"Keen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intent on the search. I attached the note to a tile which I had detached from the roof, and dropped it at a spot which she would pass. Her gracefully expressed joy at finding it rewarded me for my generosity. She examined it in every part with keen, searching glances, as if she were seeking to detect the unhallowed hands that might have touched it; but the contented look with which she hid it in her bosom showed that she was free from all suspicion. She went, and the parting glance she ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... certain delicacy in his opinions respecting women, could never tolerate the desecration of these opinions by the libertine ribaldry which forms so great a part of the conversation of many men after the first bottle. Frank's brow darkened, his keen eye turned with a glance of indignation to Harry; and he was prevented only by the circumstance of being in his own house, from instantly kicking him out of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... hemlock curtain was thrust aside, and the little ones came out. At sight of them she leaped forward, a great gladness showing eloquently in every line of her graceful body, rushed up to them, dropped her head and ran her keen nose over them, ears to tail and down their sides and back again, to be sure that they were her own little ones and were not harmed. All the while the fawns nestled close to her, as they had done a moment before to me, and lifted their heads to touch her sides with their noses, and ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... how a little gal like you ever come to be on a night train alone," said Mrs. Surly, with a keen, curious look at Gypsy's face; "but I know your ma'd never let you go to a hotel this time o' night, and Mary Ann she'd be delighted to see you; so you'd better ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... preparations were in progress, and, all intent, would follow close at his master's heels. He would crouch among the rushes whilst the tackle was being adjusted, and anxiously scan the water as the fly drifted along the surface. He took a keen delight in the sport, and when a fish was negotiating the bait he always purred loudly in anticipation of the feast in prospect. The trout landed and the line re-cast, he would seize his prey, and with stealthy gait slink off with his prize, leaving the old farmer to discover his loss ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... spread his toils Whilst I was sleeping; The wakeful miser locked his spoils, Keen vigils keeping: I loosed the latches of my soul To pleading Pleasure, Who stayed one little hour, and stole My ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... day his spirit has crossed the Vich Ian Vohr of the day when any great disaster was impending.'" Fergus then gives to Waverley a graphic and detailed account of the appearance of the Bodach: "'Last night I felt so feverish that I left my quarters and walked out, in hopes the keen frosty air would brace my nerves. I crossed a small foot bridge, and kept walking backwards and forwards, when I observed, with surprise, by the clear moonlight, a tall figure in a grey plaid, which, move at what pace I would, kept regularly ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... illumination: Jerry made out a small electric generator, and that was all. He felt a keen disappointment. Somehow this thin-faced man had communicated to him something of his own belief, his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... meet no more my brother Rudolph, the last of my four dear brothers, all of whom died young by untoward accidents. It was strange I was always bidding good-bye to them every three or four years. One ought to have been steeled to parting by now. Nevertheless every time the wrench was as keen ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... goodness, and tries to make a science and art of goodness, to find a way in which it can be clearly known and rationally and effectively taught. "Can virtue be taught?" is his characteristic question. The chief result of his keen scrutiny is to bring to light how little men really know of the higher life,—how little he knows of it himself. The effect of this revelation of ignorance is not a despair of truth, but a humility which ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... of athletic skill that ever occurred in the history of the Blackfeet tribe took place one bright, keen, sunshiny afternoon on the bleak plain at the rear of the village. A week had been spent in making the preparations as thorough as they could be made. Runners came from three of the other villages, and they were the flower of the tribe—lithe, ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... canoe, alone with his dog and gun, setting forth on a solitary trip into the wilderness to trap beaver. He would not even join himself to the other travellers for a night, preferring to plunge at once into the wild, lonely life he so loved. His strong character and keen mind struck the Englishman, who yet saw that the old hunter belonged to the class of pioneers who could never themselves civilize the land, because they ever fled from the face of the very civilization for which they had made ready the land. In Boone's soul the fierce impatience ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Twain, and others, no American rival to Punch has yet appeared in Boston or New York. The attempts that have heretofore been made have been generally coarse caricatures—for example, the political cartoons in Harper's Weekly, which are never characterized by those keen artistic touches that make Punch so famous. Previous efforts in this field of political and social satire in Canada have always failed for want of support, as well as from the absence of legitimate humour. The oldest satirical sheet was Le Fantastique, published at Quebec by N. Aubin, who ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... to view the corpse at the prayer of the faithless Tomozo. The old man was terrified and astonished at the spectacle, but looked about him with a keen eye. He soon perceived that the o-fuda had been taken from the little window at the back of the house; and on searching the body of Shinzaburo, he discovered that the golden mamori had been taken from its wrapping, and a copper ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... light from the priest's hands and was lifting, lowering, shading it, experimenting, to bring out all that might still be seen of the withdrawn image on its faintly glinting field of gold. His face was keen with interest; the love of beautiful things in this moment of satisfaction smoothed away from it every line of dejection ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... walks with Beatrice were rare events now because he was so keen on the business of looking for his Colorado protegee. He gave them up reluctantly. Every time they went out together into the open Miss Whitford became more discontented with the hothouse existence she was living. He felt there was just a chance that if he were constant ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... be as keen as it will, be all nose, and even a nose so great that Atlas will refuse to bear it: if asked, Could you even excel Latinus in scoffing; against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said: then to what end contend tooth against tooth? You must have flesh, if you want to be full; lose ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... for her young some night, discovers by her keen nose that a flock of hens has been straying near the woods, she goes next day and hides herself there, lying motionless for hours at a stretch in a clump of dead grass or berry bushes, till the flock comes near enough for a rush. Then she hurls herself among ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... to the untrained eye, so the fisherman, raised from boyhood among the vessels that make up the fleet, finds in each characteristics so striking, so individual, as to identify the vessel displaying them as far as a keen eye can reach. ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... able to speak; and her alarm was well founded, for the Egyptian had recognized her, and supposed her companion to be Alexander. He had ridden down the street with his torchbearers, but where she had hidden herself his keen eyes could not detect, for the departing sound of hoofs betrayed to the breathless listeners that the pursuer had left their hiding-place far behind him. Presently the pavement in front of the house which sheltered them rang again with the tramp of the horse, till it died away at last in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to himself, silently chuckling, "mine for a groat!" He was in a mood to find things amusing. So, having won clear of the keen-eyed watcher, the young man made the best of his way with more caution to that northern gateway he had called ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Germany to be sold in the Catholic countries. Nor were there lacking the Chinese prints on red paper representing a man seated, of venerable aspect, with a calm, smiling face, behind whom stood a servant, ugly, horrible, diabolical, threatening, armed with a lance having a wide, keen blade. Among the Indians some call this figure Mohammed, others Santiago, [34] we do not know why, nor do the Chinese themselves give a very clear explanation of this popular pair. The pop of champagne corks, the rattle of glasses, laughter, cigar smoke, and that odor peculiar to a Chinese ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... the little stream near which the camp was pitched until, their thirst quenched, they began burying their muzzles and blowing into the water in sensuous enjoyment. He stood, a strong and tall man of perhaps forty-five years, of keen blue eye and short, close-matted, tawny beard. His garb was the loose dress of the outlying settler of the Western lands three-quarters of a century ago. A farmer he ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... savour of the thing, Sheard could not but feel the real sincerity of his appeal; and, as he stared, wondering, at the fine brow, the widely-opened eyes, the keen nostrils and delicate yet indomitable mouth and chin, he was forced to admit that here was no mere up-to-date cracksman, but something else, something more. "Is he mad?" flashed again ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... Habits.—Evil practices of any sort which lower the moral tone of an individual, which lessen his appreciation of and love for right and purity and true nobility of soul, encourage the development of vice. A boy who loves purity, who has a keen sense of what is true and right, can never become a vicious man. Profanity, falsehood, and deception of every sort, have a tendency in the ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... feel inclined to dash out thine own brains with vexation at letting thy prey so slip out of thy grasp, thou art not the man I took thee for," and Edward fixed his eyes on his startled companion with a glance at once keen and malicious. ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... in the fly tasting in the pure air, the keen joy of returning health, and she thrilled a little at the delight of an expensive white muslin and a black sash which accentuated the smallness of her waist. She liked her little brown shoes and brown stockings ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... into the room to say that Captain Bradleigh would be glad to see Sir John Meadows; and Jack looked up curiously as a ruddy, tan-faced, rather fierce-looking man, with very crisp hair, beard sprinkled with grey, and keen, piercing grey eyes, shaded by rather shaggy brows, entered, glanced quickly round as he took off his gold-braided yachting cap, and at once addressed Sir John, as if quite sure that he was ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... in first-rate style. And another all done by hand, with the ink as fresh as if it had been laid on yesterday, and yet, he told me, it was the work of some old monk hundreds of years back. I've always taken a keen interest in literature myself. Hardly anything to my mind can compare with a good hour's reading after a hard day's work; far better than wasting the whole evening at a friend's house—and that reminds me, to be sure. I shall be getting into trouble with the wife if I don't make ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... village doctor, was circulated; speculation had been rife ever since the demise of the last patroon regarding his successor, and, although the locality was beyond the furthermost reach of that land-holder, their interest was none the less keen. The old master of the manor had been like a myth, much spoken of, never seen without the boundaries of his acres; but the new lord was a reality, a creditable creation of tailor, hatter, hosier, cobbler—which trades had not flourished under the old master ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... make her understand what the unfortunate situation was. He could not tell her everything—Plonny had cautioned secrecy about the real gravity of the crisis—but he would tell her enough to show her how he had acted, with keen regrets, from his sternest sense of public duty. It was a cruel stroke of fate's that his must be the hand to bring disappointment to the girl he loved, but after all, would she not be the first to say that he must never put his regard for her preferences above the larger good of City and State? ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... noticed, and made me think of a performing bear—which is full of a kind of pathetic humour, you know. But this mingling of the senses produced no confusion in my brain. On the contrary, I was unusually clear-headed and experienced an intensification of consciousness, and felt marvellously alive and keen-minded. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... known that the Arab's information, though partly true, was a ruse; that Jackson had indeed been observed by the keen-eyed Oriental, who had thereupon sat down purposely within earshot, and after a whispered hint to his companion, gave forth such information as would be likely to lead the British cruiser into his snares—speaking in bad English, ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... force alone. But it is very seldom, indeed, that the negro or half-breed is thus surprised: he seems to divine an advent by some specialized sense,—like an animal,—and to become conscious of a look directed upon him from any distance or from behind any covert;— to pass within the range of his keen vision unnoticed is almost impossible.... And the approach of this woman has been already observed by the habitants of the ajoupas;—dark faces peer out from windows and door-ways;—one half-nude laborer even strolls out to the road-side under the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... extolled; for the one has woven a statue of straw, or carved the trunk of a tree, or cast a piece of chalk, and the other, the idol of shame and infamy, knows not that there is no need to wait for the keen tooth of the age and the scythe of Saturn in order to be put down, for through those self-same praises he gets buried alive then and there, while he is being praised, saluted, hailed, and presented. Just as it happened in a ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... but when Isaac Hecker went there, on July 11, 1843, it was still in its incipiency. He had paid the Fruitlanders a brief visit toward the end of June, and thought that he saw in them evidences of "a deeper life." It speaks volumes for his native sagacity and keen eye for realities, that less than a fortnight's residence with Mr. Alcott should have ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... came by the odd name of Pansie, and whether it was really her baptismal name, I have not ascertained. More probably it was one of those pet appellations that grow out of a child's character, or out of some keen thrill of affection in the parents, an unsought-for and unconscious felicity, a kind of revelation, teaching them the true name by which the child's guardian angel would know it,—a name with playfulness and love in it, ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... really going away? The peasant's joy was so keen, and his surprise so lively that Jaime hesitated. He seemed to see in the peasant's little eyes a certain malice. Did the islander imagine that his sudden determination was caused by fear ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and polish of society, who had lately become intimate in my uncle's family. Engaged in the same pursuits, and being much with him, I had rather liked him; in fact I liked him very much. He had seen, admired, and in less than six months, loved my Cousin Jane: this I knew, for jealousy is keen-eyed. You will not wonder then that I hated him; not on his own account—alter his feelings toward her, and I should have felt toward him as before; but on account of his love—hated him with ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... heaviest furs, took seats on our respective sledges, and at a laconic "tok" (go) from the taiyon we were off; the little cluster of tents looking like a group of conical islands behind us as we swept out upon the limitless ocean of the snowy steppe. Noticing that I shivered a little in the keen air, my driver pointed away to the northward, and exclaimed with a pantomimic shrug, "Tam shipka kholodno"—"There it's awful cold." We needed not to be informed of the fact; the rapidly sinking thermometer indicated our approach to the regions of perpetual frost, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor; A streak of light before him lay, Fallen through a half-shut stable door Across his path. He passed,—for naught Told what was going on within; How keen the stars, his only thought, The air how calm and cold and thin, In the solemn midnight, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... more minutes the regiments destined to carry out the flanking movements had tramped off in silence, keeping carefully to the lee of the rising ground in order to conceal their advance from the keen eyes of ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... most of our data, I think of super-things that have passed close to this earth with no more interest in this earth than have passengers upon a steamship in the bottom of the sea—or passengers may have a keen interest, but circumstances of schedules and commercial requirements forbid investigation of the bottom ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... 1813 has got into my bones for good. Never mind. We must take pistols, that's all. A little lumbago. We must have pistols. He's game for my bag. My eyes are as keen as ever. You should have seen me in Russia picking off the dodging Cossacks with a beastly old infantry musket. I have ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... fence, its leaves are seen, Wrinkled and keen; No grazing cattle, through their prickly round, Can reach to wound; But, as they grow where nothing is to fear, Smooth and unarmed the pointless ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... fact, profound egoists and profound individualists. Of course there are exceptions to all this; there are boys of deep affection, scrupulous honesty, active interests, keen and far-reaching ambitions; but I am trying to sketch not ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... outcome of two trips (neither of which was in the Bear Tooth Forest) during the years 1909 and 1910. Its main claim on the reader's interest will lie, no doubt, in the character of Berea McFarlane; but I find myself re-living with keen pleasure the splendid drama of wind and cloud and swaying forest which made the ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... and energy to set against the world that day, and every day the struggle and the anxiety are the same. What a number of details he has to carry in his head (consider, for instance, how many different kinds of cheese there are, and how different people hate and love the same kind), and how keen must be his appreciation of the popular taste. The complexities and annoyances of his business are excessive, and he cannot afford to make many mistakes; if he does he will lose his business, and when a man fails in business (honestly), he loses his nerve, and his career is ended. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to-night, neighbor, and I come across that note you give for the cow. Forty dollars with interest, which makes the whole come to forty-one dollars and twenty cents. To-morrow's the day for payin'. I suppose you'll be ready?" and the old man peered at Hiram Walton with his little keen eyes. ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... an easy pace, he gave no sign that he had seen anything unusual. The row of dark objects showing along the upper edge of a projecting rock might well have been mistaken for so many birds preening themselves in the sunlight, only that his keen eight had caught the movement of a pony's tail and the half-hidden plumes of an Indian's head-dress. He dropped the loop of his bridle reins over the pommel and slowly gripped his gun with a finger on ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... her listlessly as she lingered in the cosy kitchen. She was pale and her eyes were dull. She was tired, she told herself impatiently. The summer had been hot and she had worked hard. It irritated her that the keen eyes of Mrs. Donovan saw that she was not happy but how could she be happy when she had so many things to annoy her? She should be happy, she was independent, she had work, the two things that had seemed so necessary to happiness but recently she had been conscious of a desire ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... speaking, study denotes keen application of the mind to something. Now the mind is not applied to a thing except by knowing that thing. Wherefore the mind's application to knowledge precedes its application to those things to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Except to Wetzel, whose keen eyes little escaped, there was no significance in Miller's hilarity one moment and sudden thoughtfulness the next. And if there had been, it would have excited no comment. Most of the young men had sampled some of old ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... during the whole historic period, keen men had obtained an inkling of the truth; but to the vast multitude, down to the end of the seventeenth century, nothing was more clear than that insanity is, in many if not ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Mercedes. "It makes no difference raising it; 'twould all go just the same," said Mr. Bowdoin. "Man alive, why didn't you let him take the money, that day down the wharf, and take the girl yourself? You used to be keen enough about girls before you got so bald," added the old gentleman, with a chuckle. He was rather proud of his own shock of ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... when we awoke it was cold. It was early October, but there was a keen frosty feeling in the air that sent us shivering to the kitchen range, wondering if steam would be coming along presently. It did not come, and after breakfast I went down to interview our janitor ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... tourist-haunted shrine of the great man whose memory alone was left to inhabit it,—all these circumstances filled me with indescribable sadness as I paced up and down in the gloaming, and thought of the strange passion for founding here a family of the old Border type which had obfuscated the keen, clear brain of Walter Scott, made his wonderful gifts subservient to the most futile object of ambition, driven him to the verge of disgrace and bankruptcy, embittered the evening of his laborious and glorious career, and finally ended in this,—the utter extinction of the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Truly, all her ways were so bright, and her sense so keen, and her laugh so gladsome, that we never thought of such a thing till she was long past the age when children ought to speak freely. But when at last they began to fear the truth, it was indeed a bitter grief to the royal parents. The Lord King offered five cloths of gold ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... threw back her veil, leaned her head against the trunk of the tree where wan lichens made a pearly cushion, and shut her eyes. The afternoon was wearing away; a keen wind shook the bare boughs; only the ceaseless, unchanging chant of waters rose from the vast throat of nature, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... opens more passages and secret pores through which the sap may be derived into the new-born herbs; or whether it rather hardens and binds the gaping veins that the small showers and keen influence of the violent sun or penetrating cold of Boreas may not hurt them."—Virg., ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... nation." To the New Brunswick press the local Premier, Hon. Douglas Hazen, said: "King Edward's reign was a comparatively short one, but the verdict of history will undoubtedly be that he was one of the wisest and greatest rulers that ever sat upon a throne. He took a most keen and active interest in all his country's institutions, endeavouring at all times to promote the well-being of his subjects and to show his appreciation of the British Dominions beyond the Seas." The ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... I hear clever, practical politicians talk, I always listen with keen interest; for the details in which they seem to me too much absorbed, are a corrective to my generalizing tendency on ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... have already seen, Morse was intensely patriotic. He followed with keen interest the developments in our national progress as they unrolled themselves before his eyes, and when the occasion offered he took active part in furthering what he considered the right and in vigorously denouncing the wrong. He was never blind to our national or party failings, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... only, among the founders of Protestantism, is John Calvin. He was a Frenchman, born in 1509, and was consequently a child when the Saxon Reformation began. He was keen and logical in his mental habit, with a great organizing capacity, naturally of a retiring temper, yet fearless, and endued with extraordinary intensity and firmness of will. A more finished scholar than Luther, he lacked his geniality and tenderness, and his imaginative power. Calvin first ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... for quite two hours before the man who had been again and again sent up to play Sister Anne in the great cowl came down at last to say that he had seen the doctor's chaise coming along the lane, and five minutes after a keen-looking youngish man entered the great barn-like place, examined his patient at once, asking questions the while, and then with clever hands put a stop to further bleeding, bandaged the wound, and contrived that a little water should trickle between ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... answered Tess, with the keen instincts of a squatter. "It air got to turn sidewise through the window afore it goes over the hill. What air ye afraid of, if ye believes that ye can move a mountain if ye has the faith? God wouldn't hit the brat with lightnin', ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... of him personally—except what I have learnt to-day. For my own part, I like him," answered Mr. Bodery. "He is keen and clever. Moreover, he is a thorough gentleman. But, politically speaking, he is one of the most dangerous men in France. He is a Jesuit, an active Royalist, and a staunch worker for the Church party. I don't know much about French politics—that is Vellacott's ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... suddenly emerged from a condition bordering on that of the hibernating animals—a condition in which I had neither eaten, nor slept, nor thought, nor moved, when I could help it—into not only a full, but a keen and joyous, possession of my health and faculties. It was almost a metamorphosis. I was no longer the clod I had been, but a bird exulting in the earth and air, and in the liberty of motion. Then to remember it was a ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... overthrow of his hopes showed itself in a brutal and impolitic act of vengeance. He was a skilful shipbuilder; and among the many enterprises which the restless genius of Cromwell undertook there was probably none in which Henry took so keen an interest as in his creation of an English fleet. Hitherto merchant ships had been impressed when a fleet was needed; but the progress of naval warfare had made the maintenance of an armed force at sea a condition of maritime power, and the resources furnished by the dissolution ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... terrible curious minds. They're all right if they don't know there's nothin', but if they does, why they's keen." ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... means that they have spent a certain number of years plodding away at footling little meetings and dull discussions, doggedly placing these before all private engagements, however tempting. A man's Socialistic acquisitiveness must be keen enough to make him actually prefer spending two or three nights a week in speaking and debating, or in picking up social information even in the most dingy and scrappy way, to going to the theatre, or dancing or drinking, or even sweethearting, if he is to become ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... silvered the golden tracery of the willow branches by the brook; there was a buzz of bees about them, and about the maples, blackened by the earlier flow of sap through the holes in the bark made by the woodpeckers' bills. Now and then the tremolo of a bluebird shook in the tender light and the keen air. At one point in the road where the sun fell upon some young pines in a sheltered spot a balsamic ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is over," he said, "and any northern gentleman is welcome to what we have left." Until midnight, this keen-eyed, intelligent officer entertained me with a flow of anecdotes of the war times, his hair-breadth escapes, &c.; the conversation being only interrupted when he paused to pile wood upon the fire, the chimney-place meantime glowing like a furnace. ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... ears for Uncle Richard's wrath. He snatched the key and the paper upon which the supercilious clerk had inscribed, at Marjorie's embarrassed dictation, "Mrs. Underwood, West Hills, N.J. (husband to arrive later), 625 and 6," and, since love is keen, he jumped to the right conclusion and the ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... Tompkins is our local doctor. He stays in Ballyhaine all day long when the rest of us go up to town, so he naturally knows a good deal about women. He enrolled them in a volunteer ambulance brigade, and after that they were just as keen as any of us. We did the thing handsomely for them. We bought six stretchers, a small motor ambulance waggon, and some miles of bandages. Janet and Cotter's youngest girl carried one of the stretchers. I should not like to say that my wife ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... untended flowers, and these two great panthers. I put my little hands fearlessly on their soft fur, and caressed their round ears and the sensitive corners under their ears, and played with them, and it was as though they welcomed me home. There was a keen sense of home-coming in my mind, and when presently a tall, fair girl appeared in the pathway and came to meet me, smiling, and said 'Well?' to me, and lifted me, and kissed me, and put me down, and led me by the hand, there was no amazement, but only an impression of delightful ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the clue of thread in his left hand, and at last he came up with him, where he lay panting, and caught him by the horns, and forced his head back, and drove the keen sword ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... felt a keen interest in all three. The woman was young—under thirty. She was handsome, with raven black hair and well-cut features. Her face was pale and her eyes gloomy. She carried herself with a slow, lazy grace. The good lines ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... that it was laughable and joyous to look at her. Once Soloviev read to her Chekhov's story, The Fit, in which, as it is known, a student for the first time finds himself in a brothel; and afterwards, on the next day, writhes about, as in a fit, in the spasms of a keen psychic suffering and the consciousness of common guilt. Soloviev himself did not expect that tremendous impression which this narrative would make upon her. She cried, swore, wrung her hands, and ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... sovereign states over all of which floated the shadowy and impalpable authority of an Imperial crown scarcely fixed on the head of any one of the rival brethren and cousins; there was a confederation of Protestants, with the keen-sighted and ambitious Christian of Anhalt acting as its chief, and dreaming of the Bohemian crown; there was the just-born Catholic League, with the calm, far-seeing, and egotistical rather than self-seeking Maximilian at its head; each combination ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sheep-farmer sprung to his feet, seized his astonished and mortified wife by the shoulders and shook her violently, shouting at the top of his voice, "Haw back! haw back! Stand still, will ye?" Poor goodman and goodwife! many years elapsed ere they recovered from that keen disgrace. ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... everybody's idea the happiest example of married bliss. If the lady's languid loveliness had faded more within the last year or so than in the ten years that went before it, if her slow step had grown slower, her white hand more transparent, there were no keen loving eyes to mark ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... in his pocket for her. He charged twenty francs a lesson, but was not a machine and for at least four months of the year he earned nothing. Hence his anxiety to get all he could for his compositions. Heaven-born geniuses are sometimes very keen in financial transactions, and indeed why should they ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... the Stinging Beetle had come. This was a pilgrim woman called Pasha or Spiridonovna—a thin little woman of fifty, in a black dress with a white kerchief, with keen eyes, sharp nose, and a sharp chin; she had sly, viperish eyes and she looked as though she could see right through every one. Her lips were shaped like a heart. Her viperishness and hostility to every one had earned her the nickname of ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... accepted his classification of those who opposed him strongly as "blamed idiots"; sometimes with a little of her laughing banter, but usually, his superiority standing out sharp and clear when opposed to the dull Canaanites, endorsing his opinion. "I sort of wish," he went on, with that keen, wire-edged exasperation still sawing in his voice, "that you wouldn't have much to do with that chap. He isn't my kind of people. I shouldn't mind if, now that you've given him a good high swing, you'd ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... predominant importance among the varied forms of literature is fully recognized. To understand the past is to understand the future. The successful men in every line of life are those who look ahead, whose keen foresight enables them to probe into the future, not by magic, but by patiently acquired knowledge. To see clearly what the world has done, and why, is to see at least vaguely what the world will do, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Thy keen claw-cornered wings From under the barn roof, and flings Thee forth, with chattering gasps, To scud the air, And nip the lady-bug, and tear ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... trousers' pocket, looked round the House and said nothing. Then, when the SPEAKER was about to call on someone else, Lord HENNY blurted forth a few sentences, the end generally coming first, and having apparently said about half what he meant to say, abruptly sat down. But the House, with keen instinct, always recognised the heaven-born orator, and knew his time would come. It has come with the opportunity of writing this letter, which is full of beautiful things. "I deprecated," says Lord HENRY, reviewing his distinguished Parliamentary career, "the surrendering of an ancient dependency ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 26, 1891 • Various
... apprised of actions at law which he was retained to institute; whereupon they sought out the defendant and offered their services to represent him gratis. Thus the elder counsellor frequently found himself pitted in the justice's courts against his keen-witted and graceless sons, who availed themselves of every obsolete technicality, quirk, and precedent of the law to obstruct justice and worry their dignified parent, whom they addressed as "our learned but erring brother in the law." ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... be published till 1485, but just the same, he was keen to get started on it. Writing it should be fun. Which reminded him: "I know we haven't known each other very long in one sense, Rowena," he said, "but in another, we've known each other for almost nine hundred years. Will you ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... enginery of war, preceded, surrounded, and followed his carriage. They reached the Place de la Revolution at twenty minutes past ten o'clock. An immense crowd filled the place, above which towered the guillotine. With a firm tread he ascended the steps of the scaffold, looked for a moment on the keen and polished edge of the axe, and then, turning to the vast throng, said, in a voice clear and untremulous, "People, I die innocent of all the crimes imputed to me. I pardon the authors of my death, and pray to God that the ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... mother in England would approve her resolutions. He wandered about the scenes of his intellectual triumphs: he stood in the great square of the schools, a place ugly to unprejudiced eyes, but withal somewhat grand and inspiring, especially to scholars who have fought their keen and bloodless battles there. He looked at the windows and gilt inscription of the Schola Metaphysices, in which he had met the scholars of his day and defeated them for the Ireland. He wandered into the theatre, and eyed the rostrum, whence he had not mumbled, but recited, his Latin ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... his tears your heart to beguile, But never you mind—he's laughing all the while; For little he cares, so he has his own whim, And weeping or laughing are all one to him. His eye is as keen as the lightning's flash, His tongue like the red bolt quick and rash; And so savage is he, that his own dear mother Is scarce more safe in his ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sample of the subtle and keen literary style of Erasmus, I append the following from "In ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... when the wind blew keen and sharp as knives across the broad reaches, it was almost impossible for the boys to keep warm. The heated soap-stone wrapped up at their feet, the warm buffalo robes under and over them, their ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... to prove the rule, so I got out the compass and watched his course. Due east, not a degree to north or south of it, straight as a bee to its hive. The ship was now far out of sight astern, but I knew that keen eyes had been watching our movements from the masthead, and that every effort possible would be made to keep the run of us. The speed of our whale was not only great, but unflagging. He was more like a machine than an animal capable of tiring; and though we did our level best, at the faintest ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... men have some plan for life, into which all the strength and the keen, fine feeling of their nature enter; but generally they try to make it real in early youth, and, balked then, laugh ever afterwards at their own folly. This poor old Knowles had begun to block out his dream when he was a gaunt, gray-haired man of sixty. I have known men so build their heart's blood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... your story, Mr. Prale," the captain said, looking at him peculiarly. "It always has been a mystery to me why a man keen in business and supposed to possess brains goes to pieces when he commits a crime and tells a tale ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... and with his riches grew so Keen the desire to see his home again, He thought himself in duty bound to do so. Lonely he felt at times as Robin ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the keen spirit of a masquerader. Masquerades, he declared, were "one of my ancient passions," and we find him as an elderly man dressing out "a thousand young Conways and Cholmondeleys" for an entertainment ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... was a time, when he was at his weakest, when his breath, in the old phrase, would not raise a feather, and those about his bed despaired of detaining the spirit fluttering to be free. The servants were ready to raise the "keen," the cook sought the salt for the death-plate. But Colonel John, mindful of many a man found living on the field hours after he should, by all the rules, have died, did not despair; and little by little, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... a time of sickness. The weather alternated between keen cutting winds and stifling heat; and there was much illness among the colonists, as well as a recurrence of the dreadful disease of the former year among the scholars of St. Andrew's, though less severe, and one boy died after fourteen days' sickness, while two pulled through with difficulty. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... laugh, and half a sneer. I hated him for it, as he sat leaning back on the back legs of his chair, his thumbs in his arm-holes. I felt his eyes—those smart, keen eyes, burning into my miserable head. I thought of the lawyer and the deal he'd give poor Tom, and ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... and determined enemies of the Church were the Cathari. Sincere, audacious, often learned and keen in argument, having among them some choice spirits and men of great intellectual powers, they were pre-eminently the heretics of the thirteenth century. Their revolt did not bear upon points of detail and questions ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... looked upon as 'old maids,' and some wag having one day obliterated the 'h' in Chatts Chase, the house was now familiarly called 'Pussy's Chase.' This did not disturb the good ladies when it came to their ears, for they had large souls, a keen sense of humour, and too much interest in life to be fretted by ...
— Bulbs and Blossoms • Amy Le Feuvre
... the prospect may be, Jeeves, however murkily the storm clouds may seem to gather, a keen eye can usually discern the blue bird. It is bad, no doubt, that Gussie should be going, some ten minutes from now, to distribute prizes in a state of advanced intoxication, but we must never forget that these things cut ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... mind and completed her plans, she went to Madame as soon as she was dressed. She had hidden her paleness with so little rouge that even Madame's keen ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... guiltless traveller engage, Whet all their stings, and call forth all their rage: All rise in arms, and, with a general cry, Assert their waxen domes, and buzzing progeny. Thus from the tents the fervent legion swarms, So loud their clamours, and so keen their arms: Their rising rage Patroclus' breath inspires, Who thus inflames ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... that first of rivers ran out so quickly as before. And while seeking for a cause, the illustrious monarch beheld that a youth of great comeliness, well-built and amiable person, like Indra himself, had, by his keen celestial weapon, checked the flow of the river. And the king, beholding this extraordinary feat of the river Ganga having been checked in her course near where that youth stood, became very much surprised. This ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was sure; our outdoor mode of living gave us fine appetites and a keen relish for almost anything. And then again, persons can endure almost any sort of privation as long as they can see a gold mine ahead of them, from which they are sure to fill their pockets with nuggets of the pure stuff. What a happy arrangement it is ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... careless idler to perfection. He escorted the ladies of the consul's family everywhere by day, and danced with them in the evenings, covering a keen and constant observation with the appearance of frivolity; while at night he was silently moving outside the port in a boat, taking the ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... far from losing her resources, the old lady actually gained by the transaction. But she did not leave Nemours. Minoret thought he had been tricked,—as though Bongrand had had an idea that Ursula's presence was intolerable to him; and he felt a keen resentment which embittered his hatred to his victim. Then began a secret drama which was terrible in its effects,—the struggle of two determinations; one which impelled Minoret to drive his victim from Nemours, the other which gave Ursula the strength to ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... One day during the campaign Scott, in replying to a note addressed to him by William L. Marcy, Secretary of War in Polk's cabinet, began his note: "After a hasty plate of soup"—supposing that his note would be regarded as personal. Marcy, who was a keen political foe, was too astute a politician, however, not to take advantage of the chance to make Scott appear ridiculous. He classified the note as official, and the whole country soon resounded with it. I saw General Scott when he returned from his ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... see anything plumb beaten. I've hunted a lot, an' I'm as keen on the trail as a terrier dog an' durin the fight I don't have no disturbin shudders; but after I've won an' I see the light of joy an' hope an' freedom fadin' out of eyes that have been so bright an' fearless, the' 's allus somethin' 'at swells ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... that to me, Mr. Berrington," the stranger answered, with a keen glance. "If you stay here another night I won't be responsible for your safety—indeed, I don't consider that I am responsible for it now. ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... she had been giving her garden an uncommonly vigorous weeding on account of an uncommonly vigorous shower which had fallen the afternoon before. The weeding had been so strenuous that Miss Clegg was quite disposed to stop and rest, and as she joined her neighbor and read the keen interest that never failed to glow in the latter's eyes, her own expression softened slightly and she took up her end of the conversation with her customary ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... her with surprise, which gradually changed to a keen scrutiny, under which Nell felt her blush rising again. But she said nothing, and, after a moment during which he seemed to be considering deeply, he passed on, his hands clasped behind his tall ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... of mechanical invention, of preventive medicine, of economic improvement, and the like. Germany, in some respects, has led, but our own country has not been far behind. Independent research has been wonderfully productive, and rivalry has been keen. Often the mere suggestion of one scientist has been taken up and elaborated (or discredited) by other scientists; the idea of one inventor has been seized upon and bettered, or possibly proved valueless, by other inventors. The paths ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... tormenting him, and as the leaders became satiated, they fell back, allowing the rear rankers to buzz forward and renew the attack. Piang longed for a certain kind of moss that grows at the roots of trees, but his keen eyes could not ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... structure of branches that were stuck into the ground, bent in and secured at the middle until it resembled an Esquimo hut in shape. The frame made by the branches was uncovered, but the women quickly threw some brightly colored blankets over the frame, the boys watching the proceeding with keen interest. They then hauled some hot rocks from a fire near by, thrusting these under the blankets into the enclosure, after which a pail of water also ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... and others living just beyond the Cascades, had substantially the same language and beliefs, though differing much in physical and mental type. {p.026} East of the range, they lived by the chase. They were great horsemen and famous runners, a breed of lithe, upstanding, competent men, as keen of wit as they were stately in appearance. These were "the noble Red Men" of tradition. Fennimore Cooper might have found many a hero worthy of his pen among the savages inhabiting the fertile valley of the Columbia, which we now call ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... Gemisthos not less than divine for bringing the tidings. He kept a lamp always burning before Plato's bust, and later founded the Platonic Academy, at which Plato's works were discussed, orations delivered, and new dialogues exchanged, between such keen minds as Marsilio, Pulci, Landini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Leon Battista Alberti, the architect and scholar, Pico dell a Mirandola, the precocious disputant and aristocratic mystic, Poliziano, the tutor of Lorenzo's sons, and Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... should suspend the writ without ruinous waste of time, instances of arresting innocent persons might occur, as are always likely to occur in such cases; and then a clamor could be raised in regard to this, which might be at least of some service to the insurgent cause. It needed no very keen perception to discover this part of the enemies program, so soon as by open hostilities their machinery was fairly put in motion. Yet, thoroughly imbued with a reverence for the guaranteed rights of individuals, I was slow to adopt the strong measures which by degrees ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... will seldom give up the chase. It is necessary for the hunters to follow the dogs closely and beat them off a slain animal, otherwise they will quickly devour it. They are always rewarded with a part of the intestines and some other portions, so that they may be keen for ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... voices sprang up, like two keen flames. Then Abel threw away the hammer and began to harp madly, till the little shanty throbbed with the sound of the wires and the lament of the voices that rose and fell with artless cunning. The cottage was like ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... John Baird delivered his lectures in many cities that year. The discussion they gave rise to had the natural result of awakening a keen interest in them. There were excellent souls who misinterpreted and deplored them, there were excellent souls who condemned; there were even ministers of the gospel who preached against the man as an iconoclast and a pagan, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'! An' naething, now, to big anew ane, O' foppage green! An' bleak December's winds ensuin', Baith snell and keen! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... a few yards of the stern, they caught sight of the first living thing—a wretched man clinging to a spar close under the ship's counter. Every time the stern-frame rose with the swell he was suspended above the water, and scorched by the long keen tongues of pure flame that now came darting through the gun-room ports. Each time this torture came the man shrieked with agony; the next moment the surge came and buried him under the wave, and he was silent. The Caroline's men, defying the fire, pulled close to him, ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... much the same as he has just been described. He is perhaps slightly more inclined to stoutness. His features, though they speak of cleverness and manliness, are forgotten as one looks into the keen and quickly moving grey eyes with their peculiar dash of yellow. He is well set up, as is proper for a soldier ever actively engaged in military duties, and his stride continues firm and elastic. He is still constantly in the saddle. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... of alarm, and together we swung the raft to the left, avoiding the right bank of the curve by less than a foot. Once safely past, I sent Harry to the stern and took the bow myself, which brought down upon him a deal of keen banter from Desiree. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... and I am just keen on an ocean breeze this A. M. So gather up your pumps, also your feet, and let us away," ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... need scarcely tell you with what keen interest I have read all the accounts from your continent of the proceedings in Congress and elsewhere in connection with the reconstruction of the South. I do sincerely trust it may be eventually effected in a way satisfactory to the South, and I most deeply deplore ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... which they might have contrived to indemnify themselves—was no longer possible. The contraband trade, under this system, was completely annihilated. The smugglers knew better than to come in contact with coast-guards whose performance of their duty was stimulated by such a keen necessity! From the captain himself down to the lowest official, an incessant vigilance was kept up—the result of which was that the fiscal department of the Spanish government was, perhaps, never ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... sometimes shifty, he seems instinctively to have felt in him the needed counterpart. As the Czar Alexander leaned on the rock-like Stein in the crisis of 1812, so Canning gained strength and confidence from reliance on Pitt. He on his side took a keen interest in his disciple, discerning in him the propagator of the Pitt doctrine and tradition. At times the fostering care became fatherly. A case in point was Canning's marriage with a wealthy Scottish heiress (July 1800). Pitt regarded this event as essential to ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... trembling friend a keen look, which showed that he perfectly understood the reason of this great consideration and regard, a footstep was heard upon the stairs, and Bray himself came into the room on tiptoe, and holding up his hand with a cautious gesture, as if there were some ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... that stretched away before her eyes lay a world she knew nothing of; yet since her earliest childhood her keen mind had told her that the silk with which she was clothed, the jewels that encrusted her dagger-hilt, the ships whose pillage had yielded up these things, must come from lands far distant, more desirable than ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... which proved to be of immediate consequence both to Falmouth and Flushing, as the families of captains and crews soon chose one or other of those places for residence, thereby bringing prosperity and a keen rivalry. The story of the packets is very notable, and has been worthily told by Mr. A. H. Norway. We may assume that it was one of Mr. Norway's ancestors who lost his life while gallantly defending his packet, the Montague, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... first shot, much to my delight. But lo, it is not dead yet; see how it pants and struggles in desperation, as it tries to regain its feet. Now I am right upon it, and quickly dismounting, I take hold of its horns, draw a long keen knife from its sheath, and with a powerful stroke I almost sever the victim's head from the body. And as the warm blood pours forth in every direction and the last sign of life departs from its shivering body, I view the work ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... stairs been so steep, and the little legs so short) was the figure of a child: a little girl about ten years old, with a face of almost startling beauty. Her hair floated like a cloud of pale gold about her shoulders; her eyes were blue, not light and keen, like the old man's, but of that soft, deep, shadowy blue that poets love to call violet. Wonderful eyes, shaded by long, curved lashes of deepest black, which fell on the soft, rose-and-ivory tinted cheek, as the child carefully picked ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... Maya, "quite right." Her whole body shook with terror. The sentinel, then, had seen her the entire time. She remembered having heard how keen were the ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... with which she met the priest's explanations of historical events and the motives from which they sprang charmed him beyond measure, and made his work with her a constant delight. Her sense of humor was keen, and her merriment when his recitals touched her risibility was extravagant. She laughed at danger, laughed at the weaknesses and foibles of men, when he told of the political and social ambitions which stirred mankind in the outside world. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... "Number Seven, 'shun! All present and correct." They're standing in the sun, impassive and erect. Young Gibson with his grin; and Morgan, tired and white; Jordan, who's out to win a D.C.M. some night: And Hughes that's keen on wiring; and Davies ('79), Who always must be firing at ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... Jeremy Taylor by heart; and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of Christianity, made the solicitudes of feminine fashion appear an occupation for Bedlam. She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and artificial protrusions of drapery. Her mind was theoretic, and yearned by its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... light, our very first aim must be to get the shadows sharp and visible; and this is not to be done by blackness, (though indeed chalk on white paper is the only thing which comes up to the intensity of real shadows,) but by keeping them perfectly flat, keen, and even. A very pale shadow, if it be quite flat—if it conceal the details of the objects it crosses—if it be gray and cold compared to their color, and very sharp edged, will be far more conspicuous, and make everything out of it look a great deal ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... into snow, nor heat into frost, any more easily than we could turn dried apples into roast beef and plum-pudding. Excellent food as dried fruit is, yet it is apt to become monotonous when it must do duty for breakfast, dinner, and tea! Such was our scanty fare; nevertheless we managed to keen up the appearance of ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... but reluctantly and against his will. These rapid remarks, murmured as they were, struck his ear by one of those acoustic rebounds which are very little studied. As he heard these political confidences, however, a keen alarm took possession of his soul. He was one of those simple-minded beings, who are shocked at listening to anything they are not intended to hear, or entering where they are not invited, and seeming bold when they are really timid, inquisitive where they are truly discreet. ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... and slept until the evening without going either to the rehearsal or to Cabinska's home, but she felt even weaker upon awaking and had a painful dizziness in her head, while that keen and constant sapping sensation within herself tormented her so that ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... the winter revival; and upon this preaching old Bill Bull, the atheist of Out-of-the-Way, attended with scoffing regularity, sitting in the seat of the scorner. It was observed presently—no eyes so keen for such weather as the eyes of Out-of-the-Way—that Bill Bull was coming under conviction of his conscience; and when this great news got abroad, Terry Lute, too, attended upon Parson Down's preaching with regularity, due wholly, however, to his interest in watching the tortured countenance ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... We cannot say that such a vehicle would be suitable for a lady, unless rubber-tyred wheels and other improvements are made to the carriage, for a grim grip of the steering handle and a keen eye are necessary for its safe guidance, more especially if the high road be rough. It never requires to be fed, and as it is, moreover, unsusceptible of fatigue, it is obviously the sort of vehicle that should soon achieve a widespread popularity ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton |
