"Keen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wonderful," Mrs. Maurice would wail between her sobs; "keen critics and men of the most delicate literary taste rave over them; but if he can't finish them, what's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... the boy's hand, assuring him of their sympathy and their keen desire to aid him, and then ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... and as part of the same feeling, is that intense enjoyment of natural scenery, so keen in Homer, and of which the Athenian poets show not a trace; as, for instance, in that night landscape by the sea, finished off in a few lines only, but so exquisitely perfect! The broad moon, gleaming through ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... bored. His attitude was, "Skinner is only a machine—what does he know about real business?" But the men he was now mixing with in the den seemed to have the leisure of the gods on their hands. They were not bored. They listened with keen interest to what ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... his horse and rode on, still looking for the bag. His search was thorough and, being a keen-eyed young man, he discovered the place where Lorraine had crouched down by a rock. She must have stayed there all night, for the scuffed soil was dry where her body had rested, and her purse, caught in the juniper bush close by, was sodden ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... defeat, coupled with the subsequent retreat, everywhere carried alarm and keen disappointment. Greene speaks of the "panic" in the county. But at the same time many brave voices were raised to counteract despondency. Parsons, in the army, wrote: "I think the trial of that day far from being any discouragement, but in general our men behaved ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... from his delirium there was not a soul in the bedroom. The morning sun flared through the window and the drawn curtains, and a trembling beam, thin and keen as a sword, played on the water-bottle. He could hear the rattle of wheels—that meant there was no more snow in the streets. The lieutenant looked at the sunbeam, at the familiar furniture and the door, and his first inclination was to ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... for bare existence, which never ends, though it may be alleviated and partially disguised for a fortunate few, succeeded the struggle to make existence intelligible and to bring the order of things into harmony with the moral sense of man, which also never ends, but, for the thinking few, becomes keen er with every increase of knowledge and with every step towards the realization of a ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... 'come!' and she ushered me without much ado into a den of discomfort where sat a man, with a great beard and such heavy overhanging eyebrows that I could hardly detect the twinkle of his eyes, keen ...
— The Staircase At The Hearts Delight - 1894 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... literary leisure, or literary labours of love of singular excellence, which he never cared to publish beyond the circle of his intimate friends: Euphranor, Polonius, collections of dialogues full of keen wisdom, fine observation, and profound thought; sterling philosophy written in the purest, simplest, and raciest English; noble translations, or rather free adaptations of Calderon's two finest dramas, The Wonderful Magician and Life's a Dream, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... gnarled mulberry-trees broad-leafed against a September sky, deeply, passionately blue; glimpses of wood and field,—all seemed remote without distance, still without stillness, the semblance of a dream, and yet keen and near to oppression. It was a town of stores, of ordinaries and public places; from open door and window all along Duke of Gloucester Street came laughter, round oaths, now and then a scrap of drinking song. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... sez she. Her keen eyes wuz full of tears, and I knowed she would never stir him up agin with the sharp harrer of her irony and sarcasm if she had ever so good a chance. Josiah took out his bandanna and blowed his nose hard. He's tender-hearted. We knowed sunthin' how he felt; wuzn't we all, Dorothy, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... But Hazlitt, who saw the pictures in the above-mentioned exhibition in 1814, devotes much of his criticism to the tragedy of the Squanderfields, chiefly, it would seem, because Lamb had left the subject untouched. Hazlitt's own studies as an artist, his keen insight and his quick enthusiasm, made him a memorable critic of Hogarth, whose general characteristics he defines with admirable exactitude. Much quotation has made his description of the young Lord and Counsellor Silvertongue sufficiently familiar. But he is equally ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... interested in the young editor she knew from the first; that she had been mortally wounded by Cupid's shaft she only now discovered. She had passed through a divorce, two "affairs" and a legitimate widowhood, without feeling any of the keen emotions which now drove sleep from her eyes. A long time ago, longer than she cared to remember, she had experienced such emotions, but she had supposed such folly only possible in the high tide of early youth. It was absurd, nay ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of the Northern Nut Growers Association, express our keen appreciation of the very efficient services of Mrs. Stephen Bernath and Gilbert L. Smith and others for their splendid accommodations ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... was the light, but his sight was keen, and quickened by the imminence of danger. Partly his eyes and partly his instinct told him that not six paces behind him there must be a door, and if Heaven pleased it should be unlocked, behind it they must look ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... at the Chatham Road Church. The subsidiary organizations are keyed to the top-notch of efficiency. Dr. Drew is especially keen on good congregational singing. Bright cheerful hymns are used at every meeting, and the special Sing Services attract lovers of music and professionals from all parts of ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... reason, she loathed the thought of Paris when she passed through it. But at the moment she did not loathe the thought of him at all, nor did she loathe him. She who so loved the sunshine and joy of life could not but like one who took so keen and boyish a pleasure in its pleasantness, and, boylike also, turned so uncompromising a back on all that was unpleasant ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... American "Quaker Poet," born at Haverhill, in Massachusetts, the son of a poor farmer; wrought, like Burns, at field work, and acquired a loving sympathy with Nature, natural people, and natural scenes; took to journalism at length, and became a keen abolitionist and the poet-laureate of abolition; his poems are few and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... his mother were not long left alone, for shortly there approached a brisk old lady, daintily dressed, who looked like a fairy godmother. She had a keen face, bright eyes like those of a squirrel, and in gesture and walk and glance was as restless as that animal. This piece of alacrity was Miss Whichello, who was the aunt of Mab Arden, the beloved of George Pendle. Mab was with her, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... repartee. His powers of captivation were as great as hers, but he knew that power, and even used it for an end; while in her it was spontaneous as the bubbling of a stream, as the song of the birds, or as the joy of childhood. Both had a keen perception of the ludicrous, but in her it never amounted to ill-nature: she was as severe upon herself as he was upon others; while she penetrated into their motives she judged them kindly, and was at ready to detect evil in her own heart as he was to suspect it in theirs. His ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... and then dwindling into ever-gurgling streams, that glided through ravines curtained with verdant drapery—such were some of the details of the picture; but how vain the endeavour to describe this redundant beauty! A friend, who enjoyed it with a zest as keen as our own, once remarked: 'It is like nothing in this world but one of Salvator Rosa's pictures framed in a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... His keen eyes softened to a charming, half-melancholy smile. Louie took no notice; she was absorbed in meditation; and at the end of it, she said with ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... anything for you, and if he can, and will, he will serve you with care and friendliness; but ask him to fetch you vodka—and his habitual serenity and friendliness will pass at once into a sort of joyful haste and alacrity; he will be as keen in your interest as though you were one of his family. The peasant who fetches vodka—even though you are going to drink it and not he and he knows that beforehand—seems, as it were, to be enjoying part of your future gratification. Within ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "Why are you so keen about these Indian relics? We can give you any number of arrowheads and baskets and stuff. You're welcome to them if it will help you any," ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... was event and pleasure to that ingenuous young soul. And then to see his mother coming towards him, to hear from afar the rustle of her gown, to await her, to kiss her, to talk to her, to listen to her gave him such keen emotions that often a slight delay, a trifling fear would throw him into a violent fever. In him there was nought but soul, and in order that the weak, debilitated body should not be destroyed by the keen emotions ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... soul of Johannes Agricola; and he does it with so much personal fervour that it seems as if, in one of his incarnations, he had been the man, and, for the moment of his writing, was dominated by him. The mystic-passion fills the poetry with keen and dazzling light, and it is worth while, from this point of view, to compare the poem with Tennyson's Sir Galahad, and on another side, with St. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... still to Carmel, studied out the words she wanted. She was leaning over the tray to write these words in her note-book, when—no one ever knew how it happened—the lid of the heavy trunk fell forward and its iron edge struck her on the nape of the neck, with a keen blow which laid her senseless. When Carmel reached her side, she found herself the strong one and her stalwart nurse ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... exclaimed. "How interesting! Now I am glad I met you. I had no idea you were that, of all things. You seemed—" She checked herself. "But tell me, how did you begin? Tommy Dallas is keen on your sort. Did he ever—ever back you, I believe he calls ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... a brilliant and versatile mind. He was not a profound thinker, but he had keen literary tastes, a vigorous interest in science, and a remarkable alertness of intellect. His gifts were varied rather than deep; literary rather than philosophical. As a companion, he had a wonderful charm and magnetism; he was a graceful talker, a marvellous story-teller, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... tells that Hjordis brought forth a man-child, who was straightly borne before King Hjalprek, and then was the king glad thereof, when he saw the keen eyes in the head of him, and he said that few men would be equal to him or like unto him in any wise. So he was sprinkled with water, and had to name Sigurd, of whom all men speak with one speech and say that none was ever his like for growth ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... be something about the followers of racing which makes them different from the followers of any other sport. I suppose that I am at least as keen on the Lunch Scores as any other man can be on the Two-thirty Winner; yet I have no desire whatever to read a succession of stories entitled How's That, Umpire? or Run Out, or Lost by a Wicket. I can ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... to the cabin, she dropped her slippers and mounted the steps on bare feet, quietly opening the door. At first in the dim light she could see nothing, then her keen ear caught the quiet sound of his breathing, and she stole over to the ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... century has been equally pregnant with imposture. The delusions of Joanna Southcoat are too fresh in the recollections of our readers to require notice here; yet, strange to say, this fanatical old woman had her adherents and disciples; many of them, in other respects, were keen and sensible men; nor has the delusion altogether evaporated, though the sect is by no means powerful or strong; the first impressions are still retained by her half frantic and ridiculous devotees, who are only to be met with among the very lowest ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... that long before the negotiations of the treaty of 1803 our Government had a keen appreciation of the importance to American settlers in the valley of the Mississippi of an arrangement permitting their products to be deposited and exported at the entrance of that river to the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... did not speak. He knew young Gilbert, and he knew his young and very charming wife. He had once sat next to her at dinner, when her whole conversation had been about this new home and the keen interest that Morris, a friend of her father's, had taken in it. "Mr. Breen, you and Miss Corinne must be among our earliest guests," she had said, at which Corinne, who was next to Garry, had ducked her little head in acceptance. This was the young fellow, then, who had been ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... agitations of art nor the invention of science could much improve it. About two feet of the thong or lorum of one of the creeping palms (CALAMUS OBSTRUENS) is all that is necessary. These lora are armed with definitely spaced whorls of recurved hooks, keen as needles, true as steel, about one-eighth of an inch long. Three or four of the whorls are removed to provide an unfretful but firm grip. The pot-holes and shallow pools and gullies and trickling creeks are populated by nervous, yet inquisitive, semi-transparent prawns, upon which ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the little green sward, not far from a large rough deer- hound, both close friends who could be trusted at large. There was a mournful dispirited look about the hound, evidently an aged animal, for the once black muzzle was touched with grey, and there was a film over one of the keen beautiful eyes, which opened eagerly as he pricked his ears and lifted his head at the rattle of the door latch. Then, as two boys came out, he rose, and with a slowly waving tail, and a wistful appealing air, came and laid his head against one of the pair who had appeared in the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the ground The hot air trembles. In pale glittering haze Wavers the sky. Along the horizon's rim, Breaking its mist, are peaks of coppery clouds. Keen darts of light are shot from every leaf, And the whole landscape droops in sultriness. With languid tread, I drag myself along Across the wilting fields. Around my steps Spring myriad grasshoppers, their cheerful notes Loud in my ear. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... dominating Canada until white-plumed Laurier had finished his work, it must be by a stronger leverage than Imperialism. He had managed to hold Quebec, which now thanks to himself and Lomer Gouin, was almost solidly Liberal. The prairie farmers he must not lose. And the grain growers were not keen about an England which bought their wheat at open world prices in competition with cheap wheat countries like Russia, and their cattle at prices dictated by the Argentine; when both cattle and wheat were cheapened to the producer by the ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... a native of Mayo, looks some thirty-five years old, and belongs to the unadulterated Irish caste—half-curled hair, not abundant, anxious semicircular forehead, keen and fiery eyes, altogether a lively interesting head. He is a Latin and Celtic scholar; and that excuses him for his moderate proficiency in modern languages. He was educated at Maynooth, the eye-sore of Sabbatarians, and therefore believes it incontestable ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... blow had struck me, so keen was the agony I endured; but relief came on the instant, for the axe edge was warded off by the barrel of the piece my father held, and before the savage could strike again he received the butt of the piece full in his forehead, and dropped back ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... over a country, before that time neglected, mismanaged, and unproductive, and dispensed to an intelligent and industrious people, who had for a century been struggling with oppression and innumerable difficulties, changing with their repeated changes of masters, was owing to the keen sagacity and prompt decision of Napoleon. It is thus that the destinies of mankind wait upon the fortunes, the caprice, the foresight, and the blunders of the great, and are determined, for weal or wo, by causes and accidents in which those who are most affected by them have no agency. The people ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... war, capital would remain disquieted by the fear that the machinery of excessively high income taxation, once used and found easy of motion, might be used again for purposes of a less serious emergency than now exists. Those seeking capital for other countries—and there is bound to be a very keen contest for capital after the war—would not fail to make use of these arguments. Moreover, experience has proved that very high rates of income taxation once adopted, are not easily reduced to the level from which ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn
... to the English government, as to the state of feeling and resources of the Netherlands, by Buys, Meetkerk, and William Herle, Walsingham relied much upon the experienced eye and the keen biting ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... blood poured forth from her nails and teeth, my head swims and the sight leaves my eyes—therefore, away with it! This only will I notice, that her advocate, Doctor Elias Pauli, preserved her in truth for a year and a day from the rack and a bitter death, by his keen and cunning devices, thinking that she would make away with herself some way or other, by mercury or else, to escape the stake. But no such thing: she was as afraid of death as a cat of hot broth; so at last he had to suffer justice to take its course. Whereupon ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... knew, were unselfishnesses of the spirit, clean and noble thinking, keen intellectual living. I knew all this because I read 'Seaside Library'* novels, in which, with the exception of the villains and adventuresses, all men and women thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a beautiful tongue, and performed glorious deeds. In ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... principles of conduct and his legal abilities. From the first he avoided the littleness and quibble which are the bane of the bar. He had a high notion of what a lawyer should be and of the method and spirit in which he should conduct his cases. He had as much dignity as audacity, a sense of justice as keen as the purpose was zealous ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... paused with a keen glance at Miss Ellen, who had suddenly begun to sew with a bright color in her cheeks, for the purple pansies were on the screen that stood before her fire-place, and she recognized the portrait of herself ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... button on his desk. A tall, willowy girl entered, notebook in hand. Carnes glanced with keen appreciation ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... single keen glance upon me while going through the ordeal of introduction. But his scrutiny labored under one disadvantage. His eyes did not encounter mine! One loses a great deal, if his object be the study of tuman nature, if ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Seymour, a keen politician, long accustomed to the tactics of faction, saw in a moment that the party which had begun to rally round the Prince stood in need of organization. It was as yet, he said, a mere rope of sand: no common object had been publicly and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... child keen satisfaction, for she had always feared secretly her cousin's feelings about her adoption; so this kindness on his part freed her from all anxiety, and she could go her way peacefully. But these thoughts often rose within her, and she ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... overstatement of facts—a cool, level-headed observer. He saw a periscope. We had another officer who had been in the service in the Spanish War, had got out and was now back. He was probably the best lookout of all the army officers in the ship—a solid, substantial man with a keen eye. He could see what anybody else could see, but further than that you had to show him. Several of us had already christened him "Show me." He reported two periscopes. Now he had never seen a submarine ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... and found a keen pleasure in hearing all about the little family of the other, and their happy united efforts to laugh off poverty and have a good time anyway. Then the visitor told of the college, its struggles, its great needs and small funds, how its orange crop, which was ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... silent space undecided. His fists were clenched. Geraldine, meeting his glowing eyes, shook her head slowly. Her keen distress made him ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... dark, all reference to poor Anne was avoided, and the belief was allowed to go abroad that it was Satan himself who disturbed the peace of the family. Her parents were ready to turn aside the keen edge of observation from her fate, preferring rather that it should be believed that they were haunted by the Devil, so that the story of her wrongs should sink into oblivion, and be classed as an old wives' tale of horns and hoofs. The harsh father and stepmother have long gone to the place ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... suggested there is no doubt that remarkably fine pictures are to be produced on opal, whether ground or not. Most artistic results are to be obtained, and, with proper care, absolute permanency. In this age of keen competition, all have to think of what may be really recommended to one's clientle, and likely to meet with approbation from strangers and friends when the picture has once been delivered; and I candidly think that the opal, of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... laughed, and she saw the slim line curl, glisten, loop and unroll in the long back cast, re-loop, and straighten out over Isla like a silver spider's floating strand. Then silver leaped to meet silver as the "Doctor" touched water; one keen scream of the reel cut the sunny silence; the rod bent like a bow, staggered in his hand, swept to the surface in a deeper bow, quivered under the tremendous rush of the ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... Not Milton's keen, translunar music thine; Not Shakespeare's cloudless, boundless, human view; Not Shelley's flush of rose on peaks divine; Nor yet ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... Theseus came up with him, where he lay panting on a slab among the snow, and caught him by the horns, and forced his head back, and drove the keen ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... health, nor so good, as since it commenced. There is a degree of spirit and vigour infused into one's blood by the purity of the air that is quite exhilarating. The very snow seems whiter and more beautiful than it does in our damp, vapoury climate. During a keen bright winter's day you will often perceive the air filled with minute frozen particles, which are quite dry, and slightly prick your face like needle-points, while the sky is blue and bright above you. There is a decided difference between the first ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... The Somali are keen and cunning sportsmen, and have various methods of killing elephants, ostriches, and gazelles. They fearlessly attack an elephant, on foot, one man only being mounted on a horse, who gallops in front, and while the animal pursues him, the others ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... structure of the defence he intended to rear on behalf of the religion so dear to him. He expended his real strength on the portico to the designed temple. His genius fitted him to deal with this, and with this alone, in any adequate manner. His moral analysis, at once keen and veracious, enabled him not only to lay bare all the “disproportions” of humanity, but, moreover, to unfold the adaptation of Christianity as a spiritual system to meet and remedy these disproportions. This is the real “apologetic” work of the ‘Pensées,’ and the only one for which ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... in the haze beyond Syracuse; the awful rapids raging furiously below Niagara, a very ocean tortured and maddened to blind fury, pouring its irresistible torrents through the chasm above the whirlpool; and again, a cloudless October morning, with just the keen zest of early autumn in the air, as I lay high up on a hillside in Ardgour watching for deer—with the hills of Lochaber and Ballachulish reflected in all their glory of purple and russet in the waters of Loch Linnhe, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... occult properties of nature. Therefore all that our female philosophers above ground contend for as to rights of women, is conceded as a matter of course in this happy commonwealth. Besides such physical powers, the Gy-ei have (at least in youth) a keen desire for accomplishments and learning which exceeds that of the male; and thus they are the scholars, the professors—the learned portion, in short, of ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great truth that has to be ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... noble-looking animals known in Europe and Asia as the reindeer, though we must look sharp to recognise them; for so similar are they in colour to the rocks and general features of the ground, that only the keen eye of the Indian can easily detect them, especially when they are lying down. Should we approach them on the weather-side, or should the slightest noise be made, they will quickly detect us. Up they spring, and after a brief stare, make off in graceful bounds ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... have been reduced to two at the Prado: The Holy Family with the Lamb, painted a year after the Ansedei Madonna, and that wonderful head of young Cardinal Bibbiena, keen-eyed and ascetic of features. Alas! for the scholarship that attributed to the Divine Youth La Perla; the Madonna of the Fish; Lo Spasimo, Christ Bearing the Cross, and several other masterpieces. Giulio Romana, Penni, and perhaps another, turned out these once ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... serve the writer of a romance as the hero of his tale, in the character of keeper of an enchanted castle, when fierce, scowling looks, terrific frowns, and a peculiarly wild expression of countenance are intended to be naturally described, for the man's stature was gigantic; his eyes large, keen, piercing, and ever in motion, his broad nose squatted over both cheeks; his lips immensely large, exposing a fine set of teeth; the beard was thick, black and gristly, and covering all the lower part of his ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... different last night," Julian said, looking at Valentine with a keen interest. "Can it be possible that those sittings of ours have really ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... loveliness—"the most beautiful woman in Europe" many declared—mingling the vivacity of an Irish beauty with the voluptuous charms of a Spaniard—she was splendidly equipped for the conquest of any man, be he King or subject; and Ludwig I., King of Bavaria, had as keen an eye for female beauty as for the objects of art on which he ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... hovering over her. Even then the old woman said not a word. She waited till Wych Hazel's senses were clear, and the young lady had roused herself up to a sitting position on the floor. Gyda's eyes were too keen not to see that the mind was ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... later I was once more coasting along the wavering hills of Batengo Island, with a sharp eye out for a first sight of the cable station and Graves. Five weeks with no company but Kanakas and a pointer dog makes one white man pretty keen for the society of another. Furthermore, at our one meeting I had taken a great shine to Graves and to the charming young lady who was to brave a life in the South Seas for his sake. If I was eager to get ashore, Don was more so. I had a shot-gun across my knees with which ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... commonwealth could thus be knit together by reconciliation. The request was readily granted. After that he set out against the Crustumini, who were beginning hostilities: in their case, as their courage had been damped by the disasters of others, the struggle was less keen. Colonies were sent to both places: more, however, were found to give in their names for Crustuminum, because of the fertility of the soil. Great numbers also migrated from thence to Rome, chiefly of the parents and relatives of the women who ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... reasonably doubt the existence of pain among animals; but it seems as if their pleasures and their pains are not so keen as they are in man: for animals, since they do not reflect, are susceptible neither to the grief that accompanies pain, nor to the joy that accompanies pleasure. Men are sometimes in a state approaching that of the beasts, when they act ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... winter wind; Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude. Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly. Most friendship is feigning; most loving ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... South Carolina, and left thirty men to hold it. They were at that time the only white men from-Mexico to the North Pole, and a keen business man could have bought the whole thing, Indians and all, for a good team and a jug ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... interest at the stalwart old figure, and strong keen face. Most of the wrinkles in the face had come from smiling, but it was ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... lightning crinkled keen, Or fluttered fitful from behind The leaden drifts, then only seen, That rumbled eastward on ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... treatment she had all her life being subject to until she met him. For that gratitude which would not let her pass by any notice of their acquaintance without insisting on the depth of her debt to him, took half its fervor from the keen comparison with what others had thought enough to render to her. Deronda's affinity in feeling enabled him to penetrate such secrets. But he was not near the truth in admitting the idea that Mordecai had broken his characteristic ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the first moments of her arrival she was dreading detection—how was it possible that she should not—and she feared Joyce's keen eyes more, perhaps than she feared any others. She was only wishing that the ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a circumlocution of delicate phrases, "the conservative energies of the public institutions," "the majesty of the law," perhaps, and others of similar cast;—which fine phrases suggest to one's imagination the ornamented fashion of the handle and sheath of the scimitar, which is not the less keen, nor the less ready to be drawn, for all this finery that hides and garnishes so menacing a symbol ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... forge by some dextrous hand. Certainly, the strangest and most entertaining life ever written is that of a blacksmith of the olden north, a certain Volundr, or Velint, {65b} who lived in woods and thickets, made keen swords,—so keen, indeed, that if placed by a running stream, they would fairly divide an object, however slight, which was borne against them by the water—and who eventually married a king's daughter, by whom he had a ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... was Oliver Cromwell. Bred to peaceful occupations, he had, at more than forty years of age, accepted a commission in the Parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a soldier, than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what Essex and men like Essex, with all their experience, were unable to perceive. He saw precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered. He saw that it was necessary to reconstruct the army of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... has shown their very special aptitude for it and in law-making, etc., they will be used more and more. Women have successfully done tool-setting and can go on with that. The training for civil and mechanical engineering is long, but there will be, if women are keen and will train, plenty of opportunity for them in peace-time occupations in civil, mechanical or electrical branches in connection with municipal, sanitary and household questions and in laundries, farms, etc. The women architects ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... I can, in all three—water, dry land, and air,—I certainly prefer to be under water. Any one whose appetite is as keen, and whose hind-legs are as powerful as mine, will understand the delights of hunting, and being hunted, in a pond; where the light comes down in fitful rays and reflections through the water, and gleams among the hanging roots of the frog-bit, and the fading leaves of the water-starwort, ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... hand to gaze upon his own, to mark the hideous frown of hate, and the more hideous grin of delight, that mingled on, and distorted his visage, as he gloated, snake-like, over that of the chief. As he looked, he drew from its sheath in his girdle his well-worn, but still bright and keen knife,—which he poised in one hand, while feeling, with what seemed extraordinary fearlessness or confidence of his prey, with the other along the sleeper's naked breast, as if regardless how soon he might wake. But Wenonga still slept on, though the hand of the white man lay upon his ribs, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... philosophy class was a red-letter day; he sported his first tall hat and smoked his first non-surreptitious cigarettes. He possessed a certain brilliancy of mind and a keen wit that amused his companions, whose superior he was in gifts ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... to conceal his anxiety, especially from his visitors, whose keen eyes had been watching him narrowly though in no other way did they show that they suspected the little hump-backed Indian had come with any information relating to them. Captain Mackintosh, who had gone ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... which he felt it his bounden duty to apply to the offspring of his own brain, he had found to be worthless, and rejected. Now, unquestionably, the powerful intellect of Watt went for much in this matter: unquestionably his keen and practised glance enabled him to detect flaws and errors in many cases where an eye equally honest, but less acute, would have failed to discover them; but can we doubt that a moral element was largely involved in the composition ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... of hunger and thirst, Martin; I will tend him whiles you sleep. He shall be a notable good sentinel and these be very keen of scent—the Spaniards do use them to track down poor runaway slaves withal, but these dogs are faithful beasts and this hath been sent us, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... I am free to confess, I couldn't help resenting Otoo's poking his nose into my business. But I knew that he was wholly unselfish; and soon I had to acknowledge his wisdom and discretion. He had his eyes open always to my main chance, and he was both keen-sighted and far-sighted. In time he became my counsellor, until he knew more of my business than I did myself. He really had my interest at heart more than I did. Mine was the magnificent carelessness of ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... His keen imagination could visualize the sufferings caused by war. Vicariously he knew something of the life of the trenches, for Cecil like many another C. Man* had managed to get to France. A delightful article on Comradeship shows, what letters from soldiers confirm, how perfectly ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Ants have a keen sense of smell and a wonderful way of talking to each other by touching their antennae. They must have a complete set of signals, for they are able to carry on a ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... indifferently, must be quite dead now. It seemed to Howat that she too regarded Myrtle without enthusiasm. Ludowika and Myrtle had had very little to say to each other; Myrtle studied Mrs. Winscombe's apparel with a keen, even belligerent, eye; the other patronized the girl in a ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... difficulties presented themselves from day to day, the officers never lost sight of the chief purpose of their toils. The journals of those days are replete with keen notes upon the country, its resources, and its people. Soon after passing the Falls, there were to be seen occasional signs of previous intercourse between the Indians and the white traders who had visited the coast,—the squaws would display a bit of colored cloth in their ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... my funeral," sulked Tennelly, going to his closet for suitable raiment. "I s'pose you get your way, but Court's keen intellectually, and if he happens to strike a good preacher he's liable to fall for what he says, in the mood he's ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... many, and here is one," said he, turning to the young count, who stood behind him—a fine youth, tall, strong-built, well-spoken, with blond hair and dark, keen eyes. I admit frankly I had not seen a better figure of a man. I assure you, he had the form of Hercules, the eye of Mars. It was an eye to command—women; for I had small reason to admire his courage when I knew him better. He took a hand of each young ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... figures faded out of my vision; and I seemed to be observing a little moon revolving with lightning rapidity round the earth, while I felt that I had, in some way, been sucked into its orbit, and was whirling around with it. Suddenly, with a keen sense of danger pervading my whole nervous system, I awoke. Yes, it was a dream! I was in my boat, gazing up into the serene heavens, where the larger moon was tranquilly following her orbit, while I was being whirled round in a strong eddy under ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... to the papacy, and desired to emulate in their own pontificates that of Leo X. Each piece of sculpture acquired for their villas, every literary man attached to their service was a step toward that end. Ippolito II. was as keen a hunter of genius as his uncle had been of deer or boar; and having once bagged his game, as capable of availing himself without scruple of his trophies as Ippolito I. of tearing the antlers from a ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... decoration and be feted for his fine pro-Ally spirit, it was M. FORAIN, as the head of living French cartoonists, who received him in the name of France and conferred the Order. M. FORAIN'S public appearances are nowadays few and far between, but he still wields—and none more searchingly—a pencil keen and swift as a sword, and he never takes it in hand but to create something memorable. A selection of his recent work is now on view in London at 22, Montagu Square, the residence of Mr. CAMPBELL DODGSON, the Keeper of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various |
