"Artful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... German critics remarks that the poem in which he celebrates his release embodies a nearer approach to passion than all his Oriental songs of love, sorrow, or wine. It is a joyous dithyrambic, which, despite its artful and semi-impossible metre, must have been the swiftly-worded expression of a genuine feeling. Let me attempt to translate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... choice; Yet, timely provident, she hastes away To snatch the blessings of a plenteous day; When fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain, She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain. How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours, Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy powers? While artful shades thy downy couch enclose, And soft solicitation courts repose, Amidst the drowsy charms of dull delight, Year chases year with unremitted flight, Till Want now following, fraudulent and slow, Shall spring to seize thee, like an ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... a stall to be set out and a career to be made? With that stall, indeed, David was truly in love. How he fingered and meddled with it! —setting out the cheap reprints it contained so as to show their frontispieces, and strewing among them, in an artful disorder, a few rare local pamphlets, on which he kept a careful watch, either from the door or from inside. Behind these, again, within the glass, was a precious shelf, containing in the middle of it about a dozen volumes of a kind dear to a collector's eye—thin volumes in shabby ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from one shell to another, shuffle them, mix them up, juggle the dried pea sometimes under this shell, sometimes under that,—and the point is to guess which shell the pea has got under. By means of certain astute methods, an artful player can make the pea stick to his fingers, or to the inside of the shell, and the opponent loses every time. They cheat with a calm shamelessness. Augustin cheated too—which did not prevent him from bitterly denouncing the cheating ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... They gathered around the simple-minded little old man, their tongues in their cheeks, and drew from him one silly, impossible, boastful story after another. They made him amplify circumstantially by clumsily artful questions, and poked one another in the ribs with delight over his deluded joy in ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... Leaving his crown and his country far behind, he advanced on the wings of victory into the heart of Germany, which for centuries had seen no foreign conqueror within its bosom. The warlike spirit of its inhabitants, the vigilance of its numerous princes, the artful confederation of its states, the number of its strong castles, its many and broad rivers, had long restrained the ambition of its neighbors; and frequently as its extensive frontier had been attacked, its interior had been free from ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... "It would be expedient," he thought, "to gratify the Electors on this occasion, and thereby facilitate his son's election to the Roman Crown. This object once gained, Wallenstein could at any time resume his former station." The artful Capuchin was too sure of his man to touch upon this ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... not only better armed than the True Whale" (Greenland or Right Whale) "in possessing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe." —FREDERICK DEBELL BENNETT'S WHALING VOYAGE ROUND ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Whitcomb was one of the most notable shots on our side, though he was not much to boast of in a rough-and-tumble fight, owing to the weakness before mentioned. General Ames put him among the gunners, and we were quickly made aware of the loss we had sustained, by receiving a frequent artful ball which seemed to light with unerring instinct on any nose that was the least bit exposed. I have known one of Pepper's snow-balls, fired pointblank, to turn a corner and hit a boy who considered ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Are you not mistaken? And when he had injected the doubt into the mind of Eve, had gained an advantage, he seized it and boldly denied the word of God, "Ye shall not die." He is an artful critic and ...
— The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism • S. E. Wishard
... enough," said the artful creature; "but let me lift you up, miss, and then I dare say you will see them;" and, instantly catching her up, she cried out: "Look directly towards the steeple, miss; but I'll run with you in my arms, and I warrant ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... stirring days in France. Anne of Austria, then in her maturity, was governed by Mazarin, the most artful of ministers, an Italian to the very heart's core, with a love of amassing wealth engrafted in his supple nature that amounted to a monomania. The whole aim of his life was gain. Though gaming was at its height, Mazarin never played for amusement; he played ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... 'Do be nice to him, dear.' Roger's return finds her very artful indeed, 'I wonder where ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... the Centre Section, 'im that was struck off the strength at Wipers later through stoppin' a Coal-Box, tried to come the artful, an' 'ad the front to 'alt the Division padre one day an' ask 'im if 'e'd any spares o' pocket Testaments in store, makin' out 'e'd lost 'is through lendin' it to 'is Number One, who had gone "Missin'." Soapy ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... not look like an ordinary tourist, and as they walked together over the wold he began to make a number of enquiries about Skelwick and the people who lived there. He was an artful questioner, and Gwen, almost before she realized what she was doing, gave him a full and detailed history of the neighbourhood, including what it had been before Father came, and ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... has already been discussed, and attention has been drawn to the importance of the history given by the patient and to the various sources of fallacy or deception—in children it may be artful reticence or misrepresentation, in adults, the possibility of nightmare and ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... and how much the player's it would be an impertinence to inquire. This imperturbable trickster with his thin streak of genuine sensitiveness to psychic influence; his grotesquely florid style—the man certainly has style; his frank reliance on apt alcohol's artful aid; his cadging epicureanism; his keen eye for supplementary data for his inductions and prophecies; his cynical candour when detected, is presented to us with Mr. IRVING'S rich-flavoured and most whimsical sense of comedy, with all his exuberant abundance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... who were somewhat hungry and thirsty, heartily did justice, while the Master, who never spoiled a glad hour, cheerfully did the same. When tongues were loosened, the host wanted straightway to begin with artful allusions and questions, but his guest was ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... see what that woman is after. She robbed you once, and anyone can see that too. You are a dear old innocent thing and she is artful and deceitful. You are not safe for a minute in her hands; you must stay right in here until Mr. Howard and I can send ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... the stubble see them race: Governor—by Belvoir Gambler,—he's the hound to "run to head," Tracing back to Rallywood, that fifty years ago was bred; Close behind comes Arrogant, by Acrobat; and Artful too; Rosy, bred by Pytchley Rockwood; Crusty, likewise staunch and true. Down a muddy lane, in mad excitement, but, alas! too late, Thunders half the field towards the portals of a friendly gate; Sees a dozen red-coats bobbing in the vale a mile ahead; Hears ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... have had the Popes exercise rights over the temporal power of kings. In truth, the external actions that do not exceed our powers depend absolutely upon our will; but our volitions depend upon our will only through certain artful twists which give us means of suspending our resolutions, or of changing them. We are masters in our own house, not as God is in the world, he having but to speak, but as a wise prince is in his dominions or as a good father of a family is in his home. M. Bayle sometimes takes the matter differently, ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... Lady Dunstane thought she had worn a mask, in the natural manner of women trying to make the best of their choice; and she excused her poor Tony for the artful presentation of him at her own cost. But she could not excuse her for having married the man. Her first and her final impression likened him to a house locked up and empty: a London house conventionally furnished and decorated by the upholsterer, and empty of inhabitants. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The artful little bait took. Of all things Hatty loved to be of use to any one. In another moment she had dried her eyes and set to work, her miserable little face grew cheerful, and ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... stones, of a very large size; and the workmanship is not inferior to the best plain piece of masonry we have in England. They use no sort of cement, yet the joints are exceedingly close, and the stones morticed and tenanted one into another, in a very artful manner. The side-walls are not perpendicular, but inclining a little inwards, in the same manner that breast-works, &c. are built in Europe; yet had not all this care, pains, and sagacity, been able to preserve these curious structures ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... am inclined to follow Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler's opinion: "Writing is like flirting,—if you can't do it, nobody can teach you; and if you can do it, nobody can keep you from doing it." With a certain literary aspirant I know, writing is even more like flirting than that,—an artful folly with literature which will never rise to the dignity of a wedding sacrifice. She could no more give herself seriously to the demands of such a profession than a Southern mockingbird can take a serious view of music. He makes it quite ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... as he followed her into the house, "if you think, my little girl, that I'm to be caught in that net, you take me to be younger than I am. Dear, dear, what a fuss about an artful little thing whose esteem I value about as much as that of the king of Borneo. But she has given me a good reason for the rupture by accusing me of such unworthy sentiments. Isn't she sly? La Briere will get a burden on his back—idiot that ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... been bagged pretty easily,' whispered Billy. 'I shouldn't be surprised if that artful patrol-leader isn't at the ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... property for the state. A small body of people of extreme astuteness were to bring about the municipalisation and nationalisation first of this great system of property and then of that, in a manner so artful that the millionaires were to wake up one morning at last, and behold, they would find themselves poor men! For a decade or more Mr. Pease, Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb, Mrs. Besant, Dr. Lawson Dodd, and their associates of the London Fabian Society, did pit their wits ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... were other news in the wind, and when the artful Frenchwoman had succeeded in opening the window just so that a ray of light should fall on madam's face, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the servant failed her—with Mrs. Bygrave herself. What was the true cause of this lady's mysterious seclusion? Was she a person of the strictest and the most inconvenient integrity? or a person who could not be depended on to preserve a secret? or a person who was as artful as Mr. Bygrave himself, and who was kept in reserve to forward the object of some new deception which was yet to come? In the first two cases, Mrs. Lecount could trust in her own powers of dissimulation, and in the results which ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... most part well used both for historic truth and dramatic effect; and the dialogue, generally, is nervous, animated, and clear. In the great article of character, too, this play has very considerable merit. The King's insane dotage of his favourites, the upstart vanity and insolence of Gaveston, the artful practice and doubtful virtue of Queen Isabella, the factious turbulence of the nobles, irascible, arrogant, regardless of others' liberty, jealous of their own, sudden of quarrel, eager in revenge, are all ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... how they done it—artful little beggars! They walked in front of me the 'ole way, so as for me to keep my eye on them and not to attract a crowd ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... a situation that they are esteemed to have no will of their own. If these persons had votes, they would be tempted to dispose of them under some undue influence or other. This would give a great, an artful, or a wealthy man, a larger share in elections than is consistent with general liberty. If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... correctly what a person of such and such evident characteristics will do under such and such conditions. As I have already stated to you, I know, both from observation and from hints dropped by Hugh Mainwaring, that if ever a dangerous woman existed,—artful, designing, absolutely devoid of the first principles of truth, honor, or virtue,—that woman is Mrs. LaGrange. I know that Mainwaring stood in fear of her to a certain extent, and that she was constantly seeking, by threats, to compel ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... falsifications, as the will to the inversion of truth, to untruth at any price. Perhaps there has hitherto been no more effective means of beautifying man than piety, by means of it man can become so artful, so superficial, so iridescent, and so good, that his appearance ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the style is preserved throughout; the same judicious candour reigns in every page; and without allowing yourself that liberty of indulging your own bias towards good or against criminal characters, which over-rigid critics prohibit, your artful candour compels your readers to think with you, without seeming to take a part yourself. You have shown from his own virtues, abilities, and heroic spirit, why Lorenzo deserved to have Mr. Roscoe for ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... any underhand or indirect proceeding for the purpose of emancipating himself from a thraldom so galling. Of political dexterity and artifice he was altogether incapable, and although, if he had been false, able, and artful, he might have caused more perplexity to his Whig Government and have played a better party game, it is perhaps fortunate for the country, and certainly happy for his own reputation, that his virtues thus predominated over his talents. ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... off as fast as possible, more especially as at that moment Dash began barking furiously, as though he scented a foe. How we laughed to think we had frightened the artful fellow away, and some of us thought we should never see him again; but we were mistaken, for, a few nights after, there he was creeping along so stealthily outside the ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... of criticism developed over the five o'clock tea tables; one held that Grant was a gay dog who would settle down and marry in his class when he had had his fling, and the other that Phyllis Bruce was an artful hussy who was quite ready to sell herself for the Grant millions. And there were so many eligible young women on the market, although none of them ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... of active pleasing, and may never discredit speech with uncouth manners or become unconsciously our own burlesques. But of all unfortunates there is one creature (for I will not call him man) conspicuous in misfortune. This is he who has forfeited his birthright of expression, who has cultivated artful intonations, who has taught his face tricks, like a pet monkey, and on every side perverted or cut off his means of communication with his fellow-men. The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passersby to come and love us. But this fellow has filled ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... having suffered from a fresh attack of madness, and added that an oracle had foretold to him that his malady would only be cured when he had deposited the necklace and veil of Harmonia in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Arsinoe, deceived by his artful representations, unhesitatingly restored to him his bridal gifts, whereupon Alcmaeon set out on his homeward journey, well satisfied with the successful issue of ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... It was almost as difficult as packing mules on the prairie. For my part it must be confessed that I left the completion of the job to others. Curious and entertaining as the feast was, my whole attention was centred and absorbed in Arakeeta, which that artful little enchantress had the gift to know, and lashed me accordingly with her eyes more cruelly than she had done with her whip. I had got so far, you see, as to learn her name, the first instalment of an intimacy which my demolished heart was staked on perfecting. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... particularly in lower life, with a happier vein of burlesque than Smollett. He delights, indeed, chiefly by his strong delineation of ludicrous incidents and grotesque manners derived from this source. He does not hold our curiosity entangled by the involution of his story, nor suspend it by any artful protraction of the main event. He turns aside for no digression that may serve to display his own ingenuity or learning. From the beginning to the end, one adventure commonly rises up and follows upon another, like so many waves of the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... satisfactory. The inferior vocalists, stimulated by the fear of losing their engagements, took care to circulate orders judiciously among their friends, with instructions as to the songs that were to be particularly applauded; and it frequently resulted that the worst performers, if the most artful manoeuvrers, were at the head of the poll at the end of the season, and re-engaged over the heads of superior artists, and greatly to the ultimate detriment of the concern. In reference to this system of ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... who shrieked out on platforms that old maids were the highest type. Adeline guessed Olive had perfect control of her now, unless indeed she used the expeditions to Cambridge as a cover for meeting gentlemen. She was an artful little minx, and cared as much for the rights of women as she did for the Panama Canal; the only right of a woman she wanted was to climb up on top of something, where the men could look at her. She would stay with Olive as long as it served her purpose, because Olive, with ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... noticed that on the present occasion this piece of furniture was located elsewhere. It stood below the Sovereign's portrait. A delicate compliment to the formidable lawyer-champion of Catholicism, sworn enemy to the House of Savoy. People commented favourably on this little detail. How artful of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... and did so; whereupon the artful Murray took advantage of his absence to dart over to the royal chamber and ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... however, had one lane to her consideration, up which the artful Rhoda strayed as soon as she saw ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... aspirations with a zeal mostly absent in those whose position is already secured by birth. At Court, no doubt, the feudal aristocracy were yet powerful indeed. They could approach their sovereign according to their pleasure; influence him; and procure, by artful intrigue, positions of dignity and useful preferments for themselves and their favourites. Against these abuses the written word, multiplied a thousandfold, was a new weapon. Whoever could handle it properly, gained the esteem of his fellow-men; and a means was at his disposal for earning ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... into common use as the typical workhouse official of the least satisfactory sort. No less powerful than the picture of Oliver's wretched childhood is the description of the thieves' kitchen, presided over by Fagin. Bill Sikes and the Artful Dodger are household words for criminals, and the character of Fagin is drawn with wonderful skill in this terrible view ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... matter of course, Chinese thieves belong in contrast to the species of which the 'Artful Dodger' may be regarded as the type. The modus operandi of Eastern appropriators is this: 'Two of them, associated together for the purpose, hawk about various articles of merchandise—boots, skin-coats, bricks of tea, and what not. They offer these for sale to travellers. While one of them ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... brother officers too often allowed to lapse into frontier carelessness. His closely clipped light hair, yet dripping from a plunge in the cold water, had been brushed and parted with military exactitude, and when surmounted by his cap, with the peak in an artful suggestion of extra smartness tipped forward over his eyes, only his pale face—a shade lighter than his little blonde moustache—showed his last night's excesses. He was mechanically reaching for his sword and staring confusedly at the papers on his ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... object of attraction; and when flattered, is pleased. It is not likely, therefore, that the infirmities of her temper (if she have any) should be discovered by a man whose presence is a source of gratification. If artful, she will conceal her faults; if not so, there will be no occasion to bring them to light. And even if, after a long courtship, something wrong should be discovered, either you have proceeded too far in honour to retract, or are so blinded by your own feelings as to extenuate it. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... afterward I found myself walking behind her. There is something artful about her skirts by which I always know her, though I can't say what it is. She was carrying an enormous parcel that might have been a bird-cage wrapped in brown paper, and she took it into a bric-a-brac shop and came out without it. She then ran rather than walked in ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... 3 [Vain are those artful shapes of eyes and ears; The molten image neither sees nor hears: Their hands are helpless, nor their feet can move, They have no speech, nor thought, nor power, nor love; Yet sottish mortals make their long complaints To their deaf idols, and their ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... should take all the credit of the business to himself. So when Miss Crump asked if he had provided the music, he foolishly made an evasive reply to her query, and rather wished her to imagine that he HAD performed that piece of gallantry. "If it pleases YOU, Miss Morgiana," said this artful Schneider, "what more need any man ask? wouldn't I have all Drury Lane ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... justified in entertaining the worst opinions possible of the khan; he is a sad scoundrel, on a small scale, to say the least. While they are growling out to each other their grievances and apprehensions, that artful schemer is riding his poor horse miles and miles over the stony hills to the camping-ground of some hospitable Eliaute chieftain, from whom he can obtain goosht-i-goosfany for nothing, and come back ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... were no wonder if the greater part had become either rogues or fools: he was a ruthless tyrant, Belle, over his own people, and by his cruelty and rapaciousness must either have stunned them into an apathy approaching to idiocy, or made them artful knaves in their own defence. The qualities of parents are generally transmitted to their descendants—the progeny of trained pointers are almost sure to point, even without being taught: if, therefore, ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... was proclaimed King of the Visigoths about A.D. 400. He was a bold and artful warrior, and under his leadership the Goths ravaged Greece, and entered Athens. He afterward determined to invade Italy, and after numerous repulses and misfortunes his armies succeeded in entering Rome in 410, eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of the city, which for six ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of royal love), that if she would have the kindness to fix her affections on the hereditary Prince of Orange (afterwards King William II. of the Netherlands), whom she had never seen, it would be exceedingly convenient. The Prince came over to England, and, by the help of a "certain amount of artful precipitation on the part of the father," the pair became formally engaged. The Princess said at first that she did not think her betrothed "by any means so disagreeable as she had expected." In time, however, this ardour of affection abated. The Prince was ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... foolish little prude," said the artful woman, affecting anger: "I invited you to go in hopes it would divert you, and be an agreeable change of scene; however, if your delicacy was hurt by the behaviour of the gentlemen, you need not go again; ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... tells fortunes, and dabbles in all sorts of superstitious tricks,' Milly added gravely; 'but she is so artful, there is no way of finding her out in that kind of business. The foolish country girls who consult her always keep her secret, and she manages to put on a fair face before our rector and his curate, who believe her to be a ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... we, madam; which we will recompense With all the love and kindness that we may: His artful sport [228] drives all sad ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... away, as did David Copperfield, perhaps the most true to adolescence because largely reminiscent of the author's own life; Steerforth, a stranger from home, and his victim, Little Emily; and to some extent Sam Weller, Dick Swiveller, the Marchioness, young Podsnap, the Artful Dodger, and Charley Bates; while Oliver Twist, Little Nell, and Little Dorrit, Joe and Turveydrop in Bleak House, and Paul Dombey, young as they were, show the beginning of the pubescent change. Most of his characters, however, are so overdrawn and caricatured ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... quite shocked at the idea of disobeying his father, but he at last suffered himself to be persuaded by the artful entreaties of his cousin, to do what he knew to be wrong. They went to the stables, where George took out his own little poney, and Charles one of his uncle's large horses, assuring his cousin that he could ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... companions alike drinking water copiously without regard for the smallness of their store. The second night was very hot, and the savage companions finished the water, with the result that on the third day the thirst became a torment, and at mid-day the poor companions struck work. Artful Mendez, however, had concealed two small kegs of water in his canoe, the contents of which he now administered in small doses, so that the poor Indians were enabled to take to their oars again, though with vigour much abated. Presumably ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... to their hopes the dominion of their new, or the liberty of their ancient, country. In the right wing of Bajazet the cuirassiers of Europe charged with faithful hearts and irresistible arms; but these men of iron were soon broken by an artful flight and headlong pursuit; and the janizaries, alone, without cavalry or missile weapons, were encompassed by the circle of the Mongol hunters. Their valor was at length oppressed by heat, thirst, and the weight of numbers; and the unfortunate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... scarfs, and other subtleties not less exquisite in flosses of Indian silk. The idea, old as the oldest of peoples, that beauty is the reward of the hero had never such realism as she contrived for his pleasure; insomuch that he could not doubt he was her hero; she avouched it in a thousand artful ways as natural with her as her beauty—winsome ways reserved, it would seem, by the passionate genius of old Egypt for ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... imputations, it is only necessary to follow the rules of virtue, and to preserve an unvaried regard to truth. For though it is undoubtedly possible that a man, however cautious, may be sometimes deceived by an artful appearance of virtue, or by false evidences of guilt, such errours will not be frequent; and it will be allowed, that the name of an author would never have been made contemptible, had no man ever said what ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... this stern, composed young woman could put on artful airs of youthfulness when she chose! How she had that firm, far-seeing old man held in position, ready to be twirled round ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... rain. Its chief note is longing, like all the poetry of exiles, a chastened melancholy which finds comfort in the memory of old unhappy things as well as of the beatitudes of youth. The metres are cunningly chosen, and are most artful when they are simplest; and in every case they provide the exact musical counterpart to the thought. Mrs. Jacob has an austere conscience. She eschews facile rhymes and worn epithets, and escapes the easy cadences of hymnology which are apt to be a snare to the writer of folk-songs. She ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob
... and venerable sire, nor did Miss MACINTYRE—who, by the way, is charming as Rebecca, and who is so nimble in skipping about the stage when avoiding the melodramatic Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan, and so generally active and artful as to be quite a Becky Sharp,—nor, I say, did Miss MACINTYRE seem to treat her precocious parent (Isaac must have married very young, seeing that Becky is full twenty-one, and Isaac apparently very little more than ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... magic door. Bad habits cling to us, however, with such persistency that I did mechanically pull out my handkerchief and begin to rub off the welcoming smudge, a thing I never would have dreamed of doing in the glorious old days; but an artful scent of violets clinging to the handkerchief brought me to my senses, and with a sudden impulse of scorn, the fine scorn for scent of every honest Backfisch, I rolled it up into a ball and flung it away into the bushes, where ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... Government and to cultivate friendship with the border inhabitants. This has happily succeeded to a great extent, but it is a subject of regret that they suffer themselves in some instances to be imposed upon by artful and designing men, and this notwithstanding all efforts of the Government ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... contrasted with thy artful silence on the subject of this grace-saying Nereid of thine, I must beg thee to be more explicit upon that subject in thy next, unless thou wouldst have me form the conclusion that thou thinkest more of her than thou carest ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Northerner brought to naught a scheme conceived in the spirit of the old-time Southern politics, a scheme which was certainly clever, but which, without undue severity, may also be called a little artful and insidious; for Mr. Stephens himself afterward confessed that it had, for its ulterior purpose, "not so much to act upon Mr. Lincoln and the then ruling authorities at Washington as through them, when the correspondence should be published, upon the great mass of the people ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... ground on which they live, and nature in their country obliges them to lead a nomad life. Wide, simple, and dreary is the desert, and simple and free is the nomad's life. The hard struggle for existence has sharpened their senses. They are acute observers, clever, crafty, and artful. Distance is of no account to them, for they do not know what it is to be tired. They fly on their swift dromedaries over half the Sahara, and are a terror to their settled neighbours and to caravans. On their raids they cover immense distances in a short time. To ride ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... conceals art, the "delicate imposition" of Rochefoucauld; she had produced an effect, a contrast, and it had been done on purpose. As a matter of fact this was not true, but it had its result; for as soon as Casterbridge thought her artful it thought her worth notice. "It is the first time in my life that I have been so much admired," she said to herself; "though perhaps it is by those whose ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... sir. Bless 'em for a set of artful babies! They aren't learned discipline yet. You, Rumsey, go and tell your messmates that if they try that game again with me they'll stand a fine chance of not going ashore for ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... contradict our inimitable Pedro when he remarks "E facteo" giving the translation as "He has the word for to laugh," a construction bearing a suspicious resemblance to "Il a le mot pour rire." "He do the devil at four" has no reference to an artful scheme for circumventing the Archfiend at a stated hour, but is merely a simulacrum of the well-known gallic idiomatic expression "Il fait le diable a quatre." Truly this is excellent fooling; Punch in his wildest humour, backed ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... With artful passes Dextry settled it in the pan bottom and washed away the gravel, leaving a yellow, glittering pile which raised a yell from the men who had ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... it up now and go. He is too artful. I daresay he sees us, and will not come till we are gone. We'll go away and come back this evening. That's the way the Malays catch the wretches. They don't stop to watch, only let the rope be tied to a tree, and then come back, and they often find ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... as he stood staring dumfoundedly at her and moved toward him, with an air of artful supplication that brought a gasp ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... principle which regulates both the great and the little in the study of a painter. By this, the first effect of the picture is produced; and as this is performed the spectator, as he walks the gallery, will stop, or pass along. To give a general air of grandeur at first view, all trifling or artful play of little lights or an attention to a variety of tints is to be avoided; a quietness and simplicity must reign over the whole work; to which a breadth of uniform and simple colour will very much contribute. Grandeur ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... that, as I have now no press of my own, nor the means to get one, and am persecuted, calumniated, harassed with lawsuits, threatened with personal violence, saying nothing of the steady vindictiveness of your artful colleague, nor of the judges chosen by Mr. Van Buren and his friends, whom the 'Globe Democratic Review' and 'Evening Post' denounced in 1840, and declared to be independent of common justice and honesty, you may succeed in embittering ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... Then when the family arrived Mr Wopples, who was really a gentleman and well-educated, called on all the principal people of the town and so impressed them with the high class character of the entertainment that he never failed to secure their patronage. He also had a number of artful little schemes which he called 'wheezes', the most successful of these being a lecture on The Religious Teaching of Shakespeare', which he invariably delivered on a Sunday afternoon in the theatre of any town he happened to be in, and not infrequently when requested occupied the pulpit ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... us of its "Great Success;" note the capitals, and note also, the expression itself, which was not found in the announcement of the repetition of the Second and Third Acts of the Light Asian Opera on Monday. Isn't this an artful way of pitting Admirable BEMBERG against our own accomplished DE-LARA-Boom? "We" were not there either Monday or Tuesday, which, as far as the inimitable intermezzo of the "Rustic Chivalry" goes, was distinctly "our" loss. But they were going to do without us, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... his reign by adopting measures which gave him great popularity with the adjoining kingdoms, while they did not diminish the favorable regards of the people. But suddenly affairs assumed a new aspect, so strange that a writer of fiction would hardly have ventured to imagine it. An artful man, a schoolmaster in Poland, who could speak the Russian language, declared that he was Dmitri; that he had escaped from the massacre in his palace, and that it was another man, mistaken for him, whom the assassins had killed. Poland, inspired by revenge, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... with the pool Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils Around the stone, or from the hollowed bank Reverted plays in undulating flow, There throw, nice judging, the delusive fly; And as you lead it round in artful curve With eye attentive mark the springing game, Straight as above the surface of the flood They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap, Then fix with gentle twitch, the barbed hook. Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, And to the shelving shore slow-dragging ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... yielded to the delusions which artful persons, who saw into the weakness of her character, sought to practise upon her. She was the second wife of Humphrey, and he was suspected to have indulged in undue familiarity with her before he was a widower. His present duchess ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... built of inflammable material, like the bituminous schist of the Brazil; and that the Arabs were surprised to find them taking fire. Evidently, however, the text refers to an eruption in one of the many Harrahs or volcanic districts. El-Mukaddasi describes the "houses artful (farihn, alluding to the Thamdites in the Koran, xxvi. 149), and made of admirable stone (alabaster?); over the doors were knots (Ukd), and ornaments (Turh), ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... of his speeches were those in which he endeavoured, by artful appeals to the good sense and patriotism of his hearers, to win them over to his views; and the frequent success that attended such efforts is their highest praise. He seldom attempted an ambitious flight, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... governments when this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn in pieces by the Guelfes and Gibellines, and France by those who were for and against the League: but it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their interest, by a specious concern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbarous notions, out ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... assassin, were undeniable facts. The wealthy man evidently believed that, for my own sake and in order to escape prosecution, I would not seek to solve the enigma. Now, as I reflected upon my interview at the Villa Clementini, I realized how artful he was in denying everything, and yet allowing me a loophole for escape. He had mentioned blackmail—an ugly word with ugly consequences—well-knowing that I dare not go to the Metropolitan Police and make any statement of what I had witnessed or of ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... now," observed the artful person in tones of deep commiseration. "Ah well, Rupert's a poor creature which ever side he turns up. Will you go now, my child, and fetch me the letters I left on the drawing-room table? Isn't it like ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Peggy was always ready with an artful reply, "I told you that I was neither the one nor the other; and that I wore black and white at the Mischienza, the colors now worn by our American soldiers in their cockades in token of the ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... had just gone with her trunk to the boat, and she was now on her way to Cleveland, happier than she had been in six months, and that she should do, in all respects, as I had advised. Here was a beautiful girl decoyed and led from the paths of virtue by an artful, designing, and licentious young man, who basely sought her ruin by winning the affections of an innocent girl. Hundreds and thousands of these girls are in like manner led astray, and might be saved if mothers in Israel would take them ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... took the money; I need not say What abuse I hurled at his head that day; But, when he began in his artful way To talk of Insurance (Life), And asked me to take out a policy for My conjugal partner, my cordium cor, "No, no," said I, "If my spouse should die We should enter again into strife; You would come and say at the funeral, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... spoken big words to Rankeillor and to Stewart, and held myself bound upon my vanity to make good that boastfulness. Nay, and he hit me with the other end of the stick; for he accused me of a kind of artful cowardice, going about at the expense of a little risk to purchase greater safety. No doubt, until I had declared and cleared myself, I might any day encounter Mungo Campbell or the sheriff's officer, and be recognised, and dragged ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lovers are of these kinds; Hickman and Lord Goosecap of the first; Lovelace and Booby, when he put on his stately airs after the summer-house adventure, of the last. You have not been able to describe an agreeable, artful, and accomplish'd seducer, who, without raising fears and terrors, could melt, surprize, or reason a woman out of her virtue. It is well you have not, for such a character could do no good, and might ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... How could you? That's perfectly dreadful news!" the artful Elizabeth cried, while her mother raised her eyes resignedly upward and clasped her hands so tightly that they trembled. The Laird thought his wife sought comfort from above; had he known that she had just delivered a sincere vote of thanks, he would not have ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... was proud, ambitious, and persevering. He was artful, cruel, and obdurate. He was just the man for such a place, and it was just the place for such a man. It afforded scope for the full exercise of all his powers, and he seemed to be perfectly at home in it. He was one ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... rhyme, Short gleams of sense, and satire out of time; Who cannot follow where trim fancy leads, By prattling streams, o'er flower-empurpled meads; Who often, but without success, have pray'd For apt Alliteration's artful aid; Who would, but cannot, with a master's skill, Coin fine new epithets, which mean no ill: Me, thus uncouth, thus every way unfit For pacing poesy, and ambling wit, 90 Taste with contempt beholds, nor deigns to place Amongst the lowest of her favour'd race. Thou, Nature, art ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... that Sylvia lived unmanned him, and his prepared speech had been usurped by a passionate torrent of complaint and invective, which convinced no one, and gave Frere the very argument he needed. It was decided that the prisoner Dawes was a malicious and artful scoundrel, whose only object was to gain a brief respite of the punishment which he had so justly earned. Against this injustice he had resolved to rebel. It was monstrous, he thought, that they should refuse to hear the witness who was so ready ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... into the church, and overspread the christian world with darkness and superstition, some few, who plainly perceived the pernicious tendency of such errors, determined to show the light of the gospel in its real purity, and to disperse those clouds which artful priests had raised about it, in order to blind the people, and obscure ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... hours of ease You may say anything you please, But when I join the Muse's revel, Begad, I wish you at the devil! In vain my verse I plane and bevel, Like Banville's rhyming devotees; In vain by many an artful swivel Lug in my meaning by degrees; I'm sure to hear my Henley cavil; And grovelling prostrate on my knees, Devote his body to the seas, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... primitive poet. We have corresponding words in English, but the feeling they produce is not identical. The lesser fervour of the northern nations renders them, in some respects, more sophisticate than they suspect, compared with the "artful" Italians.] ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... you artful villain, to lay the blame on me! For my two eyes were shut, sir, when this young man ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... the sovereign guardian. She employed, at one time in defending him against his enemies, at another in endangering him by her plots, her hatreds and her assaults, the last thirteen years of her life. She was a true type of the strong-willed, artful, and perverse woman in barbarous times; she started low down in the scale and rose very high without a corresponding elevation of soul; she was audacious and perfidious, as perfect in deception as in effrontery, proceeding to atrocities either from cool calculation or a spirit of revenge, abandoned ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... lady in Gloucestershire allowed herself to be deluded by a Gipsy woman, of artful and insinuating address, to a very great extent. This lady admired a young gentleman, and the Gipsy promised that he would return her love. The lady gave her all the plate in the house, and a gold chain and locket, with no other security than a vain promise that they should be restored at a given ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... and energy of thought: both good things but things that can exist outside poetry. The arguments {205} in which he states his objections to devotional poetry in the life of Waller show that he regarded poetry as an artful intellectual embroidery, not as the only fit ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... want you? Who put such an idea into your head! Oh, I know!" She threatened Clementina with the door-key, which she was carrying in her hand. "It was you, was it? What an artful, suspicious thing! What's got into you, child? Do you hate me?" She did not give Clementina time to protest. "Well, now, I can just tell you I do want you, and I'll be quite heart-broken if ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... mean extraction, he met with no respect, and was contemned by his subjects in the beginning of his reign. He was not insensible of this; but nevertheless thought it his interest to subdue their tempers by an artful carriage, and to win their affection by gentleness and reason. He had a golden cistern, in which himself, and those persons who were admitted to his table, used to wash their feet, he melted it down, and had it cast ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams |
