"Cunning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their mother in her hiding, were full of strange terror as they questioned mine. Still, under the alarm, they felt the kindness which the poor mother, dog-driven and waylaid by guns, had never known. Therefore they stayed, with a deep wisdom beyond all her cunning, where they knew ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... heard a hideous grunting noise and a splashing of water, and saw the Zulu fly into the air. All the while that they were eating, the wounded buffalo had been lying in wait for them under a thick bush on the banks of the streamlet, knowing—cunning brute that he was—that sooner or later his turn would come. With a shout of consternation they rushed forward to see the bull vanish over the rise before Hadden could get a chance of firing at him, and to find their companion ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... of the Hills, was a small, elderly man, with what Agravaine considered a distinctly furtive air about him. His eyes were too close together, and he was over-lavish with a weak, cunning smile Even Agravaine, who was in the mood to like the whole family, if possible, for Yvonne's sake, could not help feeling that appearances were against this particular exhibit. He might have a heart of gold beneath the outward aspect of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... laughing, and took his aunt's slim hands between his own sunburned fists. "You cunning little thing," he said, "if you talk that way I'll marry you off to one of the faithful three; you and Virginia too. Lord, do you think I'm down here to cut capers when I've enough hard work ahead to drive a dozen men crazy for a year? As for your beautiful Miss Cardross—why I saw a girl ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... cigars and liqueurs, and then answered the question. "Pretty much the same as a basher," he said, "but with a lot more science and dog-cunning about him. They go in gangs, and if you hit one of the gang, all the rest will 'deal with you,' as they call it. If they have to wait a year to get you, they'll wait, and get you alone some night or other and set on to you. They jump on a man if they get him down, too. Oh, they're ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... that stock did not "bog down" in the tricky sand of the adjacent water holes and die before help came, and to fend off any encroachments of the smaller cattle owners—though these were growing fewer year by year, thanks to the weeding-out policy of the Sawtooth and the cunning activities ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... the greatest extent in Aghadez; but Tintalous also has its artizans. Working in leather was very popular during our stay, in consequence of the presence of a noted charm-writer—bags being necessary. A good many cunning blacksmiths ply ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... opinion on all matters; not an unwise one, usually, for his own ends; and will ask no advice of yours. He has no work to do—no tyrannical instinct to obey. The earthworm has his digging; the bee her gathering and building; the spider her cunning network; the ant her treasury and accounts. All these are comparatively slaves, or people of vulgar business. But your fly, free in the air, free in the chamber—a black incarnation of caprice, wandering, investigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich variety ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... it is that we can and do point to a living tangible person with flesh, blood, eyes, nose, ears, organs, senses, dimensions, who did of his own cunning after infinite proof of every kind of hazard and experiment scheme out, and fashion each organ of the human body. This is the person whom we claim as the designer and artificer of that body, and he is the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... This thy maternal uncle is possessed of wisdom and observant of Kshatriya duties. O son of Gandhari, let this one addicted to gambling proceed against Arjuna in battle. This one, skilled in dice, wedded to deception, addicted to gambling, versed in cunning and imposture, this gambler conversant with the ways of deceiving, will vanquish the Pandavas in battle! With Karna in thy company, thou hadst often joyfully boasted, from folly and emptiness of understanding, in the hearing of Dhritarashtra, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... symptom of the decay of true kinghood in modern times is the love of monarchs for solitude. In the early days when monarchy was a real power to answer a real want, the king had no need to hide himself. He was the strongest, the most knowing, the most cunning. He moved among men their acknowledged chief. He guided and controlled them. He never lost his dignity by daily use. He could steal a horse like Diomede, he could mend his own breeches like Dagobert, and never tarnish the lustre of ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... farther, and found a bone gnawed clean of every shred of meat and gristle. A fox is a far less cunning thief than a coyote. The quantity of calf meat had alone saved his saddle and bridle, and even at that, one of the bridle reins was slashed and the stirrup leathers were gnawed. He looked from the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... 'A cunning artist will I have to frame A basin for that fountain in the dell! And they who do make mention of the same, From this day forth shall ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines, by which cunning ambitions and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp to themselves, the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... voice. The Divina Commedia is of Dante's writing; yet in truth it belongs to ten Christian centuries, only the finishing of it is Dante's. So always. The craftsman there, the smith with that metal of his, with these tools, with these cunning methods,—how little of all he does is properly his work! All past inventive men work there with him;—as indeed with all of us, in all things. Dante is the spokesman of the Middle Ages; the Thought they lived by stands here, in everlasting ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... Hilton, very quietly, for he felt her eyes upon him with that slow, sidelong glance that has so much cunning in it, and this put him on ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... their people, whenever we tell them they are very expert at catching deer, or doing this and that, they say, Tkoschs ko, aguweechon Kajingahaga kouaane Jountuckcha Othkon; that is, "Really all the Mohawks are very cunning devils." They make their houses of the bark of trees, very close and warm, and kindle their fire in the middle of them. They also make of the peeling and bark of trees, canoes or small boats, which will carry four, five and six persons. In like manner they hollow out trees, ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... back to his native land, saying that he could have nothing more to do with those with whom he had joined himself. He told me that a villain who goes by the name of Martin has laid a plot to rob this house, and either to carry off Sir Thomas Gresham or to murder him. As he is a cunning villain, it is too likely that he will carry out his plans, if care is not taken ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... little ones? and shall "Christ as we believe him" choose according to the sight of the eye? Would he turn away from the child born in sin and taught iniquity, on whose pinched face hunger and courage and love of praise have combined to stamp the cunning of avaricious age, and take to his arms the child of honest parents, such as Peter and his wife, who could not help looking more good than the other? That were not he who came to seek and to save that which was lost. Let the man who loves his brother say which, ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... lodge to interfere secretly but controllingly in its discipline of members, or in its selection or dismission of a pastor! These suggestions are not merely imaginary. Subjection of the church, in this way, to the cunning craftiness of evil and designing men ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... goddess herself, gave to them to prevail over the dwellers upon earth, with best-labouring hands in every art. And by their paths there were the likenesses of living and of creeping things; and the glory was deep. For to the cunning workman, greater ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... appear to drink in every word that is spoken to them, as if they thirsted for the truth. In teaching these people I treat them as children, but I know they have nothing of the gentleness and simplicity of children; they are cunning, 'deceitful above all ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... and Rugge looked at each other with a shy and yet cunning gaze,—Rugge's hands in his trouser's pockets, his head thrown back; Losely's hands in voluntarily expanded, his head bewitchingly bent forward, and a little ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the fifth day, though it was bright and beautiful, the hunter's cunning detected the first subtle signs of a coming storm. He looked about him to see what provision was needed to meet and weather its onset. On the swamp side the loftiest cypresses, should the wind bring any of them down, would not more than cast the spray of their fall as far as his anchorage. The mass ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... and wit won for him the title of the "English Anacreon" in Edward Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum. Brome published in 1666 a translation of Horace by himself and others, and was the author of a comedy entitled The Cunning Lovers (1654). He also edited two ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... know, like our brother of London, You've sipt of all knowledge, both sacred and mundane, No doubt, in some ancient Joe Miller, you've read What Cato, that cunning old Roman, once said— That he ne'er saw two reverend sooth-say ers meet, Let it be where it might, in the shrine or the street, Without wondering the rogues, mid their solemn grimaces, Didn't burst out a laughing in each other's faces. What Cato then meant, tho' 'tis so long ago, Even ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... my brother he thought the King would certainly go mad; he was so excitable, loathing his Ministers, particularly Graham, and dying to go to war. He has some of the cunning of madmen, who fawn upon their keepers when looked at by them, and grin at them and shake their fists when their backs are turned; so he is extravagantly civil when his Ministers are with him, and exhibits every mark of aversion when they are away. Peel made an ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... to myself, why do you torment yourselves thus? The Rights OF Man is a book calmly and rationally written; why then are you so disturbed? Did you see how little or how suspicious such conduct makes you appear, even cunning alone, had you no other faculty, would hush you into prudence. The plans, principles, and arguments, contained in that work, are placed before the eyes of the nation, and of the world, in a fair, open, and manly manner, and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... attitude, the dealer lay like so much sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it, and, lo! it was nothing. And yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began to find eloquent voices. There it must lie; there was none to work the cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion—there it must lie till it was found. Found! aye, and then? Then would this dead flesh lift up a cry that would ring over England, and fill the world with the echoes of pursuit. ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... like an Eskimo in his snow hut. My trudging near by frightened the bird out of the farther doorway, and he dashed away pellmell, hurling a saucy gird of protestation at me, and was seen by me no more. I examined the little snow house. It was very cunning indeed, and might well have made a cozy shelter for the little wren in stormy weather. My next meeting with a winter wren occurred on the fifteenth of February, in the same hollow, but about an eighth of a mile nearer ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... (or swung up above their heads) "was a gallant shippe triumphant, wherein was three menne like saylers, being eminent for voyce and skill, who in their severall songes were assisted and seconded by the cunning lutanists. There was also in the hall the musique of the cittie, and in the upper chamber the children of His Majestie's Chappell sang grace at the King's table; and also whilst the King sate at dinner John ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... War, Each able to undo mankind, Death's servile emissaries are; Nor to these alone confined, He hath at will More quaint and subtle ways to kill; A smile or kiss, as he will use the art, Shall have the cunning skill to break ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the savage to wreak his vengeance on his enemy; but, fortunately, that villain, despite his subtlety and cunning, had not conceived the possibility of the youth indulging in such an unnatural recreation as a nap in the forenoon. He had, therefore, retired to his native jungle, and during the hour in which Henry was buried in repose, and in which he might have accomplished his end without danger or ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... carven chair upon which the Greek had draped the leopard skin. Momentarily the window-dresser leapt into life as Agapoulos beheld one of his cunning effects destroyed, but he forced a smile when Grantham, shrugging ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... sagacity in varying degrees. The old animals are wise according to their years; the stupid and lazy die young. They adapt themselves quickly to changed conditions; they outwit their enemies by sheer cunning, never in physical combat; rarely do they defend themselves—and not once have I known one to take the offensive side of a fray. Watching them waddling along, one wonders how they accomplish their great engineering feats in so short a time. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... dark, Distained his royal bosom, and that found Its way, still issuing, from a mortal wound, Ghastly and gaping wide, upon his throat! The shadow passed—another took his place, Of the same royal race; The noble Yumuri, the only son Of the old monarch, heir to his high throne, Cut off by cunning in his youthful pride; There was the murderer's gash, and the red tide Still pouring from his side; And round his neck the mark of bloody hands, That strangled the brave sufferer while he strove Against their clashing brands. Not with unmoistened eyes did the chief note His ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... House and fled forever. The women who owed much to Jane Withersteen changed not in love for her, nor in devotion to their household work, but they poisoned both by a thousand acts of stealth and cunning and duplicity. Jane broke out once and caught them in strange, stone-faced, unhesitating falsehood. Thereafter she broke out no more. She forgave them because they were driven. Poor, fettered, and sealed Hagars, how she pitied them! What terrible thing bound them and locked their lips, when they ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... The cunning skill, the curious arts, The glorious strength that youth imparts In life's first stage; These shall become a heavy weight, When Time swings wide his outward gate ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... fox, at the adroit wording of the advertisement, and chuckled at his cunning. He would notify the postmaster in Prouty to hold out his mail for him and thus escape further "joshing" from Kate, who would be sure to observe letters addressed to ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... forcing the running, discarding all cunning, A length to the front went the rider in green; A long strip of stubble, and then the big double, Two stiff flights of ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... grimace. Before the hideous spasm of his silent merriment the woman who loved him paled, and turned away with a shudder. She slouched down the short flight of steps, and the man, with a grin, malicious and cunning, lifted the tin pail ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... and strength and glory stands; but the skilled and cunning workman is brought low, and lies cold and silent. The crowded and glorious, almost living cathedral—the richly bedecked body dismantled, deserted, dead. Was ever contrast so wide or suggestive? The white, shining arches and pinnacles, up-pointing in architectural ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... those fixed elements from which mankind Hath been, by their peculiar virtue, formed? Of verity, they'll laugh aloud, like men, Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth, Or sprinkle with dewy tear-drops cheeks and chins, And have the cunning hardihood to say Much on the composition of the world, And in their turn inquire what elements They have themselves,—since, thus the same in kind As a whole mortal creature, even they Must also ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... saving his own crop and spoiling his neighbor's, that his might sell the better. What with greed and what with spite some fields were flooded while others were parched, and half the water ran wholly to waste. In such a land, though a few by strength or cunning might win the means of luxury, the lot of the great mass must be poverty, and of the weak and ignorant ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... the fellows were still in dining hall and the rule requiring the turning out of lights during absence from rooms was strictly enforced. Only the masters were exempted, and Tim noticed as he passed Mr. Daley's study that the droplight was turned low by one of those cunning dimming attachments which Tim had always envied the instructor the possession of. Tim would have had one of those long ago could he have put it to any practical use. He passed through the doorway and down the dimly lighted corridor, the rubber-soled shoes which he affected in all seasons ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... hardly right to omit this edition of so celebrated a tale pictured by so celebrated an artist, yet Mr. Crane's work breathes mystery and Oriental cunning from every page, and should be given to our youngsters only after examination, as a highly-strung child might be frightened by it. The picture of the resourceful Morgiana filling the oil-jars, while a dreadful robber with saucer-like eyes peers (p. 43) from ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... indeed he is permeated through and through with literature. You must not simply turn history into verse: historians do it better in prose. Rather the poet should sweep on his way borne by the breath of inspiration and untrammelled by hard fact, making use of cunning artifice and divine intervention, and interfusing his "commonplaces" with legendary lore; only so will his work seem to be the fine frenzy of an inspired bard rather than the exactitude of one who is giving sworn evidence before a judge'. He then proceeds in 295 verses to deal, after the manner ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... in June, the club windows open, a clear twilight shining over Pall Mall, and a tete-a-tete dinner at a small, clean, bright table—these are not the conditions in which a young man should show impatience. And yet the cunning dishes which Mr. Ogilvie, who had a certain pride in his club, though it was only one of the junior institutions, had placed before his friend, met with but scanty curiosity: Macleod would rather have handed ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... sure of that," said Mr Tidey. "The Indians may know of a path up them which we may fail to discover, and if so, the cunning rascals will be sure to take advantage of it and endeavour to surprise us, besides which, some of our cattle and horses may chance to tumble over it and break their necks. However, as we are aware of the dangers, we may guard ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... third smaller than the common kind. They are swifter, and go in larger packs. They bring forth their young in burrows on the open plain, and not among the woods, like the other species. They are the most cunning of American animals, not excepting their kindred the foxes. They cannot be trapped by any contrivance, but by singular manoeuvres often themselves decoy the over-curious antelope to approach too near them. When a gun is fired upon the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... servant unto her said Grace and receive of her yearly fee and other many good and great benefits, (and also hope many more to receive of her Highness), but forthwith went and laboured in the said translation after my simple and poor cunning, also nigh as I can following my author, meekly beseeching the bounteous Highness of my said Lady that of her benevolence list to accept and take in gree this simple and rude work here following; and if ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... sunk lower and forward. His high color had faded to a drab olive. In fact, from a free-swinging, jovial, somewhat overbearing demeanor, Arizona had changed to a mien of malicious and rather frightened cunning. In this wise he advanced, heedless of the curious and astonished sheriff, until his face was literally pressed against the bars. He peered steadily ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... realize that G. P. is the liveliest, smartest town in the state. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan, the famous auto manufacturer, came from here and——Yes, I think that a St. Patrick's Day party would be awfully cunning and original, and yet not too queer ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... cunning or instinct in Wych Hazel? Mrs. Coles answered with a significant chuckle, but added—'My dear, you know he has money enough of ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... nearest port, in which would be found vessels already waiting to receive them on board, and convey them into Italy. This was done, at the same instant, in all places for hundreds of leagues in extent, without the Jesuits, with all their cunning, having received a breath of information, or entertained a suspicion, as to the stroke impending over them; and, what is still more strange, without having given rise to the least symptom of complaint or disapprobation. On the contrary, the other religious orders, who had been ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... just the completest thing I've ever seen!" cried Billie, clapping her hands in delight while Paul looked at her happily. "Those cunning curtains at the ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... a good deal of art and cunning, and has drawn several whites into his church; and his performances have an imposing cast; and are often listened to with seriousness. He appears to have learnt his sermons and prayers from a diligent reading of good books; but as to the Christian ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... that for many years no other name was given to the sewing machine in his house but the word "mafinge," and not until he went to school did he correct the word "bewhind," for in the nursery he learned the line "wagging their tails bewhind them." Baby talk is very cunning, and often the adult members of the family pick it up and keep it up for years, and only when they are exposed in public, as one mother was on a suburban platform by her four-year-old lad shouting, "Mamma, ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... is placed. Slavery was established before he began to breathe. It was his inheritance. His slaves are his property by birth or testament. But why will he thus deceive himself? Why will he permit the cunning and rapacious spiders, which in the very sanctuary of ethics and religion are laboriously weaving webs from their own bowels, to catch him with their wretched sophistries?—and devour him, body, soul, and substance? Let him know, as he must one day with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... puss in the study; how cunning she looks! She likes rats and mice far better than books. Ah! that poor little mouse, it is out of its pain, And will never feel pussy's sharp talons again. I hope it has not left some young ones at home, Who with hunger may die ere their mother shall come. And yet 'twould ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... she continued. "It's a trait of our people, like—well, like their distrust of authority and their fear of law. You see, persecution made them cunning, but underneath they are fierce and revengeful and—lawless. I inherited all these traits—but that has nothing to do with the story. Father worked in the Bessemer plant, like any hunkie, and the women used to bring the men's lunches ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... cultivated his garden, and wrote long weekly letters to the Home Journal. He had by this time five children, middle age had stolen upon him, and now that he could no longer pose as his own allconquering hero, his hand seems to have lost its cunning. His editorial articles, afterwards published under the appropriate title of Ephemera, grew thinner and flatter with the passing of the years; yet slight and superficial as the best of them are, they were the result of very hard writing. His manuscripts were ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... is identified with the "Samson" dispatched by Henry VIII. in 1527 "with divers cunning men to seek strange regions," which sailed from the Thames on 20th May in company with the "Mary of Guildford," was lost by her consort in a storm on the night of 1st July, and was believed to have foundered with all on ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... an instance of the extraordinary cunning manifested by the Racoon. It is fond of crabs, and when in quest of them, will stand by the side of a swamp, and hang its tail over into the water; the crabs, mistaking it for food, are sure to lay hold of it; and as soon ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... cunning, Adam was striving to telegraph by winks and gestures to the boy who had so grievously disappointed him, that the moment of his own summary execution would be an excellent ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... taking a meridian altitude. Then I took the sextant, worked out the index error, and shot the sun. The figuring from the data of this observation was child's play. In the "Epitome" and the "Nautical Almanac" were scores of cunning tables, all worked out by mathematicians and astronomers. It was like using interest tables and lightning-calculator tables such as you all know. The mystery was mystery no longer. I put my finger on the chart and announced that that was where we were. I was right too, or at least I was ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... thought Adam lost his estate through a cunning notary who persuaded his wife to break the lease he held; and poor Adam lost possession because he could not find a second notary ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... to understand] Wasn't it enough? Why didn't you tell me? [With a cunning gleam in her eye] I'll double it: I was intending to double it. Only let me know ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... because of remarkable talents for speech-making, was called "The Orator of the Plains." Satanta was short and bullet-headed. Hatred for the whites swelled every square inch of his breast, but he had the deep cunning of his people, with some especially fine points of treachery learned from dealings with dishonest agents and traders. There probably never was an Indian so depraved that he could not be corrupted further by association with a ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... hope so, Mister," said Ernest, boldly, "because, unless the signs fail, he's going to need all his cunning this same day. That lad has the measure of your hard hitters already taken. Did you see him mow down Clifford then like a weed? Why, he'll have the best of them eating out of his hand before the day is ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... proof in that moaning, groping, brainless thing that was Sancho, that her mistress had shown a leaning toward the strangers at the expense of her own people, and that she herself might expect no mercy if ever caught. And with the low animal cunning that served her for intellect she knew her penalty could be no greater if she struck one blow in revenge before taking to ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... those things alone, and go to man; {14} for whom as the other things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is employed; and know, whether she have brought forth so true a lover as Theagenes; so constant a friend as Pylades; so valiant a man as Orlando; so right a prince as Xenophon's Cyrus; and so excellent a man every way as Virgil's ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... animal, he obeys their call, his wit against their wisdom of the ages, his strength against their solidity, his courage against their cunning. And ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to spur the cook's easy invention, and, after a cunning yet credulous look up and down the large kitchen, where the pale light at the windows was invisible in the stronger fire beneath the great stack chimney, Aunt ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... Scriptures were poured upon my spirit; questions against the very being of God and of his only beloved Son, as whether there was in truth a God or Christ, or no, and whether the Holy Scriptures were not rather a fable and cunning story than the holy and ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... can calculate upon the death of cunning Alice, who, by her undue and flagitious influence over your uncle, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... cunning artists, raised the structures for the rite, And with every needful object graced ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... Transports were then much in demand, to be brought up as clerks and cash-keepers to the Planters. Sure there was never such a Diabolical Plot for so sorry an end; but a vast number of paltry conspiracies, carried out with Infernal Cunning and Ingenuity, had made, in the course of years, Sir Basil Hopwood rich and mighty, a Knight and Alderman, Parliament man and ex-Lord Mayor. To carry out these designs was just part of the ordinary calling of a Shipmaster in those days. 'Twas looked upon as the simplest ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... long. Something moved outside the logs. They had posted their sentry then. She groaned as she realised that what she had heard was inadequate and insufficient. The knowledge was there to be had for a little daring, a little cunning. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... are cunning enough! You represent wealth of another kind, which at first was not ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... it a little dark, I built a fire of sage brush, ate my grub, and when it was fairly dark, renewed the fire and passed on a mile, where in a small ravine with banks two feet high I lay down sheltered from the wind and slept till morning. I did this to beat the Indian in his own cunning. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... full of slackers, of lazy good-nature, of inefficiency. Into that softness he had come with a high explosive and an aim. He moved through life as a hunter among a covey of tame partridges—a brief flutter and a tumble of soft flesh. He had the cunning lines about the mouth, the glint in the eye, of the successful man. He had the easy generosities, too, of the man who, possessing much, can express power by endowing helpless things which he happens to like. There was an abundant sentiment in him, sentiment about his daughter and ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... on my messenger, With cunning arrows poisonous and keen, To take forthwith her laughing life from her, And dull her ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... captured trout, now letting the line run out and now winding it in again, in the difficult and delicate process of "playing" the fish. Along the bank I followed to watch the contest of skill and cunning between the man and the trout. I had lived long enough with my uncle Starkweather to catch some of his enthusiasm for field sports, and to learn something, especially, of the angler's art. Still following the stranger, with my ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... the master of the house where my brother was so ill used, was a highwayman, and naturally cunning and malicious. He heard at his window what Backback had said to his companions, and therefore came down and followed them to my brother's house. The blind men being seated, Backback said to them, brethren, we must shut the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... confound the private good of the governing class with the general welfare of the state. It became the fixed policy of Walpole to make prosperity the mask for political stagnation. He turned political debate from principles to personalities, and a sterile generation was the outcome of his cunning. ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... and unnatural mass of superfluous flesh; and she was as white as if her veins had been filled with water, instead of blood. Her hanging cheeks, her receding forehead, and her thin lips, imparted an alarming expression of wickedness and cunning to her countenance. At the farther end of the store Fortunat could vaguely discern the figure of a man seated on a stool. He seemed to be asleep, for his crossed arms rested on a table, with his ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... for a woman, even if she were born close to a throne, to acquire before the age of five-and-twenty the encyclopaedic knowledge of trifles, the practice of manoeuvring, the important small things, the musical tones and harmony of coloring, the angelic bedevilments and innocent cunning, the speech and the silence, the seriousness and the banter, the wit and the obtuseness, the diplomacy and the ignorance which make ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... thirty and forty, tall, very goodlooking, sympathetic, intelligent, tender and humorous, dressed with cunning simplicity not as a businesslike, tailor made, gaitered tourist, but as if she lived at the next cottage and had dropped in for tea in blouse and flowered straw hat. A woman of great vitality and humanity, ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... off among the pines and built a little blaze all by themselves, and there talked gravely over the strange events of the summer now so fully set before them in those volumes from Russell. All Wolf's wild infatuation. All Gleason's cunning malice, and—ah! De mortuis nil nisi bonum. May God forgive him! All Ray's loyal and devoted services, and his cruel suffering and wrongs. What wonder was it that for days the regiment could talk of nothing but Ray? What wonder that they could not fathom ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... and then at the two figures upon the floor, and then back at him again with eyes at once quizzical and cunning. Then his face broke into a grin that might hardly be called of drollery. "Accident!" quoth he. "By the blood! d'ye see 'tis a strange accident, indeed, that lays two men by the heels and lets the third go without a scratch!" Delivering himself thus, he came forward into the room, and, taking ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... loves and finds them where they hide Roams restless till he holds them to his breast. They bring him from the Islands of the Blest Heroic fire to make him do and dare, And tidings from the Land of Heart's Desire. Name, cunning stranger, name this ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... from its beginning unto its end, even as it was found in a writing. It is written by the scribe of cunning fingers Ameni-amen-aa; may he live ...
— Egyptian Literature
... or acutest cunning, could not have detected in those undulating hillocks aught but the natural irregularities ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... the Pharaoh, and must therefore have exercised some court function. They seem to step forth with a measured pace and firm demeanour, the body well thrown back and the head erect, their faces displaying something of cruelty and cunning. An officer, whose retirement from service is now spent in the Louvre, is dressed in a semi-civil costume, with a light wig, a closely fitting smock-frock with shirt-sleeves, and a loin-cloth tied tightly round the hips and descending halfway ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... An old cunning greyhound, to whom no share had been offered, and who well knew that it was of no use putting himself against the strength of the bull-dog and mastiff, stood proudly aloof, with quivering ears and tail, regarding the doings ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... farces. At this time the whole amount of the schooling which the boy had received, barely enabled him to read a chapter in the testament, to scrawl a very indifferent manuscript, and to form an indistinct notion of the two or three first rules of vulgar arithmetic. Such was the cunning and address with which these youngsters managed their theatre, that they enjoyed it several months without THE OLD ONES being able to discover where they wasted their time. One answer always served JOHN when questioned by his master—"Where ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... of mind Worked feelings fearful, and yet undefined; Such might it be—that none could truly tell— Too close inquiry his stern glance would quell. There breathe but few whose aspect might defy The full encounter of his searching eye; He had the skill, when Cunning's gaze would seek[ho] To probe his heart and watch his changing cheek, At once the observer's purpose to espy, And on himself roll back his scrutiny, 220 Lest he to Conrad rather should betray Some secret thought, than drag that Chief's to day. There was a laughing Devil in his sneer, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... in their complexion, resemble the Mulattoes of the West Indies; but they have something unpleasant in their aspect, which the Mulattoes have not. I fancied that I discovered in the features of most of them a disposition towards cruelty and low cunning; and I could never contemplate their physiognomy without feeling sensible uneasiness. From the staring wildness of their eyes, a stranger would immediately set them down as a nation of lunatics. The treachery and malevolence of their character are manifested ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... same, even when I'm at my very piousest, it puts me out if my drawings go wrong. I'm going to draw St. Ursula's blue slippers to-day, and if I can't do them nicely shall be in great despair. I've just found a little cunning inscription on her bedpost, 'IN FANNTIA.' The double N puzzled me at first, but Carpaccio spells anyhow. My head is not good enough for a bedpost....Oh me, the sweet Grange!—Thwaite, I mean (bedpost again); to think of it in this mass of weeds ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... cunning she will carry her behaviours, And set her countenance in a thousand postures, To catch ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered cheerfully, "you ain't got no idee ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... it mean?" asked Sora Nanna, her cunning peasant's eyes looking from one to the other, and seeming to belie ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... attire a grace, To let it deck itself with thee, And teachest pomp strange cunning ways To be thought simplicity. But lilies, stolen from grassy mold, No more curled state unfold Translated to a vase of gold; In burning throne though they keep still Serenities unthawed and chill. Therefore, albeit thou'rt stately so, ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... but did not once revert to the previous subject of discourse. I was on thorns. I could not eat. I could not look at the minister without anxiety and shame, and whenever my eye caught that of the doctor, I was abashed by a look of meaning and good-humoured cunning, that was half intelligible and half obscure. Rays of hope penetrated to my heart's core, and illuminated my existence. The presence of Mr Fairman could not be without a purpose. What was it, then? Oh, I dared not trust myself to ask the question! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... instance, or Monsieur des Barres. He did not believe that the Paris authorities knew anything of it, yet; but he did believe that Simon knew what he was doing; that Real, the well-known head of the police in the western arrondissement, trained under Fouche in suspicion, cunning and mercilessness, would make unscrupulous use of any means of knowing the present state of Royalist opinion in Anjou. He would be all the more severe, probably, because the mildness of the Prefect ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... realized that the rapid events that had succeeded his coming had rendered her impressions of Burke a little blurred. Through all those first stages of Guy's illness, she could scarcely recall him at all. Her mind was full of the image of Kieff, subtle, cruel, almost ghoulish, a man of deep cunning and incomprehensible motives. It had suited his whim to save Guy. She had often wondered why. She was certain that no impulse of affection had moved him or was capable of moving him. No pity, no sympathy, had ever complicated this man's aims or crippled his achievements. He had a clear, ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Russia, France, Austria, and Prussia—they are all there. Why did they not perform the obligation? It is suggested that if we quote this treaty it is purely an excuse on our part. It is our low craft and cunning, just to cloak our jealousy of a superior civilization we are attempting to destroy. Our answer is the action we took in 1870. What was that? Mr. Gladstone was then Prime Minister. Lord Granville, I think, was then Foreign Secretary. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... guile in his dealings with the youth of Chisley, and set himself to work to cultivate his physical qualities. All that the pugilists and wrestlers could teach him he picked up with extraordinary quickness, and to the arts thus acquired he added cunning tricks of offence and defence of his own contriving. He had a peculiar aptitude for wrestling and pugilism, delighted secretly in his strength and swiftness, and would walk five miles to plunge like a porpoise ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Birotteau would have died rather than renounce her right of personally inspecting the affairs of the house,—of holding, as she phrased it, the handle of the frying-pan. Birotteau was at his wits' end; he had used all his cunning in trying to hide from his wife the symptoms of his embarrassment. Constance strongly disapproved of sending round the bills; she had scolded the clerks and accused Celestin of wishing to ruin the establishment, thinking ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... by actions committed under the influence of other forms of immoderation. We are agreed that it is a sad spectacle which is to be observed in the Old Kent Road on a Saturday night, when the legs of half the pedestrians appear to have lost their cunning. We say in disgust that these people are intoxicated. What, then, have we to say regarding those persons whose brains are unbalanced by immoderate habits of thought, who are suffering from that primary kind ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... unimportant animals, are neglected, and a half dozen, a dozen, or a score of the well-known animals are exalted into a hierarchy of petty gods, headed by the strongest like the bear, the swiftest like the deer, the most majestic like the eagle, the most cunning like the fox or coyote, or the most deadly like the rattlesnake. Commonly the arts and the skill of the mystical huntsman improve from youth to adolescence and from generation to generation, so that the later animals ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... of the outdoors is that every man must play his own hand. The Slash Lazy D resented Bandy. He was ugly in face, voice, and manner. His speech was offensive. He managed to convey insult by the curl of his lip. Yet he was cunning enough to keep within the bounds of safety. Nobody wanted to pick a quarrel with him, for it might turn out to be a serious business. The fellow looked rancorous. Moreover, the ranch riders had no use for Dillon. It would be a relief ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... "The cunning dog has covered his tracks," said he. "He has left nothing to incriminate him. His dangerous correspondence has been destroyed or removed. ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... exactly as Smith had used them, seemed once again to sound in my ears: "Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull and long magnetic eyes of the true cat green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science, past and present, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the 'Yellow Peril' ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... together drawe, And so strong in euery kinde, Subiects them to natures law. 40 Whose hie virtue number teaches In which euery thing dooth mooue, From the lowest depth that reaches To the height of heauen aboue: Harmony that wisely found, When the cunning hand doth strike Whereas euery amorous sound, Sweetly marryes with his like. The tender cattell scarcely take From their damm's the feelds to proue, 50 But ech seeketh out a make, Nothing liues that doth not loue: Not soe ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... me! Ye venturers and adventurers, and whoever of you have embarked with cunning sails ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... points. He was hospitable and good-natured, but he was also, as Burton very well knew, cunning and untrustworthy. The more, however, Burton revolved the scheme in his mind, the more feasible it seemed. That he could persuade the Khedive to support him he felt sure; that he would swell to bursting the Egyptian coffers and become a millionaire himself was also ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... young fellow that undertook to garrote a man who had won his money at cards. The same slender shape, the same cunning, fierce look, smoothed over with a plausible air. Depend upon it, there is an expression in all the sort of people that live by their wits when they can, and by worse weapons when their wits fail them, that we old law-doctors ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... He knew that Curly's thoughtless earlier description of the scene of the arrest would in advance be held as much evidence in the trial as any sworn testimony given in the court. Still, the sentiment of pity was strong in his heart. He resolved to use all he knew of the cunning of the law to save this half-witted savage. He determined to defeat, if possible, the ends of a technical justice, in order to secure a higher and a broader justice, the charity of a divine mercy. As the lawyer, the agent of organized ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... animals or fictitious characters should be marked with an unexceptionable care and attention to their natural attributes, and to the qualities attributed to them by universal popular consent. The Fox should be always cunning, the Hare timid, the Lion bold, the Wolf cruel, the Bull strong, the Horse proud, and the Ass patient. Many of these fables are characterized by the strictest observance of these rules. They are occupied ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... care to avenge themselves on any of the taller, stronger tribes who interfered with them and tried to push them out of their territory. The remembrance of them would be handed down long after they had become extinct, and, of course their doings were exaggerated, and their cunning tricks were set down to magic. Just as the prehistoric monsters lingered as dragons and firedrakes, so the small early inhabitants of Europe have passed into dwarfs and brownies and pixies. If anybody ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... There seemed to be nothing to do on the farm. The chickens were quite happy, and only asked to be let alone and allowed to have their meals at regular intervals. And every day one or more of their number would vanish into the kitchen, Mrs. Beale would serve up the corpse in some cunning disguise, and we would try to delude ourselves into the idea that ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse |
