"Cunning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cautious in entering on the subject of enlistment with his new friend, the sergeant; but the latter was twenty times as cunning as he, and knew by experience how ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... cupidity had been aroused by English gold, had searched the forest far and near for the regicides. Their knowledge of the forest and cunning in following a trail had two or three times brought them face to face with Cromwell's stern old battle-trained warriors. Then they had learned to their cost that they had roused a pair of lions in their lairs; but the regicides finally disappeared. They had last ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... furiously at his leg rope, with much outcry and indignation, until Billy, finding himself alone, owing to the eccentric behaviour of the other starters, had resorted to different tactics by no means devoid of native cunning. Slackening the line, he suddenly produced from his pocket a few grains of wheat, and ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... them, as clean as I wad bite it aff a sybo!" rejoined Cuddie. "Eh, Lord! see how the broadswords are flashing! war's a fearsome thing. They'll be cunning that catches me at this wark again.—But, for God's sake, sir, let us mak for ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that's about all I had to go on, too. But it was a strong one. Something inside of me kept saying that man Higginbotham wasn't to be trusted. There was a look in his eyes, watchful and cunning. And he made a little start when we asked him about the Brownell place. I don't know. There was nothing definite, nothing I can point out to you now. I feel almost ashamed of myself, ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... usually fine, but absurd in shape; the very shape and fashion of it changes twice in a hundred years; and did I but covet to be called an extravagant falsifier, I would say it changed even oftener. Hair does not grow upon the American women's heads; it is made for them by cunning workmen in the shops, and is curled and frizzled into scandalous and ungodly forms. Some persons wear eyes of glass which they see through with facility perhaps, else they would not use them; and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and sophist; but he will not become wise, and his intellect will perish in this life or in the state after death. We often see very intellectual people becoming criminals, and even lunatics are often very cunning. That which a man may call his own in the end, are not the thoughts which he has stored in his perishable memory; but the fire of love and light which he has kindled in his heart. If this fire of life burns at his ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... suffering worth is given, Who long with wants and woes has striven, By human pride or cunning driven To misery's brink, Till wrenched of every stay but ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 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 Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... mossy sward, would make trial of their strength and valour, whereby he both took and gave right lusty knocks; or again, when work failed, he would lie upon the grass, chin on fist, poring over some ancient legend, or sit with brush and colours, illuminating on vellum, wherein right cunning was he. Now it chanced that as he sat thus, brush in hand, upon a certain fair afternoon, he suddenly espied one who stood watching him from the shade of a tree, near by. A very tall man he was, long ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... a pause, with his head bent forward, his countenance screwed into the most hideous expression of cunning ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... but they got not that, though they missed it not through any good cunning of his; for he, being dismayed with their coming upon him, had neither power nor skill to hide anything; so it was more by good Providence than by his endeavour, that they ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... doubtful battle. He satisfied his hunger on wild honey, and the ripe fruits and tubers with which the forest abounded at this season. At night he made his nest, of hurriedly woven branches, in the highest swaying of the tree-tops, where not even the leopard, cunning climber though she was, could come at him without giving timely warning. And so, doggedly and swiftly making his way due east, he came at length to the fringes of that vast region of swampy meres and fruitful, rankly wooded islets which was occupied ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... mamma,' to whom you were to be shown? The cunning, little thing has some design upon you, Rosie, or, perhaps, on some of the rest ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... reckless manner and did many other mad things; and there were some that were wholly bad, just as there are rogue elephants and as there are black sheep in the human flock, but they were not really bad as a rule, and certainly not too intelligent. Even little men with their cunning little brains could get the better of them. The result of such teaching could only be that the Devil would be regarded as not the unmitigated monster they had been told that he was, nor without human weaknesses and virtues. When we say now that he is not "as black ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... to make home less happy, but society more holy. I would have good and sensible women, grave in manner, and cultured in intellect, attend the primary meetings and bring their moral influence and political power to frown down corruption, chicanery, and low cunning." ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... up the wall, And he'll never, never fall; Save that, poisoned, he may drop In the soup or on the chop. Let us coax the cunning brute To the tempting Tanglefoot, Or invite his thirsty soul ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... deceived. For thirty-four years John Marshall labored ceaselessly to counteract Jefferson's constitutional principles, while Jefferson always denounced the political partiality of the federal courts, and above all the "rancorous hatred which Marshall bears to the government of his country, and ... the cunning and sophistry within which he ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... and Angevin cat which had made him so. Furtive he was not, yet seeming to crouch for a spring; not savage, yet primed for savagery; not cruel, yet quick on the affront, and on the watch for it. He was neither a rogue nor a madman; and yet he was as cunning as the one and as heedless as the other, if that is a possible thing. He was arrogant, but his smile veiled the fault; you saw it best in a sleepy look he had. His blemishes were many, his weaknesses two. ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... a corrupt press, crooked politics—grew up within the country, were promoted by American citizens, admired by millions of them, and acquiesced in by almost all of them. Whoever thinks that business corruption is the work of a few inhumanly cunning individuals with monstrous morals is self-righteous without excuse. Capitalists did not violate the public conscience of America; they expressed it. That conscience was inadequate and unintelligent. We are being pinched by the acts it nourished. A great outcry has arisen and a number of ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... his chin thrusting, his face pale, his eyes burning with a sudden fierce fire. Once he opened his lips to speak, but instantly closed them again, and a smile wreathed them—a mirthless smile that had in it a certain cold caution and cunning. After a silence that lasted long his voice came again, drawling, well-controlled, revealing nothing of the emotion which had ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... she had learnt in favour Of various sailors, declaring, with great animation, her security In their good hearts, however drawn aside by harder and more cunning heads, The sweetness with which she delights to get out of all that is forbidding in her rank is truly adorable. In speaking of a sailor on board the St. Fiorenzo, when the royal family made their excursion by sea from Weymouth, she said, "You must know this man was a great favourite ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... much like the looks of the fellow—that affectation of simplicity is evidently intended to conceal the real cunning of his character. (Aloud). You are of course aware of the nature and the duties of the situation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... ceremonies and pretensions of small moment; and as the Masons would make no apologies, and no efforts to bring the offenders to justice, it was inferred by the credulous public that Masons were not fit to be entrusted with political office. The outrage was seized upon by cunning politicians to make political capital. Jackson was a Mason. Hence the new party of Anti-Masons made war against him. As they had been his supporters, the Democratic party of the State of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... to be done. Sorry I'd spoken. After all, telling me about his hat, what did it prove? Nothing. If anything, easily could be twisted into cunning preparation of his ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... kubo. Cuckoo kukolo. Cucumber kukumo. Cudgel bastonego. Cuff manumo. Cuirass kiraso. Cull kolekti. Cullender kribrilo. Culpable kulpa. Culprit kulpulo. Cultivate kulturi. Culture kulturo. Cunning ruzo. Cunning ruza. Cup taso. Cupboard sxranko. Cupidity avideco. Cupola kupolo. Curable kuracebla. Curacy parohxo. Curate vikaro. Curator kuratoro, gardisto. Curb haltigi. Cure (act of curing) kuraco. Cure (remedy) kuracilo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... steam-engine (when one thinks of it) really expresses itself as well as the rest of us. All language is irrelevant, feeble, and absurd. We live in an organically inexpressible world. The language of everything in it is absurd. Judged merely by its outer signs, the universe over our heads—with its cunning little stars in it—is the height of absurdity, as a self-expression. The sky laughs at us. We know it when we look in a telescope. Time and space are God's jokes. Looked at strictly in its outer language, the whole visible world is a joke. To suppose that God has ever expressed Himself to ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... did ever view Was' Caesar's tomb; on which, with cunning hand, Jove's triple honours, the three fair Graces, stand, Telling his virtues in their virtues true. This Rome admired; but dearest dear, in you Dwelleth the wonder of the happiest land, And all the world ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... had suddenly grasped the meaning of the light that had puzzled me. It was plain enough now. With their customary cunning, the Indians had fired such a flight of fiery arrows that they had forced our people to combine their forces to put out the blazing side of the block-house, and then combining their own forces, the enemy had sent low down on the opposite side, after creeping close in, a tremendous discharge, ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... inside the second barrier—where sleeping men were scattered more thickly than ever—they stood under the very wings of the most stupendous hydroplane ever conceived by the brain of man or executed by the cunning ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... serious business than was at first thought. I should like to know how Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea will get out of it; the High Priests have mistrusted them for some time; they made common cause with Lazarus: but they are extremely cunning. All will now, however, be brought ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... wherever the tiger goes his stench precedes him, and knowing this the fox comes out of his little hole and calls through the jungle that the tiger is out. Hence, here in the night when the moonlight falls on the thickest gloom, following the plaintive cry, the cunning fox, the servant of our mother, threads its way through the jungle giving the warning ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... reverence And honoure, saving them from filth and ordure, By often brusshing and much diligence, Full goodly bounde in pleasant coverture, Of Damas, Sattin, or els of Velvet pure: I keepe them sure, fearing least they should be lost, For in them is the cunning wherein I ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... it at all necessary to acquaint the Major with my real history, as it was imparted to him in confidence. He allowed matters to take their course, and me to work my own way in the world. Thus do the most cunning overreach themselves, and with their eyes open to any deceit on the part of others, prove quite blind when ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... S.B.A. thinks she is very cunning. As if I did not see a huge pussy under that meal! She has been so modest, humble, ashamed, reluctant, apologetic, contrite, self-accusing whenever the last ten years she has asked me to do anything, go anywhere, speak on any topic! Now she makes you pull the chestnuts out of the fire and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... she doesn't want to explain. Oh, the cunning one. What a sly look she has in her eyes." So thought the captain's wife. From the very beginning of the conversation, the two warm friends, it need scarcely be said, were mutually distrustful. Each had the conviction that everything the other said was to be taken in the very opposite sense. They ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... "a cunning man, endued with understanding," is the description given by the king of Tyre of Hiram Abif. See 2 Chron. ii. 13. It is needless to say that "cunning" is a good ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... made every effort in my power to prevent what I knew was threatening. Until he began to practise deceit, trickery of every kind. What more could I do? If he was determined to deceive me, he would do so; what was gained by my obliging him to exert more cunning? Then I turned sick at ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... alliance. The gloomy anticipations of the Egyptian monarch proved well founded. In the midst of all his prosperity Polycrates fell by a most ignominious fate. Oroetes, the satrap of Sardis, had for some unknown cause conceived a deadly hatred against the Samian despot. By a cunning stratagem the satrap allured him to the mainland, where he was immediately arrested and hanged upon a ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... stone, seemed to him the model of what all cathedrals should be. The swift river that ran between overhanging buildings, and beneath old bridges that were carved with armorial bearings and decorated with the rare ironwork of cunning smiths, famous long ago, bore in its breast the legends of his own forest home, and was impersonated in many a verse he had learned to sing with his comrades. The shady nooks and corners, the turns in the crooked streets, the dark archways of old inns, the swinging signs with their ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... But the cunning of lunacy is not easily baffled. On returning home the fourth evening after the dispatch of my letter, I found the house and immediate neighbourhood in the wildest confusion. My own wife was in hysterics; Mrs Irwin, I was told by half-a-dozen tongues at once, was dying; and the frightful ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... these wind mills were very small indeed; and there were two or three which looked so "cunning," as Rollo said, that he wished very much that he had one of them to take with him ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... say of JEFFREY as Sir ANDREW AGUECHEEK saith, "an I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him damned ere I had fought him." What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the next number has passed the Tweed! But I yet hope to light my pipe ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... something in the man's voice, or in the look of low cunning which spread itself over his face, ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... invalid, which, marvellous to tell, he did, and, even more marvellous, the house pleased Aunt Pike immensely. The garden was made to suit her by removing all the steps and replacing them with sloping, winding paths and various other cunning devices; and the doctor saw that everything that could add to her comfort was done for her. Then came the great excitement of furnishing the house and stocking ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... his weakness? Ah, there's the argument: you all propose, and think to govern so soft a king: but believe me, oh unhappy Philander! Nothing is more ungovernable than a fool; nothing more obstinate, wilful, conceited, and cunning; and for his gratitude, let the world judge what he must prove to his servants, who has dealt so ill with his lord and master; how he must reward those that present him with a crown, who deals so ungraciously with him who gave him life, and who set him up an happier object than a monarch: ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... and easily caught, as it is neither cunning nor shy. As it lives in desolation, and has little to do with men, it knows nothing of trickery, nor dreams of the plots laid against its royal freedom. An interesting account is given of the capture of an albatross by an officer ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... really interesting point. I have just been informed that a month ago this criminal lunatic, as we must of course regard him, made his escape from the asylum where he was confined. He arranged the whole thing with extraordinary cunning and intelligence, and we should probably have caught him long ago, were it not that he managed, when on his way out of the place, to annex a considerable sum of money in gold, with which the wages of the asylum staff were about to be ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... who succeeded Gregory, proved himself a very cunning adversary. He might have {17} won an easy victory over Frederick II if the exactions of the Papacy had not angered the countries where he sought refuge after his first failures. It was futile to declare at Lyons that the Emperor was deposed when all France was crying out upon the greed ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... that Scotland Yard has on occasion displayed considerable intelligence, and I regret that novelists will never allow it to be as cunning even as myself in guessing the identity of the villains of their criminal plots. Mrs. Charles Bryce, for instance, might, without unduly taxing the imagination, have credited the Force with the coup of bringing to justice the murderer of Mrs. Vanderstein, but she went out of her way to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... disarm his assailants as far as possible, he brought before the committee a number of his "health officers'' and "sanitary inspectors,'' whom he evidently thought best qualified to pass muster; but as one after another was examined and cross-examined, neither the cunning of Boole nor the skill of Mr. Graham could prevent the revelation of their utter unfitness. In the testimony of one of them the whole monstrous absurdity culminated. Judge Whiting examining him before the commission with reference to a case of small-pox which had ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... temper resented it. But his cunning robbed him of the retort that leapt to his lips. And all the while the girl's cold, pretty eyes provoked those passions in him which the dead mother had dreaded. Keeko could have no understanding of the unbridled licence ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... escaped him. No detail of risk and danger, of the chance of being seen even, had been overlooked; for he was a master at his craft, the greatest master in the wild, perhaps. The wolf? My dear sirs, the wolf was an innocent suckling cub beside Gulo, look you, and his brain and his cunning were not the brain and the cunning of a beast at all, but ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... before seen, they took refuge in the caves which our young friend has described, but they have no doubt had a bitter fight to hold their own against wild beasts, and especially against the ape-men who would regard them as intruders, and wage a merciless war upon them with a cunning which the larger beasts would lack. Hence the fact that their numbers appear to be limited. Well, gentlemen, have I read you the riddle aright, or is there any point which ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the watchful eyes glowing behind that blue steel barrel a merciless determination which left him nerveless. He knew Hampton would kill him if he needed to do so, but he likewise realized that he was not likely to fire until he had gained the information he was seeking. Cunning pointed the only safe way out from this difficulty. Lies had served his turn well before, and he hoped much from them now. If he only knew how much information the other possessed, it would be easy enough. As he did not, he ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... ten miles farther which brought us as low down as where Collier's bridge now crosses the river. Here we imagined that the Indians were possibly as cunning as ourselves, and would doubtless take the more obscure way and endeavor to meet us on the east side. On which account we waded the stream and struck into the woods crossing the Indian path, toward a place now called Craft-town." (Priest's Collection of Stories ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell
... though small, are cunning, and wise in their generation. For the most part they toil not, (save at pleasure-seeking and lion-hunting), neither do they spin (anything beyond the edifying yarns they call "after-dinner stories"). But they manage to live on the fat of the land. The larger aborigines (called the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... mine unworthiness, that dare not offer What I desire to give; and much less take What I shall die to want. But this is trifling; And all the more it seeks to hide itself, 80 The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning! And prompt me, plain and holy innocence! I am your wife, if you will marry me; If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow You may deny me; but I'll be your servant, 85 ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... thoughtful. "The arrangement Wyllard made with Gregory would, perhaps, give Edmonds a claim upon the Range if Gregory borrowed any money in his name. I almost think that's what he's scheming for. The man's cunning enough for anything. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... no means attracted by the man's countenance. He was evidently a confirmed inebriate, though not at that time under the influence of liquor. There was an expression of cunning, which repelled Hector, and he ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... single line of care or anxiety. Her mother's face was ploughed up with innumerable lines, and her features seemed to work with every varying passion, while her expression was hungry, eager, and wolf-like, without showing anything more intellectual than cunning, even ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... he, that sweet obliging youth? He looks the picture of ingenuous truth. Oh, that's his antipode, of courteous race, The man of bows and ever-smiling face. Why Nature made him, or for what design'd, Never he knew, nor ever sought to find, 'Till cunning came, blest harbinger of ease! And kindly whisper'd, 'thou wert born to please.' Rous'd by the news, behold him now expand, Like beaten gold, and glitter o'er the land. Well stored with nods and sly approving winks, Now first ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... owner and assessed by the community to which the serfs belonged. The character of the serfs had been moulded by the serf system. They had a simple shrewdness, which, under a better system, had made them enterprising; but this quality soon degenerated into cunning and cheatery—the weapons which the hopelessly oppressed always use. They had a reverence for things sacred, which under a better system might have given the nation a strengthening religion; but they now stood among the most religious ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the story of the rose garden and of the sun-dial, and the beauty who had wit enough to scorn a man in public that she might more safely hold tryst with him alone. She had great wit and cunning for a beauty of sixteen. 'Twould be well for her lord to have keen eyes when she ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hero that here, maybe, was to overtake him such an adventure as that which he had just a moment before been desiring so ardently. Nor was he mistaken; for the negress, first looking this way and then that, with an extremely wary and cunning expression, and apparently having satisfied herself that the street, for the moment, was pretty empty of passers, beckoned to him to draw nearer. When he had approached close enough to her she caught him by the ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... renewed confidence in that Guide Book which she has brought with her down the centuries. As her Divine Lord went away, He commissioned her to carry His good tidings to all peoples; and so long as she remained true to this commission and to her instruction book, the world's cunning sophistries could not deceive her, nor could the cruel power of a world empire stifle her voice. And now when her absent Lord is about to return again, it surely behooves her to set her house in order, and to return with candor and fidelity to that written code of instruction ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... seen her for five years. She was a commonplace middle-aged woman, in silk and cashmere; but the lady on the left of my father was not more than twenty, a tall, slim, willowy figure, with luxuriant blond hair, arranged in cunning braids and folds that looked almost too massive for the slight figure and the small-featured, thin-lipped face they crowned. But the face had not a girlish expression: the features were sharp, the pale grey eyes at once ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... drawer by the fairies, who brought her ribbons and partridge-feathers, and other simple adornments with which she contrived to set off her simple costume, so as to produce those effects which an eye for color and cunning fingers can bring ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... a bold, uncompromising thinker—of a man resolute for the truth of God, and determined in the strength of God's grace to make that truth clear, to brush away all the fine-spun sophistries and half-truths by which the cunning sins of men have hidden it.... There must be a great and true heart, where there is a great and true preacher. And in that, beyond everything else, lay the secret of Mr. Robertson's influence. His Sermons show evidence enough of acute logical ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... you, Justin, gave me courage to endure the rigors of the plantations, cunning and energy to escape after five such years of it as had assuredly killed a stronger man less strong of purpose? What but the task that was awaiting me? It imported that I should live and be free to call a reckoning ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... of hell during the period of the war rather than yield his Red Card—or that he is still determined and still undefeated? Is it any wonder the lumber barons hated him, and sought to break his spirit with brute force and legal cunning—or that they conspired to murder it at Centralia with mob ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... Spiders are very cunning; they live on flies; but they could never catch them, only they are able to weave a strong web, which they do in a place where the flies often come; and when a poor fly gets into the web, the spider runs out and soon kills it, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought; Never from lips of cunning fell The thrilling Delphic oracle; Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below,— The canticles of love and woe: The hand that rounded Peter's ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... which relapsed to the guidance of his intolerant and intemperate son. Some attempts were made to force him to a reconciliation, which in public he appeared to yield to, but which in private he exercised his utmost cunning to baffle. In the midst of this scene of distraction, Mr. O'Connell died. The news was a stunning blow to the nation. A great reaction, for a short time, ensued. Added to the other crimes of the seceders, was that ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... have no conscious initiative. These flying-women, for instance, have plenty of physical courage but no mental or moral courage. They hold the whip-hand, of course, now. Anything might happen to them. This situation will prolong itself indefinitely unless—unless we beat their cunning by our strategy." He paused. "I don't think they're competent to take care of themselves. I think it's our duty to take care of them. I think the sooner—." He paused again. "At the same time, I'm prepared to keep to our agreement. I won't take a step in this matter until we've all ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... didn't," said Sarah, eagerly—"he was as cunning as a fox, Mrs. Foote owned herself, and played her off finely; but Mrs. Foote was cunninger than any half-dozen foxes, and got it all ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... pygmies near the source of the Nile. Schweinfurth says that they live south of the country occupied by the Niam-Niam, and that their stature varies from 4 feet to 4 feet 10 inches. These people are called the Akkas, and wonderful tales are told of their agility and cunning, characteristics that seem to compensate ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Billy treated her to a slow and surreptitious wink, his freckled countenance grinning beneath the rosetted hat. It never could have occurred to Emmy Lou that Billy had laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing of all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, when public attention had become diverted, she proffered him the hospitality of a grimy little slate rag. When Billy returned the rag ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... devil? Not a vestige of one. 'In the heavens, in the earth, in the waters under the earth, is none like unto thee.' Thou art an original figure in this creation, a denizen in Mayfair alone. One monster there is in the world: the idle man. What is his 'religion?' That nature is a phantasm, where cunning, beggary, or thievery, may sometimes find ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... thought to himself, "is a cunning scamp, a villain who has speculated in the forage supplied to our cavalry. To acquit him is to let a traitor escape, to be false to the fatherland, to devote the army to defeat." And in a flash Gamelin could see the Hussars of the Republic, mounted on stumbling ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... peoples of ancient times. The myth of Prometheus emphasizes the fact that in those remote periods fire and light were regarded as of prime importance. According to this myth, fire and light were contained in heaven and great cunning and daring were necessary in order to obtain it. Prometheus stole this heavenly fire, for which act he was chained to the mountain and made to suffer. The Greeks mark this event as the beginning of ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... pearls is wreathed around his hair, which is arranged in symmetrical rolls. He has drooping eyelids, a straight nose, and a heavy and cunning expression of countenance. At the corners of the dais, extended above his head, are placed four golden doves, and, at the foot of the throne, two enamelled lions are squatted. The doves begin to coo, the lions to roar. The ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... that after this I should take a more serious view of the matter; and I did so. But my former difficulty still remained, for, assuming this to be a cunning plot, and d'Evora's application to me a ruse to throw me off my guard, I could not see where their advantage lay; since the Spaniard's occupation was not of a nature to give him the entry to my confidence ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... if he had ever spoken of her to me, and after much persuasion and cunning cross-examination I told her as much of the truth as I dared, and she became a tigress. She assured me that he had managed so to injure and compromise her in Hopshire that she and her mother had to ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... selects a river instead of a lake for his winter bathing, its waters, like those of the shallower streams, may also contain a large quantity of sludge, thus rendering them opaque even to the sharp little eyes of the dipper. Then what does he do? He has a very natural and cunning way of solving this problem; he simply seeks a deep portion of the river and dives through the turbid water to the clear water beneath, where he can plainly see the ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... like him as two peas, cunning as he can be. There, boy, look at your Uncle Bobby!" Bobby bent forward and with his forefinger gently tilted the little face upward. "Lorimer's eyes to perfection," he observed. Then, as he met Beatrix's eyes, he suddenly ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... ways. He had been cruel to his own family, and, instead of repenting and being kind to them, he went on to be more cruel than ever: for he shut up his fair daughter Danae in a cavern underground, lined with brass, that no one might come near her. So he fancied himself more cunning than the Gods: but you will see presently whether he was able ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... a yell, for the point was a sore one. "I never set eyes on one of 'em! They're too cunning ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... was springing naturally out of the peace of Elizabeth's reign, and which a growing sense of danger to the order and prosperity around it was fast turning into a passionate loyalty to the Queen. It was not merely against Cecil's watchfulness or Elizabeth's cunning that Mary and Philip and the Percies dashed themselves in vain; it was against a new England. And this England owed its existence to the Queen. "I have desired," Elizabeth said proudly to her Parliament, ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... depended, but strove—each for himself, fortunately—to seize the caves. As they raged against each other no less desperately than against their human adversaries, the issue of the war was never in doubt. The Hillmen stood together solidly, fought with all their cunning of pitfall and ambuscade, and overwhelmed the mightiest by sheer weight of numbers. But again the victory was dearly bought. When the last of the monsters, sullen and amazed, withdrew to seek less difficult encounters, he left mourning and ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... in the salon of Count Arnheim. Arline is restored to her old position, but her love for Thaddeus remains. He finds an opportunity to have a meeting with her, through the cunning of Devilshoof, who accompanies him. He once more tells his love in that tender and impassioned song, "When other Lips and other Hearts," and she promises to be faithful to him. As the sound of approaching steps is heard, Thaddeus and his companion conceal themselves. A large company ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... words only that are emblematic, it is things. Every appearance in Nature corresponds to some state of mind, and that state of mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch. Visible distance behind and before us is respectively an image ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... prairies are almost innumerable. Their superior horsemanship, which in my opinion, far exceeds that of any other people on the face of the earth, their daring bravery, their cunning and skill in the warfare of the wilderness, and the astonishing rapidity and secrecy with which they are accustomed to move in their martial expeditions, will always render them most dangerous and vexatious neighbors, when ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... The cunning fellow! He knew I was very keen on Psychical Research work, and would go almost anywhere on the bare chance of ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... so thou wilt wrong me twice over." Vexed beyond measure that, after robbing him, Fortarrigo should now keep him clavering about the matter, Angiulieri made no answer, but turned his horse's head, and took the road for Torrenieri. But Fortarrigo with cunning malice trotted after him in his shirt, and 'twas still his doublet, his doublet, that he would have of him: and when they had thus ridden two good miles, and Angiulieri was forcing the pace to get out of earshot of his pestering, Fortarrigo espied some husbandmen in a field beside the road ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... choose any five I liked to be my class. First, I chose the dearest little Irish girl. Her name is Norah, and she's just as pretty as she can be, only her face was dreadfully dirty, and her clothes all rags. Then her little sister Kathleen cried to come; so I took her too. Then I chose a cunning little German tot named Gretchen. She has yellow hair, braided in tight little tails down her back, and is a good deal cleaner than the rest, but not very clean, you know; and she hadn't any shoes at all. Then Mrs. Wallis brought up the funniest little French girl, with a name I can't pronounce. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... reminiscently. "Everywhere, pretty nearly. You know that cunning little freshman that ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... wild beasts, to whom no mercy is to be extended; and who, knowing it, will fight to the last. They are not easy to hunt down, their instinct having made them wary; and being generally in league with the blacks, who are as cunning as foxes, and can run pretty nearly as fast as a horse can gallop, they are kept very well informed as to our movements and, the country being so immense, we should never run them down, were it not ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... closely round about him, darkly flitting, The cloud of guilt doth glide. Heavily 'tis uttered, how around his hearthstone The mirk of hell doth rise. Stern and fixed the law is; we have hands t'achieve it, Cunning to devise. Queens are we and mindful of our solemn vengeance. Not by tear or prayer Shall a man avert it. In unhonoured darkness, Far from gods, we fare, Lit unto our task with torch of sunless regions, And o'er a deadly way— Deadly to the living as to those ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... sent for Chunerbutty and took counsel with him, as being more conversant with European ways. And the result was a cunning and elaborate plot, such as from its very tortuousness and complexity would appeal to the heart ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... forehead? It has a fine distinction of form; is pure ivory, surely; and you should watch how deliciously her hair springs out of it, like little wavy threads of "old gold" set in the ivory by some cunning artist.' ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... want to know all we have done and all we expect to do out here," he began, the very first day they were on board. "The Chinese, in my opinion, are the most obstinate fellows in the world; besides which they beat all others in cunning and deceit—at all events, their diplomatists do. They have a wonderful opinion of themselves, and don't know when they are beaten; Lord Elgin has found that out. You, of course, have heard of the thrashing ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... had considered the possession of those born in Sicily and of Sicilian blood. He seemed to feel that this pupil might in time become the master, and to be put upon his mettle, and he put forth all his cunning to be ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... man Hobart exercise over the girl? To West's judgment he was in no way the sort of man to appeal to Natalie Coolidge. He was of a low, cunning order, with some degree of outward polish, to be sure, yet inherently tough, and exhibiting marks of a birth-right which indelibly stamped him of a social class far below her own. Surely, she could not love the fellow, yet unquestionably he possessed a mysterious ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... If you begin to tip your tongue with cunning, I pray dip your pencil in colours; and fall to that you must do, not that you ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... rifle with the intention of firing at random into the underwood on the remote chance of bringing his enemy into the open. But the fascination of this duel of cunning was too strong, and he ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... boy with her own fierce and indomitable temper, with a view to revenge and the recovery of the lost property. In this wild school Ali proved an apt pupil. A hundred tales, for the most part probably mythical, are told of his powers and cunning during the years he spent among the mountains as a brigand leader. At last, by a picturesque stratagem, he gained possession of Tepeleni and took vengeance on his enemies. To secure himself from rivals in his own family, he is said to have murdered his brother and imprisoned his mother on a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to wait. Our cunning ally timed his halting of the emissaries to a nicety, and when the three Cherokees drew rein they were within easy blade's reach. The powwow, lengthened by Uncanoola till we were near bursting with impatience, was spun out wordily, and presently we saw the pointing of it. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... should impress on his citizens the value of arithmetic. No instrument of education has so much power; nothing more tends to sharpen and inspire the dull intellect. But the legislator must be careful to instil a noble and generous spirit into the students, or they will tend to become cunning rather than wise. This may be proved by the example of the Egyptians and Phoenicians, who, notwithstanding their knowledge of arithmetic, are degraded in their general character; whether this defect in them is due to some natural cause or to a bad legislator. For ...
— Laws • Plato
... to whom it was owing, that Miss Minify Gunning was so very cunning, to examine the groom that carried the note ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... represented as odious, he may lose his love of virtue. If buffoonery should be made to please him, he may lose the dignity of his mind. Love-tales may produce in him a romantic imagination. Low characters may teach him low cunning. If the laws of honour strike him as the laws of refined life, he may become a fashionable moralist. If modes of dissipation strike him us modes of pleasure in the estimation of the world, he may abandon himself to these, and become a rake. Thus may such representations, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... for modesty, and therefore I know that my virtues are faults of which I ought to be ashamed. Is this pride or vanity, or humility, or cynicism, or self-reproach for wasted talents, or an intimate blending of passions for which there is no precise name? Who can unravel the masks within masks of a cunning egotism? ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... hunger, and parched with thirst, they simply fought out to the bitter ending their desperate struggle against despair. The towering, overhanging wall at their back assured protection from above, but upon the opposite cliff summit, and easily within rifle range, the cunning foe early discovered lodgment, and from that safe vantage-point poured down a merciless fire, causing each man to crouch lower behind his protecting bowlder. No motion could be ventured without its checking bullet, yet hour after hour the besieged held their ground, and with ever-ready ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... these wild men were fleet of foot and had well developed cunning. They became expert hunters. On the other hand some of the less active, by the law of compensation, became more expert tailors, so trade was formed. The hunter killed enough for himself and the tailor, while the tailor made clothes for both ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... of my wild young lovers, princes, mad with the madness of youth! I have lived. It is enough. I regret nothing. And with old Barry I have my surety of a bite to eat and a place by the fire. And why? Because I know men, and shall never lose my cunning to hold them. 'Tis bitter sweet, the knowledge of them, more sweet than bitter—men and men and men! Not stupid dolts, nor fat bourgeois swine of business men, but men of temperament, of flame and fire; madmen, maybe, but a lawless, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... that which she held in her hand, and the removal of which had produced so wonderful a transformation? One of those masks of dark red golden wire, so fine as to be almost impalpable, and wrought by fingers of such cunning skill that while it concealed the natural skin of the face, every lineament and even every sweep and dimple was copied, as if the moulder had been working in wax—the eye looking through as naturally as in the ordinary face, and even the very play of the lips permitted. That strange red ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... with a laugh, which was perhaps what she wanted, for there is no cunning like the cunning of a woman who seeks to charm a man from one humour to another. And when the baroness had first seen Lory, she thought that his heart was ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... and the missionaries have long since given up attempting to proselytise grown persons, reserving all their efforts for children. Holding, as they did, in great dread all fetish, or obeah, practices; usually someone amongst them, more cunning than the rest, professed an acquaintance with the supposed diabolical ritual; and gained influence with, and extorted money from, his more timid comrades. Officers now in the 1st West India Regiment can remember the time ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... Endicott watched the movements of the three horsemen with absorbing interest. They saw the Texan circle to the south-eastward and swing north to intercept the trail of the unknown rider. They watched Bat, with Indian cunning, creep to his place of concealment at the edge of the coulee. They saw the riders disperse, the unknown to head toward the mountains at a gallop, and the Texan to turn his horse southward and ride slowly into the bad lands. And they watched Bat recover his own horse from behind a rock ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... perfectly lovely?" exclaimed Ruth. "Did you ever see such cunning little beds? They wouldn't be much too big for Edna ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... certain severe moral truths.[284] The tutor interests Emilius in astronomy and geography by a wonderful stratagem indeed. The poor youth loses his way in a wood, is overpowered by hunger and weariness, and then is led on by his cunning tutor to a series of inferences from the position of the sun and so forth, which convince him that his home is just over the hedge, where it is duly found to be.[285] Here, again, is the way in which the instructor proposes to stir activity ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... must know, Corinne, that in the west, where our uncle goes with the word of life and truth, the Indians are already wavering, and are disposed to return to their past friendship with the English. They are wonderfully cunning and far-seeing. They seem to have that same instinct as men say that rats possess, and are eager to leave the sinking ship, or to join themselves to the winning side, whichever way you like to put it. Since we have seen misfortune they have begun to change towards us. We cannot trust ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... bells peal far at sea Cunning fingers fashioned me. There on palace walls I hung While that Consuelo sung; But I heard, though I listened well, Never a note, never a trill, Never a beat of the chiming bell. There I hung and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... It is very cunning to see Kermit and Archie go to the Cove school together. They also come down and chop with me, Archie being armed with a hatchet blunt enough to be suitable for his six years. He is a most industrious small chopper, and the other day gnawed down, or as the children call it, ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... the mass of mankind. This is the recognized explanation of the credit given, in spite of reason and evidence, to many classes of impostors; to quack-doctors, and fortune-tellers in all ages; to the "cunning man" of modern times, and the oracles of old. Few have considered the extent to which this fallacy operates in practice, even in the teeth of the most palpable negative evidence. A striking example of ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... has wounded her, form a picturesque underplot of considerable interest. Both plot and underplot are so connected in the main action and so interwoven by links of mutual dependency that they form one richly varied fabric. Regarded as a piece of cunning mechanism, the complicated structure of the Pastor Fido leaves nothing to be desired. In its kind, this pastoral drama is a monumental work of art, glittering and faultless like a polished bas-relief of hard Corinthian bronze. Each motive has been carefully prepared, each situation amply and logically ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... might term inert, though well-informed, you now acknowledge to be full of disciplined vigour. Emlyn was not, however, without his little amiable foibles; and it was, perhaps, these that made him lovable. He was a great believer in human goodness, and very easily imposed upon by cunning appeals to "his well-known benevolence." He was disposed to overrate the excellence of all that he once took to his heart. He thought he had the best wife in the world, the best children, the best servants, the best beehive, the best pony, and the best house-dog. His parish was ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
