"Sly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and bridegroom, And couples in a train, Gay partners time and travail Had longwhiles stilled amain! . . . It seemed a thing for weeping To find, at slumber's wane And morning's sly increeping, That ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... down, a sly old fellow rose, and waving his long brush with a graceful air, said, with a sneer, that if, like the last speaker, he had been so unfortunate as to lose his tail, nothing further would have been needed to convince him; but till such an accident should happen, he should ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... walk; "I am proud of him, we all ought to be proud of him. He is a whole-souled, whole-hearted, right-minded young man, worth a dozen of your fashionable milk-sops. He is a right down splendid fellow. I cannot imagine why this sly little puss was so blind to his merits; but I suppose the greater glory dimmed ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... to Abelard," your "Verses to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady," and some others you wrote in your youth, there is more fire of poetry than in any of mine. You excelled in the pathetic, which I never approached. I will also allow that you hit the manner of Horace and the sly delicacy of his wit more exactly than I, or than any other man who has written since his time. Nor could I, nor did even Lucretius himself, make philosophy so poetical, and embellish it with such charms as you have given to that of Plato, or (to speak more ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... brush heap—in short, he was as fine a specimen of a poor white as one could find anywhere in the seceded States. He looked stupid as well as shiftless, but the young pilot knew he wasn't. He was as sly as a fox and as cunning as well, and Marcy confessed to himself that he stood more in fear of him than he did of Captain Beardsley. When the man heard Marcy's step upon the porch, he tried to assume the servile air which was characteristic of poor Southern whites before the war; ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... cast his eyes on your mother, and persecuted her long after she had shown him the door! That sly mischief-maker! Many a time has he set snares in our path. If he succeeds in tightening the noose into which the boy has so heedlessly thrust his head—But first tell me, has he caught him already, or is Alexander still ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... superscription she saw, or fancied she saw, that it was in a woman's hand. She looked at it again. It was sealed plainly with a woman's seal; and she looked up at Martin Lightfoot. She had remarked as he gave her the letter a sly significant look in ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... the simple base and crown of its speculation. It is like the personal development of Vedantic philosophy, only it is here degraded by the personality of the man-god, who is made the incarnate All-god. The Krishna of the epic as a man is a sly, unscrupulous fellow, continually suggesting and executing acts that are at variance with the knightly code of honor. He is king of Dv[a]rak[a] and ally of the epic heroes. But again, he is divine, the highest divinity, the avatar of the All-god Vishnu. The sectaries that see in Civa ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... good idee for our French friends here to go aboard of her and finish their voyage in a vessel of their own. One reason why I'd rather have it so is, that I don't altogether like the manoeuvrin's of that French count over thar. He's too sly; an' he's up to somethin', an' I don't fancy havin' to keep up a eternal watch agin him. If I was well red of him I could breathe freer; but at the same time I don't altogether relish the idee of puttin' ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... a passion, my dear sir,—now don't. I am here on behalf of my clients, Messrs. Beaufort, sen. and jun. I have had such work to find you! Dear, dear! but you are a sly one! Ha! ha! Well, you see we have settled that little affair of Plaskwith's for you (might have been ugly), and now I hope ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... crafty Horace his low Numbers join: And, with a sly insinuating Grace, Laugh'd at his Friend, and look'd him in the Face: Wou'd raise a Blush, where secret Vice he found; And tickle, while he gently prob'd the Wound. With seeming Innocence the Crowd beguil'd; But made the desp'rate Passes, when he ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... every word, passing upon her face like shadows on the sea. I have never seen a listener so completely still and so completely engrossed in listening. And when I had finished, she looked aside with a transient, half-sly smile, and glanced at me again covertly, so that I could not see herself for seeing her eyes; ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... prince's attention. It showed a man of about fifty, wearing a long riding-coat of German cut. He had two medals on his breast; his beard was white, short and thin; his face yellow and wrinkled, with a sly, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... for weapons and bombs. The role of the priest or the Sadhu is most convenient, and rulers have bowed, and do bow, to religious preachers. These people generally distort the real import of religious precepts, and thereby vitiate the public mind. The founders are sly enough to flatter the Government by an occasional address breathing loyalty and friendship, but it is essential to check this ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... family. A sister of his had married a brother of James Buchanan. There were two daughters of this marriage, nieces of the President, and when they were visiting the White House we had—shall I dare write it?—high jinks with our nigger-minstrel concerts on the sly. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... lark flew away till he came to the side of a rock, and there he saw a sly fox sitting. And the sly fox said, "Where ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... admiration, published everywhere that he was a saint. Madame d'Heudicourt and a few others who listened to these discourses, and who knew the pilgrim well, and saw him loll out his tongue at them on the sly, knew not what to do to prevent their laughter, and as soon as they could get away went and related all they had heard to their friends. Courcillon, who thought it a mighty honour to have Madame de Maintenon every day for nurse, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of you, Mrs. Waddel," said he, with a sly glance at Flora, "how can you take such an odd notion into your head! It is so good of you to tell me all about your courtship: it's giving me a hint of how I'm to go about it when I'm a man. I am sure you were a very pretty, smart girl ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... caricatures of Dickens remain like things carved in stone. This, of course, is an old story in the case of a man reproached with any excess of the poetic. Again and again when the man of visions was pinned by the sly dog ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... patches of the most choice herbage, even which is their delicium, they still keep on straying the more over it miles and miles. As to our nagah, we are obliged to tie her fore-feet, which prevents the camel from getting at a very great distance from the encampment. The camels are sly, unimpassioned, and deliberately savage, one to another, more especially the males. At times they go steadily, and even slowly, behind one another, and turning the neck and head sideways, deliberately bite one another's haunches most ferociously. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... me, Mary! you are a sly girl. You didn't see any thing of a young man there with dark eyes and hair, and a beautiful white, ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... affairs than anybody living, unless, perhaps, it was Mr. Quest himself, and was aware that the lawyer held the old gentleman in a bondage that could not be broken. Now, George was a man with faults. He was somewhat sly, and, perhaps within certain lines, at times capable of giving the word honesty a liberal interpretation. But amongst many others he had one conspicuous virtue: he loved the old Squire as a Highlandman loves his chief, and would almost, if not quite, have died to serve ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... of kindness," growled the young man. "He is one of those sly, soft-footed sneaks you can never get to the bottom of. He is worming his way into my uncle's confidence to an extraordinary extent. Why, he is more like a son to Uncle John than a ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... when, or by whom. Two days after he had been inhumed in a chapel in the town, it was rumored that he was seen by night walking very fast; that he came into the house, overturning the furniture, extinguishing the lamps, throwing his arms around persons from behind, and playing a thousand sly tricks. ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... chains to separate the musicians from the audience. The curtain of the little stage was lowered, but a murmur could be heard through the pretty drop painted by Maurice. Among the servants set to finish the costumes was the Duke's sly goddaughter. Every time the Duke passed she gazed at him and her lips trembled. She who was usually so pert and smiling ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... The half-sly, half-humorous squint of the left blue eye set the sympathetic young woman laughing in spite of herself. The remarkable precocity of these petites miserables of the slums was ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... no doubt we were off for a ramble, perhaps to Apsley House, in the Park, to get a sly peep at the old Duke before he retired for the night, for Harry had told me the Duke always went to bed early, I sprang up to follow him; but what was my disappointment and surprise, when he only led me into the passage, toward ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the tragedy of "the spider and the fly" enacted over again. We would but shudder to watch that wicked, sly, patient tarantula, coaxing, flattering, urging the poor little fly, whose bright wings are singed with his hot breath, and whose wonderful eyes are held fast by the fascination ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... she said. "Goosie and I have got beautiful seats, and Mamma is quite close to the piano where she will hear excellently. Has she promised to sing Siegfried? Is Mr Georgie going to play for her? It's the most delicious surprise; how could you be so sly and clever as ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... her with a sly giggle, and crammed his mouth with persimmons. He expected a scolding for delaying with the calomel, but ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... "Jeff Marshall will be getting out of the brig when we do. He'll be working with Professor Sykes, along with us. Why can't we build one on the sly in the observatory?" ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... wife and their one wolf cub out there, Hugh Fraser skillfully extorted a surrender of a huge private treasure of jewels from these people while they were hidden away in Humayoon's tomb. There's one trust deposit yet to be divided between the Government and this sly old Indo-Scotch-man, and I fancy the empty honor of the baronetcy is a quid pro quo." Alan Hawke laughed heartily. "It is really diamond ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... news, went errands in the town, and on the sly lent the big girls some novel, that she always carried in the pockets of her apron, and of which the good lady herself swallowed long chapters in the intervals of her work. They were all love, lovers, sweethearts, persecuted ladies fainting in lonely pavilions, postilions killed at every ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... there seemed no adequate reason for so strong a preference—the taciturnity of the one being as remarkable as the communicativeness of the other. Mr Elliston called George a 'good fellow,' and slapped his shoulder approvingly; and introduced him to Miss Constantia with sly and peculiar empressement. Major George's visit was prolonged, and Miss Constantia's visit was prolonged far beyond the period allotted to her sisters; and Uncle Elliston gradually ceased to rave at 'Impossible!' But a terrible climax approached, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... customarily pass between the statesmen of two nations seem to have been dropped. We believe that any American would rather bear the manly and outspoken denunciations of the Earl of Derby, consistent and honest in his hostility, than the sly, covert insinuations to which the Foreign Secretary gives utterance, at the very time he is advocating a favorable ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... I know," said Biron, with a sly smile, thoughtfully pacing the room with his hands behind his back. But, suddenly stopping, he remained standing before Munnich, and, looking him sharply in the eye, said: "Shall I for once interpret your ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... raw new-chum feller las' winter, ringin' on the Yanko. Grand feller he was—name o' Tom—but, as it happened, we was workin' sub-contract for a feller name o' Joe Collins, an' we was on for savin', so we on'y drawed tucker-money; an' beggar me if this Joe Collins did n't git paid up on the sly, an' travelled. So we fell in. Can't be too careful when you're workin' for a workin' man. But I would n't like to be in Mr. Joe Collins's boots when Tom ketches him. Scotch chap, Tom is. Well, after bin had like this, we went out on the Lachlan, clean fly-blowed; an' Tom got a ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... while, and the old man spake nothing; but there came a smile in his face that was both sly and somewhat sad. Walter looked on him and said: "Was it from hence that thou wouldst go ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... down the hill that morning with a very peculiar smile on his countenance. There was something quite sly about his aspect, and more than once his companions caught him chuckling at breakfast in a way that surprised them much, for Fred Temple was not given to secrets, or to act in an outrageous manner without any apparent reason. But Fred had his own peculiar thoughts that morning, ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... pleaded she; 'I may be mistaken—perhaps I was mistaken.' But she accompanied the words with a sly glance of derision directed to me from the corner of her ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... affair, overlooked in the first shock of his own alarms, rose before him, formidable and threatening. A desire to see her, deeper than any he had yet experienced, seized him. Her guard would be down; with all her sly skill she could not deceive him now. She would be frightened, she was in danger, she would betray herself. Even if she had long ceased to care for the man, she might have some fears for him, and how much more fears for herself? As he realized the perils of ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... breaks forth from his pages. It is a different kind of humor, not so obstreperous, not so exaggerated, but it helps to lighten the whole in much the same way. One moment it is an incongruous simile, at another a bit of sly satire; now infinitely small things are spoken of as though they were great, and ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... thought him the last man to interest you, my young Bayard," returned Mr. Morris, with some surprise. "He appears to me to be a sly, cunning, ambitious man. I know not why conclusions so disadvantageous to him are formed in my mind, but so it is. I cannot ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... she seem'd all dismay'd, Array'd in her white Lady's-smock, She call'd Mignonette—but the sly little jade, That instant was hearing a sweet serenade From the lips of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Wessely who does all the work for which I am praised—it is he who is elevating our Jewish brethren, with whom I have not the heart nor the courage to strive. Or there is Nicolai, the founder of 'The Library of the Fine Arts,' to which," he added with a sly smile, "I hope yet to see you contributing. Perhaps Fraeulein Reimarus will convert you—that charming young lady there talking with her brother-in-law, who is a Danish state-councillor. She is the great friend of Lessing—as I live, there comes Lessing himself. I am sure he would like ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the boys strong aristocratic principles and hatred of Democracy and of the French in particular; we were ordered to write themes against the French Revolution and verses of triumph over their defeats, with now and then a sly theme on the great advantage of hereditary nobility; in these verses God Almighty was to be represented as closely allied to the British Government and a sleeping partner of the Administration. One of the fellows of Eton College ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... meandered through the grounds apparently without purpose, but in reality pursuing a circuitous route and taking sudden twistings and turnings to throw pursuers off the scent. Ever deeper into the wilderness she penetrated, but with the sly caution of an old fox returning to its lair, for she was always being followed by wicked people, such, for instance, as minions of the law, members of the Black Hand, foreign spies, gen-darmys, and detectifs. Having baffled ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... comfortingly. "Dogs aren't very particular that way. What they want is bones. Cats now, they love disinterestedly. William Adolphus has never swerved in his allegiance to me, although you do give him cream in the pantry on the sly." ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... murder. From the agent she had heard no details, and though the case had made a great sensation at the time it happened, years ago, she had been far away in South Africa, and had not given much attention to it. Some sly hints of Secundina's, however, had shown her that the servants knew, and she had not been able to resist asking questions. Afterward she could not put out of her head Secundina's ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... with sly shy smiles that feign Doubt if the hour be clear, the time Fit to break off my work again Or sport ...
— A Dark Month - From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister at Law, assassinated in his Chambers the sixth Instant by Kitty Sly, who pretended to come to him for ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... said, "always giv her a turn. For her part she preferred Missy, who, though she did kick uncommon, and were awful cantankerous to manage, was always ready to make it up, and say as she had been naughty. For my part," concluded Sarah, "I am free to confess I have often giv Missy a sly shake when she was in one of them tantrums, and I got the chance, and however that girl can be always meek spoken even when she has books a-shied at her head is more than I can tell, and I don't like it neither. I see a look in them eyes of hers ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... heavenly; she had never in her life been afraid. It was simply that she had suddenly understood what would happen if she went in. It was the thing that did happen between young men and girls, and that North Dormer ignored in public and snickered over on the sly. It was what Miss Hatchard was still ignorant of, but every girl of Charity's class knew about before she left school. It was what had happened to Ally Hawes's sister Julia, and had ended in her going to Nettleton, and in ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... pop into that hole in a sly and secret way, and he began to wonder; for he was inquisitive, as most birds are. He sat quite still on his rose-bush and watched and watched. Presently out of the hole popped a black head, bigger than Whitebird's, with two wise little ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... collection was the result, for Frank drew a picture of the fatal fall with broken rails flying in every direction, Jack with his head swollen to the size of a balloon, and Jill in two pieces, while the various boys and girls were hit off with a sly skill that gave Gus legs like a stork, Molly Loo hair several yards long, and Boo a series of visible howls coming out of an immense mouth in the shape of o's. The oxen were particularly good, for their horns branched ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... all this is changed and now our sable friends and the high-soaring hawks are seldom molested. The fool with a rifle is very apt to shoot an eagle if the chance comes to him, but he has to be very sly about it. ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... nor sly, notwithstanding tomes of seeming evidence to the contrary. Love is the most perfect mathematician in the universe. With whatsoever measure a man or a woman metes out love, with that same measure it is returned. Neither is Love blind. Love is depicted thus, because he is ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... and Hortensio, the other new-married man, could not forbear sly jests, which seemed to hint at the shrewish disposition of Petruchio's wife, and these fond bridegrooms seemed highly pleased with the mild tempers of the ladies they had chosen, laughing at Petruchio for his less fortunate choice. Petruchio took ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... childhood is over from mere want of opportunity. The boy who wants to trip up his tutor can easily find a string to tie across the garden walk; but when one has got beyond the simpler joys of childhood strings are not so easy to find. To carry out a practical joke of the Christopher Sly sort we require, as Shakespere saw, the resources of a prince. But once grant possession of unlimited wealth, and the possibilities of mischief rise to a grandeur such as the world has never realized. The Erie Ring ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... the lusts as long as the evils in the external man are not removed. It should be known that man's internal will is in the lusts; his internal understanding in the slynesses; his external will in the enjoyments of the lusts; and his external understanding in the sly scheming. Anyone can see that lusts and their enjoyments make one, that slynesses and scheming also do, and that the four are one series and as it were make a single bundle. From this again it is evident that the internal, consisting ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... more. Two letters have passed between these parties, which speak volumes. They are not open, fervent letters of affection. They are sly, underhanded communications evidently intended by Pickwick to mislead and delude any one into whose hands they might fall. Let me read the first: 'Dear Mrs. B.—Chops and tomato Sauce. Yours, Pickwick.' Gentlemen, what does ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... very vivid during our row across the rapid; and it was a curious speculation to narrowly watch an occasional flash descending the tall conducting rods, and gambol along the roof of the great magazine, as though prying for a sly crevice by which to enter. It afforded a subject for consideration to calculate the next possible resting-place of our little isle, should the ignition of six thousand barrels of gunpowder treat us with an ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... arose. Yes, madame was there. The Senecas were there. So the English prisoner had proved to be a woman. Had I known it at the time? I was a sly dog. All tongues talked at once, while I fought for a hearing. We turned toward the commandant's. The door of the nearest cabin opened and Starling came out. He did not look toward us, and he walked the other way. The woman walked ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... zealous exertions of the police, has not been discovered. Several hundred persons have been arrested for copying or repeating it; but its original source remains unknown." It consists of nine verses, in the vulgar and mutilated French of the Paris halles. A couple of them will give a notion of the sly wit of the whole. They refer, of course, to the Emperor and to his future ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... her room flaunting a red jacket and a long black plume. Dashy for a married woman! But I said nothing. Let that young woman work out her own destiny; I am not her husband. I caught her sending sly glances from under her eyelashes at Mr. Burke. I wish Dempster had been close by, to ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... in the World are Civility, Conforming to the innocent humours, and infirmities, sometimes, of others, readiness to do courtesies for all, Speaking well of all behind their backs. And sly Affability, which is not only to be used in common and unconcerning speech, but upon all occasions. A man may deny a request, chide, reprehend, command &c. affably, with good words, nor is there anything so harsh which ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... of the case, which occupied half an hour more, and then pronounced upon Sludberry the awful sentence of excommunication for a fortnight, and payment of the costs of the suit. Upon this, Sludberry, who was a little, red-faced, sly-looking, ginger-beer seller, addressed the court, and said, if they'd be good enough to take off the costs, and excommunicate him for the term of his natural life instead, it would be much more convenient ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... in my fancy Between those people and me. But somehow, As time went on, there came queer glances Out of their eyes, and the shame that stung me Harassed my pride with a crazed impression That every face in the surging city Was turned to me; and I saw sly whispers, Now and then, as I walked and wearied My wasted life twice over in bearing With all my sorrow the sorrows of others, — Till I found myself their fool. Then I trembled, — A poor scared thing, — and their ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... what the fox had been scheming for, and the words were hardly out ere he had taken a comfortable seat. As he rode home in this way he hummed to himself a sly little song to the effect that he who was hurt carried him who had no hurt. Arrived at the end of his journey, he scampered off without a word of thanks, and, as he made a hearty supper on the remaining fish, he chuckled at ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... his father announced with a sly laugh. "I wondered at the young rascal's being dressed so far ahead of time." He turned reluctantly and went on up the stairs, leaving Sylvia to go forward to her first meeting alone with the man she had promised ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... about Charles VII pales beside the testimony of the portrait of him in the Louvre painted by Foucquet. That bestial face, with the eyes of a small-town ursurer and the sly psalm-singing mouth that butter wouldn't melt in, has often arrested me. Foucquet depicts a debauched priest who has a bad cold and has been drinking sour wine. Yet you can see that this monarch is of the ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... throughout it, makes virtue suffer, and vice triumph: for not only Cato is vanquished by Caesar, but the treachery and perfidiousness of Syphax prevail over the honest simplicity and the credulity of Juba; and the sly subtlety and dissimulation of Portius over the generous ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... the East. My paddle was like to be snatched from my hand at the first dip into the powerful current, and though I saved it by a mad and desperate clutch, yet it felt like a feather in my hands, and I saw my captain (who had witnessed my peremptory usurpation of the paddle) trying to suppress a sly smile, while my mortified ears caught the sound of derisive snickers behind me, and Yorke, the impudent black, grinned ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... crosses over an' takes to ha'ntin' about Dick Stocton's licker room as is his wont. It looks like Black Feather has already been buyin' whiskey of one of them boot-laig parties who takes every chance an' goes among the Injuns an' sells 'em nosepaint on the sly. 'Fore ever he shows up on the Upper Hawgthief that time, this Black Feather gets nosepaint some'ers an' puts a whole quart of it away in the shade; an' he shore exhibits symptoms. Which for one thing he feels ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... new young lords, fresh and fresh: two of them are much in vogue; Lord Huntingdon and Lord Stormont.(437) I supped with them t'other night at Lady Caroline Petersham's; the latter is most cried up; but he is more reserved, seems sly and to have sense, but I should not think extreme: yet it is not fair to judge on a silent man at first. The other is very lively and very agreeable. This is the state of the town you inquire after, and which you do inquire after as one does after ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... you're a sly dog, you're a deep dog, Pew; but you can't get the weather of Kit French. How do I make it out? I'll tell you. I make it out like this: Your name's Pew, ain't it? Very well. And you know Admiral Guinea, and that's his name, eh? Very well. Then you're Pew; and the Admiral's the Admiral; ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... knew what sort of remarks any remonstrance would elicit, and he shrank from subjecting Loo Loo's name to such pollution. For a short time, this prudent reserve shielded him from the attacks he dreaded. But Mr. Grossman soon began to throw out hints about the sly hypocrisy of Puritan Yankees, and other innuendoes obviously intended to annoy him. At last, one day, he drew the embroidered slipper from his pocket, and, with a rakish wink of his eye, said, "I reckon you have seen this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... had a brother who was a clerk in an office, but, as I said, she left no money, so he did not bother himself. I saw him after the death, and the sight of him made me glad I had not married his sister. He looked a thorough blackguard, sly and dangerous. But, as I said, Emilia came of low people. It was only her fine voice and great talents that brought her into the society where I met her. I have never heard of her brother since. I expect he is dead by this time. It is over twenty years ago. But you can now understand ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... are boys who make out to be men because they smoke on the sly," Elmer went on to say. "More than one barn has been set on fire by smokers using matches in the hay. Tramps are responsible for a heap of this waste; and I don't blame any farmer for asking such a question. I'm glad we could ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... have supposed they were going to pass by them had she not known too well their sly ways. The foremost of the five, Louise Roy, whose glorious hair was the boast of the city, suddenly threw back her veil, and disclosing a charming face, dimpled with smiles and with a thousand mischiefs lurking in her bright gray eyes, sprang towards Angelique, while her companions—all Louises ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Son has a strong sense of humor and he invents his own slang. He expresses himself with the picturesqueness of diction inevitable to the West and with much of its sly, dry humor. But there is a joyous quality to the San Francisco blague which sets it apart, even in the West. You find its counterpart only in Paris. Perhaps it is that, being reenforced by wit, it explodes more quickly than the humor of the rest of the country. The ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... used to take his bonnet off, and let him carry it home in his mouth. One rainy day, when the water was pouring down the open gutters, and I was hurrying home, I happened to look round, and there was Carlo coming along behind me; but his pretty red bonnet was bobbing along in the gutter, where the sly rascal had thrown it, hoping, I suppose, that it would be carried down to the ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... returned Muir in his sly Scotch way; "it would be far safer to promise to influence him to his injury. Mankind, pretty Mabel, have their peculiarities; and to influence a fellow-being to his own good is one of the most difficult tasks of human nature, while the opposite ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... the twinkling shine Of fawn-eyes that forget their glances sly, Lost to the friendly aid of rouge and wine— Yet the eyelids quiver when thou drawest nigh As water-lilies do when fish ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... enemy's ground, and laying his plans for future victory. The Commander had in his service a retired Figaro, the wiliest monkey that ever walked in human form; in earlier days as clever as a devil, working his body like a galley-slave, alert as a thief, sly as a woman, but now fallen into the decadence of genius for want of practice since the new constitution of Parisian society, which has reformed even the valets of comedy. This Scapin emeritus was attached to his master as to a superior being; but ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... sharp, rather a sly lad, who was sent to this school, because it was cheap. Many men would have thought him a smart boy, but Mr. Bhaer did not like his way of illustrating that Yankee word, and thought his unboyish keenness and money-loving as much of an affliction as ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... ain' never marry cause you had to court on de sly in dat day en time. I tell you, I come through de devil day when I come along. I was learned to work by de old, old slavery way en, honey, I say dat I just as soon been come through slavery day as to come under a tight taskmassa dat was colored. Yes, mam, if I never did a thing right, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... of the 'Peeping Toms,' and 'Sly Sams,' and 'Infallible Joes,' and 'Wideawake Jems,' with their tips and distribution of prints began; Tom counselling his numerous and daily increasing clients to get well on to No. 9, Sardanapalus (the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... never let on, caught the sly remark. Less guileless than he looked was Lacy, a little man, forever lighting his pipe. He struck another match now, and between puffs delivered a belated message. So many years senior was Lacy to his skipper that he used to talk to him ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... been told, and to some extent have seen," said Considine, with a sly glance; "in fact they appear to ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... both look at the time. The watch of the Intendant is all jewels. 'Will you not add the watches to the stake?' say M'sieu' Doltaire. The Intendant look, and shrug a shoulder, and shake his head for no, and M'sieu' Doltaire smile in a sly way, so that the Intendant's teeth show at his lips and his eyes almost ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Christopher, had been forced to this business of the defence of Cranwell Towers somewhat against his will, namely, by the pressure of Christopher's largest tenant, to whose daughter he was affianced. He was a sly young man, and even during the siege, by means that need not be described, he had contrived to convey a message to the Abbot of Blossholme, telling him that had it been in his power he would gladly be in any other place. ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... "A sly little creature, that pretty hostess of mine!" he said to himself. In the afternoon he met her, but outside the garden. It struck him that she did not blush, but simply looked pleased. Her whole being had something free and light ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... coin was in the left, but the sly fellow did not confess that he had deftly changed it after his companion ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... fundamental change. Gondremark at home appeared the very antipode of Gondremark on duty. He had an air of massive jollity that well became him; grossness and geniality sat upon his features; and along with his manners, he had laid aside his sly and sinister expression. He lolled there, sunning his bulk before the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more," boomed the father. "He fetched his lass up here to make eyes at my son. I saw her—the sly wench!... Boy, ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... communicated in past days to his intimate friends, who now, not knowing what to think, and vexed in their hearts at not being duly informed, affected toward the public the greatest reserve and behaved to one another with a sly air of private understanding. Excourbanies suspected Bravida of being in the secret; Bravida, on his side, thought: "Bezuquet knows the truth; he looks about him like ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... as lithe as a cat, and as active as a monkey, and the confinement of sewing was her abomination; so she broke her needles, threw them slyly out of the window, or down in chinks of the walls; she tangled, broke, and dirtied her thread, or, with a sly movement, would throw a spool away altogether. Her motions were almost as quick as those of a practised conjurer, and her command of her face quite as great; and though Miss Ophelia could not help feeling that ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... stories,—these sly, ambitious aspirants to power, who were not disposed to give up their natural right to dictate, for the lack of an organ, or because they found the proper insignia of their office usurped: it was necessary that they should take old ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... efforts in The Spanish Tragedy, and it is quite possible that they were directly suggested by an almost identical episode in a lost Hamlet by the same author.' Shakespeare elsewhere shows acquaintance with Kyd's work. He places in the mouth of Kit Sly in the Taming of the Shrew the current phrase 'Go by, Jeronimy,' from The Spanish Tragedy. Shakespeare quotes verbatim a line from the same piece in Much Ado about Nothing (I. i. 271): 'In time the savage bull doth bear the ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... in," said Ann to Orlando; "And then we all laugh what is truly a Heart's laugh," said William to Julia. "Then sofas and chairs are put even, And carpets," said Helen to Stephen; "And so we all sit down again, Supping twice," said sly Joseph to Jane. "Now bring me my clogs and my spaniel, And light me," said Dinah to Daniel. "My dearest, you've emptied that chalice Six times," said fond Edmund to Alice. "We are going home tealess and coffeeless Shabby!" ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... society of a farmer or a horse-dealer to that of a gentleman, like my lord, his son: he was fond of drink, of swearing, of joking with the farmers' daughters: he was never known to give away a shilling or to do a good action, but was of a pleasant, sly, laughing mood, and would cut his joke and drink his glass with a tenant and sell him up the next day; or have his laugh with the poacher he was transporting with equal good humour. His politeness for the fair sex has already been hinted at by Miss Rebecca Sharp—in a word, the whole baronetage, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pulling it carefully out. Well, well, well, well! Not so bad! A dark brown tail, a glossy body, and what fine over-hair! For once Arni of Bali had some luck! The fox was dead; it had been shot in the belly and just crept in there to die. Sly devil! Poor beast! Blessed creature! Arni ended by feeling quite tenderly towards the fox. He hardly knew how to give ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... conscience, eh, Ned?" he asked, not without a lurking shame at this deliberate sly searching of the other's mind. Yet he strained his ears ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... females did not seize the opportunity he gave them, and burst into a loud and general disclaimer. Margaret blushed and said nothing; the other two bent silently over their work with something very like a sly smile. Denys inspected their countenances long and carefully. And the perusal was so satisfactory, that he turned with a tone of injured, but patient innocence, and bade Richart ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... face. Why Nature made him, or for what design'd, Never he knew, nor ever sought to find, 'Till cunning came, blest harbinger of ease! And kindly whisper'd, 'thou wert born to please.' Rous'd by the news, behold him now expand, Like beaten gold, and glitter o'er the land. Well stored with nods and sly approving winks, Now first with this and now with that he thinks; Howe'er opposing, still assents to each, And claps a dovetail to each booby's speech. At random thus for all, for none, he lives, Profusely lavish though he nothing gives; The world he roves as living but to show A friendless man without ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... repelled him as if it had been a nunnery; nor could he get a word or even a note from her. The truth is that Clara, fearing lest Coronado should tell more stories about her million to Thurstane, had taken the women of the family into her confidence and easily got them to lay a sly embargo on callers ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... loved Papa. It was she who ran to warm his slippers when his horse's feet came prancing down the avenue. It was she who wheeled the arm-chair to its nice, snug corner; it was she who ran for the dressing-gown; it was she who tucked in the pockets a sly bit of candy, that she had hoarded all day for "poor, tired Papa." It was she who laid her soft hand upon his throbbing temples, when those long, ugly rows of figures at the counting-room, had given him such ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... substance in his hand, from which a yellow powder passed, moist rather than dusty, into the open pores. "In one moon you will be a beast of the woods, and in two you shall return to the Queen that loves you," said Councillor Tuloo, with a sly ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... blushes, and timidly announces, "Bellini's Tomb;" Bellini's Tomb is buzzed about the room. At this juncture the Duke, who has been expected, sends a messenger to announce that we are not to wait for him—a sly fellow the Duke! The bard now concentrates himself for inspiration, but begs us to talk on, and not mind him. While he waits for the afflatus divinus, and consults the muses—and in fact his eyes soon begin to betray possession—he passes his hand over his parturient forehead, while the os ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... His sly smile had returned to his face. The securing of that girl's debut was certainly not a high price to pay for all the influence of Duvillard's millions. Monferrand therefore turned towards Fonsegue as if to consult him. The other, who ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the jellyfish reached the shore than the sly monkey landed, and getting up into the pine-tree where the jellyfish had first seen him, he cut several capers amongst the branches with joy at being safe home again, and then looking down ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... in, keeping her head and the little cup of a bonnet protruding every moment to look round; yet if it could have been seen in the dark, with such a sly, half-humorous eye, as betokened one of those curiously-made creatures who seem to be formed for studies to the thoroughgoing decent pacers of the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... trust—attaining the object of a long cherished ambition, you will have a table d'hote at Belleville Batignolles, and will be courted by the old soldiers and bygone dandies who will come there to play lansquenet or baccarat on the sly? But, before arriving at this period, when the sun of your youth shall have already declined, believe me, my dear child, you will wear out many yards of silk and velvet, many inheritances, no doubt, will be melted down in the crucibles of your fancies, many flowers will ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... looked at him as I would have looked at another man. And I did not like what I saw. Something of sinister, nothing noble, about the countenance; power there might be—Preston said there was—but the power of the fox and the vulture it seemed to me; sly, crafty, ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell |
