the Mercury's silver insignia on his shoulder. The bend of his mouth was firmer, his dark-blue eyes had acquired the steady, all-embracing keenness of Gerard's—the gaze of all those men with whom the inopportune flicker of an eyelid may mean destruction. He was clothed with his virile youth as with a radiant garment, as he ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... due to the fact that when the poem was composed, about 1150, the power of the Moor had really been broken by the conquests of Ferdinand I, Alphonso VI, Alphonso VII and Alphonso VIII of Castile and alphonso I, the Battler, of Aragon. The menace was no longer felt with the keenness of an hundred years before. until the end of the tenth century the Moors had dominated the Peninsula. The growth of the Christian states from the heroic nucleus in northern Asturias was confined to the territory bordering the Bay of Biscay, Asturias, ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... When he reached his twelfth year, his father bought him a rifle; and he soon became a crack shot. A year later we find him setting off on the autumn hunt—after driving the cattle in for the winter-with all the keenness and courage of a man twice his thirteen years. His rifle enabled him to return with meat for the family and skins to be traded in Philadelphia. When he was fourteen his brother Sam married Sarah Day, ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... results, of no very brilliant or original character, yet of sterling value and importance. The other may conduct to startling paradox, to applauded subtleties, to bold and novel speculations, but baseless, transient, treacherous. It evidently requires something more than intellectual keenness; it requires the virtue of forbearance, and a temperate spirit, to adhere to sober rectitude of thought, and eschew the temptations that a daring and self-willed philosophy displays. Such is the lesson which these "follies of the wise" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... for which he seemed providentially set apart. But beneath these arguments, which rise Alp on Alp, there lurked a quiet perception of humor, and the reductio ad absurdum, which he occasionally drives home, showed the keenness of Puritan wit. How he must have smiled, nay even laughed, in the midst of his abstractions at that[E] metaphysical animal which illustrates the absurdity of his opponents. When 'The Freedom of the Will' was finished, and the author had ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... the forges rang to the making of sword-blades, many smiths had essayed to imitate the falchions of Damascus, their trenchant keenness and their wondrous golden inlaying. But numerous as were the attempts made to recapture the ancient secret of the East, they all signally failed, and brought about the ruin of many masters ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... looked into each other for a moment, singularly alike in a certain intent expression, developed into great keenness in the man, but showing as yet only an extreme wide-awakeness in the boy. Cyrus Woodbridge had an engagement with a young friend in half an hour, but ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... momentous political question could be fairly discussed. Those who held uncourtly opinions could express those opinions without resorting to illegal expedients and employing the agency of desperate men. The consequence was that the dispute was carried on, though with sufficient keenness, yet, on the whole, with a decency which would have been thought extraordinary in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... might be wrong, and built up whole theories of character upon them. New to the London world, she entered it with an independent, indomitable spirit of her own; and judged of contemporaries, and especially spied out arrogance or affectation, with extraordinary keenness of vision. She was angry with her favorites if their conduct or conversation fell below her ideal. Often she seemed to me to be judging the London folk prematurely: but perhaps the city is rather angry at being judged. I fancied an austere little Joan of Arc marching in upon ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but its keenness the party did not mind. They were only glad that it remained favorable to their line of travel. They swept down the frozen river at a speed not slower than ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... inferiors I, of course, needed a large share, and it was never wanting. Towering as was his intellectual strength and keenness above me, indeed above the whole of the rest of the members of the Board, he did not condescend to me. The result was never humiliating. It had no pain of any sort in it. He was too spontaneous and liberal with his consideration to ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... creates a supposition that his Greek was inferior to his Latin scholarship. It is not always easy to distinguish humour from wit; of the two, the former seems the higher quality. Wit is verbal, conversant with language, combining keenness and terseness of expression with a keen perception of resemblances or differences; humour has, comparatively speaking, little to do with language, and is of different kinds, varying with the class of composition in which it ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... been pronounced by the most unimpassioned of historians to have been "the common enemy of mankind." A severe reckoning was afterwards exacted for the indignity, which was felt by the Parthians with all the keenness wherewith Orientals are wont to regard any infringement of the sanctity of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... Nicholls, Mark decided not to take the decree of banishment from London without remonstrance. He was not astonished at the result of the talk against him. That his one great enemy should have poisoned the wells so easily was not very surprising. He could not help knowing that the very keenness and ardour of his friends had produced prejudice against him. There was, among the religious circles in London, a perhaps healthy suspicion of hero worship for popular preachers, and of any indiscreet zeal. The great ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... the elegance of literary style, tenderness of spirit and keenness of observation. He excels in ironical sketches. He has often been compared to Eugene Sue, but his touch is lighter than Sue's, and his humor less unctuous. Most of his little sketches, originally written for La Vie Parisienne, were collected in his 'Monsieur et Madame Cardinal' (1873); and 'Les ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... retorts, the conversation becomes as lively as it is interesting, and this husband, a very superior man, is quite astonished to discover the wit of his wife, in other respects, an accomplished woman; the right word occurs to her with wonderful readiness; her tact and keenness enable her to meet an innuendo with charming originality. She is no longer the same woman. She notices the effect she produces upon her husband, and both to avenge herself for his neglect and to win his admiration for the lover from whom she has received, so to speak, the treasures of her ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... had elected to play Diamond first and fourth, was restrained at the outset by the fact that she was handling a priceless pony. But, with the opening of the third chukkur, increasing self-confidence, coupled with the pace and keenness of Bathurst's 'Unlimited Loo,' fired her venturesome spirit: and she flung herself heart and soul into the intoxication of the game; half hoping that some sudden crash and fall might solve the problem of her life by the simple expedient of ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... often that a school examination acquires a political significance, but it was so in this case. There were more than 1,000 Maori spectators present—men who had fought on opposite sides in the recent battle of Kororareka. The orderliness of the proceedings, and the delightful atmosphere of keenness and pleasure which pervaded the scene, drew all parties together and served to weld ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... know and will take you back again," Mr. Hahn said, "Good-by," and Edwin was left behind to begin again the kind of life that had been so hard and bitter. The kindnesses shown him during the summer and the greater keenness of his judgment and understanding made the renewal of past cruelties even harder to bear ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... annexing it, for he was treasurer. "We'll have a hefty brew. You'd pretty average cool cheek, Turkey, to jaw about our keenness an' punctuality." ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... cousin stood close to his elbow, pausing a moment on the bend of her foot till the obstructing object should have been removed. She looked right into his face with liquid, untranslatable eyes, that combined, or seemed to him to combine, keenness with tenderness, and mystery with both, their expression, as well as that of her lips, taking its life from some words just spoken to a companion, and being carried on into his face quite unconsciously. She no more ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... nearer, stealthily. He had learned the craft of the woods years ago, and made no sound. He stalked that grove with the keenness of a deerslayer, moving around through the undergrowth until he was quite near the rocks. He could hear no voices as yet, but something told him that they must be there. It was a very secluded spot; it would have been a pity to have had to go on to the house ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... ward off the guilt and sting of a slothful and bad conversation, from covering the face of his conscience, by retaining in his profession the name of Jesus Christ: for naming and professing of the name of Christ will, instead of salving such a conscience, put venom, sting, and keenness into those nettles and thorns, that then shall be spread over the face of such consciences. This will be worse than was that cold wet cloth that Hazael took and spread over the face of Benhadad, that he died. (2 Kings 8:15) This will sting worse, tear worse, torment worse, kill worse. Therefore ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... is attained by the myriad lessons in nicety of balance and of aim that only practice can give. The danger of the inverse procedure, judging of self by what one observes in others, if it is carried on with much impartiality and keenness of discernment, is that it has a laming effect, enfeebling the energies of indignation and scorn, which are the proper scourges of wrong-doing and meanness, and which should continually feed the wholesome restraining ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... their probing keenness, smiled back. 'You mayn't look like one, but you are one, with your millions,' she said. 'And I believe Helen might think of taking you. She has had plenty of time to outgrow youthful dreams. She's tired. She ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... bliss, and the clean boards of the deck turn to the stage of a play that amuses, the personal drama of the voyage, the movement and interaction, in the strong sea-light, of figures that end by representing something—something moreover of which the interest is never, even in its keenness, too great to suffer you to slumber. I at any rate dozed to excess, stretched on my rug with a French novel, and when I opened my eyes I generally saw Jasper Nettlepoint pass with the young woman confided to his mother's care on his arm. Somehow at these moments, ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... original essays on the most interesting subjects of the time, religious, or political; in which the titles of the books or pamphlets prefixed furnish only the name and occasion of the disquisition. I do not arraign the keenness, or asperity of its damnatory style, in and for itself, as long as the author is addressed or treated as the mere impersonation of the work then under trial. I have no quarrel with them on this account, as long as no personal allusions are admitted, and no re-commitment (for new trial) of ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... while," you will say, "to challenge me to a full exercise of my reason in order to set bounds to it at the very moment when it was beginning to bear the noblest fruit? Was I only to become acquainted with a higher enjoyment in order to feel with a double keenness how painful it is to be ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... intended action is such as would be ordered by the commander, were the latter present and in possession of the facts, has enough encouragement to go ahead confidently. He must possess the loyalty to carry out the plans of his superior and the keenness to recognize and to seize opportunities to further the general ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... her too, does be?" thought Pen as he marched along—and noted within himself with a fatal keenness of perception and almost an infernal mischief, that the very pains and tortures which that honest heart of Foker's was suffering gave a zest and an impetus to his own pursuit of Blanche: if pursuit might be called which had been no pursuit as yet, but mere sport and idle dallying. "She said ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... members of the exiled line. He was anything but an enthusiast, as his philosophical and religious writings, well worthy of a perusal, will show. He was the intimate friend of Fenelon, and throughout his whole life was remarkable rather for his piety and virtue, than for keenness in political dispute. ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... no variety, no escape. The bare, scantily-furnished rooms, the furniture itself, the food, the nuns' perpetual black dress, and ungraceful headgear,—Madelon hated them all, as she gradually recovered from her first desolation, and became alive again to external impressions; and, as the first keenness of her sorrow wore off, this vague sense of general unhappiness and discomfort showed itself in an attitude of opposition and defiance to every one and everything around her. From being helplessly wretched and ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... treatment requires only three weeks' time. You take one of these boluses just before each meal and one before going to bed. In about three days you become aware that your olfactories are losing that keenness of function which has enabled you to nose out old books and to determine the age thereof merely by sniffing at the binding. In a week distaste for book-hunting is exhibited, and this increases until at the end of a fortnight you are ready to burn every ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and dependent condition, with the consequent absolute right of the husband to the custody and control of the children of the union. And in all nations and classes where this state of affairs still continues, the women have as yet no clear intellectual perception of the keenness and unfairness of their suffering. They still try to console themselves with believing and allowing others to suppose that after all, things are not so bad; they might be worse. These poor women actually hypnotize themselves into ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... Wherefore I deduce that the spirit of the inhabitants must pierce through and emanate from the senseless walls like an effluvium. Who knows but that every house has its telltale aura, plain to a vision of sufficient spiritual keenness? Perhaps some one will some day write a book On the Physio-Psychological Aspect of Houses: and there will be an advance sale of at least one copy ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... with apparent stolidity, nodding his head from time to time as she spoke. The keenness of his dislike of her as a woman began to be blunted. He thought she was rather pretty, that he even liked her because she was so small, so prettily made, so ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... slime. Sea smells, strong and salty; smells of the moist and damp soil, the bitter-sweet of wetted weeds, the aromatic flavor that shell-life yields, and the smells also of rotten and decaying fish—all these were inextricably blended in the air, that was of the keenness of a frost-blight for freshness, and yet was warm with the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... always a warmish game. The rivalry between the various Houses was great, and the football cup especially was fought for with immense keenness. Also, the match was the last fixture of the season, and there was a certain feeling in the teams that if they did happen to disable a man or two, it would not matter much. The injured sportsman would not be ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... in the movements of men and in the page of history that unrolled itself before him day by day. To the discussion of things new, as readily as of things old, aided by a capacious, retentive and ready memory, which dispensed with reference to printed pages, he brought also the exquisite keenness and subtlety of his highly analytic and imaginative intellect, the illustrative stores of his vast and varied erudition, and that large infusion of common sense which preserved him from becoming at any time a mere doctrinaire, or visionary. If he did not throw himself into any of the great ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... which show Chaucer's keenness of observation, his humor, his kindness in judgment, his delight in nature. What side of human nature does he emphasize? Make a little comparison between Chaucer and Shakespeare, having in mind (1) the characters described by both poets, (2) their knowledge ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... more how infinitely your nature is above mine. And your conception of love—how lofty and unselfish it is! How could I lower it by thinking that any worldly thing could be weighed for an instant against it! And yet it was just my jealous love for you, and my keenness that you should never be the worse through me, which led me to write in that way, so I will not blame myself too much. I am really glad that the cloud came, for the sunshine is so much brighter afterwards. And I seem to know you so much better, and to see so much more deeply into your nature. ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... view of these facts, it does appear a singular coincidence, that one man or woman should have ten, twenty, thirty, or seventy cases of this rare disease following his or her footsteps with the keenness of a beagle, through the streets and lanes of a crowded city, while the scores that cross the same paths on the same errands know it only by name. It is a series of similar coincidences which has led us to consider ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... see the publishers and magazine editors, to pass upon the contracts, to follow up the negotiations already under way, and to conclude them; in short, she represented her son in all respects in his badly involved business relations. From a distance he supervised operations, with a mathematical keenness of vision, and his mother assumed the responsibility of carrying out his wishes, bringing to the contest all her qualities of vigour, clear perception and crafty dealings. Honore de Balzac did not spare her. For he estimated her endurance by his own; and no sooner was he installed ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... charge of a quick-eyed little woman of six and thirty perhaps, and she regards us with a certain keenness of scrutiny. ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... he declared that not a man faltered—that he even had to restrain their eagerness, and prevent them rushing out into the open field, to meet the charge of the cavalry. His own coolness never deserted him. He never lost sight of the whole field, in the vehement action of a part. His keenness of vision, his vigilance of watch, his promptness in opposing his best resources to the press of danger, of covering his weak points, and converting into means and modes of defence and extrication, all that was available in his ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... Allardyce and Drummond ought to be able to prevent the halves ever getting the ball out to them. The team looked on those two unknown halves as timid novices, who would lose their heads at the kick-off. As a matter of fact, the system of football teaching at Ripton was so perfect, and the keenness so great, that the second fifteen was nearly as good as the first every year. But the Wrykyn team did not know this, with the exception of Allardyce, who kept his knowledge to himself; and they arrived at Ripton ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... This, again, seems to have led him to attack St. Paul, whom he took to be responsible for dogmatic theology, and therefore for the catechism; and he cross-examines the apostle, and confronts his various accounts of the conversion with a keenness worthy of a professional lawyer. In one of the MSS. at University College the same method is applied to the gospels. Bentham was clearly not capable of anticipating Renan. From these studies he was led to the far more interesting book, published under the name of ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... There can be no aggregate of suffering among lower, any more than among higher, organisms; and the amount of pain which individual animals have to endure—even animals of those species which we can suppose to possess a certain keenness of sensibility—is probably, in the vast majority of cases, very trifling. Half the anguish of humanity proceeds from the power of looking before and after. The animal, though he may suffer from fear ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... the Caledonian are full of men drinking and bargaining with books in hand. There is no sitting-room in all the house and we follow the Cnocnangraisheag and his friend into the billiard-room, where we are promptly served standing. What keenness of business-discussion mingled with what galore of whisky there is everywhere! The whisky seems to make no more impression than if it were ginger-beer; and yet it is over-proof Talisker, as my throat and eyes find to their cost when I recklessly attempt to imitate Coignasgailean ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... matter being by no means case-hardened. A similar instance, further removed from his immediate circle, might have called forth a strong, angry denunciation; but he felt too deeply anything affecting his own family or friends to be able in the first keenness of his grief and anger ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... The keenness of his intelligence had increased with his unprecedented experience. His triumphs had given him confidence in his executive ability, and there was nothing too daring for him to contemplate. His bitter lessons in going to the verge of ruin, when he gave the fortune of his youth ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... this removal. The state of calamity to which my inexorable prosecutor had reduced me, had made the encounter even of a den of robbers a fortunate adventure. But the time that had since elapsed, had probably been sufficient to relax the keenness of the quest that was made after me. I sighed for that solitude and obscurity, that retreat from the vexations of the world and the voice even of common fame, which I had proposed to myself when ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... was one of the smaller sort, not far from the equator. Its greater distance was plain from the circumstance that Swedenborg was two days in reaching it. In this earth he very nearly fell into a quarrel with the spirits. For hearing that they possess remarkable keenness of vision, he 'compared them with eagles which fly aloft, and enjoy a clear and extensive view of objects beneath.' At this they were indignant, supposing, poor spirits, 'that he compared them to eagles as to their rapacity, ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... afternoon when you and I sat on the stoep of the schoolhouse, and talked of the Kaffirs and our future. I had about a dozen pupils then, and now I have nearly three thousand; and in place of a tin-roofed shanty and a yard, I have a whole countryside. You laughed at me for my keenness, Davie, but I've seen it justified. I was never a man of war like you, and so I had to bide at home while you and your like were straightening out the troubles. But when it was all over my job began, for I could do what you ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... Henry ranks above most of the Plantagenets. He had no favourites and let no unjust acts be imputed to him. He was stern towards the great and careful for the common people; at his first word men could tell what they had to expect from him. The French were frightened at the keenness of his expression, but they reverenced his high spirit, his bravery and truthfulness. 'He transacts all his affairs himself; he considers them well before he undertakes them; he never does anything fruitlessly. He is free from excesses, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... given a keenness to our appetites, and I have a general recollection of rye bread, Danish cake, excellent Zetland butter, Dutch cheese, luscious ham, boiled potatoes, and Greenland trout fresh from the stream. Could sailors ask for or need more? I can only say that we all felt that, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... and know How white the hidden skin must be, Though sun-kissed face and fingers show The fervour of the noon-day glow, The keenness of the sea. ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... New England was quickly discerned by so good an observer as the author proved himself to be, while his national and partisan judgments made his characterization of the Yankee to be a double-edged sword, that cut with equal keenness the Colonist and the Democrat. While he has no liking for the United States politically, he is very glad to make their enterprise and industry put to shame the slow wits of his countrymen; and the ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... improper liberties with his property, and that rather dashed the spirits of the gallants, for Barney was bold as a lion, and carried a pair of very good pistols in his belt, in addition to a bowie knife of wondrous keenness. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... could desire and wit invent,' it was astonishing how extensive an influence he had in both Houses of Parliament. 'His rank and condescension, the pleasantness of his humours and conversation, and the extravagance and keenness of his wit, unrestrained by modesty or religion, caused persons of all opinions and dispositions to be fond of his company, and to imagine that these levities and vanities would wear off with age, and that there would be ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... world—and his books of travel were uniformly interesting and successful. They do not attract to-day, not, as Park Benjamin put it, because Taylor travelled more and saw less than any other man who ever lived, but because they lack the charm of style, depth of thought, and keenness of observation which the present generation has come ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... given to the production. She can watch from the front the fulfillment of what she has only seen as intention and promise during the other rehearsals. But I am afraid that beginners now are not so keen as they used to be. The first wicked thing I did in a theater sprang from excess of keenness. I borrowed a knife from a carpenter and made a slit in the canvas to ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... feelings. As we go lower down the scale of evolution the automatic actions and relations of matter are concomitant with crude manifestations of feeling which never rise to the level of knowledge. The lower the scale of evolution the less is the keenness of feeling, till at last there comes a stage where matter-complexes do ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... brothers, she had learned a freemasonry of living, and had not the sensitiveness and introspection that troubles so many young girls. Her mother was dead, yet she and her father had been such intimate friends that she had not felt the keenness of her loss as she ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... her costumes for the coming season. It was a pleasure to her to try on these beautiful things, which she bought without any thought of the cost of them; but it was a pleasure which she had become accustomed to, and so its keenness was gone. Besides this, she had nothing to look forward to except the London season, and custom had also detracted from the zest of that. She was in the attitude of always looking beyond. Surely, with such a position and such a fortune as she had attained to, there must be something ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... a little surprised at her keenness, and rather confused. This was a question that could not ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... sudden change in her destinies, immediate as well as remote, there were moments when its pulses were deadened, and a thick, brooding, unhappy melancholy took possession of it, as she thought of what she had lost. A pang—it was that of disappointed love—from time to time made itself felt with keenness, and the morning found her restless and ill at ease. Could it ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... who marched upon Delhi. It must not be supposed that Sir Henry Barnard, in his advance to Delhi, was unopposed. Whatever the sepoys may have been in British pay, in revolt they were energetic and persevering, and, as long as they entertained any hope of success, fought with keenness; as a loyal native in Delhi described them, "they were willing to take life, and willing to give their lives away." It had been arranged, before General Anson's death, that a brigade should advance from Umballah, under General Barnard, and that General Hewett, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... telling a story, and before the sufferer knew what was about to happen. He had a most extensive practice, and "practice makes perfect." It is likely that he put more dislocated bones in place than any ten regular practitioners in his country. He was an observant man, with remarkable keenness of sight and delicacy of touch. His great success caused him to undertake risks that many surgeons would shrink from. His success as well as that of others of his class, may be accounted for on ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... sacrifice to the perfidious arts of a crafty traitor. She was beautiful, virtuous, accomplished, and affectionate; he was fraught with sensibility and love. Doubtless his heart must have deeply suffered; his behaviour denotes the keenness of his woe; his eyes are everflowing fountains of tears; his bosom the habitation of sighs; five hundred leagues hath he measured in a pilgrimage to her tomb; nightly he visits the dreary vault where she now lies ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... versus Beckford; and as Pringle was almost exactly twice as good as each of the twins taken individually, when they combined it made the sides very even, and the test matches were fought out with the most deadly keenness. ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... first class, the keen and regular player, little need be said. A keen player is a gem of purest rays serene, and when to his keenness he adds regularity and punctuality, life ceases to become the mere hollow blank that it would otherwise become, and joy ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... he replied with something complimentary. But afterwards he continued to look at me in silence with a keenness and curiosity I did not understand. At last, when M. de Rosny's impatience had reached a high pitch, the marquis seemed impelled to add something. 'You quite understand M. de Rosny?' he said. 'Without saying anything disparaging of M. de Marsac, who is, no doubt, a man of honour'—and he ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... of these lay his power, and yet in all of them it was in some fashion apparent. No great force of personality characterised him, and yet his monarchy was absolute. No splendour of intellect, no keenness of wit, no smartness of repartee were his. Only a shrewdness of understanding that was never cruel, a humour that had ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... fragrant odors and fresh or close smells. There is some evidence when we observe animals, or even primitive men, that the human race has been evolving greater sensibility to certain odors, while at the same time there has been a loss of keenness ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... continuous chain, and which run in almost a straight line from north to south. From the icy pole the wind sweeping over the frozen ocean and the snowy wastes of the northern provinces finds nowhere a hindrance to its cruel blasts, and spreads its chill over the whole land with such steady keenness as to make the climate of the exposed parts of the Black Sea coast almost as wintry as that of the White Sea. At Odessa in the early days of October both our hotel and the private houses we had occasion to enter had already put up double doors and windows, and people lived in ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... the eighteenth there was a gradual progress toward religious liberalism. The population steadily increased, and New England's unremitting struggle with a not too friendly soil, her hardihood upon the seas, and her keenness in trade, became proverbial throughout the country. Her seaport towns were wealthy. The general standards of living remained frugal, but extreme poverty was rare. Her people still made, as in the earliest days of the colonies, silent and unquestioned sacrifices for education, and her chief ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... till the reader sees not the real figures, but the enormous, grotesque shadows of them, executing wild dances on a screen. An instance of this process is described by himself in his Vision of Sudden Death. But his unworldliness and faculty of vision-seeing were not inconsistent with the keenness of judgment and the justness and delicacy of perception displayed in his Biographical Sketches of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other contemporaries: in his critical papers on Pope, Milton, Lessing, Homer and the Homeridae: his essay on Style; and ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... had seen his face. She had seen—and it was not her imagination, but a real and bitter irony—that of all the people in the room she alone had been the object of his quiet greeting. She knew then—for her eyes had not lost their keenness—that the eighteen months in which they had scarcely met had made no difference to him. He still reverenced and loved her. For him she was still "Lakshmi," the goddess of beauty and perfection; for him she was still ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... of the leading Prussian social stars Opines that War, although it makes for leanness, Not only banishes discordant jars And purifies Berlin of all uncleanness, But places her, beatified by Mars, Upon a pinnacle of mental keenness, Changing the cult of trencher and of bowl To feasts of reason and o'erflows ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... each other. What especially struck me in the youth was a kind of sweetness and innocence—perhaps what some would call "greenness"—that at home I had associated only with country boys, and not even with them latterly. The smartness and knowingness and a certain hardness or keenness of our city youths,—there was no trace of it at all in this young Cockney. But he liked American travelers better than those from his own country. They were more friendly and communicative,—were not so afraid to speak to "a fellow," and at ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... is very nicely discriminated. Beatrice, intelligent as she is, has little of reflection in her wit; but throws it off in rapid flashes whenever any object ministers a spark to her fancy. Though of the most piercing keenness and the most exquisite aptness, there is no ill-nature about it; it stings indeed, but does not poison. The offspring merely of the moment and the occasion, it catches the apprehension, but quickly slides from the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... language lived long and died slowly, and the Christian hymn-writers wrote in its decadence. It was then an instrument that has lost its fineness, and keenness, and polish—worn out and ineffective,—not the language of the men whose thoughts still charm the world, and who by its deft use gained for themselves and for their work immortality. It has little of the subtilty of expression, the variety of cadence, or the intellectual possibility, of ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... be unprepared for an event, nor taken unawares by an idea; to live, in fact, with the requirements of the masses ever in his mind, to spread the protecting wings of his thought above them, to sway them by the thunder of his voice and the keenness of his glance; seeing all the while not the details of affairs, but the great issues at stake—is not that to be something more than a mere man? Therefore the names of the great and noble fathers of nations cannot but ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... general appearance; but his Milesian face was handsome, and his eye clear and candid, with a dash of determination and fire in it. Very different, indeed, was it from the eye that was scrutinizing him at that moment, with such keenness and penetration. There are such things as antipathies; otherwise why should those two individuals entertain, almost in a moment's time, such a secret and unaccountable disrelish towards each other? Woodward did not love Alice, so that the feeling could not proceed from ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... noise the Count made in coming in and disposing of his cloak, the major-domo presently appeared. Picture to yourself a lean, dried-up cook, very tall, with a nose of extravagant dimensions, casting about him from time to time, with feverish keenness, a glance that he meant to be cautious. On seeing Andrea, whose attire bespoke considerable affluence, ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... watch the show. He found many new points of interest and much that was instructive, as he studied each act attentively and with the keenness of one who had been in the show ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... It thus became necessary to resort more generally to farming, especially to raising large fields of corn, whose golden ears could easily be converted into pork and into bread. With these two articles of food, cornbread and bacon, life could be hilarious on the frontier. Keenness of appetite supplied the want of ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... difficult, are peculiarly so when he attempts to treat of recent events. In such a case, the historian whose mind is not so warped by sympathies and antipathies as to make him utterly incompetent to his task must possess a rare impartiality of judgment and extraordinary keenness of insight, all assisted by candid and painful research. To what extent these qualities are united in Mr. Ormsby, we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... might have read and a hundred other interesting but only partly relevant things, he did the citizen of Geneva a wrong. The ulterior motive is there, and the faint taste of a thesis in the most modern manner. But the method is saved by the perception which, though it sometimes lacks the perfect keenness of complete understanding, is exquisite enough to suggest the answer to the questions it does not satisfy. Though the environment is lavish the man is ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... the bulwarks of aristocracy, and such keenness in cutting through its heavy arguments, carried him farther. Logic forced him to pass from the attack on aristocracy to the attack on slavery, just as logic forces the Confederate oligarchs of to-day to pass from the defence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... man himself Brought Death into the world; and man himself Gave keenness to his darts, quickened his pace, And multiplied destruction on mankind. First Envy, eldest born of Hell, imbrued Her hands in blood, and taught the sons of men To make a death which nature never made, And God abhorred; ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... tossed the violet letter over to Mr. Meyers without seeming to know that he did so. Then he plunged back into his absorption without seeing his henchman read rapidly through the missive, look at him once with a gem-like keenness, and again begin ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... watchfulness, the year seems to have escaped us. We know that the birds sang, that the flowers bloomed, that the grass was green, but it seems to us that we did not take our joy of them with sufficient keenness; our sweetheart came, but we did not look deep enough into her eyes. If only we live to see the wild rose again! But ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... kissed Bill good-by at the station next day with perfect good humor and no parting emotion of any particular keenness. And if he were a trifle sober he showed no sign of resentment, nor uttered any futile wishes that she ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... significance, but it was so in this case. There were more than 1,000 Maori spectators present—men who had fought on opposite sides in the recent battle of Kororareka. The orderliness of the proceedings, and the delightful atmosphere of keenness and pleasure which pervaded the scene, drew all parties together and served to weld ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... little hazy. But he never lost sight of this anchor light for more than a few moments at a time. Were the girls to get away without his discovering it he knew what to expect at the hands of his companions. Then again, Larry Goheen prided himself on his keenness. It would be very humiliating to be outwitted by the girls. He, with the rest of the boys fully believed that the girls were planning some trick for ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... trade; and the furthest I ever get in the way of confidence is to believe that I shall preach well next time. However, there may be some advantages in hearing one who is not too far away from the difficulties with which you will soon be contending yourselves; and the keenness with which I have felt these difficulties may have made me reflect, more than others to whom the path of excellence has been easier, on the means ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... change. And what we need in change is surely keenness. For instance, if one wanted to go sailing in the old days, one left London, had a bleak drive in the country, got nearer and nearer the sea, felt the cold and wet and discomfort growing on one, and after half a day or a day's gradual introduction to the thing, one ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... this exercise in shading is very tiresome, it will be well to vary it by proceeding with another at the same time. The power of shading rightly depends mainly on lightness of hand and keenness of sight; but there are other qualities required in drawing, dependent not merely on lightness, but steadiness of hand; and the eye, to be perfect in its power, must be made accurate as well as keen, and not only see ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... were walking up and down, but not together, on the sunny side of the court-yard. It was the only spot, they declared, in the whole island where they could be sheltered from the biting keenness of the wind, and feel any of the warmth to which they were accustomed in their own country. Both were anxious to hear whether a son or daughter was born to the lady of the mansion. Pedro Alvarez was certainly ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... his feet and begins to pace the room; his keenness coming back to him, his brow knitting again with ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... the sordidness of daily life. He valued this, and loved to feel himself better out here in the midst of the water and the air, where the cares of life, and life itself, always lose, the former their keenness, the ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... empire's fate. It was the grave dignity of a lost cause; striving, before being doffed forever, to leave behind a new cause. Or, if failing, to accept the lot of surrender. In either case, her chevalier de Missour-i was wearing the dear uniform for the last time. With her keenness for intuition and sympathy, Jacqueline knew. She knew what it must mean. And he looked so strong, so splendid! Her eyes unexpectedly ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the interval in bed) on a business footing. She found in him the same carelessness of the world and its obligations that there was in herself, but found it carried to the point of scorn and allied to a tenacity of purpose and a keenness of vision which she had never owned. Not a reproach escaped him—less, she thought, from generosity than because he chose to concentrate his mind on something useful. It was no use lamenting the past; it might be possible to undo it for all practical purposes. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... He was anything but an enthusiast, as his philosophical and religious writings, well worthy of a perusal, will show. He was the intimate friend of Fenelon, and throughout his whole life was remarkable rather for his piety and virtue, than for keenness in ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... he could discern the outline of his horse, with head lowered, evidently dozing. Having in mind the keenness of desert-bred stock, he watched the horse. The minutes drifted by. The horse seemed more distinct. Waring thought he could discern the picket rope. He endeavored to trace it from horse to picket. Foot by foot his eyes followed its slack outline across the ground. ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... the St. Lawrence towards the pole and to the westward; and also from the enormous chain of mountains which extend to an unknown distance through that frozen region, covered with eternal snow and frost; over which the wind in its passage acquires that piercing keenness which is felt as far as the Gulf of Mexico, but more severely in the ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... was wrapped in a long and ample robe of costly white woolen stuff, and his whole appearance would have been striking for its peculiar refinement, even if the eyes had not sparkled with such vivid and piercing keenness from under the thick brows, and if the high, smooth, slightly prominent forehead had not borne witness to the power and profundity of his mind. Melissa knew of no one with whom to compare him; he reminded Andreas of the picture of John as an old man, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hard to submit to college rules, to walk in the ranks, to live within the four walls of a room where eighty boys were sitting in silence on wooden forms each in front of his desk. His senses were developed to such perfection as gave them the most sensitive keenness, and every part of him suffered ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... endeavour of the wrestler and the runner and the player of games—all will compete, not for sordid coin and base material reward, but for the joy that shall be theirs in the development and vigour of flesh and in the development and keenness of spirit. All will be joy-smiths, and their task shall be to beat out laughter from the ringing anvil ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... gentleness of his mind, the efforts by which he clung to truth in the cruel darkness of mental disease, and the innocent gayety and light-heartedness which alternated with gloom. Like Rousseau, Cowper had, by the very reaction from sadness, a rare keenness of enjoyment. Little things were enough to feast it, and hence the most trivial matters came naturally into his verse. His poems have certainly had a varied history. Written to afford occupation to a mind on the verge of madness, linked with the slightest events of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... embarked, excepting four of the masons, who, from the beginning, mentioned that they would decline working on Sundays. It may here be noticed that throughout the whole of the operations it was observable that the men wrought, if possible, with more keenness upon the Sundays than at other times from an impression that they were engaged in a work of imperious necessity, which required every possible exertion. On returning to the floating light, after finishing the tide's work, the boats were received by the part of the ship's crew left on board ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... possessed"; but here Chloe was without the last quality. In 1868, General Grant's election pending, Chloe was affiliated with the Democratic party, and had been chosen one of the captains of its citadel, a sachem of Tammany. Scenting success for Grant, with the keenness of the vulture for his prey, he attended a Radical meeting and announced his intention to give twenty thousand dollars to the Radical election fund. This sum appears to have been the market value of a seat in the Cabinet, to which ultimately he was ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... met anyone who impressed me so much with a sense of GREATNESS as Professor Sebastian. And this was not due to his scientific eminence alone: the man's strength and keenness struck me quite as forcibly as his vast attainments. When he first came to St. Nathaniel's Hospital, an eager, fiery-eyed physiologist, well past the prime of life, and began to preach with all the electric force of his vivid personality that the one thing on earth worth a ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... these men. They hated and distrusted their old lord with a hatred he had well merited; and degraded as they had become in his service, they had not yet sunk so low but that they could feel with the keenness of instinct, rather than by any reasoning powers they possessed, that this young knight was a man to be trusted and be loved — that if they became his vassals they would receive vastly different treatment from any they had received ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... despite herself she had grown greatly to honor him. She might reason as she would that only a sense of right and a yearning for the fullness of a righteous life had made him give up his profession and fellows and turn aside to follow the harder creed of Fox, but she well knew with a woman's keenness of view that she herself had gone for something in this change; and now, as sometimes before, she reproached herself with his failures. As we came in she hastily dried her eyes and went out of the room. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... showed their keenness of vision by observing the stranger almost as soon as he descried them. He saw several of the warriors who were on foot point toward him. They seemed to expect Deerfoot to come forward, but, when he did not do so, showed no ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... quiet as a mouse upon the piano-stool, was the only one who saw these strange currents drifting dangerously about. That her own heart ached miserably did not prevent her from observing things with all her usual keenness. Ah, Nora, Nora, who have everything to give and yet give nothing, why do you play so heartless a game? Why hurt those who can no more help loving you than the earth can help whirling around the ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... wound in and out jagged peaks covered with light foliage and abrupt slopes clad with vines, we come to the sombre pine-forests, passing from one forest to another, the air blowing upon us with sudden keenness. No sooner do we emerge from these gloomy precincts than we come upon the pretty little village of Nans, smiling and glowing in a warm sunlit valley, and most enticing to us after the sombreness and ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... woman, Mollie Ainslie was not speculative. She could not solve this problem of strength and weakness. In power of thought, breadth of reasoning, and keenness of analysis she felt that he was her master; in knowledge—the power of acquiring and using scientific facts—she could but laugh at his weakness. It puzzled her. She wondered at it; but she had never sought to assign a reason for it. It remained for the learner ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... little church in Sonora for some weeks before he made himself known to me. As I learned afterward, he was weighing the young preacher in his critical balances. He had a shrewd Scotch face, in which there was a mingling of keenness, benignity, and humor. His age might be sixty, or it might be more. He was an old bachelor, and wide guesses are sometimes made as to the ages of that class of men. They may not live longer than married men, but they do not show the effects of life's wear and tear so early. He ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... most other princes would have considered as degrading, and not without a sense of amusement, the Monarch of France waited till his Life Guardsman had satisfied the keenness of a youthful appetite. It may be supposed, however, that Quentin had too much sense and prudence to put the royal patience to a long or tedious proof; and indeed he was repeatedly desirous to break off his repast ere Louis ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... proved or less probable: our happiness is never in our own hands; we inherit our constitutions; we stand buffet among friends and enemies; we may be so built as to feel a sneer or an aspersion with unusual keenness, and so circumstanced as to be unusually exposed to them; we may have nerves very sensitive to pain, and be afflicted with a disease more painful. Virtue will not help us, and it is not meant to help us. It is ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whine or snap his jaws, though he heard the Indian dogs occasionally doing so. The comradeship of a fugitive, ever on the watch for his fellow men, had made him silent and velvet-footed, and had sharpened his senses to the keenness of knives. He, too, felt the impelling force of an approaching menace in this night of stillness and mystery, and he watched closely the restless movements of his master's body, and listened with burning eyes to the name which he had spoken three times in the ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... Melinoff of old, then a sprightly enough man for his years, was no more, and it was a decrepit, stoop-shouldered, dirty and grey-bearded figure that shuffled now around the old-clothes shop, apathetic of "bargains," where before it had been a man whose keenness was matched only by the sort of eager craft and low cunning with which he had ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... disagree with him, but he smoked it because it had been presented to him a few minutes ago by the client upon whom he was in attendance. He had rather deep-set blue eyes, which might have been attractive but for a certain keenness in their outlook, which was in a sense indicative of the methods and character of the young man himself; a pale, characterless face, a straggling, sandy moustache, and an earnest, not to say convincing, manner. ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... spirit and inclination are attached to us: in other things resembling the Batavians, save that as they still breathe their original air, still possess their primitive soil, they are thence inspired with superior vigour and keenness. Amongst the people of Germany I would not reckon those who occupy the lands which are under decimation, though they be such as dwell beyond the Rhine and the Danube. By several worthless and vagabond Gauls, and such as poverty rendered daring, that region was ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... and energy were unimpaired. Of all his characteristics, however, nothing attracted my attention so much as his eyes, which were almost covered by their drooping lids, and yet looked out through the thin slits which remained with marvellous brightness and keenness. A passing glance might give the idea that he was languid and half asleep, but a closer one would reveal those glittering, shifting lines of light, and warn the prudent man not to trust too much to his ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of intense and exclusive nationality which has in the present generation arisen in so many countries and which seeks to expel all alien or heterogeneous elements, and to mould the whole national being into a single definite type. The movement has been still further strengthened by the greater keenness of trade competition. In the midst of many idle, drunken, and ignorant populations the shrewd, thrifty, and sober Jew stands conspicuous as the most successful trader. His rare power of judging, influencing, and managing men, his fertility ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... to the meet. Sitting in an open boat at 4 A.M. on a dark winter's morning, with perhaps a head wind and four miles of a choppy sea to battle against, required a considerable amount of endurance and keenness, but we did it all right. It used to strike me as an odd circumstance in those days that the Tommies who manned the boat were so pleasant over the job. They were not going to hunt. They were not out to enjoy themselves. We were. ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... were everywhere. He was in the Admiral's vessel, and although sometimes hardly able to drag himself upon deck, he would note with all his old keenness every nook and cranny in the precipitous shores, every movement of the enemy, every natural advantage which could possibly be made use of in ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... made of it. For foot-gear, two pairs of heavy yarn socks, with rubber shoes or buckskin moccasins. In hunting, "silence is gold." Go quietly, slowly and silently. Remember that the bright-eyed, sharp-eared woodfolk can see, hear and smell, with a keenness that throws our dull faculties quite in the shade. As you go lumbering and stick-breaking through the woods, you will never know how many of these quietly leave your path to right and left, allowing you to pass, while they glide away, unseen, unknown. It is easily seen that ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... flame of your soul play all about me, That into my limbs may come the keenness of fire, The life and joy of tongues of flame, And, going out from you, tightly strung and in tune, I may rouse the blear-eyed world, And pour into it the ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... himself now in the keenness of his remembered emotion: the church faded into a far horizon, he felt the slight heave of the ship and heard the creaking of the wheel as the steersman shifted his hands; from aloft came the faint slapping of the bunt lines on rigid canvas, the loose hemp ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... praise. It feeds and fattens on commendation. It constantly seeks to be highly esteemed, to have its worth properly appraised. It is immensely impressed with its own importance, its value to society, its keenness, wisdom or aptness, and wishes others to be so impressed also. It is fond of a mirror, especially one made to magnify. It seeks recognition. It presses forward, rudely or politely, according as its habitat has been trained in rude or ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... powdery white sand, and every hollow and hillock should be gay with the star convolvulus and the flaunting scarlet poppies—then Death should come, borne on winged feet, and bearing the sword of keenness, to sever the iron bonds of Andromeda chained to the rock. And here was Summer, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... taught school in St. Louis, and among other things, organized churches and lectured in Mississippi. The wide experiences of both gentlemen offered to them unusual opportunities to develop the power, keenness of insight, and knowledge of human nature so essential ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... against the hard blue sky, The peaks had winter's keenness; And, close on autumn's frost, the vales Had more than ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... property and the city's law and order, but he jumped into a hornet's nest? We managed to keep it all out of the morning paper but something is sure to creep in. Hadn't we better have a conference with the editors?" Tom was a solid quantity to be reckoned with in a stress that called for keenness of judgment ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... with the delightful audacity of the talker who is born, not made. She spoke of her own youth, of historic flirtations in the early twenties, of great beaux she had known, and of famous recipes that had been handed down for generations. Everywhere he felt her wonderful keenness of perception, that intuitive understanding of men and manners which had kept her for so long the reigning belle among her ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... act in connexion with Parliamentary Reform; but the keenness of his interest remained unabated till the day was won. On the 12th of December 1831, the Reform Bill was brought in a third time. It again passed the House of Commons, and was again threatened with destruction in the Lords. Sydney Smith wrote ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... the terrace with hurried steps, while Emily remained leaning on the balustrade in deep thought. The information she had just received excited, perhaps, more alarm than it could justify, and raised once more the conflict of contrasted interests. She had never liked Montoni. The fire and keenness of his eye, its proud exultation, its bold fierceness, its sullen watchfulness, as occasion, and even slight occasion, had called forth the latent soul, she had often observed with emotion; while from the usual expression ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... every pleasure, but almost the necessaries of life to save the sum she thought ought to be hers before sending to Ireland for a widowed mother. Just as she was on the point of doing so she heard that her mother had died fifteen months before. The keenness and persistence of her grief defy description. With a delicacy of feeling which showed the native poetry of the Irish mind, she dwelt, most of all, upon the thought that while she was working, and pinching, and dreaming of happiness with her mother, it was indeed but a dream, and that cherished ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Only that you've met things I never had to meet, met them much better, doubtless, than I should have met them. Only that you've fought in the real, while I've flitted around here on the playground." Katie's eyes contracted to keenness. "And I wonder if there isn't more dignity in fighting—yes, and losing—in the real, than just sitting around where you get nothing more unpleasant than the faint roar of the guns. To lose fighting—or not to fight! Why certainly there can be no question about it. What ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... gave him a look of such keenness that Prescott saw again the strength and penetration underlying her timid and doubtful manner. She seemed to be ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... with the finest statues of the ancient empire. The men's heads are veritable portraits, in which such details as a peculiar conformation of the skull, prominent cheekbones, deep-set eyes, sunken cheeks, or the modelling of the chin, have all been observed and reproduced with a fidelity and keenness of observation which we fail to find in such works of the earlier artists as have come down to us. These later sculptors display the same regard for truth in their treatment of animals, and their dog-headed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... was equally enthusiastic the following day. He was also glowing pleasantly in the confirmation of his own keenness of intuition. ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... passed, but the party had changed. More especially I was soon conscious that something had happened to the three Ministers. I noticed Mulross particularly, for he was my neighbour. The look of keenness and vitality had died out of him, and suddenly he seemed a rather old, rather tired man, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... renewed—what plainer symbol, yet what more historic or more mystic one can we ask than this of the lamb with the banner? While of the contrasted yet complemental civic life of fullest, broadest action, what expression like the Roman eagle—the very eyes of keenness, and the ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... our utter dependence upon Another, and living it. And this controls our touch with our fellows. In this lies the secret of all strength,—mental keenness and vigour, sympathetic touch with others, and power of action in life and in service. All this touches the weakest spot in ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... writers, and artists. Even the passionate zeal of the Reformation seemed to be subdued there. The people who inhabited the border land, mostly of the Lower Saxon strain, with a slight tinge of Slavic blood, were a tough, sturdy race, not specially graceful in social manners, but with unusual keenness of understanding and clearness of judgment. Those who lived in the capital had been glib of tongue and ready to scoff from time immemorial: all were capable of great exertions; industrious, persistent, and of ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... freshmen. For a week preceding the time of the parade the freshmen were striving by every means in their power to smuggle their canes into Winthrop so that they would all be supplied when the day of emancipation arrived, and the test of the sophomores' keenness was in being able to thwart the plans of their adversaries and prevent the entrance of the ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... other tended to foster the most delicate of all passions, more than the rough ministrations of terror and the knowledge that each was the occasion of injury. A woman's heart is peculiarly unfitted to sustain this conflict. Her sensibility gives keenness to her imagination and she magnifies every peril, and writhes beneath every sacrifice which tends to humiliate her in her own eyes. The natural pride of her sex struggles with her desire to confer happiness, and her ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... concern them so much?' Vida craned her head. 'Beside you, only one!' Borrodaile's mocking voice went on. 'Isn't this an instance of your sex's indifference to the whole thing? Isn't it equally an instance of man's keenness about public questions?' He couldn't forbear adding in a whisper, 'Even such a ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... regular movement. All about him had become alive. Vitality, like the vitality of youth upon mountain tops, pulsed and whirled about them, pouring into them the currents of a rushing glorious life, undiluted, straight from the source. In his little person he felt both the keenness of sharp steel and the vast momentum of a whole ocean. Thus he describes it. And the more clearly he uttered in his thoughts the sound given to him by his leader, the greater seemed the influx of strength and ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... aggravated by the fact that Elsa did not take to me. I did my best to be pleasant; I made her several gifts. She accepted my offerings, but was not bought by them; myself she considered dull. I had not the flow of animal spirits that appeals so strongly to children. I played with her, but her young keenness detected the cloven hoof of duty. She told me I need not play unless I liked. Cousin Elizabeth apologized for me; Elsa was gentle, but did not change her opinion. The passage of years, I reflected, would increase in me all that the child found least to her ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... born to the full power and passion of sex, and with all the delicate keenness of the feminine brain, utterly without principle or scruple, that the Cleopatras are made. For black-browed Egypt, the serpent of old Nile, can sit in a country byre, and read a letter to another woman. For Cleopatra is not history; she ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... have taken up the matter with the greatest keenness. She was evidently in dead earnest about it. Marjorie was agreeably surprised, and on the strength of this mutual confidence her old affection for her chum revived. Once more they went about the school arm in arm, sat next to each other at tea, and wrote each other private little notes. St. ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... supposed that Sir Henry Barnard, in his advance to Delhi, was unopposed. Whatever the sepoys may have been in British pay, in revolt they were energetic and persevering, and, as long as they entertained any hope of success, fought with keenness; as a loyal native in Delhi described them, "they were willing to take life, and willing to give their lives away." It had been arranged, before General Anson's death, that a brigade should advance from Umballah, under General Barnard, and that General Hewett, at Meerut, should order another brigade ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... grandfather and that proud day for Clump, the keenness with which he had felt our rudeness, and the excitement of recital were, all together, too much for our good old castellan. The erectness of his figure gave way as he concluded, the enthusiasm in his features faded into dejection, and, as he turned from the table to leave the room, ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... men are precisely those in whom it is most difficult to arouse wants, those in whom it is hardest to inspire the desire to rise out of their condition; so that man must already have gained a certain degree of comfort by his labor, before he can feel with any keenness that need of improving his condition, of perfecting his existence, which I ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... in this worthless pretender, Maria! I love you myself, and with the keenness of love I have watched you follow him with your eyes, have seen the growing warmth in your voice—all through those days on the ocean, aboard the Mauretania. I warn you—royal princesses must aim higher ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... something may belong to a thing's perfection in two ways. First, as constituting the essence thereof; thus the soul is necessary for man's perfection. Secondly, as necessary for its well-being: thus, beauty of body and keenness of perfection belong to man's perfection. Wherefore though the body does not belong in the first way to the perfection of human Happiness, yet it does in the second way. For since operation depends on a thing's ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... period to save Burgoyne; and though the passes in the highlands were acquired, they could not be retained. The British had reduced to ashes every village, and almost every house within their power; but this wanton and useless destruction served to irritate, without tending to subdue. A keenness was given to the resentment of the injured, which outlasted the contest between ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... and Latin being considered the only two subjects worth a gentleman's attention. Botany and entomology were the unofficial subjects that had won the school its name, but Ishmael soon found that to show any keenness for these two pursuits was to class yourself a prig. The robuster natures preferred rod and line, or line only, in the waters of Bolowen Pool to any dalliance with stink-pots and specimen cases. Like far greater schools, it was really run by the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... her employer pursued, with a look excusing the transient keenness of her scrutiny, "our Island air agrees with you. If you have had one poor night, all the same you're quite another girl than the one who came here—was it only four days ago? I ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... oddly for a minute, while he leaned and stroked Boise's flat forelegs, that told of speed. "Wee-ll," he hesitated, soft-heartedness battling with the horse-buyer's keenness, "since Bud is na ere to ride him, he'll make a good horse for the roundup. I'll give ye "—more battling—"a hundred and fifty dollars for him, ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... pipe-hole listening idly to the sound from below. She could hear John Coulson's low, deep voice, and Sarah Emily's loud lamentations. She wished she could act like Sarah Emily, it seemed so much more sympathetic. Her mind seemed to have become possessed of a keenness never felt before. She thought out every detail of the changed circumstances John's death must bring, forgetting nothing. It would mean that she could not leave home quite so soon, she reflected, and even wondered how Mrs. Jarvis would ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... pleasure in long expeditions with a gun, though nothing in the way of slaughter come of them. My lack of keenness at the proper moment has been the scorn and the despair of native guides and hunters. Once, in Egypt, at the inundation of the Nile, I had been rowed for miles by eager men, and had lain out an hour upon an islet among reeds, only to ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... on the hammock-rope. He was conscious only of a friendly feeling of compassion for this fair young creature, built for vigour and an active life, now condemned for months, it might be years, of weariness and pain. Whether any unconscious keenness of scrutiny crept into his eyes or not, is not known; but as Vesta Blyth looked up and met their gaze, a wave of angry crimson rushed over ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... private conversation with Margaret across the narrow table; but Margaret innocently had begun a conversation with Bud about the school, and had to be addressed by name each time before Mr. West could get her attention. Bud, with a boy's keenness, noticed her aversion, and put aside his own backwardness, entering into the contest with remarkably voluble replies. The minister, if he would be in the talk at all, was forced to join in with theirs, and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... work that requires quickness of wit and change, appeals to them more than any other. They make clever actors, barristers, and a certain class of public speakers, also diplomatists, stock brokers, company promoters, or inventors of new methods in business. In all careers that require keenness of brain, they can attain success, provided they have developed a sufficient amount of will power and continuity of purpose to stick long enough ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... to Champlain. The summer of 1628 was wearing on, and no supplies had arrived from France. It was obvious that some accident had detained the transports, and they might not arrive at all. His provisions were nearly exhausted. To subsist without a resupply was impossible. Each weary day added a new keenness to his anxiety. A winter of destitution, of starvation and death for his little colony of well on towards a hundred persons was the painful picture that now constantly haunted his mind. To avoid this catastrophe, if possible, he ordered a boat to be ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... outcome of their desire to think, feel, and act with greater delicacy, women introduced propriety in expression, finesse in analysis, keenness of esprit, psychological subtleness: qualities that surely tended to higher standards of morality, purer social relations, finer and more subtle diplomacy, more elegance and precision in literature. Therefore, preciosite in France had ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... are governed, and how the hot-bed of Mohammedan and Hindoo revolution is kept in order. Five to five were his office hours, you advocates of eight hour bills! In the rest of the twenty-four hours he was on the alert for sudden duty calls, yet he painted with me after five, with more keenness than professional ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Damaris' attitude of valour, and inwardly applauded it, although himself in woeful state. For he was hard hit, badly upset. Conscious of waste of tissue, he set about to restore it without apology or hesitation, trouble putting an edge to appetite in his case also, and that of formidable keenness. Bitterly he grieved, since bearing the patient, he feared very certainly to lose, an uncommon affection. He loved Charles Verity; while, from the worldly standpoint, his dealings with The Hard meant very much to him—made ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... legislation; an active scientific group, headed by the Pictets, De la Rive, and the botanist Auguste-Pyrame de Candolle, kept the country abreast of European thought and speculation, while the mixed nationality of the place—the blending in it of French keenness with Protestant enthusiasms and Protestant solidity—was beginning to find inimitable and characteristic expression in the stories of Toepffer. The country was governed by an aristocracy, which was not so much an aristocracy ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... position at her side, but he regarded her with an expression of respect and interest that caused Ida Mayhew, who was watching from her covert near, a sense of pain and envy that surprised her by its keenness. ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... Christians there are who so thoroughly believe God made them that they can laugh in God's name; who understand that God invented laughter and gave it to his children. Such belief would add a keenness to the zest in their enjoyment, and slay that sneering laughter of which a man grimaces to the fiends, as well as that feeble laughter in which neither heart nor intellect has a share. It would help them also to understand the depth of this miracle. The Lord of gladness ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... influences his mind rapidly developed. A retentive memory, a lively imagination, strong reasoning powers, and untiring application, soon placed him in the foremost rank among his associates. Intellectual discipline ripened his understanding, and aroused an activity of mind and a keenness of perception that were preparing him for the conflicts of ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... a certain keenness of relish for life which vanishes only too soon. There are plenty of our young men and women too, of this day, no doubt, who are as blase and wearied before they are out of their 'teens as if they were fifty. So much the sadder for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... of night-work in a mill whose atmosphere is vile with odours, humid with unhealthfulness, filled with the particles of flying cotton, a pandemonium of noise and deafening roar, so deafening that the loss of hearing is frequent and the keenness of hearing always dulled ... whether the atmosphere combined with the association of men and women whose morals or lack of morals is notorious all over the world, is good for a growing child? Is it conducive to progressive ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... will walk nowhere but on the king's highway.' In a wilderness a man should take the track which will carry him home. In a revolution we must have recourse to the highest law, the safety of the state." Another veteran Roundhead, Colonel Birch, took the same side, and argued with great force and keenness from the precedent of 1660. Seymour and his supporters were beaten in the Committee, and did not venture to divide the House on the Report. The Bill passed rapidly, and received the royal assent on the tenth day after the accession ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seems to have led him to attack St. Paul, whom he took to be responsible for dogmatic theology, and therefore for the catechism; and he cross-examines the apostle, and confronts his various accounts of the conversion with a keenness worthy of a professional lawyer. In one of the MSS. at University College the same method is applied to the gospels. Bentham was clearly not capable of anticipating Renan. From these studies he was led to the far more interesting book, published under the name of Philip Beauchamp. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... it to Aristophanes and Lucian creates a supposition that his Greek was inferior to his Latin scholarship. It is not always easy to distinguish humour from wit; of the two, the former seems the higher quality. Wit is verbal, conversant with language, combining keenness and terseness of expression with a keen perception of resemblances or differences; humour has, comparatively speaking, little to do with language, and is of different kinds, varying with the class of composition in which it ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... seemed bent on some errand, but the revellers at the fire caught her attention, and she suddenly swerved towards them, and came into the dull glow, her great black eyes shining with bewildered brilliancy and vague keenness, her long fingers reaching out with a sort of chafing motion. She did not speak till she was among them. I drew into the shade of a broken wall, and watched. She looked all round the circle, and then, without a word, took an iron crucifix which hung upon her breast, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a long speech, and the captain was near to suffocation when it was finished, but he watched her with anxious keenness as he waited for her to reply. The stern lines of her mouth relaxed slowly. A brilliant red geranium in the window glowed in the sunlight which had just reached it. The world was not all dark. The room ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... distinguished for being a rascal or a thief, an adulterer or a cut-throat, or in any shape an infamous fellow, branded him with great freedom. Upon these [models] Lucilius entirely depends, having imitated them, changing only their feet and numbers: a man of wit, of great keenness, inelegant in the composition of verse: for in this respect he was faulty; he would often, as a great feat, dictate two hundred verses in an hour, standing in the same position. As he flowed muddily, there was [always] something that one would wish to remove; he ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... two young uninvited guests with new keenness in the morning light. Molly was demure enough, though there was a lurking gleam in her dark eye which suggested rather armed truce than accepted peace. As for Madeleine, though to be serene was an actual necessity of her delicate nature, there was more than resignation in the blushing radiance ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... was over, and felt a sudden assurance in the success of his enterprise. For at first it had been a reckless determination to achieve something at any cost, and now it resolved itself into an adventure worthy of all his reason and cunning, and keenness of eye ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... well, when I set about it. He was a delightful man! I remember him with the liveliest appreciation. I was nervous and embarrassed, but in two minutes he put me at my ease. From his manner you would have supposed that my errand was as ordinary and conventional as buying a postage stamp, while his keenness, his cleverness, his professional zest were refreshing to behold. He stared at, and criticised my face, with as much impersonality as if it had been ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... nearer when Dinah Morris mounted the cart which served as a pulpit. There was a total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanour; she walked to the cart as simply as if she were going to market. There was no keenness in the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations. When Dinah spoke it was with a clear but not loud voice, and her sincere, unpremeditated eloquence held the attention of her audience ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... lightly; the weight of the back iron which is fixed on the saw will ensure the saw feeding into the work quite fast enough. If the saw is newly sharpened it will, in fact, be an advantage to slightly ease the weight of the saw from off the wood, owing to the keenness of its edge. If the halving is a very wide one, additional cuts may be sawn between the outside marks, and these will greatly facilitate the removal of the waste wood when paring it away. For sawing the joint reference may be made to the chapter ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... better than a sleepless night; I've tried both, so I ought to know. I shouldn't even wonder if he did himself more than justice to-morrow; one often does when just less than fit; it takes off that dangerous edge of over-keenness which so often ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... their improvement. The first side they played ran through them to the tune of three goals and four tries to a try, and it took all the efforts of the Head of the house to keep a spirit of pessimism from spreading in the ranks. Another frost of this sort, and the sprouting keenness of the house would be nipped in the bud. He conducted himself with much tact. Another captain might have made the fatal error of trying to stir his team up with pungent abuse. He realised what a mistake this would be. It did not need a great deal ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... what the cupidity of ordinary mankind is he well knew. He had a half dozen sovereigns and a bank-note in his pocket-book; but were he to attempt to purchase rougher clothes attention would at once be attracted to him. As the afternoon wore on hunger continued to torment him with increasing keenness. Knowing that upon the elevated ground he would be likely to find a hard-wood grove, he set out, and, after an hour's tramp, was rewarded by finding himself in a grove of beeches. He gathered nigh unto a pint of nuts which gave ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... brave. That one might expect. It was not even that he was unselfish. That also did not arouse surprise. The pride in him, I found, was chiefly due to the fact that he was so good a soldier in the sense of discipline, enthusiasm, keenness, even intelligence. It is, I believe, a well-ascertained fact that an unusually high proportion of reformatory boys and other socially doubtful men have won rewards for exceptional deeds, and every one knows the case of the man with twenty-seven convictions against him who won the V.C. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... took up his game with renewed keenness. It was a game which attracted him immensely because it called upon his imagination and held his audience spellbound, besides plunging him into ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... measure inborn traits, not achievement. Hence the results from actual measurement are very few and are confined to the sensory and sensorimotor traits. Woodworth, in summing up the results of these tests, says, "On the whole, the keenness of the senses seems to be about on a par in the various races of mankind.... If the results could be taken at their face value, they would indicate differences in intelligence between races, giving such groups as the Pygmy and Negrito a low station as compared with most of mankind. ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... as he wanders through this dreamland of the new reason that More touches the great problems which were fast opening before the modern world, problems of labour, of crime, of conscience, of government. Merely to have seen and to have examined questions such as these would prove the keenness of his intellect, but its far-reaching originality is shown in the solutions which he proposes. Amidst much that is the pure play of an exuberant fancy, much that is mere recollection of the dreams of bygone dreamers, we find again and again the most important social and ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... had captured a boy the night before and were just on the eve of sacrificing him to their idols when a policeman got track of what was going on. As some policemen passed this part of the crowd they were cheered, cheer on cheer, for their keenness and bravery in rescuing an American from such a fate. Others, who claimed to know, said it was worse even than that, for one of the policemen had confided to him that the Dahomey people were about to practice canabalism and had secured ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... men, good men, workers and idlers, all are there, and all at one in their keenness over the game. . . . Anything that puts very many different kinds of people on a common ground must promote sympathy and kindly feelings. The workman does not come away from seeing Middlesex beating Lancashire, or vice versa, with evil in his heart against the upper ten; nor the ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... life you can never pass. Into it you have brought disappointment, humiliation, and a keenness of suffering such as I never imagined I was capable of enduring; and some recompense I will have. You hope to plunge into the vortex of a great city, where you can elude observation and obliterate all traces. Do not cherish the ghost of such a delusion. Go where you may, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... raised his battle-axe, and struck from a neighbouring oak-tree a branch, wellnigh as thick as a man's arm, which (with all its twigs and leaves) rushed to the ground between De Walton and the Scotchman, giving a singular instance of the keenness of his weapon, and the strength and dexterity ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... threaten a change in the relations of Canada to the empire. But these explanations do not alter the fact that his attitude caused the Liberal party to lose touch with a movement characterized by intellectual keenness and generosity of sentiment, representing a real though ill-defined national impulse, and destined to leave its mark upon the history ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... Tennessee Alvin York had won fame as one of the best shots with both rifle and revolver that those mountains had ever held, and his imperturbability was as noted as the keenness of his sight. ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... and see and smell with all the keenness of a young animal or a savage. And that must have made his sense of being alive very much more vivid than is ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
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