"Cannei" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... falls. It chanced one day that we fell in with a ship filled with emigrants; a description of vessel called, in the classical dictionary of the cockpit, an "Irish guinea man." Out of her we pressed twenty Irishmen, besides two strapping fellows from Yorkshire, and one canny Scot. ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... her leddyship muvin' gey fast tae keep abriesht o't. Weel, this kin' o' wark, an' a ticht line, began for tae tak' the spunk oot o' the saumon, an' I was thinkin' it was a quieston o' a few meenits whan I wad be in him wi' the gaff; but my birkie, near han' spent though he was, had a canny bit dodge up the sleeve o' him. He made a bit whamlin' run, an' deil tak' me gin he didna jam himself intil a neuk atween twa rocks, an' there the dour beggar bade an' sulkit. Weel, her leddyship keepit aye a steady drag on him, an' she gied him the butt wi' power; ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... bandages. Mr. Reid, his sons, and myself were all chopping in the woods when the lad came, so that Mary followed the spontaneous impulse of her own heart; but as soon as we heard what had happened, her father sent over the river for our nearest neighbour, a stout canny Scotchman, to assist us in carrying the wounded man through the woods to his ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... canny builder is Madam Mag, for though her home must be large to accommodate her size, and conspicuous because of the shallowness of the foliage above her, it is, in a way, a fortress, to despoil which the marauder must ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... Maule as she had promised. She had no communication with him from the time he left the station until they met on the E. and A. boat. He joined her, as you know, at the next port above Leuraville. It was rather canny of him to go there—yet I don't see how, in the circumstances, he could have loafed round Leuraville without making talk—though I think it was a great pity he didn't. Of course he had his own means of communication with ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... canny management of Hanna a defection took place over the decision on the currency issue. As soon as the platform was read, Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado, moved to replace the gold plank by one advocating the free coinage of silver. The earnestness with which Teller urged the adoption of the substitute ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... to bed. James took off his heavy shoes, crammed with tackets, heel-capt and toe-capt, and put them carefully under the table, saying, "Maister John, I'm for nane o'yer strynge nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be her nurse, and I'll gang aboot on my stockin' soles as canny as pussy." And so he did; and handy and clever, and swift and tender as any woman, was that horny-handed, snell, peremptory little man. Everything she got he gave her: he seldom slept; and often I saw his ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... thought Halbert was ower gleg at his weapon to be killed sae easily by ony Sir Piercie of them a'. They might say of these Southrons as they liked; but they had not the pith and wind of a canny Scot, when it came to ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Matthew the vintner and Mark the librarian, Clement the joiner and John apiarian, Each wise in his calling as craftsmen are made,— And each deep in love with his own special trade. But the Abbot was canny, and never would raise One above other by ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... of the reins into his own hands as a valuable assistant to the Major. He knew a good horse, could guess the weight of a steer with surprising accuracy, and was a past master in knowledge of sheep. By instinct he was canny at a trade—what mountaineer is not?—and he astonished the Major with the shrewd deals he made. Authority seemed to come naturally to him, and the Major swore that he could get more work out of the "hands" than the overseer himself, who sullenly ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... touched the door-knob. "There's something I want to ask you for Henrietta's sake. It's rather a delicate question, but after I'm married I suppose I shall have to save all my delicate questions to—ask John; and John, somehow, has never seemed to me particularly canny about anything except—geology. Father!" she asked, "just what is it—that you consider so particularly obnoxious in—in—young men? Is it ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... with felt shoes, baggy trousers, loose tunic, round cap and swishing queue, who represents such swarming myriads that the mind is confused in the attempt to comprehend the enormous number. The canny Scotchman and the shrewd Yankee are alike discomfited by the Chinese. Those who do not believe it should ask the American and European traders who are being crowded out of Saigon, Shanghai, Bangkok, Singapore, Penang, Batavia and Manila. In many of the ports ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... of something not quite canny in herself seemed to strike her, for she made a vigorous effort to appear composed; and facing Mrs. Scudder, with an air of dignified suavity, inquired if it would not be best to put Jim Marvyn in the oven now, while ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... by such cessations from labour are little as compared with those due to the spirit which in England is called "ca'-canny" or the shirking of performance of work, and of sabotage, which means the deliberate destruction of machinery in operation. Everywhere the phenomenon has been observed that, with the highest wages known in the history of modern times, there ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... herr," replied the guide rather solemnly, and as if he had faith in the possibility of something "no canny" being at the bottom of ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... returned lists of the stoppages in the East and West Indies, consequent upon the late failures here, come home. The Western Bank of Scotland is whispered about. If that were to fail, it might bring the canny Scots to their senses; but ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... me's haen a swap," says Sandy, climbin' oot at the back o' the cairt, an' jookin' awa' roond canny-weys to the ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... observe, was, in effect, a sweeping recantation of every ideal Margaret had ever boasted. But Love is a canny pedagogue, and of late he had instructed Miss Hugonin in a variety ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... said, "but it made us afeard, for we expect it that we should have to pay for it wi' some rare piece o' ill luck, so as to keep up the average. It's no canny to run frae London to the Black Sea wi' a wind ahint ye, as though the Deil himself were blawin' on yer sail for his ain purpose. An' a' the time we could no speer a thing. Gin we were nigh a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell on us and travelled ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... receives his friends. This latter place, into which he conducts the nervous man, is lumbered with boxes, chests, charts, camp-seats, log lines, and rusty quadrants, and sundry marine relics which only the inveterate coaster could conceive a use for. But the good wife Molly, whose canny face bears the wrinkles of some forty summers, and whose round, short figure is so simply set off with bright plaid frock and apron of gingham check, in taste well adapted to her humble position, is as clean and tidy as ever ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... morning on old Peter Laughlin, wheat and corn trader, who had an office in La Salle Street near Madison, and who did a modest business gambling for himself and others in grain and Eastern railway shares. Laughlin was a shrewd, canny American, originally, perhaps, of Scotch extraction, who had all the traditional American blemishes of uncouthness, tobacco-chewing, profanity, and other small vices. Cowperwood could tell from looking at him ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... except to drive into the lot at night. I had but to go down where he was feeding and soon as he heard me comin' he made for the lot—he knew quite as well as I did what was wanted of him. He's a canny old boy." ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... verily thought, if I should hurt the woman by any kind of meane, I should be throwne to the wild Beasts: But in the meane season she kissed me, and looked in my mouth with burning eyes, saying: I hold thee my canny, I hold thee my noose, my sparrow, and therewithall she eftsoones imbraced my body round about, and had her pleasure with me, whereby I thought the mother of Miniatures did not ceaseless quench her inordinate desire with a Bull. When night was ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... their tea by the fire conversed agreeably, compared their rheumatisms and other ailments wordily, and talked of old times, and early recollections, and of sick-beds they had attended, and corpses that "you would not know, so pined and windered" were they; and others so fresh and canny, you'd say the dead had never looked so ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... surrendered to him without delay, he would train his guns on the Tower of St. Nicholas itself, and lay that first in ruins. Happily Sir John Marley, the English Commander, who was likewise Mayor of the Town, was more than a match for the canny Scot. And this was the answer that the gallant Sir John sent back from the beleaguered town: that General Leslie might train his guns on the Tower and welcome, if such were his pleasure, but if he did so, before he brought down one single stone of it, he would be obliged to take the lives of his ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... should know of it, good heavens! Her husband is canny and fears the Church: he would certainly give her a beating. The priest wages fierce war with the sprites, and hunts them out of every place. Yet he might leave them their dwelling in the oaks! What harm can they do in the ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... Halbert, laying his finger on his nose, with a knowing expression, 'my young lady is safe from harm so long as you are out of the Master of Albany's reach. Had you come by a canny thrust in the fray, as no doubt was his purpose, or were you in his hands to be mewed in a convent, then were your sister worth the wedding; but the Master will never wed her while you live and have friends to back you, and his father, the Regent, will see she has no ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wouldn't. And I was unwilling to force the matter for fear of losing entirely that coy and canny fish. I did get him, though, to let me rewrite the line last month, so as to include some property not at first insured, and that ties it up until next April. And maybe before next April comes around, the hard-hearted John M. will have relented ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... our weird. You are a canny Scotch-woman, and know what that means. Come, you must cheer up, for I have brought a young lady with me who is going to put your daughter-in-law a little more comfortable and see after her from ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... always Switzerland in winter. Now and again it was Nice or Cannes. And there you were taught by a canny Scot to hit a golf ball cunningly from a pinch of sand. But you blushed with shame the while, for in America at that time golf had not yet become a manly game, the maker young of men as good as dead, the talk of cabinets But there was lawn ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... known Edgar the Dreamer, she would have been puzzled and alarmed. If Mr. Allan had known him he would have been angry. A man of action was John Allan. A canny Scotchman he, who owed his success as a tobacco merchant to energy and strict attention to business. If there were dreams in the bowl of the pipe, there was no room for them in the counting-house of a thrifty dealer in the weed. Meditation had no part ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... 'Fiesco' His 'Ghost-seer' Schlegel, Frederick, his writings Anecdotes of 'School for Scandal' School of Homer, Lord Byron's visit to Scotland, the impressions on Lord Byron's mind by the mountain scenery of Lord Byron 'Half a Scot by birth and bred a whole one' 'A canny Scot till ten years' old' Scott, Sir Walter, his dog 'Maida' His 'Rokeby' The 'monarch of Parnassus' His 'Lives of the Novelists' His 'Waverley' His first acquaintance with Byron His 'Antiquary' His review of 'Childe Harold' in the Quarterly His 'Tales of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... "It's no a canny fisher that," shaking his head. "The fish you'd find in its nest come from the deep waters, where heron never flew. Well, they do say," in answer to her look of inquiry, "that on stormy nights it sits on the beach with a phosphoric ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... heard through the silence the murmuring of Tweed How many other associations there are by the tributary rivers! what a breath of "pastoral melancholy"! There is Ettrick, where the cautious lover in the old song of Ettrick banks found "a canny place of meeting." Oakwood Tower, where Michael Scott, the wizard, wove his spells, is a farm building—the haunted magician's room is a granary, Earlstone, where Thomas the Rhymer dwelt, and whence the two white deer recalled him to Elfland and to the arms of the fairy queen, is noted "for its ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... that, Andy McGuffey. Why, you're a regular old pessimist, like all your canny Scotch ancestors were. You love to look at the world through smoked glasses. On my part, I prefer to use rose-colored ones, and expect the best sort of things to happen, even if I do get fooled ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... round a stagnant pond. Hans had been sent to drive, and the result was a fine mallard and three ducks. It was true that all fell to the pilot's gun, perhaps owing to Hans' filial instinct and his parent's canny egotism in choosing his own lair, or perhaps it was chance; but the shooting-party was none the less a triumphal success. It was celebrated with beer and music as before, while the pilot, an infant on each podgy knee, discoursed exuberantly on the glories of his country ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... this—the money, more money than was good for that antiquated "Noah's Ark" at the bank—and whose contemplated sojourn there overnight was public to too many minds—in short, Wood was not only incorruptible, he was canny. To what one of those minds, now, would it occur that he should take away that money bodily, under casual cover of his coat, to his own lodgings behind the cobbler-shop of Boaz Negro? For ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... to stretch your arm, gude-wife, further than your sleeve will let you; we maun ca'canny mony a day yet before we ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... swindle. What a laugh for the oyster kingdom if they could sell Terrans on the idea that they were the master race. It never occurred to them that we might be anything but Terrans; Terrans who didn't know the Mancji. And they were canny enough to use an old form of Interlingua; somewhere they'd ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... should be thankful that God did not forget me—if he did, O what would become of me if I was in danger and God not friends with me—I must go to unquenchable fire and if I was tempted to sin—how could I resist it O no I will never do it again—no no—if I can help it." (Canny wee wifie!) "My religion is greatly falling off because I dont pray with so much attention when I am saying my prayers, and my charecter is lost among the Braehead people. I hope I will be religious again—but as for regaining my charecter I despare ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... The witch-finder informed Lieutenant-Colonel Hobson that he knew whether women were witches or no by their looks. On a good-looking woman being brought to the finder, the gallant colonel thought it was unnecessary to try her, but the canny Scotchman knew better, and therefore submitted her to his infallible test. Having put a pin into her side, he marked her down a witch of the devil. The colonel, not satisfied that the woman was guilty, remonstrated, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... a very simple child or a very canny one," she said to Jean Kennedy. "Either she sees no boast in being of royal blood, or she deems that to have the mother she has found is worse than ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that they had been cheated out of eleven days of life, and there were serious riots! The change had been already made in Scotland in the year 1600 without much outcry. The Scotch were either too "canny" or too dull to "fash" ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... Jude awoke, and his hot French blood, mingled with his canny Scotch inheritance, rose in his veins and struck madly ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... seemed to know of the trader's connection with the murder. He had figured that the letter would be the means of bringing him a most engaging bride. It would have done so if he had not been such a fool as to drink too much. Talpers usually was a canny drinker, but when a man goes asking—or, in this case, demanding—a girl's hand in marriage, it is not to be wondered at if he oversteps the limit a trifle in the matter of fortifying himself with liquor. But in this case Bill realized that he had ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... along, tossing behind its long white plume of steam. "Now, Buckland," said Stephenson, "I have a poser for you. Can you tell me what is the power that is driving that train?" "Well," said the other, "I suppose it is one of your big engines." "But what drives the engine?" "Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver." "What do you say to the light of the sun?" "How can that be?" asked the doctor. "It is nothing else," said the engineer, "it is light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands of years,—light, absorbed by plants and vegetables, being ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... quick to plan, Blundering like an Irishman, But with canny shrewdness lent By his far-off Scotch descent, Such was ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... about all these matters is, I venture to say, almost identical with that of Sir Walter Scott. A Scot himself, by descent, Kant may have heard tales of second-sight and bogles. Like Scott, he dearly loved a ghost-story; like Scott he was canny enough to laugh, publicly, at them and at himself for his interest in them. Yet both would take trouble to inquire. As Kant vainly wrote to Swedenborg and others—as he vainly spent 7L. on 'Arcana Coelestia,' so Sir Walter was anxious to go ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... lacked of interest. There were in the throng representatives of all America as it was then, a strange, crude blending of refinement and vulgarity, of ease and poverty, of luxury and thrift. We had there merchants from Philadelphia and New York, politicians from canny New England and not less canny Pennsylvania. At times there came from the Old World men representative of an easier and more opulent life, who did not always trouble to suppress their smiles at us. Moving among these were ladies from every state of our Union, picturesque enough ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... couple of cases are reported of worms boring into the stalks of Asters, Dianthus and Carnations. Of course the tops die, and the damage is great. There is no insecticide that can be used against these canny worms which snugly hide themselves in the plant stalks where not a drop of liquor can reach them. The only remedy is to keep a sharp outlook for affected plants, cutting away each worm-infested top and burning it. This kills the worm and cuts off future crops of worms. ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... by this war; but of these women sitting for hours on end in a back room of Mlle. Javal's central establishment in Paris it is only necessary to state that they looked as intent upon making cigarettes in a professional manner, beyond cavil by the canny poilu, as if they were counting the family linen or superintending one of the stupendous facts of existence, a daughter's trousseau. Only the one to whom I was introduced raised her eyes, and I should not have been expected to distract her attention ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... than that of drinking. From Glasgow I went north to Aberdeen, where I found a very stern and critical audience. Not a sound broke the stillness as I walked up the hall; not a sound as I ascended the platform and faced the people; the canny Scot was not going to applaud a stranger at sight; he was going to see what she was like first. In grim silence they listened; I could not move them; they were granite like their own granite city, and ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... I think, laddie, I would dee! Excuse a daft wife that loves ye, and that kenned your mither. And for His name's sake keep yersel' frae inordinate desires; haud your heart in baith your hands, carry it canny and laigh; dinna send it up like a hairn's kite into the collieshangic o' the wunds! Mind, Maister Erchie dear, that this life's a' disappointment, and a mouthfu' o' mools is the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is his forthright dictum that the statue which advertises its modesty with a fig-leaf brings its modesty under suspicion. His business motto—unfortunately, a motto that he never followed—has often been attributed, because of its canny shrewdness, to Mr. Andrew Carnegie. The idea was to put all your eggs in one basket—and then—watch that basket! His anti-Puritanical convictions find concrete expression in his assertion that few things are harder to put up with than ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... who four days before were blind and bare of feathers? They could not have flown; they must have been hurried out of the nest as soon as they could stand. Could it be because I knew their secret? I felt myself a monster, and I tried to make amends by hunting them up and replacing them. But the canny parents, as usual, outwitted me. Not only had they removed their infants, but they had hidden them so securely that I could not find them, and I was sure, from their movements, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... partly to let her see the capital, but still more to carry out an artful scheme of his own. Descoings had no children. Madame Descoings, twelve years older than her husband, was in good health, but as fat as a thrush after harvest; and the canny Rouget knew enough professionally to be certain that Monsieur and Madame Descoings, contrary to the moral of fairy tales, would live happy ever after without having any children. The pair might therefore ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... advance towards the fading light"—I'll be bound that deeply engaged couple didn't catch sight of the "chiel takin' notes"—and how did he know for certain they were a couple of lovers? Why not brother and sister? Why not husband and wife? Why not uncle and aunt?—but with an experienced eye the canny SCOTT made a pretty shrewd guess—and it is a pleasant companion, is this book, to those who cannot visit Cromer, or any of the other places mentioned in Blossom Land, and who reading it at home will ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... administer to the poor, by putting a twenty-shilling note in the plate on Sunday, as a public testimony from me of thankfulness for the hope that is before us; the other nine pounds you will quietly, and in your own canny way, divide after the following manner, letting none of the partakers thereof know from what other hand than the Lord's the help comes, for, indeed, from whom but HIS does ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... governments are alike evil. The Whigs persecuted the Solemn League and Covenant—so did the Tories. Nationalists and Unionists are to them alike abominable, sold under sin. Withal they are shrewd, canny, successful farmers—and, as I inferred from sundry incidents, before Lord Ernest confided the fact to me, not averse from a "right gude williewaught" now ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... a good gas-burner with pipes and a meter that a honest man can understand! Now this 'ere elective light I say it's not canny; I've no belief in things o' that kind, it ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... The canny Puritan considered that Indian "devil-worship" fully balanced any slight wrong in exchanging them for, "Moores", and writes of it as calmly as he does of sundry other events, somewhat shocking to the modern mind. But, while slaves increased English servants ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Margaret's, and society was relieved of its burden. In the year he had spent here his Aberdonian burr had softened somewhat and a number of American colloquialisms had crept into his speech; but for all that he was "the braw canny Scot"—as the House Surgeon always termed him—and he objected to kisses. So the good-morning greeting was a hearty hand-shake ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... are we going there? Manifestly to assist in the betrayal of one Giuseppe something—I don't happen to know his other name. From a hint dropped by Carera I have formed the opinion that this Giuseppe must be an industrious, hard- working, and, withal, somewhat canny gentleman of the piratical profession; a man who seems to have made the business pay pretty well, too, for does not our friend on deck estimate that he has accumulated the tidy little sum of close upon twenty-five thousand doubloons? Now, however, that fickle goddess, Fortuna, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... at a stroke, he clearly felt, all freedom for the closer criticism. "Lord Theign perhaps recognises some such canny truth, but 'takes care,' with the least trouble to himself and the finest short cut—does it, if you'll let me say so, rather on the cheap—by finding 'the likes' of me, as his daughter's trusted friend, ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... But the canny wife of the Provost, douce man, plucked him by the sleeve. 'Dod! man,' she whispered him in the ear, 'he's a braw chield for a' that. Bethink you o' oor "Muckle-Mouthed Meg," that ne'er a Tery[2] will wed wi' withoot a handsome tocher! Aweel, let him wed wi' her the noo "ower ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... France, a very small percentage of whom have any knowledge of French, the liaison enjoys no sinecure. To assist in the billeting of British battalions in French villages, to conduct negotiations with the canny countryfolk for food and fodder, to mollify angry housewives whose menages have been upset by boisterous Tommies billeted upon them, to translate messages of every description, to interrogate peasants suspected of espionage—these are ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... commercial field in this country the Scots have held a foremost place and stand unrivalled for integrity, energy, fidelity, and enterprise. Many jibes are made at the expense of the Canny Scot, but American business men have realized his value. In business and commercial life the success of the average Scot is remarkable and many of the guiding spirits among America's successful business men are Scots or men ...
— Scotland's Mark on America • George Fraser Black
... live in a depth of thought far, far beneath the froth and superficiality of the every-day thinking of mankind. Fortunately, she had had no previous bad training to be counteracted now. Nature had been her only tutor; and Rosendo's canny wisdom had kept out all human interference. Her associates in Simiti were few. Her unusual and mature thought had set up an intellectual barrier between herself and the playmates she might have ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... in its broader sense as applied to the natives of the province of Kuangtung, are the Catalans of China. They are as enterprising as the Scotch, adapt themselves as readily to circumstances, are enduring, canny, and successful; you meet them in the most distant parts of China. They make wonderful pilgrimages on foot. They have the reputation of being the most quick-witted of all Chinese. Large numbers come ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... tittivated him up all over, she makes it abundantly plain that she will not look at a single one of her actual flesh and blood admirers. There is a leading young gentleman, Telemachus, who is nothing if he is not [Greek], or canny, well-principled, and discreet; he has an amiable and most sensible young male friend who says that he does not like crying at meal times—he will cry in the forenoon on an empty stomach as much as anyone pleases, but he cannot attend properly to his dinner and cry at the same ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... unpleasant truths which marks the relative"? Well might Bob Jakes say, "Lor, miss, it's a fine thing to hev' a dumb brute fond o' yer! it sticks to yer and makes no jaw." This question of making no "jaw" is rather a vexed one. Most people's experience would lead them to attend to a canny Dutch proverb, which observes that a "friend's" faults may be noticed but not blamed: since the consequences of blaming them are mostly unpleasant; but a braver proverb says, "A true friend dares sometimes venture to be ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... entirely above suspicion. Next, Sir John Sanclere; he also is rich, but Vincent Innis is still richer, so the pencil obliterates both names. Now we arrive at Angus McKeller, an author of some note, as you are well aware, deriving a good income from his books and a better one from his plays; a canny Scot, so we may rub his name from our paper and our memory. How do my erasures correspond with ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... celebrate the jubilee of the Young Men's Christian Association. About two thousand men had come from the ends of the earth. It was a world-gathering. There were sturdy Englishmen, cosmopolitan Americans, canny Scots, quick-witted Irishmen, sweet-voiced, fervid-spirited ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... magnetism he worked with. "Canny" Scotchmen and shrewd Yankees—ay, even Swiss innkeepers—felt the touch of his quality. There was, or there seemed to be, a geniality in the fellow that, in its apparent contempt for all worldliness, threw men off their guard, and it would have smacked of meanness to distrust ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... way, he proceeded with his client down the High Street, where, along under the glimmering lamps, were the usual crowds of loungers, composed of canny Saxon and fiery Celt, which have always made this picturesque thoroughfare so remarkable. Not one of all these had any interest for our two searchers; but it was otherwise when they came toward the Canongate Tolbooth, where, out from a dark entry sprang a young ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... and, after all, had the boy injured her so much as this? Yet how could I help him? They were his deserts. My mood was abruptly changed to diversion when I saw among our jury specimens of both types of Meakum, and prominent among the spectator throng their sire, that canny polygamist, surveying the case with the same forceful attention I had noticed first in the House of Representatives, and ever since that day. But I had a true shock of surprise now. Mrs. Sproud was in court. There could be no mistake. No one seemed to notice her, ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... If Jess, calm, canny, and reliable, stood for the spirit of the North, attractive, persuasive, fascinating little Delia Watts represented the South. She came from California, and was as quick and bright as a humming-bird, constantly in harmless mischief, but seldom getting into any serious trouble. Her highly strung ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... picked men. We do not proceed on the principle in such favor among most of our public institutions, asylums, water-cures, and the like, of procuring the very cheapest servants we can get, and thinking it an economical triumph to chuckle over if [Footnote: This is all that the "canny" business men who compose the managing boards of some of the first asylums in this country permit the heads of the institutions to offer those who must for twenty-three hours of the twenty-four be responsible ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... a moment. "The deil's in him," she said, "for he winna bide being thrawn. And I think the deil's in me too for thrawing him, sic a canny lad, and sae gude a customer;—and I am judging he has something on his mind—want of siller it canna be—I am sure if I thought that, I wadna care about my small thing.—But want o' siller it canna be—he pays ower the shillings as if they were sclate stanes, and that's no ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... surprise—and joy. No, that last is what Mrs. Clemens thinks—but it's not so. The proposed work is growing, mightily, in my estimation, day by day; and I'm not going to throw it away for any mere trifle. If I make a contract with the canny Scot, I will then tell him the plan which you and I have devised (that of taking in the humor of all countries)—otherwise I'll keep it to myself, I think. Why should we assist our fellowman for mere love of God? Yrs ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... seemed tacitly to agree with Brindley. The august name of Wilkins's was in its essence so exclusive that vast numbers of fairly canny provincials had never heard of it. Ask ten well-informed provincials which is the first hotel in London and nine of them would certainly reply, the Grand Babylon. Not that even wealthy provincials from the industrial ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... Clay, an educated Scot, came to Canada in 1879 and in time managed some of the largest British-owned ranches of North America. His book is the best of all sources on British-owned ranches. It is just as good on cowboys and sheepherders. Clay was a fine gentleman in addition to being a canny businessman in the realm of cattle and land. He appreciated the beautiful and ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... became a Canny Scot, for Mac prided himself on a horse-deal. And as no one had yet got the better of the Fizzer the company ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... and books and minerals find him extremely pleasant to deal with. But as his love-affair had shown his mother how little he had taken to heart her chiefest care for him, so this first business transaction was a painful awakening to his father, the canny Scotch merchant, who had heaped up riches hoping that his ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... he stepped back to the edge of the road and with a wisp of crabgrass wiped his shoes clean of the swamp mud, which was of a different color and texture from the soil of the upland. All his life Squire H. B. Gathers had been a careful, canny man, and he had need to be doubly careful on this summer morning. Having disposed of the mud on his feet, he settled his white straw hat down firmly upon his head, and, crossing the road, he climbed a stake-and-rider fence laboriously and went plodding sedately across a weedfield ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... the keelmen and fishermen of the town. It was here that a sturdy fishwife put her arms round him, when some boisterous spirits in the crowd threatened him with ill-usage, and, shaking her fist in their faces, swore to "floor them" if they touched her "canny man." ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... particularly exciting or exhilarating in that lofty room at the top of the tower, and went little way towards meeting the wishes of any one of the party, yet the plan met with the hearty approval of the canny Stuart, and, since Henri himself had proposed it, met with the ready assent of Jules. That they had food sufficient to last them for several days was quite certain, while the question of drink was cleared up already—for ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Dorset labourer, a tall, slim, aristocratic figure, with an elegant, refined nose to match; he bore the well-known name of an ancient and distinguished Dorset family, and I have no doubt was well descended. He was decidedly a canny, not to say crafty, man. I gave him a holiday at Whitsuntide to visit his old home, but he overran the time agreed upon and returned some days late. Before I could begin the rebuke I proposed to administer, he produced a charming photograph ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... are characteristically canny. Never tell anyone you can swim, he advises, because in case of shipwreck "others trusting therein take hold of you, and make you perish with them."[189] Upon duels and resentment of injury in strange lands he throws cold common sense. "I advise young men to moderate their aptnesse to quarrell, ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... fight. This was rather higher than our own estimate—and we were not given to minimise on the wrong side. It was wonderful. Whether the learned doctor exaggerated—but why should he (a Scot) in such a case?—unless indeed the canny one desired to please and make sure of his medicines. Anyhow he got his medicines (including a personal prescription, from his "ain country"), and with a bow ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... to enter with the Hon. Cy, so I asked him whether he thought it would be nicer to have a real lawn or hay on the slope that leads to the gate. He likes to be consulted, and I pamper him as much as possible in all unessential details. You see, I am following Sandy's canny advice: "Trustees are like fiddle-strings; they maunna be screwed ower tight. Humor the mon, but gang your ain gait." Oh, the tact that this asylum is teaching me! I should make a wonderful ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... merchants told that she was sixty years of age and others laughed and said she was but forty; but they spoke of her in whispers, for they seemed to think that she was ill to deal with and not more than ordinary canny. ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... indignant Irish foremen and German concessionaries with dueling scars and high collars. Gold Spanish signs and Spiggoty money and hotels with American cuspidors and job-hunters; tin roofs and arcades; shops open to the street in front, but mysterious within, giving glimpses of the canny Chinese proprietors smoking tiny pipes. Trains from towns along the Canal, and sometimes the black funeral-car, bound for Monkey Hill Cemetery. Gambling-houses where it is considered humorous to play "Where Is My Wandering Boy To-night?" on the phonograph while wandering boys ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... now, to be explicit, upon two factors. The first and most immediate of these is a certain canny captain of many wars whose regiment is still at the disposal of either army—for a price, a regiment which has hitherto remained strictly neutral. And what a regiment it is! A block of river towns and a senator, and not a casualty since they marched ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reporting to their husbands at night that, after all, the money was not wasted. The Vicar might just as well have it as the grocer. All the attractions in the world cannot worm shillings out of a public which is so prudent and canny that it has self-guarded itself by leaving its cash ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... good luck, my canny Scot," said Mr. Ireby, "to have spoken to me, for I see thy cattle have done their day's work, and I have at my disposal the only field within three miles that is to be let ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... until after his brother's death; and then with all possible dispatch he sold it, its fixtures, contents and goodwill, for what the property would fetch at quick sale, and he gave up business. He had sufficient to stay him in his needs. The Stackpoles had the name of being a canny and a provident family, living quietly and saving of their substance. The homestead where he lived, which his father before him had built, was free of debt. He had funds in the bank and money out at interest. He had not been one to make close ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... I am too canny for that. Besides, don't be too sure they will be praises. No; I have asked the president, in strict confidence, just what he thinks of you, and his answer was properly garrulous. His originality was startling, too. He observed that you have ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... began. But when Christianity came in, and heathendom fell; when the godlike race of the Aesir became evil demons instead of good genial powers, then all the objects of the old popular belief, whether Aesir, Giants, or Trolls, were mingled together in one superstition, as 'no canny'. They were all Trolls, all malignant; and thus it is that, in these tales, the traditions about Odin and his underlings, about the Frost Giants, and about sorcerers and wizards, are confused and garbled; and all supernatural agency that plots man's ill is the work of Trolls, whether the agent ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... too canny to deny the obvious. "But what has that to do with it? If I'd had a living offer, I'd have taken it. But at my age a man doesn't dare take certain kinds of places. It'd settle him for life. And I'm playing for a really ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Six of Scotland, miscalled a 'fule' 1603-1625 As James One of England comes to rule. Gramercy! 'tis a canny thing To be a 'double-barrelled' King. The son of Mary Queen of Scots Of learning he had lots and lots, Writing sundry ponderous books 'Gainst 'bacca, witches and their spooks. James thought his kingly power divine And, loathing Puritanic 'whine,' ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... ill-trained Juniors, is among our elect set yclept Lemonade, partly owing to her habit of fizzing over, and partly to a certain acid quality in her temper, otherwise hard to define. Miss Douglas, our honoured Form mistress, being a canny Scot, goes by the familiar appellation of Thistles, intended also to subtly convey our appreciation—or shall I say depreciation?—of her ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... told of a canny Scotch engineer, who, in the first days of dynamos, not so very long ago, scoffed at the suggestion that such a spool, spinning in free air, in well lubricated bearings, could bring his big Corliss steam engine to a stop. Yet he saw it done simply ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... William by the coat with a hooked hand. "This man has the name of my brother," says he, "but it's well understood that he was never canny." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with that strength and courage which brought them fame. Cribb was, if I mistake not, in the Royal Navy. So was the terrible dwarf Scroggins, all chest and shoulders, whose springing hits for many a year carried all before them until the canny Welshman, Ned Turner, stopped his career, only to be stopped in turn by the brilliant Irishman, Jack Randall. Shaw, who stood high among the heavy-weights, was cut to pieces by the French Cuirassiers in the first charge at Waterloo. The brutal Berks died greatly in the ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the speech of the Spartan characters in Scotch dialect which is related to English about as was the Spartan dialect to the speech of Athens. The Spartans, in their character, anticipated the shrewd, canny, uncouth Scotch ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... ashore. In the skiff were upwards of a hundred of the dodgers hastily struck off at the Timber City printing office, which proclaimed the reward for the Texan and the thousand-dollar reward for information concerning the whereabouts of Alice Endicott. Long Bill was canny. He knew the river and he had figured pretty accurately the probable drift of the ferry boat. He expected to come upon it any time. And he wanted that reward for himself. The hundred dollars offered for the Texan did not interest ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... might let pass, unquestioned, the Queen's grief for a faithful human creature— for thirty-four years devoted to her—ever at her call—looking up to her, yet watching over her; a friend, whose humble good sense and canny bits of counsel must often, in the simpler, yet not simple, affairs of her complex life, be ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... on those trips, and they took it. On the advent of the new era they complained that "King George men" took all the time and gave them none, so they frequently quit to go in quest. The nativity of my skilled labor was a piece of national patchwork—a composite of the canny Scotch, the persistent and witty Irish, the conservative but indomitable English, the effervescent French, the phlegmatic German, and the irascible Italian. I found this variety beneficial, for the usual national and race bias was ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... complacent Scottish remark upon Bannockburn was made to a splenetic Englishman, who had said to a Scottish countryman that no man of taste would think of remaining any time in such a country as Scotland. To which the canny Scot replied, "Tastes differ; I'se tak' ye to a place no far frae Stirling, whaur thretty thousand o' yer countrymen ha' been for five hunder years, an' they've ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... Mr. Mclntyre is a canny Scot, a Royal Engineer, and weighs fully three hundred pounds; but with this avoirdupois he is far from being inactive, and together we ramble up the Asterabad Pass to take a look at the Bostam Valley on the other side. The valley isn't much to look at; no verdure, only a brown, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... constantly saying, "I am doing pretty well on the whole. I sometimes get mad and swear, but then I am strictly honest. I work on Sabbath when I am particularly busy, but I give a good deal to the poor, and I never was drunk in my life." This man hired a canny Scotchman to build a fence around his lot. He gave him very particular directions. In the evening, when the Scotchman came in from his work, the man said, "Well, Jock, is the fence built, and is it tight and strong?" "I canna say that it is all tight and strong," replied ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... she said. "It's the one at the end forninst you that's the cellar door. Are ye going down? It's venturesome ye are. Whisht, then, and go canny, and dinna go ayont ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... of it, still smiling; but the required ecstasy, that would reconcile her to her hopeless life, did not come. She waited for it with a canny look as she did at home when she held a match to the gas-ring to see if there was another shilling needed in the slot. The light did not come. By every evidence of her sense she was in the completest darkness. But she did not know what coin it was ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... conscience by that sophism, Gerald; the fox is canny because he has been terrified so often,' said Helen. 'Let us own that it is barbarous, but such glorious sport that one tries to ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... could hamper his life, probably by virtue of that hardness which he had shown to poor Lady Fan, and which had so strongly prejudiced Clare Bowring against him. His father said cynically that the lad was canny. Hitherto he had certainly shown that he could be selfish; and perhaps there is less difference between the meanings of the Scotch and English words than most ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... emphasis. "You were standing on the step of the Hawk and Heron," said he, "and I waved my hand and shouted 'A canny morning to you, Master ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... our old vie de chateau." But I must not forget the reason he gave me some time afterwards for having fixed on that spot for his bowling-green. "In truth," he then said, "I wished to have a smooth walk, and a canny seat for myself within ear-shot of Peter's evening psalm." The coachman was a devout Presbyterian, and many a time have I in after-years accompanied Scott on his evening stroll, when the principal object was to enjoy, from the bowling-green, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... he said brusquely, "I don't want your money—it's not a matter of money—I won't go out in this storm. Money won't buy me to freeze myself. Didn't I tell you I'm Scotch and canny?" he added, ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... butterflies, and beetles - over a hundred species of insects - come seeking the nectar that wells up in each little tube, and the abundant pollen, which are greatly appreciated in early spring, when food is so scarce. In rainy weather and at night, when its benefactors are not flying, the canny dandelion closes completely to protect its precious attractions. Because the plant, which is likely to bloom every month in the year, may not always certainly reckon on being pollinated by insects, each neglected floret will curl the two spreading, sticky branches of its style so far backward ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... call physique.) Martinez was a weakling, of poor breed: Grimalson, big as bull's beef, had a brain rotten as a pear: Webster, a docile fellow, was strong as Hercules and surprisingly stupid. These were gone, in their order. The two A.B.'s, Jarvis and Prout—canny men, resourceful, full of seamanship—survived, and we three passengers. What kept Farrell going, and saved his reason, was a great capacity for sleep. He slept all the night and most of the day; and though by consequence he helped us little or nothing, seemed (as he declared himself to be) constantly ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of what is good In olden times and distant lands, Is that do-nothing neighborhood Where the old cider-hogshead stands To welcome with its brimming gourd The canny crowd of kin and kith Who meet about the bibulous board Of ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... bit of an aesthete but canny at affairs; good-looking, and temperate, and less hipped on the matter of sex than feminist gentlemen are wont to be. That is to say, while he vaguely wanted l'homme moyen sensuel to mend his ways, he did not expect ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and opportunities any day to study the fairy beauties in drops of sea water, and with human interest too, so much more varied than on this P. & O. Hotel; there, would be all kinds of men, jolly, devil-may-care fellows, and even disreputable characters, mixed with canny, pawky, canting Scotties, and talk of all the corners of the world; ranting rollicking Balzacian yarns, rich in language, in poetry, and tenderness; any minute in the day amongst such people you might strike a yarn that would bear publication; ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... his eye ... Topsy, all smiles and teeth,... Abraham, trading tops with Isaac, next in line,... Gretchen and Hans, phlegmatic and dependable,... Francois, never still for an instant,... Christina, rosy, calm, and conscientious, and Duncan, as canny and prudent as any of his people. Pietro is there, and ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... and we have a grand dish of politics. The friends of old Scotland want but a signal. A certain great lawyer says that if Sir W.S. wrote another Malachi it would set more men on fire than a dozen associations. This almost tempts me. But the canny lad says moreover that to appeal to national partiality, i.e. that you should call on Scotsmen to act like Scotsmen, is unfair, and he would be sorry it was known he, late and future placeman, should encourage such paw-paw doings. Yet if Sir W.S. could be got to stand forlorn hope, the legal gentleman ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... and after showing his new clerk to his bed, he returned to the stove and knocked the ash from his pipe. "John is canny," he grinned. "As canny in the handlin' of women, as of men. He'll have the son-in-law he wants, an' careful he'll be that he's the man of the lass's ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... his sleep; and I was ready to fancy it was something 'no canny.' Why I must have been dropping off to sleep, too, and it startled me into wakefulness. This won't do. Sentries must ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... Scotch novels, (as they call them, though two of them are wholly English, and the rest half so,) but nothing can or could ever persuade me, since I was the first ten minutes in your company, that you are not the man. To me those novels have so much of 'Auld lang syne' (I was bred a canny Scot till ten years old) that I never move without them; and when I removed from Ravenna to Pisa the other day, and sent on my library before, they were the only books that I kept by me, although I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... Morrison. You're canny! You're for yourself and the main chance. Now let me tell you! You caught us foul two years ago because you jumped the newspapers into coming out with broadsides about a thing they didn't understand. Their half-baked scare stuff made the ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... and brilliant youth who had secretly left that palace twenty-four years before to re-conquer his father's kingdom, the gentle and gallant and chivalric young prince of whose irresistible manner and voice the canny chieftains had vainly bid each other beware when he landed with his handful of friends and called the Highlanders to arms; the patient and heroic exile, singing to his friends when the sea washed over their boat and the Hanoverian soldiers surrounded their cavern or ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee) |
