"Crafty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time the weather was very favorable; the partridges and hares alone had reason to complain, for the hunters gave them no rest; a great many traps were set for foxes, but these crafty animals could not be caught; very often they scraped the snow away beneath the trap and took the bait without running any risk; the doctor cursed them, being very averse to making them such ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... arrayed in her most splendid attire, came sweeping past in silence, as if to mock their toil. The poetical reproaches addressed to the young lady on this occasion by her sturdy admirer and his mate are still extant. In the meantime, the other servants of the crafty Arngrim had constructed a subterranean bath, so contrived that at a moment's notice it could be flooded with boiling water. Their task at last concluded, the two Berserks returned home to claim their reward; but Arngrim Styr, as if in the exuberance of his affection, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... into the distance with strange swiftness. They jumped; their hearts stood still a moment. It was so horribly close. But the stillness that followed the uproar was far worse than the noise. It felt as though the Wood had stretched a hand and aimed a crafty blow at them from behind the shield of foliage. A quiver of visible silence ran across the leafy walls. They stood stock still, staring blankly into each ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... a career along a strange parallelism of circumstances, although with a gloomier conclusion, Antonio Perez had already run. The unscrupulous confidant and reckless tool of a crafty and vindictive tyrant, he had wielded vast personal authority, and guided the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... temptings, in which we lose sense, and become the archfiend's tools! But while their eyes were on me; while their lives and hearts were set on my acquittal, my struggle against truth was less for myself than them. For them I girded up my soul, a villain I was; and for them, a bold, a crafty, a dexterous, villain I became! My defence fulfilled its end: Madeline died without distrusting the innocence of him she loved. Lester, unless you betray me, will die in the same belief. In truth, since the arts of hypocrisy have been commenced, the pride of consistency ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... constant fear that it will be inflicted. One ought not to imagine a man timid, or weak in his mind, nor a good man, who, whatever he has done, keeps tormenting himself, and dreads everything; but rather let us fancy one, who with great shrewdness refers everything to usefulness—an acute, crafty, wary man, able with ease to devise plans for deceiving any one secretly, without any witness, or any one being privy to it. Do you think that I am speaking of Lucius Tubulus?—who, when as praetor he had been sitting as judge upon the trial of some assassins, took money to influence his decision ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... the most experienced fur-hunters of the northern forest, that while the wolverine is a crafty brute and difficult to hunt, yet of all forest creatures the coloured fox is the hardest to trap. In hunting the two animals with dogs, however, there is little comparison. The wolverine, being a heavy, short-legged beast, can soon be ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... enough" besides being "the most excellent, mad-humoured thing, and sings the noblest that ever I heard in my life." The trio had a gay time; they "drank, and eat lobster, and sang" and were "mightily merry." By and by the crafty diarist deleted Mrs. Pierce from the party, and went off to Vauxhall with the fair actress, his confidence in the enterprise being strengthened by the fact that the night was "darkish." If she did not find out that excursion, Mrs. Pepys ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... assumes. His utterance is a continual sing-song, like the chanting of vespers; and his action resembles that of heaving ballast into the hold of a ship. In his outward deportment he seems to have confounded the ideas of insolence and the dignity of mien; acts the crafty cool, designing Crookback, as a loud, shallow, blustering Hector; in the character of the mild patriot Brutus, loses all temper and decorum; nay, so ridiculous is the behaviour of him and Cassius at their interview, that, setting foot to foot, and grinning at each other, with ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... chin like that of Mephistopheles,—a type which painters give to cats. This double resemblance was observable on the face of Babylas Latournelle. Above the atrocious green spectacles rose a bald crown, all the more crafty in expression because a wig, seemingly endowed with motion, let the white hairs show on all sides of it as it meandered crookedly across the forehead. An observer taking note of this excellent Norman, clothed in black and mounted on his two legs like a beetle on a couple ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... agreeably when real and true, as the Daemons, or Oracles, or Prophets of the Heathens, form'd, as has been said, partly from mistaken Fragments, or Traditions of sacred Story, partly indeed from the Juggles of the Heathen Priests, and crafty Ambitious Daemons. On the whole, we have all the Advantages they had, and yet more than they, for Heroic Poetry in these matters. As for that Question of Boileau's, "What Pleasure can it be to hear the howlings of repining Lucifer?" I think 'tis easier to answer than to find out ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley
... succeed me in my kingdom, but thou wast not ashamed to play against me the part of a relentless foe. And shouldst thou not rather have listened to me, and followed my injunctions, than have obeyed the idle and foolish pratings of that crafty old knave, who taught thee to choose a sour life instead of a sweet, and abandon the charms of dalliance, to tread the hard and rough road, which the Son of Mary ordereth men to go? Dost thou not fear the displeasure of the most puissant ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... servants bring With honor saintly Rishyasring. But when they hear the monarch's speech, All these their master will beseech, With trembling hearts and looks of woe, To spare them, for they fear to go. And many a plan will they declare And crafty plots will frame, And promise fair to show him there, Unforced, with none to blame. On every word his lords shall say, The King will meditate, And on the third returning day Recall them to debate. Then this shall ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... dwelling is in sight, so that I can contemplate the wildness of the scene to my mind's content. But a very hoarse voice not far above tells me that I am not alone. A raven perched upon a jutting piece of rock, that curiously resembles some monstrous animal, is watching me, and he looks a very crafty old bird who could speak either French or English if he liked. Presently he flaps heavily off to the opposite side of the gorge, and fetches his wife. They fly over me almost within gunshot, going round and round, expressing an opinion or sentiment with an occasional croak, but apparently ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by duty; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them: for they teach not their own use, but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted; not to find talk and discourse, but ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... every rank and profession. There were met together there the vain and the ambitious, the designing and the foolish, the humblest and the proudest of those who, whether proud or humble, or ambitious, or vain, or crafty, were alike the devoted servants of the monarch or the monarch's mistress—princes, cardinals, bishops, dukes and every kind of nobility, excisemen and priests, keepers of the royal conscience and necessary—all ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... silent, else you put me out. "A crafty page, that for advantage watch'd, Detected in the act a brother page, Of his own years, that was his bosom friend; And thenceforth he became that other's lord, And like a tyrant he demean'd himself, Laid forced exactions on his fellow's purse; And when that poor means fail'd, held o'er his ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... and them so craftily made that he comprehended his matters in short, quick, and high sentences, eschewing prolixity, casting away the chaff of superfluity, and shewing the picked grain of sentence uttered by crafty and sugared eloquence; of whom among all others of his books I purpose to print, by the grace of God, the book of the tales of Canterbury, in which I find many a noble history of every state and degree; first rehearsing the conditions and the array of each of them ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... Shades each other eyed; When, bursting with terrifick sound, The voice of Minos shook the ground, The startled ghosts on either side, Like clouds before the wind, divide; And leaving far a passage free, Each, conning his defensive plea, With many a crafty lure for grace. The Painters onward hold their pace. Anon before the Judgement Seat, With sneer confronting sneer they meet: And now in deep and awful strain, Piercing like fiery darts the brain, Thus Minos spake. Though I am he, From whom no secret thought ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... influence upon the beholder. It reproduces what it reflects. Nay, it seems to leave an impress even upon the countenance. The feature, from having a dark, sinister aspect, becomes open, serene, and sunny. A countenance so impressed, has neither the vacant stare of the idiot, nor the crafty, penetrating look of the basilisk, but the clear, placid aspect of truth and goodness. The woman {94} who has such a face is beautiful. She has a beauty which changes not with the features, which fades not with years. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... of triumph which shone in his eyes, as the glare of the torch fell athwart them, no less than the assured tone of his voice, told me clearly that he knew his power. He seemed, indeed, transformed: no longer a slinking, peaceful clerk, preying on a woman's fears, but a bold and crafty schemer, skilled and unscrupulous, possessed of hidden knowledge and hidden resources; the personification of evil intellect. For a moment, knowing all I knew, and particularly the responsibilities which lay before me, and the interests committed to my hands, I quailed, confessing myself unequal ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Roughly into the devil's throat man is thrust soon. 181 colwarde, deceitful, treacherous. I have not been able to meet with the word colle used as noun or verb in any writer of the 14th or 15th century. Col occurs, however, as a prefix, in Col-prophet (false prophet), Col-fox (crafty fox), used by Chaucer; Col-knyfe (treacherous knife), which occurs in the "Townley Mysteries." 200 hatel of his ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... cave which ran so easily upon a pivot; while the detachment in charge of the big gun talked shudderingly of the risk they had unknowingly been running, for, given a little longer time and the right opportunity, their two crafty enemies would undoubtedly have fired their mine and blown the greater part of the kopje-top ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... fiction, remarkable for purity of morals? Has not the visible world ever the advantage over the invisible? If those, who are trusted with the instruction and government of men, had knowledge and virtue themselves, they would govern them much better by realities, than by fictions. But crafty, ambitious and corrupt legislators, have every where found it better to amuse with fables, than to teach them truths, to unfold their reason, to excite them to virtue by sensible and real motives, in fine, to govern them in a rational manner. ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... over the moon; at that instant the moon's face cleared, and Glam glared up against her. By that sight only Grettir confessed himself dismayed beyond all that he had ever seen; nor, for weariness and fear together, could he draw his sword to strike off Glam's head withal. But Glam was crafty beyond other ghosts, so that now he spoke: 'Exceeding eager hast thou been to meet me, Grettir, but it will be deemed no wonder if this meeting work thee harm. This must I tell thee, that thou now hast but half the strength and manhood which was thy lot if thou hadst not met me; I ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... chapel finished, the Bishop, either in jest or for some other reason known only to himself, commanded that Buffalmacco should paint him, on one wall of his palace, an eagle on the back of a lion which it had killed. The crafty painter, having promised to do all that the Bishop wished, had a good scaffolding made of planks, saying that he refused to be seen painting such a thing. This made, shutting himself up alone inside it, he painted, contrary to what the Bishop wished, a lion ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... his letter to Paulinus which is to be found at the beginning of the Bible: "True friendship cemented by Christ, is where men are drawn together, not by household interests, not by mere bodily presence, not by crafty and cajoling flattery, but by the fear of God, and the study of the Divine Scriptures." No more is it friendship for the virtuous, since by charity we love even sinners, whereas friendship based on the virtuous is only ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... was Francisco Madero—rich, educated, well mannered, honest, and idealistically inclined. The representative of the old Mexico is Huerta—"rough, plain, old Indian," as he describes himself, pugnacious, crafty, ignorant of political amenities, without understanding of any rule except the rule of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... breasts of their disaffected subjects in Ireland with rekindled hopes, Colonel Kelly was known in the Fenian ranks as an intimate associate of the revolutionary chief. When the arrest at Fairfield-house deprived the organization of its crafty leader, Kelly was elected to the vacant post, and he threw himself into the work with all the reckless energy of his nature. If he could not be said to possess the mental ability or administrative capacity essential to the office, he ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... cause they were either incapacitated to weigh evidence fairly, or were led wilfully to stifle the truth and publish a falsehood. Very few persons have ever been inclined to make this charge, that the apostles were either wild enthusiasts of fancy, or crafty calculators of fraud; and no one has ever been able to support the position even with moderate plausibility. Granting, in the first place, hypothetically, that the disciples were ever so great enthusiasts in their ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... gravitation, electricity, magnetism, &c. &c. It is somewhat singular, that priests have in all ages so strenuously upheld those systems which time has exploded; that they have appeared to be either the most crafty or the most ignorant of men. Where are now the priests of Apollo, of Juno, of the Sun, and a thousand others? Yet these are the men, who in all times have persecuted those who have been the first to give natural explanations of the phenomena ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... to be crafty; he opens door, very softly, and as he peers in, he sees—Florence slipping her arms about Bill's neck, giving him a ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... certain other things that are obscure, unintelligible, unknowable, unrevealed. When a man's conduct is entirely plain, straightforward, or accounted for, we call that an intelligible case; when we are perplexed by the tortuosities of a crafty, double-dealing person, we say it is all very mysterious. So, in nature, we consider that we understand certain phenomena: such as gravity, and all its consequences, in the fall of bodies, the flow of rivers, the motions of the planets, the tides. On the other hand, earthquakes and volcanoes ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... an hour and came back to find that, in a "dry" city which he had never seen before, the crafty Bill had obtained a quart of Bourbon, and was in a state of unsteady beatitude. He wanted, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... almost extravagantly as her sisters pretended to do, would have plainly told him so at any other time, in more daughter-like and loving terms, and without these qualifications, which did indeed sound a little ungracious; but after the crafty, flattering speeches of her sisters, which she had seen draw such extravagant rewards, she thought the handsomest thing she could do was to love and be silent. This put her affection out of suspicion of mercenary ends, and showed that she loved, but not for gain; and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... on occasions like the present, strangers from the most opposite nations of Europe, and even Asia, mingling peaceably on her canals. Here were Turks in their bright red caftans and turbans; there Armenians in long black robes; and Jews, whose habitually greedy and crafty countenances had for the nonce assumed an expression of eager curiosity and expectation. The mercantile spirit of the Venetians prevented them from extending to individuals the quarrels of states; and although the republic was then at war with Spain, more than one superb hidalgo might be seen, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... Themistocles or of Alcibiades could be applauded by a wise and polished nation. Xenophon has made an eloquent attempt to explain the nature of military good faith. Cambyses tells his son, that, in taking advantage of an enemy, a man must be "crafty, deceitful, a dissembler, a thief, and a robber." Oh Jupiter! exclaims the young Cyrus, what a man, my father, you say I must be! And he very sensibly asks his father, why, if it be necessary in some cases to ensnare and deceive men, he had not in his childhood been taught by his preceptors ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... that labor and parsimony have stored up. His women, endowed with no matter what initial hopes or charms, are sacrificed to overwork and deprivations and drag out maturity and old age on the weariest treadmill. The pressure of life is simply too heavy to be borne except by the ruthless or the crafty. Mr. Garland, though nourished on the popular legend of the frontier, had come to feel that the "song of emigration had been, in effect, the hymn of fugitives." Illusion no less than reality had tempted Americans toward their far frontiers, and ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... come out from it with everything just as he desires, as every one says. I assert that it is necessary for your Majesty to send some one, because with all the officials here Don Pedro is so shrewd and crafty and suave that he sways every one at his will, and will attain all his desires. I have fulfilled my duty in placing this before your Majesty; now you will be pleased to command what is most expedient to your royal service. May our Lord protect the Catholic person of your ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... treated in detail, this general sketch of it has been given; and in stating its consequences so far, a peep into the future has been granted by the author, with a benevolence seldom belonging to his ill-natured and crafty tribe, who endeavour to hoodwink their docile followers as much as possible, and keep them in a state of ignorance as to coming events. But now, having been so indulgent, we must beg to lay hold of the skirts of our readers and pull them back again down the ladder into the private ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... wrath of the early Christian fathers. They felt no doubt about the similarity, but not knowing how to explain it fell back upon the innocent theory that the Devil—in order to confound the Christians—had, CENTURIES BEFORE, caused the pagans to adopt certain beliefs and practices! (Very crafty, we may say, of the Devil, but also very innocent of the Fathers to believe it!) Justin Martyr for instance describes (1) the institution of the Lord's Supper as narrated in the Gospels, and then goes on to say: "Which the wicked devils have IMITATED in the mysteries of ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... the prisoner had just made of the cold, crafty, and imperious character stamped upon the features of the bishop of Vannes was little reassuring to one in his situation, for he added, "I ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... and praised for not having smirched my reputation by giving an answer that might have been discreet but would certainly have been dishonest, and for not having entangled myself in the meshes of such a crafty question. ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... the lid fell down on his head; he roused enough to press a signal button and, as the air started viciously, to replace the lid. Then, off to the sleep of the just and the crafty again. And so on ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... again, now. We will go on at a jog trot. I mistrust that officer. He had a crafty face, and as we said we belonged to a village down the ghauts, he may have a suspicion that we have been trying to throw him off our scent, and think we should be sure to double back and make ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... he could he related what he had seen and heard at the Indian village. Jacques Valette listened in moody silence, but ere Flat Nose had finished a crafty look ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... on the supper-table; The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odour falling off her person and clothes as she walks by; The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, angered, unjust; The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure, The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture—the yearning and swelling heart, Affection that will not be gainsaid—the sense of what is real—the thought if after all it should prove unreal, The doubts of day-time and the doubts ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... Randolph Mason from above, the expression in repose was crafty and cynical; viewed from below upward, it was savage and vindictive, almost brutal; while from the front, if looked squarely in the face, the stranger was fascinated by the animation of the man and at once concluded that his expression was ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... success proved an insurmountable objection in a few generations; for several learned infidels showed to the satisfaction of the entire community, that the pretended revelation could have been nothing else than a conspiracy of crafty statesmen for political purposes. It was sagely remarked, that it was not wonderful that a doctrine had been believed, and had rapidly diffused itself, which had all the prestige of rank, and power, and statesmanship in its favor; that if, indeed, it had appeared amongst the poor ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... purposes are effected. The man who is flung into prison, or sent to the scaffold, at the nod of an avowed despotism, has at least the consolation to know that his sufferings bring down upon that despotism the execration of mankind; but he who is entrapped and entangled in the meshes of a crafty and corrupt system of jurisprudence; who is pursued imperceptibly by a law with leaden feet and iron jaws; who is not put upon his trial till the ear of the public has been poisoned, and its heart steeled ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... you have been the victim of "a 'oax," crafty, ingenious, and abominable, there is now no shadow of a doubt. That letter palmed off on to your good and trustful nature the week before last, with the signature of "LE HEADS MASTERRE," professing to deal with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... opposite Strasburg, and was deep in secret negotiations with officers of the garrison for the capitulation of that city and the entry of the emigrant army. These intrigues had been going on for some time, and so crafty were Viomenil's plans (he was the greatest diplomat the emigres could boast), and so successful was Monsieur de Thessonnet, aide-de-camp to the Prince de Conde, in carrying them out, that when Calvert arrived at head-quarters the possession ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... brother, Kam Baksh, whom he killed near Hyderabad in the Deccan, and secured to himself the empire. On his death, which took place in 1713, his four sons contended in the same way for the throne at the head of the armies of their respective viceroyalties. Mu'izz-ud-din, the most crafty, persuaded his two brothers, Rafi-ash-Shan and Jahan Shah, to unite their forces with his own against their ambitions brother, Azim-ash- Shan, whom they defeated and killed, Mu'izz-ud-din then destroyed his ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... hoping to catch the Comte d'Artois himself, Napoleon forthwith despatched to that cliff one of his most crafty and devoted servants, Savary, who commanded the gendarmerie d'elite. Tricked out in suitable disguises, and informed by a smuggler as to the royalist signals, Savary eagerly awaited the royal quarry, and when Captain Wright's vessel hove ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... usefulness; if it is not useful, we may dispense with its purchase. Even at that, it may be necessary to demand that the article shall be not only useful but absolutely indispensable, for between the beguiling advertisement and the crafty salesman, almost anything that is manufactured may be proved necessary. At the best we shall probably purchase a-plenty, and the question of when a house reaches the point of overfurnishing is a difficult one to settle. Let one of us, for ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... were out that morning, riders with eyes keen as a hawk's, eyes that never rested for a moment, eyes set in heads cunning as foxes and cruel as wolves. A war party of Comanches was out and on the move early, and, as is the crafty Indian custom, was riding out of sight in the narrow valley below the well-rounded hills that lined the river. But while hid themselves, their scouts were out far ahead, creeping along just beneath the edge of the Plain, scanning keenly its broad ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... came from their accustomed holes the gentlemen of the night-prowling court, who scamper with their little feet across the floors; these gentlemen being the rats, mice, and other gnawing, thieving, and crafty animals, of whom the citizens and housewives complain. When they saw the shrew-mouse they took fright, and all remained shyly at the threshold of their dens. Among these common people, in spite of the danger, one old infidel of the trotting, nibbling race of mice, advanced ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... to their Davys, and use the flame to light their pipes? I have heard of the thing being done before, but I only discovered the other day that we had such madmen in the pits here. If I could only be sure of them I would settle the matter at once, but they are crafty enough to keep their secret, and it only drifts to ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hundred years ago, when people were far from being so crafty and cunning as they are now-a-day, an extraordinary event took place in a little town. By some mischance one of the great owls, called horned owls, had come from the neighboring woods into the barn of one of the townsfolk in the night-time, and when day broke did not ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... over the means of living, in short, a supremacy of condition worse than preeminence in rank. Consequently, our hand is not only against the nobles, but also against the rich and well-to-do bourgeois[2146] the large land-owners and capitalists; we are going to demolish their crafty feudalism from top to bottom.[2147]—In the first place, and merely through the effect of the new institutions, we prevent any capitalist from deducting, as he is used to do, the best portion of the fruits of another's ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... never heard of this papal treaty, and that the monarchs would have to settle it between themselves. Then he took his departure, with every show of kindliness from the king, including a royal escort. The minute he was gone those courtly, crafty heads all got together and told the king that most likely the man was merely a boaster, but, lest he might have discovered territory for Spain, why not hurriedly send out a Portuguese fleet to seize the new islands ere Spain could make good ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... against the Calvinistic propaganda, roused by Westphal and his comrades in their conflict with Calvin and his followers, was materially increased by the success of the crafty Calvinists in Bremen and in the Palatinate. In 1547 Hardenberg [Albert Rizaeus from Hardenberg, Holland, born 1510] was appointed Dome-preacher in Bremen. He was a former priest whom Lasco had won for the Reformation. Regarding ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... As crafty lawyers, to acquire applause, Try various arts to get a doubtful cause; Or, as a dancing master in a jigg, With various steps instructs the dancing prig; Or as a doctor writes you different bills; Or as a quack prescribes you different pills; Or as a fiddler plays more tunes ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... To spend too much time in them is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar; they perfect nature, and are themselves perfected by experience; crafty men contemn them, wise men use them, simple men admire them; for they teach not their own use, but that there is a wisdom without them and above them won by observation. Read not to contradict nor to believe, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... imagine that the winning smile which often illumines the features of a sleek and crafty pretender, is supplanted by audible chuckling when he retires from company. Having long since gotten rid of his conscience, he can afford to be merry at the expense of ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... is a right good knight, And must needs beat me, as I fear, Unless I catch him in the fight, My father's crafty way: John, here! ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... doth ever add pleasure' to its author and grief to the judicious. Such confusions are no doubt often the outgrowth of the will. But a main end of a true culture is to prevent or expose all such bewilderments, whether helpless or crafty. ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... accustomed skill and subtlety. King Victor, of whose "fiery and audacious temper, unscrupulous selfishness, profound dissimulation, and singular fertility in resources," Browning speaks in his preface, is an impressive study of "the old age of crafty men," the futile wiliness of decrepit and persevering craft, though we are scarcely made to feel the once potent personality of the man, or to understand the influence which his mere word or presence still has upon his son. D'Ormea, who checkmates all the schemes of his old master, is a curious ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... saw, however, that this did not mean the end of the fight. That other crafty Hun had swung unexpectedly and was now pouring in a furious fire. Tom realized that his assistant had ceased firing. Had the machine-gun become jammed? He was hanging partly from his seat. Was he badly injured in the bargain? Still, despite all this handicap, ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... thought. One or two other members of the Cabinet, to whom Mr. Seward presented me, were also favorably inclined. One, the War Secretary, I did not meet. A spy under Buchanan, a tyrant under Lincoln, and a traitor to Johnson, this man was as cruel and crafty as Domitian. I never saw him. In the end conscience, long dormant, came as Alecto, and he was not; and the temple of Justice, on whose threshold he ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... on his hatred of their religion became centered upon the monks themselves, and he undertook by crafty means to annoy them. Men said these Christian priests were good; that their lives were spent in prayer, in meditation, and in works of charity among the poor; tales came to the Moor of their spiritual existence, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Queen's marriage with the Duc of Anjou was founded on the horror he felt of seeing this realm given over once more to the power of the Pope. Mr Sidney saw, with his own eyes, the Massacre of St Bartholomew; and what security could there be if any of this crafty Medici race should be set ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... false youth in the person of Margrave, such might have been his laugh and such his words. The whole mind of Margrave seemed to have undergone change since I last saw him; more rich in idea, more crafty even in candour, more powerful, more concentred. As we see in our ordinary experience, that some infirmity, threatening dissolution, brings forth more vividly the reminiscences of early years, when impressions were vigorously stamped, so I might have thought that ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sylph-like of birds, with others of the family, ever on the look-out, follow in circling, screaming mobs the disturbance on the surface of the sea caused by small fish vainly endeavouring to elude the crafty bonito and porpoise, and take ample supplies to the ever-hungry young. How is it that the hundreds of pairs recognise among the hundreds of fluffy young, identical in size and ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... not warned against him. And the men of Zamora sent also to the king to bid him beware of Vellido; nevertheless he gave no heed to the warning. And Vellido, when he heard this went to the king, and said, Sir, the old Arias Gonzalo is full crafty, and hath sent to say this unto you, because he knows that by my means you would have won the town. And he called for his horse, feigning that he would depart because of what had been said. But the ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... stand-point, the site of the city is unassailable. When the English and the Dutch divided the East Indies by drawing a line through the Straits of Malacca,—the English to hold all north, the Dutch all south,—the crafty Dutchman smiled benignly, with one finger in the corner of his eye, and went back to his coffee and tobacco trading in the beautiful islands of Java and Sumatra, pitying the ignorance of the Englishman, who was contented with the swampy jungles of an unknown and savage neck of land, little ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... sat around that table! My gudesire kend mony that had long before gane to their place, for often had he piped to the most part in the hall of Redgauntlet. There was the fierce Middleton, and the dissolute Rothes, and the crafty Lauderdale; and Dalyell, with his bald head and a beard to his girdle; and Earlshall, with Cameron's blude on his hand; and wild Bonshaw, that tied blessed Mr. Cargill's limbs till the blude sprung; and Dumbarton Douglas, the twice turned traitor baith to country ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... experts carried on their fiendish work under the cover of a pleasing dignity. After their crafty manner they quoted or read the fine sentences of an author, preferably those of a sensual cast, and then placed a premium on the passionate by describing the fine style of the author and showing how true to nature was ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... more. The search for those missing papers, and, above all, for the one who took them—a tall woman in a brown cloak, they say—has not ceased, nor will it; the matter is in the hands of a crafty, persistent man and he thinks he has a clue. He has learned, as I learned, that a woman dressed like you and looking like you was in the Government building on the day of the celebration. He believes that ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... he is out there is nothing for it but to be surprised and sorry. The lid is off; and it is useless for the clever reconstructionists to press in upon us with their little screw-drivers, chattering eagerly about locks and hinges. When the crafty but ignorant Russian generals and courtiers got from the Czar the order for mobilizing the armies, and issued it, they did not know it, but that was when they released Lenin. And who on earth can now inveigle that terrific portent safely ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... cry, and that was the Democratic excuse for that election law which had been forced through the Senate, whipped through the lower house with the party lash, and passed over the veto of the Republican governor by the new Democratic leader—the bold, cool, crafty, silent autocrat. From bombastic orators Jason learned that a fair ballot was the bulwark of freedom, that some God-given bill of rights had been smashed, and the very altar of liberty desecrated. And when John Burnham ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... along about a matter which Elisabeth's keen perceptions told her was the most powerful lever that could be used to force the minister's hand in the affair of her husband's appointment. Uncle Mitral, a former sheriff's officer, crafty, clever at sharp practice, and full of expedients and judicial precautions, believed the honor of his family to be involved in the appointment of his nephew. His avarice had long led him to estimate the contents of old Gigonnet's strong-box, ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... for a meal, an ale-quart of beer could be bought for a penny, and a landlord was liable to ten shillings fine if he made a greater charge, or his liquor fell below a certain standard of quality. Perhaps this low price was established by the crafty Puritan magistrates in order to prevent the possibility of profit by beer-selling, and thereby reduce the number of sellers. It was also ordered that not more than an ale-quart of beer should be drunk out of meal-times. This was to prevent "bye-drinking." Josselyn complained ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... loosing the friendship of his dearest political connections, he stood firm upon the solid basis of that incontrovertible principle, "equal justice and freedom to all." No pretended expediency, no crafty policy, although urged with the greatest force and zeal, by the most experienced and acute reasoners, neither flattery, bribes, nor threats, could ever, for one moment, shake his determination to support the principle Of UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE, or in other words, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... at the bottom of an ocean whose surface is being lashed into the destructive turmoil of tempest. Only since Eben Tollman was a madman—not a noisy and raving maniac but a homicidally dangerous and crafty one—his situation was inverted. It was the surface that was calm with him and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... woman, it would on the other side have been but just, that some good angels should have succoured a poor, ignorant, weak woman; those just guardians of human affairs would not have permitted so unequal a conflict; for what if an evil spirit, crafty and knowing in business, had, by his subtlety, overreached a poor, weak, and silly woman, who had not as yet, either seen the sun rise or set, who was but newly born, and thoroughly inexperienced. Certainly, a person who had so great a price set upon her head, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... this guardian was not at all pleased at their having been let slip by the first guards, but so crafty was their speech that they were ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... wall of shields must be rent asunder, or the battle was lost. If it could not be broken by assault, it might by retreat. He bade the men around him to feign a disorderly flight. The trick succeeded; many of the English leaped the stockade and pursued their flying foes. The crafty duke waited until the eager pursuers were scattered confusedly down the hill. Then, heading a body of horse which he had kept in reserve, he rushed upon the disordered mass, cutting them down in multitudes, strewing ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of a spirit burning with hatred; and he could scarce restrain himself from plunging among them, and immolating numbers on the spot. Still the wary prudence of the savage restrained his hand, and he continued for a day or two to mingle in peace among them. The crafty Oneidas soon suspected the designs of the stranger, and they conferred among themselves, as to the surest mode of guarding against the meditated blow of Wauchee. They well recognized by his paint and garb the Mohawk warrior, and they resolved to baffle his assault, and for ever ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... France had invited the master of that great and glittering bubble house, wherein dwelt so insecurely the affairs of France. John Law, director-general of the finances, controller of the Company of the Indies, was chosen by Philippe of Orleans for a position not granted to the crafty Dubois or to the shrewd D'Argenson, the last of that strange trinity who made his council. John Law, gallant, graceful, owner of a reputation as wit and beau scarce behind that of his sudden fame as financier, was admitted not only to the business affairs of the gay duke, but ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... positive bazaar! There is a deep, crafty old merchant sitting like a spider over his pile of sheeny silks in the corner—he hopes to get good prices from the unwary tourist; there is another with a stall of beautiful brass and copper hand-worked things, and others with jewellery and carved ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... Crafty Lion,—perhaps with the gout, Kept his cave; where, to solve any doubt, Many visitors go: But the Ass, he said "No! They go in, but I've seen none ...
— The Baby's Own Aesop • Aesop and Walter Crane
... breast, seemed waiting for alms or for an order to retire. He had a dark complexion, and was deeply pitted with smallpox; his eyes, mild, but somewhat squinting, were almost hidden by his thick eyebrows, which met in the middle of his forehead; on his mouth played a crafty, mischievous, and sinister smile; his beard was straight and red, and his costume was that of the order of St. Francis in all its repulsiveness, with sandals on his bare feet, that looked altogether unfit to tread ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... away from him and that such a wicked design should be thwarted. This brother-in-law of his was a worse man than he had thought him; he was capable of being false even to his best friend. He might be mad as a March hare, but, truly, he was also as sly and crafty as a fox in any month in ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... the devil and all his works, and speak very confidently, and yet, God knows, they are captives by him at his pleasure, and not far from that misery which they think they have escaped. Satan works in them with such a crafty conveyance that they cannot perceive it. And how should they perceive it? For we are "by nature dead in sins," and so cannot feel or know that we are such. It is a token of life to feel pain, a certain token, for dead ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... We would reuenge the crafty double dealing, Thousands of harmelesse virgins doe endure, By their deceitfull art of kinde-hart stealing, Keeping our loues vnto our selues secure: And credit to their vowes, should be no other, But in at one eare, ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... scene which awoke in me fear of him, and also exhibited his own disposition. Upon one of the lowest flights of stairs sat an old blind beggar, and rattled with his little leaden box that people might drop a bajocco therein. Many people passed by my uncle without noticing his crafty smile and the waivings of his hat; the blind man gained more by his silence—they gave to him. Three had gone by, and now came the fourth, and threw him a small coin. Peppo could no longer contain himself: I saw how he crept down like a snake, and struck the blind man in his face, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... shimmering thing slithered up, snapped at the fly, and flashed away to the tune of singing reel and the dance of the swaying rod. The man grew suddenly cruel and crafty and full of lust; and Good Indian, watching him, was conscious of an inward shudder of repulsion. He had fished all his life—had Good Indian—and had found joy in the sport. And here was he inwardly condemning a sportsman ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... seen on any stage, and leaves nothing to be desired. His personation of the grim old cardinal, whose decrepit body is alone sustained by his indomitable will, is masterly, and we see before us, not Edwin Booth, the actor of to-day, but the crafty, unscrupulous, witty, determined prime minister of France, who bends kings and princes to his will. It is absolutely life-like, and to those who have seen the portraits of the old cardinal in the museums of France, the accuracy with which Booth has counterfeited the personal appearance ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... same manner I did. We stood in a dark corner, at the head of the stairs, taking note of the proceedings below; when that crafty little chap, that joined us from Brush's, came wriggling like an eel out from between the legs of the crowding tories, in the passage; and, working himself up stairs unnoticed, in the same way, beckoned us ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... continued, sounding far off. A thousand incidents and faces (smiling and blending) sprang upon him out of the past—the happy, irresponsible past, the seductive, confident, ambitious past. Surely Fate was a mental entity, capable of crafty design against the heedless young. He remembered the vows of chastity and honor he had made during a revival in a country church under a blazing faith. He recalled how soon they were forgotten, how sure he was, later ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... crafty. I thought that when I met her on board ship. And those eyes of hers. Phew! They seem to read right into one's soul, and discover one's secret thoughts." He stopped for an instant, then added, meditatively, "I wonder what makes Gastrell keep that ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... comfortably with a Baedeker and a stock of admiration and distribute it as per instructions. But these good old times are over. The Old Masters of yesterday are the young apprentices of to-day. It is pitiable to think how many well-meaning enthusiasts have fallen victims to the careless or crafty curator. Sometimes it scarcely needs a connoisseur to suspect the good faith of catalogues. I, myself, a mere babe and suckling, came to the conclusion, after a visit to the Velasquez Exhibition in London, that Velasquez must have been very versatile. It is too ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... the first examination in the Simeuse case to buy the practice of his master, Grevin. Achille had set up his office in the Place de l'Eglise, in a house belonging to the Comte de Gondreville, which the latter had leased to him at so low a price that any one could see how desirous that crafty politician was to hold the leading notary of Arcis in the ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... affected not to see. But, for myself, the Earth's records had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of highest civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of our Fate from comparison of China the simple and enduring, with Assyria the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with Nubia, more crafty than either, the turbulent mother of all Arts. In the history of these regions I met with a ray from the Future. The individual artificialities of the three latter were local diseases of the Earth, and in their individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied; ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... like little lambs, with their woolly coats, their long thick legs and innocent expressions, and yet a second glance at their broad, sharp-nosed, sharp-eyed visages showed that each of these innocents was the makings of a crafty ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Lisa, Who's your Captor? Doubtless he's a Crafty sort of treasure-seeker— Ne'er a Turpin e'er was sleeker— But, alas, if he can win you Easily as I could chin you, What is safe in all the nations From his dreadful depredations? He's the style of Chap, I'm thinkin', Who will drive us all ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... hissed the bride of Carl Walraven. "It is all her crafty scheming to attract the attention of that hoary-headed simpleton, Sir Roger Trajenna. If you are in love with her, Guy (and how you can is a mystery to me), why don't ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... other signs of the age in the career of this cruel, crafty King. To strengthen himself in his struggle against the Pope, he called, in 1302, an assembly or "states-general" of his people; and, following the example already established in England, he gave a voice in this assembly to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... indulgence in such acts of dissipation. Having learnt, too, that the young man was kept on short supplies by his parsimonious father, and had often complained that he was not allowed sufficient pocket-money for the bare expenses of his daily life; the crafty step-mother seized this opportunity for carrying out her treacherous and dishonourable conduct. Commiserating with the inexperienced youth in his want of money, and making him feel more than ever dissatisfied at his father's ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... away upon Barney, who was naturally of an observant turn; and accordingly he kept a stricter eye than ever upon the motions of Harry Woodward. This accomplished gentleman, like every villain of his class, was crafty and secret in everything he did and said; that is to say, his object was always to lead those with whom he held intercourse, to draw the wrong inference from his words and actions. Even his mother, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... simple lack of mother-wit. What a woeful blunder, for example, is his attempt to win Amalia by depicting her absent lover, at great length and with all manner of revolting details, as the victim of the most loathsome of diseases! And why should such a crafty schemer risk his neck and put himself in the hands of a dangerous confederate for the purpose of hastening by a few hours the demise of a childish old man who is already in his power? And in his final agony of terror, when we should expect him to hide himself or try to escape, how absurd ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... this youth he gave to him, by way of distinction, a decorated tunic, such as was worn only by the sons of princes. The half-brothers of Joseph were filled with envy in view of this unwise step on the part of their common father,—a proceeding difficult to be reconciled with his politic and crafty nature; and their envy ripened into hostility when Joseph, with the frankness of youth, narrated his dreams, which signified his future pre-eminence and the humiliation of his brothers. Nor were his dreams altogether pleasing to his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... chafed at the prospect of inaction and welcomed the offer to join the general's staff, but the bitter experiences of the next few years, when he had charge of the herculean task of protecting the settlers upon the "cold and Barren Frontiers ... from the cruel Incursions of a crafty Savage Enemy," destroyed his illusions about war. After the capture of Fort Duquesne had freed Virginia from danger he resigned his commission, married and made a home. Soon after he wrote to an English kinsman ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... boy in the main, was a crafty one. I never knew, certainly, whether or not Halstead and Ellen had any previous knowledge as to the prank Addison played with the Vermifuge, but I rather think not. There was another large flask-shaped bottle in the same cupboard, about half full of elderberry ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... that she had loved him. Even now, under the softening influence that death imparts, that thought was intolerable to her. This was quite aside from his treatment of her in his will, which, indeed, was strangely little to her. It was the memory of the crafty and common nature under that polished exterior that made her recoil from the ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder |
