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More "Shrewd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... put the money away until his granddaughter came of age. If we had that letter you would learn that was the reason of his strange trust in you. He was preparing against all contingencies. He was evidently a very shrewd man; he desired to cover all trace ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... commendable programme, despite frequent urgings to depart from it. Yet observe what pitfalls beset the path of the popular fictionist. There came a breezy, shrewd-eyed young woman of beguiling tongue who announced ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... tray of chewing gum and candy on the arm of a vacant chair beside Jack, and observed tentatively that it was fine, and that Jack must be going fishing. Jack confessed that such was his intention, and the vender of things-you-never-want made a shrewd ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... the form in which we make them involve very grave fallacies, the realization of which will shortly become essential to the wise direction of this country's policy. If our policy, in other words, is to be shrewd and enlightened, we must realize just how both the views of international relationship that I have indicated ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the monarch turned was Bishop Brask. It appears that there had been some dispute between the bishop and one of the hospitals in his diocese as to the tithes from certain lands. The shrewd monarch conceived the notion that the simplest mode of settling the dispute was to hand the disputed property over to the crown. He wrote, therefore, to both parties to send him at once the original documents on which they based their claims. "And meantime," he said, "we forbid you positively to ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... out laughing in such a hearty fashion that it set them off too, as I remarked, "Ah, John, I had a shrewd idea that there was something more behind your anxiety than the fact that ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... one shrewd dowager, "that Oliphant would make a catch with that daughter of his. He has done it, evidently. This boy will be worth five or ten thousand a year, ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... they might better remain on their thrones, even though the powers remaining to them were merely nominal, and accept the titles, honors and generous pensions which the Dutch offered them, than to resist and be ruthlessly crushed. In pursuance of this shrewd policy, every province in the Indies has as its nominal head a native puppet ruler, known as a regent, usually a member of the house which reigned in that particular territory before the white man came. Though ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... to his own tastes and manners. She died young, leaving a son and three daughters, of whom the noble Margaret Roper most resembled More himself. His second wife was Alice Middleton, a widow, some seven years older than More, not beautiful—for he characterized her as "NEC BELLA, NEC PUELLA"—but a shrewd worldly woman, not by any means disposed to sacrifice comfort and good cheer for considerations such as those which so powerfully influenced the mind ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... emerged from the crowd in January, 1901. A young lawyer named J.C. Smuts, who had received his legal education in England, and whom Delarey entrusted with a command, soon showed, and not for the first time, that a shrewd, resourceful, energetic and determined civilian was, at least in guerilla, more than a match for ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... And here my books—my life—absorb me whole. Here too I visit, or to smile, or weep, The winding theatre's majestic sweep; The grave or gay colloquial scene recruits My spirits spent in Learning's long pursuits. 30 Whether some Senior shrewd, or spendthrift heir, Wooer, or soldier, now unarm'd, be there, Or some coif'd brooder o'er a ten years' cause Thunder the Norman gibb'rish of the laws. The lacquey, there, oft dupes the wary sire, And, artful, speeds th'enamour'd son's desire. There, virgins oft, unconscious what they ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... first to disembarrass himself. "A tolerably shrewd night, Monsieur," he said with ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... keep them waiting. Although Rapp lacked that power of appealing to the imagination which has survived Napoleon's death with such astounding vitality that it moves men's minds to-day as surely as it did a hundred years ago, he was shrewd enough to make use of his master's methods when such would seem to serve his purpose. He was not going to creep into Dantzig like a whipped ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... had told him that men were sometimes stricken with a strange fever of the wilderness, when the seduction of the uninhabited wastes caught them so fiercely that they went forth, half fascinated, half deluded, to their death. And he had a shrewd idea that his companion held something in sympathy with that queer type. He led the conversation on to other topics, on to Hank and the doctor, for instance, and the natural rivalry as to who should get ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... active part in extirpating their idolatrous belief. From his accounts, it seems they were much addicted to fortune-telling. Their gods were made to give out oracles and their temples became renowned just in proportion as their priests were shrewd in ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... great party, that of privilege, divided into two factions, labelled Whig and Tory, or Liberal and Conservative. Both do much the same things in office. The mimic warfare which they wage with each other, no shrewd observer takes seriously. It is merely a pleasant game of which the stakes are the spoils of office and patronage. An 'organised hypocrisy' is but a mild description of an English Government, whether Liberal or Conservative. The Liberal and the Conservative are the two thieves ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... Israel, conceived it his duty to "make a note" of sundry young members of his flock who had met for a drive and a supper, with a dance fringed upon the outskirts. The fame thereof being noised abroad, a sturdy old farmer, with a good deal of shrewd sense and mother-wit in his brains, and a fine, indirect way of hitting the nail on the head with a side-stroke, was questioned in a neighboring village as to the facts of the case. "Yes," he said, surlily, "the young ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... A shrewd old gipsy, seeing him evidently on the search for some one, assured him before he had asked any questions, that she had seen those whom he was ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... the certificate on the table as he spoke, and for a moment Maxwell sat staring at it, speechless. He knew Hubbard—a rich, shrewd financier, and no leader of forlorn-hopes. If Hubbard was in the thing the thing was all right. But a hat-pin! Maxwell looked at the certificate and thought of the hat-pin, and reviewed the Harrington of the past two ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... a tall and splendid man, a 'black Celt' from Merionethshire, with coal-black hair, and eyes deeply sunken and lined, with fatigue or ill health. Beside him, his comrade, Philip Cuningham, had the air of a shrewd clerk or man of business—with his light alertness of frame, his reddish hair, and sharp, small features. A pleasant, serviceable ability was stamped on Cuningham's whole aspect; while Watson's large, lounging way, and dishevelled or romantic good looks suggested yet another perennial type—the ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the wretch who, while he layed Snares for another, wrought his proper doom; And turn we to the damsel he betrayed, Who had nigh found at once her death and tomb. She, after rising from the rock, dismayed At her shrewd fall, and gazing through the gloom, Beheld and passed that inner door, which gave Entrance to other and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... The shrewd Lincoln took notice of the qualifying clause, "if my men are equal to the emergency," and sighed a little. Already this general, so bold in design and so great in preparation was making excuses for possible failure ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... profiteer by this astonishing discovery, the owner of the ground where the slabs were found clung tenaciously to his holding until he had forced the price up to the incredible figure of 100 dollars. He sold with the joyous satisfaction of a man making a shrewd deal. ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... development the conquest of the Greeks brought to Rome the religion, art, paintings, and philosophy of the conquered. The Romans were shrewd and acute in the appreciation of all which they had found that was good in the Greeks. From the time of this contact there was a constant and continued adoption of Grecian models in Rome. The first Roman writers, Fabius ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... When a shrewd but genial editor called me up on the telephone and asked me how I should like to write an article on the above lurid title, I laughed in his—I ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... letters. Thrums had a high respect for the school-master; but among themselves the weavers agreed that, even if he did write to the Government, Lizzie Harrison, the post-mistress, would refuse to transmit the letter. The more shrewd ones among us kept friends with both parties; for, unless you could write "writ-hand," you could not compose a letter without the school-master's assistance; and, unless Lizzie was so courteous as to send ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... he learn?" Villa Kennan asked. "If he is shrewd enough not to fight you, and merely sits and listens to your English law, it will be no more than a huge joke to him. He will no more than pay the price of listening to a lecture for any atrocity ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... remembered with joy that once I had thrashed him soundly at the prep school for bullying a smaller boy; but our score from school-days was not without tallies on his side. He was easily the better scholar—I grant him that; and he was shrewd and plausible. You never quite knew the extent of his powers and resources, and he had, I always maintained, the most amazing good luck,—as witness the fact that John Marshall Glenarm had taken a friendly interest in him. It was wholly like my grandfather, who was a man of ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... was a spare, bony old fellow, in leathern jacket and calzoneros (breeches), with a keen, shrewd eye, that took in our situation at a single glance, and saved the Frenchman a great deal of explanation. Notwithstanding the cordiality with which his friend received him, I noticed that Raoul seemed uneasy about something as he glanced around the room; for the rancho, a small cane structure, ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... it is well to possess one's soul in patience. A more unbusinesslike set of people is hard to be found, yet in driving a bargain they are remarkably shrewd, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... things," which had been the butt of her shrewd old father, had brought upon Anne a customary air of half-readiness, so that going in suddenly, she might be found with her bonnet on and her handkerchief on the table, but one perceived she was still in her petticoat, and was making ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... the doctor who attended to the needs of the people of Mount Pleasant and the surrounding district. Fortunately he was at home. Lucy looked at him closely as he entered the room and took his seat. He was a middle-aged man with a shrewd face, and she at once felt that she ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... remarkable man, Dr. Thomas Cooper, replete with all sorts of knowledge, a living encyclopaedia,—"Multum ille et terris jactatus et alto"—good-tempered, joyous, and of a kindly disposition. There was Judge Nott, who brought into the social circle the keen, shrewd, and flashing intellect which distinguished him on the bench. There was Abram Blanding, a man of affairs, very eminent in his profession of the law, and of most interesting conversation. There was Professor Robert Henry, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... despised war, and the trade of war, in his heart. To him war showed only in its vulgar, practical, and repulsive features; the soldier was a man who got paid for the {167} trade of killing. Walpole might be likened to a shrewd and sensible steward who is sincerely anxious to manage his master's estate with order and economy, and who, for that very reason, is willing to indulge his master's vices and to sanction his prodigalities ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... they had reached the object of their wishes. Tupia's death, indeed, cannot be said to be owing wholy to the unwholesome air of Batavia; the long want of a Vegetable Diet, which he had all his life before been used to, had brought upon him all the Disorders attending a Sea life. He was a shrewd, sensible, ingenious man, but proud and obstinate, which often made his situation on board both disagreeable to himself and those about him, and tended much to promote the diseases which put a Period to his Life.* (* It is rather ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... Johnson's saying that smoking had gone out, said: "The taste for smoking, however, has revived, probably from the military habits of Europe during the French wars; but instead of the sober sedentary pipe, the ambulatory cigar is chiefly used." Croker's shrewd suggestion was probably not far wide of the truth. It is quite likely, if not highly probable, that the revival of smoking in the shape of the cigar was directly connected with the experiences of British officers in Spain and Portugal ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... evils we have enumerated. Publicity, pitiless publicity, alone can lead to redress. These large- scale, impersonal sins must not be so nonchalantly tolerated; instead of applauding and envying the shrewd financier who rakes in unearned profits by clever manipulation, by unscrupulous use of inside information, and disregard of the welfare of workers, competitors, and public, we must brand him as a selfish scoundrel, turn him ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... please," said Chip, "I do not see that the mere finding of this paper in Fotheringham's trunk should fasten suspicion on him. If he was shrewd enough to capture the money, he would certainly not leave such damaging evidence as this paper would be. It seems to me that it would be a very plausible theory to advance, that the real robbers placed this in his trunk to direct suspicion against him. In fact, it was the first thing ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... decorum; and what so likely as that such a woman had been deceived in the past? He said to himself, in a mood of the bitterest cynicism: 'The suspicious discreet woman who imagines dark and evil things of all her fellow-creatures is far too shrewd to be deluded by man: trusting beings like Elfride are the women ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... into the dark, shrewd and thin countenance of the little one with a smile of recognition. It was Inez, the little flower-girl, whom she had so fortunately pulled out of ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... activity which he enjoyed. And the enjoyment, which she felt, increased her sense of her own value. Conversation ran easily between them. He discovered, what he had already half suspected, that, though not strictly intellectual—often another name for boring—she was far more than merely shrewd. But her mentality seemed to him hard as bronze. And as bronze reflects the light, her mentality seemed to reflect all the cold lights in her nature. But he forgot the stagnant town, the bald-headed man ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Du Puys, vaguely wondering why the Chevalier wished to see him. His shrewd glance traveled from the Chevalier to Victor, and he saw that ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... freedom." A graduate of Yale, he became a multi-millionaire in the American insurance industry, introducing brilliant innovations within that industry. He also, unlike a few composers, found the time and the money (being a shrewd and practical businessman) to ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... own hand which hangs on the wall of the Collegio dell' arti del Cambio in Perugia, the walls of which are covered with immortal frescoes by him. It is a broad, bluff, open face, with abundance of brain-development, with plenty of shrewd intelligence, and not a little of strong volition—the presentation of a strong, highly-gifted and thoroughly self-radiant character, but the last face in the world to have belonged to a man accustomed to sacrifice much to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... present manners and opinions, and apparently so impossible, naturally gave rise to objections; and your brother put many shrewd and pertinent questions, which would have silenced a mind less informed and less comprehensive than that ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Every common, academic conception of such a monk he distinctly negatived. He impressed me, instead, as possessing the ultimate qualities of clever diplomacy—the subtle ambassador of some new Oriental power, shrewd, suave, accomplished. ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... January, "An arrowy and acceptable preacher in the prime of his manhood while his bow abode in strength. Genial critic, shrewd diviner of motive, and ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... return. They did not believe her, although they would have been only too glad to do so. And so, when it was known that he had returned, there was a general sigh of relief: there were many who almost believed that their fears had been baseless, and that the Jeannins were much too shrewd not to get out of a hole by admitting that they had fallen into it. The banker's attitude confirmed that impression. Now that he no longer had any doubt as to what he must do, he seemed to be weary, but quite calm. He chatted quietly to a few friends whom he met in the ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... only function in the story was to say that one man saved another man's life. The boy, now a man in middle life, read Hugo's masterpiece a third time. Story and description were now secondary in interest, but the author's deep insight into human nature, his brilliant style and shrewd, kindly philosophy held the old reader more closely than had anything before. So will it be with many of the books in the list. If we are to make friends, let us meet them as early as we can, see them as often as we can, and cling to them as ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... She was shrewd enough to see that the best way to capture Alce was to make herself as unlike her sister as possible. With him she was like a little soft cat, languid and sleek, or else delicately playful. She appealed to his protecting ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... Ahasuerus to be shrewd in all respects save one. For he desires trivialities. A wise man knows that woman are the sauce and not the meat of life; Ahasuerus, therefore, is not wise. And in consequence I do not lack a handsome bribe for this ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... analytical observer to determine the actualities of her loveliness. Her form was disguised by the droop of exhaustion. Her complexion showed the pallor of sorrowful vigils. Her face was no more than a mask of misery. Yet, the shrewd observer, if a lover of beauty, might have found much for delight, even despite the concealment imposed by her present condition. Thus, the stormy glory of her dark hair, great masses that ran a riot of shining ripples and waves. And the straight line of the nose, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... did not come, either that day or the next, and on the morning of the next, which was Saturday, feigning some trivial errand to Mrs. Leah, she went herself to Rose Hill, casting anxious glances towards the windows of his room to see if he were in sight. Dame Leah was a shrewd old woman, and readily guessing that Eugenia's visit was prompted from a desire to see her master, rather than herself, she determined to tantalize her by saying nothing of him unless she were questioned. Continually hoping he would appear, Eugenia lingered until there was no longer a shadow ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... as I believe with the object of diverting and amusing me, for she was a shrewd old soul who knew how important it was that I should be kept in an equable frame of mind at this ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... sky, of a uniform grey, has appeared to be brewing a storm. In spite of the threatened downpour, my neighbour, who is a shrewd weather-prophet, has come out of the cypress-tree and begun to renew her web at the regular hour. Her forecast is correct: it will be a fine night. See, the steaming-pan of the clouds splits open; and, through the apertures, the moon peeps, inquisitively. I too, lantern ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... captains ship their own crews on board the ship, and do away with the system of advances. But, at any rate, do learn to treat the sailor as if he were not altogether a fool. He has sense, plenty of it, shrewd, strong, common sense, and more real gentlemanly feeling than we on shore generally suppose, a good deal of faith, and certain standing principles of sea-morality. But at the same time he has prejudices ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... of sharp bargains and shrewd trading, like Matthew, felt His pull upon their hearts equally with men of pure heart and lofty ideals like Nathanael. By special effort, for a special purpose He drew high-bred, high-strung, scholarly, intense Paul, out of his mad enmity into ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... at the street door Evans stopped again. "Or, I'll tell you what. Make it a simple study of Barker's mind—a sort of psychological interview, and then with what I've been able to get from him we can present the impression that Boston makes upon a young, fresh, shrewd mind. That would be something rather new, wouldn't it? Come! the Afternoon would make it worth your while. And then you could work ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... historical background in so far as it is set in the time of Haraldr the Hard-ruler, King of Norway (1046-66), and Sveinn lfsson, King of Denmark (1047-76), when the two countries were at war (c. 1062- 64). Both monarchs are depicted as generous, magnanimous men, but Audunn was shrewd enough to see which would give the greater reward for his precious bear. For all his generosity, King Haraldr was known to be ruthless and grasping. What the writer had in mind may have been a character-comparison of the two kings and the description of "one of the luckiest of men", about ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... and raised his hat. At the first sight of his face Miss Palliser had a shrewd idea of the cause and ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... am something of a prophet, and I repeat it, you will witness it. . . . Do you know the result of this revolution, for all of you, so long as you remain here?'—'Ah!' exclaims Condorcet with his shrewd, simple air and smile, 'let us see, a philosopher is not sorry to encounter a prophet.'—'You, Monsieur de Condorcet, will expire stretched on the floor of a dungeon; you will die of the poison you ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and twisting the ends of his small, black, waxed moustache. The second was Purvis, the publican, owner of the chief beer-shop, and well known as the local bookmaker. He was a coarse, clean-shaven man, whose fiery face made a singular contrast with his ivory-white bald head. He had shrewd, light-blue eyes with foxy lashes, and he also leaned forward in silence from his chair, a fat, red hand upon either knee, and stared critically at the young assistant. So did the third visitor, Fawcett, the horse-breaker, who leaned back, his long, thin legs, with their boxcloth ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her, but she gave him a smack in the face, for she was as strong as he, and he was shrewd enough to beg her pardon; so they sat down side by side and talked amicably. They spoke about the favorable weather, of their master, who was a good fellow, then of their neighbors, of all the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... lawyers and the land speculators were too shrewd for the pioneer. Colonel Boone was sued; the question went to the courts which he detested, and Boone lost his farm. It was indeed a very hard case. He had penetrated the country when no other white man trod its soil. He discovered its wonderful resources, and proclaimed them to the world. He ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... circumstances became considerably prosperous. He died in 1832, leaving a family. He is remembered as a person of somewhat singular manners, and of undaunted enterprise and decision of character. He was shrewd and well-informed, without much reading; he purchased no books, but was ingenious and successful ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... any sister State in the Northwest, and an undeveloped wealth that will far exceed any one of those named. This is not a random statement, originating in State pride or self-interest, but the simple truth which is slowly being found out by the shrewd among men. We propose to speak of some of the advantages which we possess in the northern half of our lower peninsula, as yet ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... there was a hush, agreeably filled with the fragrance of the delicious fruit: even my uncle Popworth, from long habit, turned off his talk at that suggestive moment: when I did what I thought a shrewd thing. I knew too well my relative's long-windedness at his devotions, as at everything else (I wonder if Heaven itself isn't bored by such fellows!)—I had suffered, I had seen my guests suffer, too ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... forgot to mention the portraits of Luther's father and mother, which are in his cell. They show that his mother was no common woman. She puts me in mind of the mother of Samuel J. Mills—a strong, shrewd, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... reducing the prerogatives of the nobles had been begun. They had been forbidden to coin money, to maintain armies, and to tax their subjects, and the powers of the king's judges had been extended over all the realm. But the task of consolidating France was reserved for the son of Charles VII, the shrewd and treacherous Louis ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... it," interrupted Mrs. Futvoye, brusquely, while her shrewd, light-grey eyes took him in with a cool stare that was humorously observant without being aggressive. "We heard how shamefully my husband abused your good-nature. Really, it was too bad of him to ask a busy man like you to put aside his work ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... hospitable invitation, requested him to abstract from the dame's house, and lodge within his own until called for, such articles of linen and clothing as belonged to Paul and could easily be laid hold of, during one of the matron's evening siestas, by the shrewd Dunnaker. The merchant promised that the commission should be speedily executed; and Paul, shaking hands with him, proceeded ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Thou art a shrewd knave, I see," replied Varney. "Mark me—I do indeed propose to introduce thee into a nobleman's household; but it is upon my person thou wilt chiefly wait, and upon my countenance that thou wilt depend. I am his master of horse. Thou wilt soon know ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... was Marya Dmitrievna Kalitin. Her husband, a shrewd determined man of obstinate bilious temperament, had been dead for ten years. He had been a provincial public prosecutor, noted in his own day as a successful man of business. He had received a fair education and had been to the university; but having been born in narrow circumstances ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... there in the sunless, sweltering heat, reflected on these things. Of course she did not know all the story, but most of it had come under her observation in one way or other, and being shrewd by nature, she could guess the rest, for she who was companionless had much time for reflection and for guessing. She sympathised with her father in his ideas, understanding vaguely that there was ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... of boys may be very shrewd, but it often happens that their parents are a good deal shrewder, a fact which my young readers will do ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... face was gloriously radiant, and he was just about to turn around and promise her anything under the sun, when a shrewd expression flashed into his eyes, and composing his countenance, he said, in a somewhat independent, yet nervous tone, as he faced her and adjusted his now disturbing spectacles: "Er—er, Mary, think o' the trouble I'd likely get into if I intrigued for the maister ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... must be the most trustworthy man of his kind in the country; and so set forth early this morning to seek him,—a tedious, long journey, and the roads exceedingly foul. By good luck I found Mr. Pearson at home,—a very civil, shrewd man, as I think. Having laid my business before him, he tells me there will be no difficulty in dividing the estate according to the wish of Mr. Godwin and Moll, which may be done by a simple deed of agreement; and this he ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... Jamaica, the theatre of accumulated miseries, both moral and physical, they set sail for Hispaniola. Arrived in harbour, after a prosperous voyage, Columbus, to his no small surprise, found himself at first received with much respect, the governor Ovando, as a shrewd man not willing to go against public opinion, doing him honour. But this happy temper did not last. Soon the quarrels recommenced, and then Columbus, unable as well as unwilling to hear more, humiliated, and even maltreated, freighted two ships, of which he shared the command with ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... nature which it passed the wit of man—Eskimo man at least—to unravel. A few of these, like the watch, had some light thrown on them by Nazinred, who had either seen something like them in use among the fur-traders, or whose sagacity led him to make a shrewd occasional guess. ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... dome-like forehead, his little, dark grey eyes, and an immense white moustache, which drooped and spread below the level of his strong jaw, he had a patriarchal look, and in spite of lean cheeks and hollows at his temples, seemed master of perennial youth. He held himself extremely upright, and his shrewd, steady eyes had lost none of their clear shining. Thus he gave an impression of superiority to the doubts and dislikes of smaller men. Having had his own way for innumerable years, he had earned a prescriptive right to it. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and assume the air of conquerors. As the Igorots drove the Negritos to the forest and thence to the wild interior, so the Moros drove the Igorots. They are largely pure Malay, warlike and cruel, but shrewd and capable of culture. They assume an over-lordship over all other tribes and their Dattos ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... approval of Freewill, who, however, takes the opportunity to ask after Imagination's father in such unmannerly terms as at once to rouse his friend's quick temper. In a moment a quarrel is assured, nor does Hick Scorner's attempted mediation produce any other reward than a shrewd blow on the head. At this precise instant, however, old Pity, who has remained unnoticed, and who is unwarned by the fate of Hick Scorner, pushes forward with an idea of intervention. As might have been foreseen, the three rascals promptly unite in rounding upon him. They ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... concern! How it takes at once both the joy out of holiness and the spirit out of human effort! It is as dreary as the professional sympathy of the secluded student for the news of athletic contests, as the tolerance of the shrewd man of science for the ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and meant to stick to him, but although rash and extravagant, he was sometimes shrewd, and admitted that there might perhaps be some ground for Dick's suspicions. He was entitled to lose his own money, but he must run no risk of injuring his father's business. However, since Kenwardine had a share in the coaling wharf, he would learn that they had been to Adexe, and to try to ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... squarely upon the hearth, was beset by the desire to kick Master Kenneth, or Master Jocelyn, into the street. His lip curled into a sneer of ineffable contempt, for his shrewd eyes read to the bottom of the lad's mean soul and saw there clearly writ the confidence that emboldened him to voice that insult to the man he must know for his father. Standing there, he compared the two, marvelling deeply how they came to be father ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... long time to prepare that package. Mr. Meyrick, a cool, shrewd man of the world, was taking a mental inventory of me, I felt all the time. I was conscious that I talked incoherently and like a school-boy of the treaty. Every American in London was bound to have his special opinion thereupon, and Meyrick, I found, was of the English party. Then ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... shrewd enough to turn what some persons might call his ill fortune, in one way, into gain in another. He was one of those happily constituted, thrifty philosophers who hold that even misfortune should ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... came near Quisante himself, Jimmy Benyon seized on her and introduced her to Aunt Maria. In reply to politely expressed phrases of concern the old lady's shrewd ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... real underlying cause, I am in grave doubts, Carnes, although I can make a pretty shrewd guess. As to the reason for the unnatural lengthening of the day, the explanation is simplicity itself. As you doubtless know, the earth revolves daily on its axis. At the same time, it is moving in a great ellipse about ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... patches, till she gained a hold of them and made herself their master by main force of personality. Monsieur Vaucher, the manager, was still a connoisseur of art. Years of feeling the public pulse through the box-office had not stripped him of a certain shrewd perception of what was fine and what was mean in drama; and he chuckled and wagged his head in the wings as minute by minute the spell of Truda's genius strengthened, till there came that tenseness of silence in the great theatre which few actors live to know, ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the ex-magistrate, celebrated for his shrewd judicial humour, which, however, he had the good sense not to attempt to carry into private life. Although well on the wrong side of seventy, his eyes were still disconcertingly bright. With the selective skill of an old man, he immediately ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... stood silently there, the lordly maple seemed to reach out its great branches over their young united heads and beam its happy benediction. The ubiquitous squirrels appeared to know that something unusual was taking place. They cocked their shrewd little heads in a listening attitude, stared impudently, and then sent the news abroad to their feathered and furry comrades of the forest. Of all this, however, the lovers were unconscious, so lost were they ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... thinks 'twas a great thing for our family to have a family like theirs next place to. Well—so 'twas, for we've had no time for the things their family was brought up on. Old Mrs Fejevary (with her shrewd smile)—she weren't stuck up—but she did have an awful ladylike way of feeding the chickens. Silas thinks—oh, my son has all kinds of notions—though a harder worker never found his bed ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... support, by which disposition the strength of the Bengal marching force was cut down to about 9500 fighting men. After its junction with the Bombay column, the army would be 14,500 strong, without reckoning the Shah's contingent. There was an interlude at Ferozepore of reviews and high jinks with the shrewd, debauched old Runjeet Singh; of which proceedings Havelock in his narrative of the expedition gives a detailed account, dwelling with extreme disapprobation on Runjeet's addiction to a 'pet tipple' strong enough to lay out the hardest drinker ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... King's who had behaved well at Eton, and held it till 1816. A witty companion, with "a dry caustic manner, and an irresistible stammer" ('Life of Rev, F. Hodgson', vol. i. p. 204), Davies was, during the Regency and afterwards, a popular member of fashionable society. A daring gambler and shrewd calculator, he at one time won heavily at the gaming-tables. On June 10, 1814, as he told Hobhouse, he won L6065 at Watier's Club at Macao. Captain Cronow, in his 'Reminiscences' (ed. 1860, vol. i. pp. 93-96), sketches him among "Golden Ball" Hughes, "King" Allen, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... two gray eyes rayed with green lines starting from the pupils, and speckled with brown spots,—two implacable eyes, full of resolution, rectitude, and shrewd calculation. Graslin's nose was short and turned up; he had a mouth with thick lips, a prominent forehead, and high cheek-bones, coarse ears with large edges discolored by the condition of his blood,—in short, he was an ancient satyr in a black satin waistcoat, ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... country and its language. There were few to care for their souls. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was promptly in the field, with its diligent missionaries and its ignoble policy of doing the work of Christ and humanity with a shrewd eye to the main chance of making proselytes to its party.[140:1] With a tardiness which it is difficult not to speak of as characteristic, after the lapse of twenty-one years the classis of Amsterdam recognized its responsibility for this multitude ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... The Spider glanced at one another. Evidently Pete was more shrewd than they had suspected. And evidently he ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... times when he had met her at balls. Mrs. Miller said to herself that Sir John, not being a very young man, did not set much store upon mere personal beauty; that he probably valued mental qualities in a woman more highly than the transient glitter of beauty; and that Beatrice's good sense and sharp, shrewd conversation had evidently made a favourable ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... it," he said. "But do you like it?" he put in, with a shrewd gleam in his eyes, which could be keen as well as brilliant and genial. "I fancy you think it too fine—eh, Stafford?" He laid his hand on Stafford's knee with a somewhat appealing gesture and glance. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... Tories; but take her on her own politics, ask her about other men or women and the chicanery of everyday existence - the rubs, the tricks, the vanities on which life turns - and you will not find many more shrewd, trenchant, and humorous. Nay, to make plainer what I have in mind, this same woman has a share of the higher and more poetical understanding, frank interest in things for their own sake, and enduring astonishment ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and main-top-bowlines and poop-down-hauls in a manner that, to put it mildly, is confusing, and would, if you read it, make you jump as if all your strings were pulled at once! Are financial matters under discussion—behold even JAMES FISK, Jr., is not so keen and shrewd, nor Commodore VANDERBILT so full of "corners." And only the other day, it discussed the Medical Convention which lately met here, and lo! we are amazed by the amount of knowledge displayed by the omniscient journal! In a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... woman of some education, while Mistress Kent had been to France and Holland, and could both write and speak French. Patty's advantages had been rather limited, but she was quick and shrewd and made the most of them, though the feeling between her and Janice Kent rather amused Madam Wetherill. Janice was always trying to "set her down in her proper place," but what that was exactly it would have been hard to tell. Janice ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Adelaide that Florian thought: of the tall, impulsive, and yet timid, fair girl who was both shrewd and innocent, and of her tenderly colored loveliness, and of his abysmally unmerited felicity in having won her. Why, but what, he reflected, grimacing—what if he had too hastily married somebody else? For he ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... his harsh experience had deprived him of all faith in man or woman. He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope with villany, while it continually caused him by overshots to fail of the success ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... not always see eye to eye with her spouse in respect of his female parishioners, more particularly, perhaps, the unmarried ones. Mrs. Horniblow loved, honoured, and—within reasonable limits—obeyed her James; but this neither prevented her being shrewd, nor knowing her James, after all, to be human. Remembrance of Theresa, heading the Deadham procession during the inspection of Harchester Cathedral, sandwiched in between him and the Dean, still rankled in her ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... that Tam Armstrong was not asleep, but was listening and watching with his keen gray eyes under their grizzled brows. Presently, when Ulysse was dropping to sleep again, the ex-merchant began to ask questions with the intelligence of his shrewd Scottish brains. ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... vulgar cares That belong to common household affairs— Nocturnal annoyances such as theirs, Who lie with a shrewd surmising, That while they are couchant (a bitter cup!) Their bread and butter are getting up, And the coals, confound ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... morning the troop transport stopped for refreshments at the French village of X, and here a funny phenomenon was witnessed. From all sides the shrewd inhabitants of the village came running, scores of them, with bottles of wine. The laughing German soldiers got out and, negotiating over a picket fence, returned with the refreshments while the inhabitants made off with German coin. I saw bottles of champagne ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... comparison with the river of that precious metal, soon to flow into his coffers. But alas! the goddess, being blind, not only failed to discern his peculiar claims upon her regard, but was cheated herself! A shrewd Virginian dreamed the ticket which drew the hundred thousand dollars, into his own pocket; the manager failed, and thereby turned all the prizes into blanks;—and Mr. Daniel Wheelwright found himself flat on his back, at the bottom ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... turn your attention in this channel, there may come a reinforcement of the family property, which will enable you to hold out until the Pope dies, or some prince or other gets into a quarrel with him, which is always happening, and then a move may be made for you. My father, I'll promise you, is shrewd enough, and always keeps his eye open to see where there is a joint in the harness, and have a trusty dagger-blade all whetted to stick under. Of course, he means to see you righted; he has the family interest at heart, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... all who knew her, would clear her of censoriousness: that it gave her some opinion, she must needs say, of the people, that he had continued there so long with me; that I had rather negative than positive reasons of dislike to them; and that so shrewd a man as she heard Captain Tomlinson was had not ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Captain. That Torgul was groping for a plan and that it had to be a shrewd one, the Terran guessed. His respect for the Rover commander had been growing steadily since their first meeting. The cruiser-raiders had always been captained by the most daring men of the Rover clans. But Ross was also certain that a successful cruiser commander must possess a level-headed leaven ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... Toto, who was a shrewd little dog. "You and I, Lion, are fine specimens of our own races. I am a fine dog and you are a fine lion. Only in point of comparison, one with another, can we be properly judged, so I will leave it to the poor old Sawhorse to decide which is ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... panoplies, Array you at the breast-work, take your stand On floorings of the towers, and with good heart Stand firm for sudden sallies at the gates, Nor hold too heinous a respect for hordes Sent on you from afar: some god will guard! I too, for shrewd espial of their camp, Have sent forth scouts, and confidence is mine They will not fail nor tremble at their task, And, with their news, I fear no foeman's ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... people have had their quiet, comfortable little homes burned to the dust, and are wandering homeless in their own land. What is their crime? Their crime was that they trusted to the word of a Prussian King. I don't know what the Kaiser hopes to achieve by this war. I have a shrewd idea of what he will get, but one thing is made certain, that no nation in future will ever commit ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... certain oracular grandiloquence, that bore away her soberness in moments of elation; though even the most captious must presently have smiled at the humor of her descriptive touches, her dexterous exposure of folly and pretension, the swift stroke of her bright wit, her shrewd discernment, promptitude, and presence of mind. The reverential, too, might have been pained at the sternness wherewith popular men, measures, and established customs, were tried and found guilty, at her tribunal; but even while blaming her aspirations as rash, revolutionary and ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... ancestors have so generally disappeared, and their surviving relatives have been so greatly modified, how can we make even a shrewd guess at the ancestry of higher forms? The genealogy of the animal kingdom has been really the study of centuries, although the earlier zooelogists did not know that this was to be the result of their labors. The first work of the naturalist was ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... of Nathan and his book, but of France and the glory of France. It is the duty of all honest and courageous pens to make strenuous opposition to these foreign importations. And with that you flatter your readers. Shrewd French mother-wit is not easily caught napping. If publishers, by ways which you do not choose to specify, have stolen a success, the reading public very soon judges for itself, and corrects the mistakes made by some five hundred fools, who always ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... among the courtiers his "Session of the Poets," where an imaginary contest for the laurel presented an opportunity for characterizing the wits of the day in a series of capital strokes, as remarkable for justice as shrewd wit. Jonson ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Square, he fell in with Mark, who was radiant with the promise of Richard Rudd's new house, secured to him by the shrewd assistance of Miss ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... concerned about his popularity than even in regard to the reputation as an art patron he was laboriously striving to build up. He was an inordinately vain man, but he was an exceedingly shrewd one. His self-esteem was gratified by seeing his name among those of men influential in art matters; he bought pictures largely for the pleasure of being talked of as a man who patronized the proper painters, and he was looked upon as likely at no distant day to become president of a ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... abundance of her golden hair, that had no strand of gray in it, lay more than a hint of the beauty that was said to have been hers in her youth. There was wistfulness in the delicate but firm mouth and chin; there was vigor in the broad forehead and the well-proportioned nose; and humor in the shrewd, quiet eyes set far apart. She belonged to an old Border family, and had lived all her life amid the almost perfect adjustments of well-to-do British society of the middle class, where every cog was greased ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Think!" was Chauvelin's cool rejoinder. "Methinks you might arrive at a pretty shrewd guess." Then, as the other's bluster and bounce suddenly collapsed upon his colleague's calm, accusing gaze, the latter continued with ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... and your daughter together—marking your marvellous similarity in many points, observing (pardon me) your irrepressible emotions in the presence and still more in the absence of your child—and not form my own conjectures? I formed them, and they are literally correct. I shall begin to think myself shrewd." ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... interests, must have two effects—they must extend our power, influence, and trade, and they must elevate the public service. Every returning soldier or traveler tells the same story—that the very name "American" has taken a new significance throughout the Orient. The shrewd Oriental no longer regards us as a second- or third-class Power. He has just seen the only signs he recognizes of a nation that knows its rights and dare maintain them—a nation that has come to stay, with an empire of its own in the China Sea, and a Navy which, from what he has seen, ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... could stand it no longer, but went off into a scream of laughter, which even the surprised and offended looks of the ignorant and simple-minded, but shrewd, Yankee could not check. So offended was he, indeed, that no entreaties or explanations were sufficient to mollify him, and the story was abruptly broken off. It was not for two or three days that the boys' explanation and assurance sufficed; and then, when Charley had explained the whole ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... gave largely in charities, both public and private, and yet, for all his sweetness of generosity he was so shrewd a man that none ever came to him twice with a lying tale or tempted his beneficence with false credentials. He would say, and, indeed, I have heard him say it, though he spoke not to me indeed, for I was never one of ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... time I had feared that Maroney had some idea of Porter's reasons for stopping in Montgomery, and felt that if he had, he would be completely disabused of it by discovering that Porter did not follow him. He was an uncommonly shrewd man and had formed a pretty good opinion of detectives and of his ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... as well as imperative, and he made an instant response. The thought of Lakely's keen eyes and shrewd enthusiasms always possessed strong attractions for his own slower temperament, but even had this impetus been lacking, the knowledge that at the 'St. George's' offices, if anywhere, the true feelings of the party were invariably voiced would ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Theobald wanted to be rid of his son, it is true, in so far as he wished him to be no nearer at any rate than the Antipodes; but he had no idea of entirely breaking with him. He knew his son well enough to have a pretty shrewd idea that this was what Ernest would wish himself, and perhaps as much for this reason as for any other he was determined to keep up the connection, provided it did not involve Ernest's coming to Battersby nor any ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... had been informed of "the sharpness of the Spanish swords" and received Gonzales with hospitality, presenting him with much gold, equal to "25,000 pieces of eight," and garments and plumes of feathers. He asked the Spaniards many shrewd questions: about the flood, and about the sun, moon, and stars; their motion, quality, and distance; what was the cause of night and day and the blowing of the winds? how the Spaniards got all their information about heaven; who brought it to them, and if the ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... was gaining considerable amusement from the morning conventions on the beach. As a general thing, he only watched the people in groups, and entertained himself with making shrewd guesses as to the probable relationships existing in those groups. Only two individuals made distinct impressions upon him. One of these was the tall, lithe girl in the black suit, who walked as well as she swam; the other was also a girl, but younger ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... do not always agree, and quarrels and entanglements arise, and everything is referred to the decision of the manager, who, besides all things else, must know the exact amount of work which ought to be performed, both in the fields and factory, and see that it is done. Mr. A. is a keen, shrewd man of business, kind without being weak, and with an eye on every detail of his plantations. The requirements are endless. It reminds me very much of plantation life in Georgia in the old days of slavery. I never elsewhere heard of so many headaches, sore hands, and ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... the old country, with his fine fields and his money in the bank. He held, moreover, a large mortgage on the house opposite, where Burr Gordon lived with his mother. Burr's father and Lot's, although sons of one shrewd father, had been of very different financial abilities. Lot's father kept his property intact, never wasting, but adding from others' waste. Burr's plunged into speculation, built a new house, for which he could not pay, married a wife ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... go very far or fast. I've got only smatterings." But the boy spoke with a subdued complacency not wholly lost upon the shrewd father. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... far outlasts the gifts. All sorts of rumours are current on the estate for weeks before this Christmas Eve gathering as to the nature of the presents to be bestowed, for no one is supposed to know beforehand what they will be; but there was a pretty shrewd guess to-day that the boys would be given gloves, and the girls cloaks. In some cases the former had had scarves or cloth for suits, and the latter dresses or shawls. Whatever the Christmas presents may be, here they are, arranged upon tables in two long lines, in the servants' hall. To this ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... sailing-vessel in the Pacific crosses successfully the Shadow Line that divides youth from manhood. And it is through facing the unleashed fury of the tornado that the old captain of the 'full-powered steam-ship' in Typhoon shows what he has in him, compassion and kindness as well as shrewd knowledge of men, expert seamanship, and indomitable heroism. The whole thing is driven home with a power, an incisiveness, and a delicate irradiating humour which I should despair of conveying by mere criticism. The book must be read for itself, and ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... objection to, no remark on, any one part of this Letter; for I object to the whole—not as Calvinism, but—as what Calvin would have recoiled from. How was it that so good and shrewd a man as Andrew Fuller should not have seen, that the difference between a Calvinist and a Priestleyan Materialist-Necessitarian consists in this:—The former not only believes a will, but that it is equivalent to the 'ego ipse', to the actual ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of the captain-general was aroused. He consulted his legal adviser and factotum, a shrewd, meddlesome Escribano or notary, who rejoiced in an opportunity of perplexing the old potentate of the Alhambra, and involving him in a maze of legal subtilities. He advised the captain-general to insist upon the right of examining ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... while our guide described in creditable English the process of cheese-making, Starr sketched him standing before his big blue press, printing out his molds with an odd, yellow reflection from the cheese cannonballs heaped on trays, shining up into the shrewd Dutch face. Then in came the young wife, with a child or two (pretty dark creatures like their mother, with the innocent brown eyes of calves), followed by grandmama in her gold helmet, to say that our meal was ready; and Starr induced them to stand for him, though ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... be damned!" He sat back and gazed with shrewd eyes at Dale. "What's got into you, Milt? Hev you heard about my niece thet's comin', an' think ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... persons present and it looked as if a decision was inevitable. The landlord was shrewd. His first act was to invite all to drink at his expense, after which he made each pledge himself to abide by the decision, whatever it might be. These preliminaries being arranged, a show of hands was called for. The ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... not a fanciful woman, was sometimes aware of a sixth sense enabling her to detect the faintest vibrations of her son's impulses. She was too shrewd to fancy herself the one mother in possession of this faculty, but she permitted herself to think that few could exercise it more discreetly. If she could not help overhearing Alan's thoughts, she had the courage to keep her discoveries to herself, the tact to take ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... finest in the intellect and character of England. Page himself attributed the popularity of his house to his wife. Mrs. Page certainly embodied the traits most desirable in the Ambassadress of a great Republic. A woman of cultivation, a tireless reader, a close observer of people and events and a shrewd commentator upon them, she also had an unobtrusive dignity, a penetrating sympathy, and a capacity for human association, which, while more restrained and more placid than that of her husband, made her a helpful companion ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... down from his saddle. "Are you all right, Zen?" he cried, as he advanced with outstretched arms. There was an eagerness and a relief in his voice which would have surprised many who knew Y.D. only as a shrewd cattleman. ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... More money is sunk, and the returns do not appear to be so speedy. I cannot give you even a rough estimate of the expenses of such a plan. I will only say that I have seen gentlemen who are doing it, and who are confident of success, and these men bear the reputation of being shrewd and business-like. I cannot doubt, therefore, that it is both a good and safe investment of money. My crude notion concerning it is, that it is more permanent and less remunerative. In this I may be mistaken, ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... these excursions into the forest for a long time before I discovered that Jack was playing the part of eavesdropping guardian angel. Do you know, by the way, what a quaint little ragamuffin philosopher that child is? He has a shrewd sobriety, a steady watchfulness over all about him, and he is endowed with a power of silent devotion that is absolutely compelling. He has been such a comfort to me! and there is no way of keeping ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... She was a zealous Protestant, and very suspicious and watchful in respect to Mary, on account of her Catholic connections and faith. She was very plain in person, and unprepossessing in manners. She was, however, intelligent and shrewd, and was governed by calculations and policy in all that she did. The people by whom she was surrounded admired her talents and feared her power, but nobody loved her. She had many good qualities as a monarch, but none considered ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Northwest, and an undeveloped wealth that will far exceed any one of those named. This is not a random statement, originating in State pride or self-interest, but the simple truth which is slowly being found out by the shrewd among men. We propose to speak of some of the advantages which we possess in the northern half of our lower peninsula, as ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... passed beneath her eyelids. When her eyes were lifted, Ferdinand could have discovered nothing in them to complain of, had his suspicions been light to raise: nor could Mrs. Shorne perceive that there was the opening for a shrewd bodkin-thrust. Rose had got a mask at last: her colour, voice, expression, were perfectly at command. She knew it to be a cowardice to wear any mask: but she had been burnt, horribly burnt: how much so you may guess from the supple dissimulation of such a bold clear-visaged ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... juster action, for his harsh experience had deprived him of all faith in man or woman. He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope with villany, while it continually caused him by overshots ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... said a little, withered man, passing around the chair and facing the old woman with an humble, deprecating air. He was clothed in black, and his smooth-shaven, deeply lined face was pleasant of expression and not without power and shrewd intelligence. The eyes, however, were concealed by heavy-rimmed spectacles, and his manner was somewhat shy and reserved. However, he did not hesitate to speak frankly to his old friend, nor minded in the least ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... Jemmy Twitcher—the work will shortly appear under the philosophical auspices of SIR LYTTON BULWER—we find a curious circumstance, curiously paralleled by a recent political event. Jemmy had managed to pass himself off as a shrewd, cunning, but withal very honest sort of fellow; he was, nevertheless, in heart and soul, a housebreaker of the first order. One night, Jemmy quitted his respectable abode, and, furnished with dark lantern, pistol, crowbar, and crape, joined half-a-dozen neophyte burglars—his pupils and his victims. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... "torment of form"; the furthest she went was to introduce into one of her books (in satire her hand was heavy) a young poet who was always talking about it. I couldn't quite understand her irritation on this score, for she had nothing at stake in the matter. She had a shrewd perception that form, in prose at least, never recommended any one to the public we were condemned to address, and therefore she lost nothing (putting her private humiliation aside) by not having any. She made no pretence of producing works of art, but had comfortable tea-drinking hours in which ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... criss-crosses of slender branches, brought in armfuls from the forest; over these dry grass was spread, thinly but evenly, and over this again dust and dirt and more grass and twigs, all precautions being observed to give the place a natural appearance. In this the boys succeeded very well. Shrewd must have been the animal of any sort which could detect the trap. Their chief work done, the boys must now wait wisely. The place was deserted again and no nearer approach was made to the pitfall than the treetops of the hillside. There the boys were to be found every day, ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... master. Her secretary for French despatches having some time after incurred her displeasure, she promoted Rizzio to that office, which gave him frequent opportunities of approaching her person, and insinuating himself into her favor. He was shrewd and sensible, as well as aspiring, much beyond his rank and education; and he made so good use of the access which fortune had procured him, that he was soon regarded as the chief confidant, and even minister of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... distant horizon, as a large; and by the same token men with no great confidence in themselves or in their horses are not ill-qualified to guard, or withdraw within shelter (8) the property of friends; since fear, as the proverb has it, makes a shrewd watchman. The proposal, therefore, to select from these a corps of observation will most likely prove true strategy. But what then of the residue not needed for outpost duty? If any one imagines he has got an armament, he will find it miserably ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... they gathered data from an old scrap-book of mine, which seemed to interest them. Nothing escapes the vigilance of the New South Wales police; their reputation is known the world over. They made a shrewd guess that I could give them some useful information, and they were the first to meet me. Some one said they came to arrest me, and—well, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... of Mr. Fillet, a country practitioner in surgery and midwifery, Captain Crowe, and his nephew Mr. Thomas Clarke, an attorney. Fillet was a man of some education, and a great deal of experience, shrewd, sly, and sensible. Captain Crowe had commanded a merchant ship in the Mediterranean trade for many years, and saved some money by dint of frugality and traffic. He was an excellent seaman, brave, active, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... disposition the strength of the Bengal marching force was cut down to about 9500 fighting men. After its junction with the Bombay column, the army would be 14,500 strong, without reckoning the Shah's contingent. There was an interlude at Ferozepore of reviews and high jinks with the shrewd, debauched old Runjeet Singh; of which proceedings Havelock in his narrative of the expedition gives a detailed account, dwelling with extreme disapprobation on Runjeet's addiction to a 'pet tipple' strong enough to lay out the hardest drinker in the British camp, but which the old reprobate ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... cried Mr. Congreve, pausing before her, with a puzzled wonder in his shrewd eyes. "Do you honestly so little realize what Roger's nature is, or how much the boy loves you, and how he is waiting to ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... Mr. Freeman makes the shrewd remark that "the American feels a greater distinction between himself and the Englishman of Britain than the Englishman of Britain feels between himself and the American," which remains entirely true ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... defenders, leap over their barriers and overwhelm them in the dark interior. In three minutes the signal would be given. He himself would lead the dash of the party within the corral. Pasqual was shrewd enough to know that where there was only one door-way instead of two there would be better chance of dodging the bullets. But keen eyes and ears and wits were there alert. Feeny and Harvey well knew that this was but the lull ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... to take breath. I realized then that the woman whom I had known was something of a fraud, a puppet hung out with the rags of a European manner, according to the study and observation of the shrewd, little lady who pulled the strings. It was Mrs. Van Reinberg of London and Paris whom I had met upon the steamer; it was Mrs. Van Reinberg of New York who was talking to me now, and she was speaking in her ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and what was wonderful, though he had never learnt letters, he was a shrewd and understanding man. Once, for example, two Greek philosophers came to him, thinking that they could tempt Antony. And he was in the outer mountain; and when he went out to them, understanding the men from their countenances, he said through an interpreter, "Why have you troubled ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... I have a shrewd notion, something of an officially petted reformer. Anyhow, to his abolition of the insensate barbarism of crank and treadmill in favour of civilizing methods no opposition was offered. Solitary confinement—a punishment outside all nature to a gregarious race—found ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... merit by his generous contribution of two thousand pounds to the Prince of Wales' Fund—a contribution which caused a sensation among many who could give a fairly shrewd guess at the income he drew as a partner in the firm ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... guess at the wicked pride of the Professor's heart, I would take a shrewd wager that he disdains ever again to dip his pen in Prose. Adieu, ye splendid theories! Farewell, dreams of political justice! Lawsuits, where I was counsel for Archbishop Fenelon versus my own mother, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... not disturbed because of the fact that he had been arrested on a charge of passing counterfeit money; already he had a shrewd suspicion as to the value of his discoveries, and felt quite certain he would receive a warm and ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... of this thriving Western town, ultimately boarding an electric car—with a shrewd eye out for the hellhounds of the law; and the car took them to the beginning of the frontier, where they found the trackless forest. They reached the depths of this forest after climbing a stone wall; and Jimmie Time said the West looked good to him and that he could already smell ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... a whole new system of brain machinery began to move with the first figure called in the Pit. And from that instant until the close of the session, no floor trader, no broker's clerk nor scalper was more alert, more shrewd, or kept his head more surely than the same young fellow who confused his social engagements for the evening of the same day. The Landry Court the Dearborn girls knew was a far different young man from him who now leaned his elbows on the arms of the chair upon ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Tories fomented these dissensions. The presidency of the war-office, which had been created for Gates, restricted the power of the general. This was not the only inconvenience; a committee from congress arrived at the camp, and the attack of Philadelphia was daringly proposed. The most shrewd people did not believe that Gates was the real object of this intrigue. Though a good officer he had not the power to assert himself. He would have given place to the famous General Lee, then a prisoner of the English, whose first care would have been ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... had gone away, thy father said he never had the Spirit with him, and was ever of what creed did most advantage him, and perhaps underneath of none at all. But this I think not. He hath much of the shrewd wisdom of New England, which I like not greatly; but as to this, I know some who have less of any wisdom, and, after all, I judge not a man so wise, and so much ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... time at least, his undoing. Kitty had made him from generous mean, from unsuspecting suspicious, and during the wretched year they had spent together she had had a disastrous effect on his work. At last, acting on the shrewd advice of one of those instinctive men of the world of which Bohemia is full, he had bought her a billet in a theatrical touring company. There, by an extraordinary chance, Kitty made a tiny hit—sufficiently of a hit to bring her from an American impresario a creditable ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... thank me for the following eloquent passage from Mrs. Cunninghame Graham, which so felicitously characterises this great book, and that in language such as I could not command. 'To my thinking Teresa is at her best in her Way of Perfection with its bursts of impassioned eloquence; its shrewd and caustic irony; its acute and penetrating knowledge of human character, the same in the convent as in the world; above all in its sympathetic and tender instinct for the needs and difficulties of her daughters. The Perfection represents the finished and magnificent fabric of the spiritual ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... the place of the living artist. The pianola can never rival the living performer; nor the orchestrion the orchestra; nor the chromo the painting. No mechanical device has yet been invented to produce poetry; even if some shrewd Yankee should invent a printing machine which would pick out rhymes as some printing machines seem to pick out letters, the result would not be a poem. This is the reason too why mere perfection of execution never really satisfies. "She ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... from side to side with the air of a sentimental philosopher. He had all the vanity of a man who had been a success in a small, shrewd, culpable way—had he not evaded the law for thirty years with ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... too shrewd to be wanting in politeness. "Welcome, Colonel Philibert," said he; "you are an unexpected guest, but a welcome one! Come and taste the hospitality of Beaumanoir before you deliver your message. Bustle, valets, bring fresh ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... all his wife's property. Since the vogue of international marriages, American fathers had taken refuge in the trust companies. In spite of argument and sulks, however, Archie could not prevail upon Adelle to undo what she had done, and he had to content himself with the shrewd reflection that it was probably not legally binding and could ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... a pretty house (and re-furnished it very often, which always gave me pleasure). I had no care, for Richard had arranged that I should have a very excellent sort of person for duenna, who had a good deal of tact, and didn't bore me, and was shrewd enough to make things very smooth. I liked her very much, though I think now she was something of a hypocrite. But she had enough principle to make things very respectable, and I never took her for a friend. We had very pretty little dinners, and ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... together a little money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. His name—but I could never learn whether it was his real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in life—was Gathergold. Being shrewd and active, and endowed by Providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck, he became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. All the countries of the globe appeared to join hands for the mere ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... the toleration he spoke of was of a very general nature, the natural stand for a man to take who is being robbed and cannot help it. To justify oneself on such a principle is to put a premium on shrewd dishonesty. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... servant appeared. "Send Toby here," he said. A moment afterwards a man made his appearance, with an anxious, restless look, shrewd expression of the mouth, with short arms, and his back somewhat bent. Aramis fixed a ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... better," was the shrewd reply. "The fool!" he muttered, as he entered his studio. "He spreads himself on canvas on every possible occasion, and, do you know, he called me Jimmy! Mind you, I don't know the fellow well ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... face, good-natured and intelligent. And he was aware of a shrewd pair of gray eyes taking his measure. Why these men seemed to want to look through Neale might have been natural enough, but somehow it struck him strangely. He had come there to help them, not to discharge them. Colohan, however, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... I knowed where 'twas," Piegan retorted spiritedly, a wicked twinkle in his shrewd old eyes. "But it must 'a' changed location lately, for them fellers rode north a ways, an' then kept swingin' round till they was headin' due southeast. I follered their trail t' where yuh seen me turn this way, ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... said that under the old systems of management the men and the management had about equal weight in deciding how fast the work should be done. Shop records showing the quickest time in which each job had been done and more or less shrewd guessing being the means on which the management depended for bargaining with and coercing the men; and deliberate soldiering for the purpose of misinforming the management being the weapon used by the men in self-defense. Under the old system the incentive ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... lout who was even more empty-headed than his most empty-headed neighbour and who yet, throughout the domain, was looked on as a shrewd ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... the shrewd leader of the fight, looked over the battlefield and, without thinking of the famous battle between the Horatii and the Curiatii, saw with innate tactical talent the correctness of "divide and conquer." With the forces ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... exchanged for the sum. Her spirits rose as they turned to follow the cattle again. Perhaps, as Luther had said, they would have to sell out also. The dream of going East absorbed her once more. As she dreamed, however, a shrewd eye was kept on the cattle. As nearly as possible she lived up to the trust reposed in her. Quick to serve, sensitive, honest, dependable as she was, these cattle constituted the point of contact between the developing girl and her developing philosophy of life. Duty pointed sternly ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... camaraderie with street sweepers, kiosk keepers, and lemonade venders, and the sternness of conciergedom melted before her. In this wholesome, practical child's experience she naturally avoided or overlooked what would not have interested a child, and so kept her freshness and a certain national shrewd simplicity invincible. There is a story told of her girlhood that, one day playing in the Tuileries gardens, she was approached by a gentleman with a waxed mustache and a still more waxen cheek beneath his heavy-lidded eyes. There was an exchange of ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... a word she was in society but not of it. Naturally, she had more acquaintances than friends, yet she was not unpopular among her intimates. While secretly they laughed at what they termed her puritanical notions, they were shrewd enough to realize that they could hardly afford to snub a woman whose husband occupied so prominent a position in the world of affairs. Besides, was it not to their interest to cultivate her? Who gave more delightful ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... April 13, 1596, was dark and stormy. All the Border burns and rivers were in spate; the winds blew shrewd and chill through the glens of Liddesdale, and sleet drifted down in the teeth of the gale. The trees that grew so thick round Woodhouselee bent and cracked, and sent extra drenching showers of rain down on the steel jacks of a band of horsemen who carefully picked their way underneath ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... chapters into his so-called heresies—political, scientific or religious. Yet we may imitate his boldness and ask whether he was not, perhaps, in advance of his age and whether his heresies were not shrewd anticipations of some truth at present but partially revealed. Take the example of Spiritualism, which, I suppose, has more opponents than anti-vaccination. No one can overlook the fact that Spiritualism has many ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... and he gambles and speculates, with all the advantages in his favor. Good people look on and think that it is gold that is going up and down; that their money is a dollar still, and trade and traffic in that belief. But the shrewd speculator calculates daily the depreciation of our note, the shortening of the yard stick, the shrinkage of the acre, the lessening of the ton, and thus it is that he daily adds to his gains from the indifference or delusion of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... said John, slackening his pace, and glancing at the shrewd face which was also both ruddy and kindly. "The Church can give good advice in temporal ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Joe, "to ax yer advice, an' to offer ye my sarvice, it it's of any use," said the porter, who was a shrewd straightforward man, and had originally ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... critic. With Hazlitt, with Coleridge, with Wilson, with Carlyle, with Macaulay, we very soon fall into step, so to speak, with our author. If we cannot exactly prophesy what he will say on any given subject, we can make a pretty shrewd guess at it; and when, as it seems to us, he stumbles and shies, we have a sort of feeling beforehand that he is going to do it, and a decided inkling of the reason. But my own experience is, that a modern reader of Jeffrey, who takes him systematically, and ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... shadowy image of the man may be seen in the Book; a practical man, brave, shrewd, prudent, keen in affairs, and never losing his interest in mercantile details, very fond of the chase, sparing of speech; with a deep wondering respect for Saints, even though they be Pagan Saints, and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... office, had sprung from the same class as Fetters, that of the aspiring poor whites, who, freed from the moral incubus of slavery, had by force of numbers and ambition secured political control of the State and relegated not only the Negroes, but the old master class, to political obscurity. A shrewd, capable man was the mayor, who despised Negroes and distrusted aristocrats, and had the courage of his convictions. He represented in the meeting the protesting element ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... "she can be gracious enough when she chooses. She has insisted on our being friends, and I'll make use of the privilege to tell her the impression she conveys, before many weeks are passed. Allison is a shrewd fellow, and in his blundering fashion knocks many a right nail on ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... Then the tug of war began. First of all investigators, he forced his way through the whole length of the river Jordan and from end to end of the Dead Sea. There were constant difficulties—geographical, climatic, and personal; but Lynch cut through them all. He was brave or shrewd, as there was need. Anderson proved an admirable helper, and together they made surveys of distances, altitudes, depths, and sundry simple investigations in a geological, mineralogical, and chemical way. Much was poorly done, much was left undone, but the general ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... lib'ral Briton here, Gentle yet shrewd, tho' learned not severe. Fairly thy merit dares impart, Asserts thy hospitable heart, Proves that luxuriance smiles upon thy plains, And wit and valour ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... all the world like any other elderly gentleman in very rusty black. When he got near the village he picked up a little boy to show him the short cut across the fields to the house here; and as his lordship was a 'sharp man and a shrewd,' he kept his eye on every thing as he went along, remarking this, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... bird. His body was black as coal; his breast was white; and his wings and tail shaded off into a dark green. His bill was long and very strong. He had a shrewd, knowing look. As he was quite tame, he must have been ...
— The Nursery, No. 169, January, 1881, Vol. XXIX - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of oilskin, and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common mariner's telescope under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky as looking out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after his manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I may so express it, were cleared for action. I found Mrs. Micawber in the closest and ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have heaved ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... had but bare suspicions," said Buckhurst, "nothing fit, God knoweth, to come to such a reckoning. Wilkes saith he meant it but for a premonition to you there; but I think it will henceforth be a premonition to himself—there being but bare presumptions, and yet shrewd presumptions." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... wealthiest proprietors. The next day one of the negroes of the estate said to another, "De new gubner been poison'd." "What dat you say?" inquired the other in astonishment, "De gubner been poison'd! Dah, now!—How him poisoned?" "Him eat massa's turtle soup last night," said the shrewd negro. The other took his meaning at once; and his sympathy for the governor was turned into concern for himself, when he perceived that the poison was one from which he was likely to suffer more than his excellency."—Emancipation in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to say something as to the effect of speculative habits upon the intellect, but cannot now do so. The following shrewd remark of Mr. Latham's in his interesting book on the 'Action of Examinations' may, however, be quoted; its bearing will be at once seen, and its truth recognised ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... a Haggis," "to a Louse," "to the Toothache," &c.—and occasionally to his brother bards and lady or gentleman patrons, often with strokes of tenderest sensibility, idiopathic humor, and genuine poetic imagination—still oftener with shrewd, original, sheeny, steel-flashes of wit, home-spun sense, or lance-blade puncturing. Then, strangely, the basis of Burns's character, with all its fun and manliness, was hypochondria, the blues, palpable enough in "Despondency," "Man was made to Mourn," "Address to Ruin," a "Bard's ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... fire, and proceeded to make themselves comfortable. Sir Ralph sang songs, and told funny anecdotes, and cracked jokes with the young people; while Lord Marnell, in conversation with Sir Geoffrey, showed that the promise of neither half of his face was entirely unfulfilled, by proving himself a shrewd observer, and not a bad talker. In the midst of this conversation, Sir Ralph, turning round to Sir Geoffrey, inquired if he had heard anything of a certain sermon that had been preached the day before at ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... rather: Whistle owre the lave o't! Yet we may say of him as of Chaucer, that of life and the world, as they come before him, his view is large, free, shrewd, benignant,—truly poetic, therefore; and his manner of rendering what he sees is to match. But we must note, at the same time, his great difference from Chaucer. The freedom of Chaucer is heightened, in Burns, by a fiery, reckless energy; the benignity of Chaucer deepens, in Burns, into an overwhelming ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... was very smart and shrewd, oh, very! When the hard times came, which made so many changes in the lives of the people who lived in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadows, Mr. Skunk was very quick to see that unless he could ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... what proved to be the chief thing. Though there was some sun, the air was shrewd, and he was wearing the old doctor's coat. Should you have taken it with you, Tommy? It loved Grizel, for it was a bit of him; and what, think you, would the old doctor have cared for your manuscript had he known that you were gone out to meet that woman? ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... her hind legs or lifted her left foreleg beggar-fashion. There was the "Ahnfrau," a dainty little horse, though old as the hills, with a coat black as sloes, and which because of long faithful service and because of the shrewd wisdom that comes with age, was in favor with the whole regiment and was often fed some sweet morsel. The special pride of the foddermaster, however, was the "twelve Chinamen." They had been bought in ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... time she had left the chapel she had registered a solemn vow that she would one day be Norbert's wife. But she did not acquaint her parents with this determination on her part, preferring to carry out her plans without any aid or advice. Mademoiselle Diana was shrewd and practical, and not likely to err from want of judgment. The frank and open expression of her features concealed a mind of superior calibre, and one which well knew how to weigh the advantages of social rank and position. She affected ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... a mass of other indisputable evidence at his back, secured by the shrewd Leonard, Bernard entered the contest for his seat. The House of Representatives was democratic by a small majority. The contest was a long and bitter one. The republicans were solidly for Bernard. The ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... unbridled preaching of pardons makes it no easy matter, even for learned men, to rescue the reverence due to the pope from slander, or even from the shrewd questionings of ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... Dick was shrewd in his map work and his guessing. Toward dark the boys began to get anxious as the shadows fell along the deep, powerful river, but they had no sign to land until it was well after sunset. Then Uncle Dick began to ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... the information it contained, was as great a surprise to Mrs. Cowels as the news of Cowels's death had been to Moran. She began at the beginning and read it carefully over again, as women always do. She determined to go at once to the jail. She was shrewd enough to say "Yes" when asked if the prisoner were related in any way to her, and was shortly in the presence of the alleged dynamiter. She did not find him walking the floor impatiently, or lying idly on his back counting the cracks in the wall, but seated upon his narrow ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... be. Social conditions mingle elements of evil with the promptings of natural goodness of heart, and the mixture of motives underlying a man's intentions should be leniently judged. Castanier had just cleverness enough to be very shrewd where his own interests were concerned. So he concluded to be a philanthropist on either count, and at first made ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... the Vedas, are generally believed to be the earliest literary record of the Indo-European race. It is indeed difficult to say when the earliest portions of these compositions came into existence. Many shrewd guesses have been offered, but none of them can be proved to be incontestably true. Max Mueller supposed the date to be 1200 B.C., Haug 2400 B.C. and Bal Ga@ngadhar Tilak 4000 B.C. The ancient Hindus seldom kept any historical ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... always great merchants and shrewd traders. Being of a practical turn of mind, they conceived an ambition to grow coffee in their colonial possessions, so as to make their home markets headquarters for a world's trade in the product. In considering modern coffee-trading, the Netherlands East India Company may ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... is that to-day the Masai look upon themselves as an unconquered people, and bear themselves—towards the other tribes—accordingly. The shrewd common sense and observation evidenced above must have convinced them that war now would ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... further words were unwise, began patiently to do up the eggs' worth of pork and pepper and molasses, and John Maxwell, watching him to see in what proportions they would be meted out, grew as interested as Peggy, whose shrewd little eyes had so early been trained in weights and measurements that she could tell quickly the number of eggs required for an ounce or quarter of half a pound of the purchase to be made. Putting the packages in a basket, she turned; then, remembering a final ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... skapolo. Shout kriegi. Shove pusxi. Shovel sxoveli. Shovel sxovelilo. Show montri. Show parado. Show in enigi. Show goods elmeti. Shower pluveto. Shower-bath pluvbano. Showy luksa. Shred peco, dispeco. Shrewd sagaca. Shrewdness sagaceco. Shriek kriegi. Shriek (of the wind) mugxi. Shrill sibla. Shrink malpliigxi. Shrivel up sulkigxi. Shrimp markankreto. Shroud mortkitelo. Shroud kasxi, protekti. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... hall, hung about with pikes, guns, and bows, With old swords and bucklers, that had borne many shrewd blows, And an old frieze coat, to cover his worship's trunk-hose, And a cup of old sherry, to comfort his copper nose: ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... as a barrister, but had finally settled down to the more congenial life of a country squire. He had married two years ago, and had taken his wife to live at Styles, though I entertained a shrewd suspicion that he would have preferred his mother to increase his allowance, which would have enabled him to have a home of his own. Mrs. Cavendish, however, was a lady who liked to make her own plans, and expected other people to fall in with them, and in this case she certainly had the whip ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... in descanting upon this part of her career. As I cannot describe the mysteries of freemasonry, although I have a shrewd idea that it is a humbug, so an uninitiated man cannot take upon himself to portray the great world accurately, and had best keep his opinions ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... those of Schwarz. And one could not avoid the conviction that Schwarz's suggestion of the two streaks being separate localizations of the same retinal stimulation was an extremely shrewd conjecture. The facts speak strongly in its favor; first, that when the arc of movement is rather long, there is a distinct feeling of succession between the appearances of the falsely and the correctly localized images; second, that when both streaks are seen, the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... In the streets of London gin-shops at one time invited every passer-by to get drunk for a penny, or dead drunk for twopence. Much of this social degradation was due without doubt to the apathy and sloth of the priesthood. A shrewd, if prejudiced, observer, Bishop Burnet, brands the English clergy of his day as the most lifeless in Europe, "the most remiss of their labours in private and the least severe of their lives." A large number of prelates were mere Whig partizans with no higher aim than ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... beautiful ladies whose flashed faces and suffused eyes bore witness to their deep emotion. There were noble gentlemen whose arms still waved in the air as they cheered for Italy. And there, high above all others, rose a familiar figure—the massive shoulders, the calm, shrewd, square face, the benignant glance and smile, which could belong only to ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... on to become a knight-errant to defend the oppressed, and succor the injured. He engages for his squire Sancho Panza, a middle-aged, ignorant rustic, selfish, but full of good sense, a gourmand, attached to his master, shrewd and credulous. The knight goes forth on his adventures, thinks wind-mills to be giants, flocks of sheep to be armies, inns to be castles, and galley-slaves oppressed gentlemen; but the squire sees them in their true light. Ultimately, the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... I did not at first pay any attention to a rather shrewd smile of the dressmaker, though I saw it and afterwards accounted for it. 'So like it,' I added, 'that you ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... was a Yankee; when he did business he liked to chaffer; and, after all—he thought—there was a certain shrewd philosophy in what his foxy father-in-law had said. At least Cappy had supplied him with ammunition for argument; so he went back to Hudner's office and argued and pleaded and ridiculed, but all to no avail. He returned to ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... look that almost expressed amusement lurking in his shrewd, pale eyes, Chauvelin handed the momentous document ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... did not trouble him so much. It is an interesting fact that, during the hard times of 1893-94, political clubs vied with each other the country over in distributing aid. Leaders of Tammany Hall were shrewd enough to urge their followers to organize relief distributions in every ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... it that he was petted and properly cared for regarding invitations and dainties to eat and drink. In this new role, with a well-established business and no shrewd red-haired wife to point out his meannesses and try to make him go fifty-fifty with the profits, Gay felt at peace with ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... a wiry, almost wizened, little man of fifty, tanned to gipsy brown. He had a shrewd thin face, with an oddly flattened nose, and little round moist dark eyes that glittered like diamonds. He wore cloth cap on the back of his head, showing in front a thick mass of closely cropped hair. His collarless shirt was open at the neck and ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... something to be proud of," lauded Elfreda Briggs, favoring Hippy with an amused smile. The stout young man's remarks were quite in accord with her own distinct sense of humor. Hitherto she had listened without comment, absorbing all she heard and mentally appraising it in her shrewd fashion. She had chosen to break into the conversation at that moment because of an idea that was slowly taking shape in her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... himself on the assumption that because he met no point-blank contradiction he has duped his victim into believing the most absurd mass of wild misinformation that was ever crammed down the throats of the most gullible of his rustic countrymen. It must be admitted that they are shrewd critics of the Bill, of which every individual citizen, whatever his conviction, has an annotated copy in his tail-pocket. The Dublin change of front is ascribed to the "insulting manner in which the Bill is drafted." The Nationalists, one and all, roundly declare, in terms which admit of ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... oliveyards, among the vines; to pry into stable, pig-stye, and roosting-place, taking up handfuls of drying grain, breaking twigs of olives, to see how things were doing; and to have long conversations with the peasants, shrewd enough to affect earnest attention when the master was pleased to vent his town-acquired knowledge of agriculture and gardening. Sweet also, doubtless, for younger folk, or such perhaps as were fonder of teaching new lute tunes to the girls than of examining into cabbages, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... that the question was charged with as much explosive risk as a detonating wire set to go off at the faintest jar. His eyes grew shrewd ...
— The Man the Martians Made • Frank Belknap Long
... to outwit the law, save some one from getting what he justly deserves, and then they are supposed to be honest and high-minded! Think of it! To judge by some of the specimens I get up here," and then some lawyer in the place would turn a shrewd inquiring glance in his direction or steadfastly gaze at his plate or out the window, while the others stared at him, "you would think they were the salt of the earth or that they were following a really noble profession ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... Hotham again superintending the boat work. The garrison of New York slipped along the west shore of the island and joined the main body on the Harlem; favored again, apparently, in this flank movement a mile from the enemy's front, by Howe's inertness, and fondness for a good meal, to which a shrewd American woman invited him at the ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... brief rest, they mounted and again took up the trail, soon leaving behind their halting-place, which the boys named Lake Christopher, much to the vain little darky's chagrin. He had a shrewd suspicion that he would not hear the last of his ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Joei laws received new adherents and finally became universally effective. A great modern authority, Dr. Ariga, has opined that the motive of the Bakufu legislation was not solely right for right's sake. He thinks that political expediency figured in the business, the Kamakura rulers being shrewd enough to foresee that a reputation for administering justice would prove a potent factor in extending their influence. If so, the scheme was admirably worked out, for every member of the council had to sign a pledge, inserted at the end of the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... mouth full of hair and stoppeth it. The fox doth fight with the brock for dens, and defileth the brock's den, and hath so the mastery over him with fraud and deceit, and not by strength.... The fox feigneth himself tame in time of need, but by night he waiteth his time and doeth shrewd deeds. And though he be right guileful in himself and malicious, yet he is good and profitable in use ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... Christian martyrdom. Under the mask of Protestant candour, he actually gained admission for his treatise into a London weekly paper, not particularly distinguished for its zeal towards either religion. But, admitting Catholic principles, his arguments are shrewd and incontrovertible. [Then follows a quotation from Hazlitt setting forth the Catholic standpoint.] It is impossible, upon Catholic principles, not to admit the force of this reasoning; we can only not help smiling (with the writer) at the simplicity of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
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