"Cleverness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The boy was with his nurse or at the kindergarten for long hours during which Ninitta, who had few of the resources with which an educated woman would have filled her time, mingled longings for her old life with blissful gloatings over Nino's beauty and cleverness. Her husband was always kind, but since his marriage delicacy of sentiment had made him shrink from having his wife pose even for himself, while naturally no thought of her doing so for another would have been ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... This and her cleverness gave her moral power over her mother; she had no fear of answering her back now. She was quicker with her fingers than her mother, both in making baskets and brooms, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... household effects we now decided to take small lodgings in the so-called 'hinteren Escherhausern' in the Zeltweg. With great cleverness Minna had succeeded in selling the Dresden furniture to advantage, and out of the proceeds of this sale she had brought three hundred marks with her to Zurich to help towards setting up our new home. She told me that she had saved my small but very select library for ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... who was not wanting in cleverness, replied to Rastignac's speech with an apologetic portrait of the princess, which put the whole table in good humor. As the jest was extremely obscure to d'Arthez he leaned towards his neighbor, Madame de Montcornet, and asked her, in a whisper, ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... Wilfred was capable of winning any woman's affection, and I felt certain she would not resist his wishes. The very first day of his return they had gone away together, and no doubt he would impress her with his cleverness and greatness. ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... record and his cleverness as I do, I can guess how he was going to swing the hoard when he finished transporting all of it to safety. Probably, he'd clear up a good many thousand dollars by selling the coins, one at a time, secretly, to collectors ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... one of the most popular of fallacies," she answered me crushingly. "Why can't clever women marry, and make just as good wives as the others? Why can't a woman bend her cleverness to see that her house is in order, and her dinners well cooked, and buttons sewed on, as well as to discuss new books and keep pace with her husband intellectually? Do you suppose because I know Greek ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... Umgolo. "Perhaps I am wrong. The young chief may be an enemy of Cetchwayo, and he it is who has sent the army to destroy him. He knows the bravery and cleverness of Mangaleesu, who, had he gained an inkling of what is intended, would have made his escape into Natal. There may be some other cause for the intended attack, but I am not far wrong, master, ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... part, I shan't be able to address the bulkiest multitude; my talent doesn't lend itself to that form. I shall write for the upper middle-class of intellect, the people who like to feel that what they are reading has some special cleverness, but who can't distinguish between stones and paste. That's why I'm so slow in warming to the work. Every month I ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... leading out yonder in that strange land? Do you never get weary or feel bored? Have you anything to amuse you? I have become satiated with my life—lying, cheating, deceiving every day in order to live! While I was a little girl I was proud of the praises heaped upon me for my cleverness. But a day came when everything disgusted me. It is an infamous trade, this of ours, little mama, and I have given it up. I have begun to lead a different life—one with which I am satisfied; and if you will take the advice of one who wishes you well, ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... Colonel Cresswell expanded under the genial influences, and while his head still protested his heart was glad. He had to respect John Taylor's undoubted ability; and Mary Taylor was certainly lovely, in spite of that assumption of cleverness of which the Colonel ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... hideous pessimism, enthusiasts at various stages of Parnassus, the peak of which is lighted with a huge dollar sign. A friendly, kindly lot, hard-working and temperamental, with some brilliance and a rather high level of cleverness—slaves of the magazine, probably, and therefore not able to throw stones farther into the future than the end of the month. This is not a country in which literature and art can ever grow big; the cost of living is too high. The modern Chatterton detests garrets and must drive something with ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... men are very dull," replied the other voice. "Now I should have suspected at once that the man was not a German. But he shall answer for his cleverness. Let him be removed at once. We have word from the vessel outside that they are short of oxygen, and you must be locked out ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... a genius, deludes only himself—he just becomes queer, he takes to unusual words, constructions, and arrangements. He puts style before thought—he thinks that the way he writes is more important than what he writes. The writer of the business letter does well to avoid "cleverness"—to avoid it as ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... is, we need scarcely say, full of delicate criticism and suggestion. He treats his subject with great cleverness, and on many points carries the reader along with him. Especially good is all that he says about the "grand style," so far as his general propositions are concerned. But when he comes to apply his criticisms, he instinctively feels the want of an absolute ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... insight, or of an easy-going artistic conscience, uncommon even among editors. Few who saw Mr. Linley Sambourne's early work, even throughout the first two or three years of his practice, would have imagined that behind those woodcuts, for all their cleverness, there lay power and even genius, or that the man himself would soon come to be regarded as one of the greatest masters of pure ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... so pleased with 'imself at his cleverness that Emma arf put up her 'and, and then she thought better of ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... the mendicant muse. The copies of pictures and casts were commonly sold for three half-crowns each; the original sketches—some of them a little free in posture, and not over delicately handled, were framed and disposed of for any sum from two to five guineas, according to the cleverness of the piece, or the generosity of the purchaser. Though far inferior to the productions of his manhood, they were much admired; engravers found it profitable to copy them, and before he was sixteen years old, his name ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... to be Arnold Brinkworth's wife, he must direct to her as Arnold Brinkworth's wife; or who could tell what the law might say, or what scrape he might not get himself into by a mere scratch of the pen! The more he thought of it, the more persuaded he felt of his own cleverness here, and the hotter and ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... vocabulary was due less to reticence than to the simple inarticulateness of the primitive mind. Through the golden glamour of her honeymoon there had loomed suddenly the discovery that George was not clever—but cleverness mattered so little, she told herself, as long ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... That is the way with Christians? They're so direct of speech—but patient waiting, And foresight, humble cleverness, they lack. The King is pleased ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... much about business, but the way you must have worked, the way you must have had to run after people, and find them, and make then listen, and use all your New York cleverness—because you ARE clever. The way you've forgotten all about yourself and thought of nothing but father and the invention! I do know enough to understand that, and it seems as if I can't think of enough to say. I just wish I could tell you what it means to me." Two round pearls ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... living room by the fire Joan again grew witchy. She insisted upon proving her cleverness at palm-reading. Raymond dared not refuse, but he showed ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... got into difficulties, and had to retreat. I came to his aid; attacked one of the enemy, and peppered him properly. The whole bunch then took to their heels. But I did not let my friend escape so easily. He twisted and turned, flying with great cleverness. I attacked him three times from the rear, and once diagonally in front. Finally, he spiralled steeply, toppled over and flew for a while with the wheels up. Then he dropped. According to reports from the —— Reserve Division, ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... untruthful; pure and impure; good and wicked; wonderful and commonplace: in a word, he is everything." I am quite sure that he is perfectly sincere when he speaks of high aims and pure ambition; but I am equally sure that it is a relief to him to speak with amusement of trickery, cleverness, and the tolerances or ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... wouldn't stay in the ship, any how, and she permitted the big boatswain to hold me while she went ashore in a boat. But I knew myself, if my mother didn't know me, and I determined not to stay in her three days; and I didn't," chuckled Clyde, as he thought of what he called his own cleverness. ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... me in order to save the Celebrity from humiliation? I thrust it aside, but it returned again and grinned. Had she not practised insincerity before? And any one with half an eye could see that she was in love with the Celebrity; even the Fraction had remarked it. What more natural than, with her cleverness, she had hit upon this means of terminating the author's troubles by ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Sanctae Theologiae Doctor, "are six in number (all on various forms of vice); and show great knowledge, classical and sociological, of unsavory subjects. Now that the book is too rare to do us any harm, we may admit that the pastiche was not only highly amusing, but showed a perverse cleverness amounting ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... ago it was customary to speak slightingly of the Old Masters, and it was thought that their mistakes could be easily rectified. Their dark skies and black foregrounds hold their own against all Monet's cleverness, and it has begun to be suspected that even if nature be industriously and accurately copied in the fields, the result is not always a picture. The palette gives the value of the grass and of the trees, but, alas, not of the sky-the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... walk a little and sit down again too suddenly. Then, as if entreating him to look over her want of 'cleverness,' she would put out a hand that, for all its whiteness, had never been idle and smooth his forehead. It had sometimes touched him horribly to see with what despair she made attempts to follow him in his correlating efforts, and with what relief she heard him cease enough to let her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... (although the snow was fifty feet deep, and all their breath fell behind them frozen, like a log of wood dropped from their shoulders), yet they managed to get along, and make the time of the year to each other, by a little cleverness. For seeing how the snow was spread, lightly over everything, covering up the hills and valleys, and the foreskin of the sea, they contrived a way to crown it, and to glide like a flake along. Through the sparkle of the whiteness, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... but surely nobody can expect that the soul of the watchman should understand it. Be that as it may, it did comprehend it; for in our souls there germinate far greater powers than we poor mortals, despite all our cleverness, have any notion of. Does she not show us—she the queen in the land of enchantment—her astounding dramatic talent in all our dreams? There every acquaintance appears and speaks upon the stage, so entirely in character, and with the same tone of voice, that none of us, when awake, ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... of the Crown Princess was a Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and her mother a Russian Grand Duchess. In appearance the Crown Princess is very attractive, her face rather Russian, with an expression of good nature and cleverness. Although the Crown Prince is tall (about five feet ten), the Crown Princess overtops him, and on occasions when they appear together she wears shoes with very low heels ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... the 20th the ship was only a few hundred yards from Hurrah Beach. This day Rennick, smiling from ear to ear, came across the ice with the pianola in bits conveyed on a couple of sledges. He fixed it up with great cleverness at one end of the hut and it was quite wonderful to see how he stripped it on board, brought it through all sorts of spaces, transported it undamaged over ice and rocky beach, re-erected it, tuned it, and then played "Home, Sweet ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... here, as it hardly comes within the scope of this book. In view of the confusion Westermarck has already created in recent scientific literature by his specious pleading, I need not apologize for the frequency of my polemics against him. His imposing erudition and his cleverness in juggling with facts by ignoring those that do not please him (as e.g., in case of the morality of the Kaffirs and Australians, and the "liberty of choice" of their women) make him a serious obstacle to the investigation of the truth regarding man's ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... residence during his life. Improvident in money matters, he was greatly troubled by his affairs in Bermuda;—the amount for which he became responsible by the defalcation of his deputy was L6000; which, however, by legal cleverness, was compromised for ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... strength of a prospective fortune. Jimmy Wrigley and I are amongst them. Wrigley in the Great War was M.T., R.A.S.C., and knows so much about cars that he can tell the make of lamps from the track of the tyres; while I was a cavalryman and know so little that I judge Jimmy's cleverness only by other people's incredulity. On our stand at the show we exhibited two cars, which, as I carefully learned beforehand from the book of the words, were a Byng-Beatty and a Tanglefoot, these being the cars for which we are what they call concessionaires. (The bat is tricky, but one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... convenient having a French mother, and I do appreciate dear Dad's Yankee cleverness in securing you in the family. You say sometimes that I seem all American, and that you're glad; which is pretty of you, and loyal to father's country, but I'm not sure whether I shouldn't have preferred to turn out more like my mamma. You're ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... persistency has painted in the face of mockery, painted portraits, landscapes, flowers, houses, figures, painted everything, painted himself. And what paint! Stubborn, with an instinctive hatred of academic poses, of the atmosphere of the studio, of the hired model, of "literary," or of mere digital cleverness, Cezanne has dropped out of his scheme harmony, melody, beauty—classic, romantic, symbolic, what you will!—and doggedly represented the ugliness of things. But there is a brutal strength, a tang of the soil that ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... was present. It was not to be so with her; she would no longer be sacrificed to creatures worth less than herself, but would make the very best of the chances that life offered her, and conquer circumstances by her exceptional cleverness. Certainly, to be settled at Offendene, with the notice of Lady Brackenshaw, the archery club, and invitations to dine with the Arrowpoints, as the highest lights in her scenery, was not a position that seemed to offer remarkable chances; but Gwendolen's confidence lay chiefly ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the head and you won't spin." Ernest smiled to himself as he saw from Bill's manoeuvers as the flight went on that he had stored away all the counsel he had listened to. Many a trained aviator never learned to drive his engine and balance his plane with the cool cleverness and judgment of this young and untried aeronaut. Ernest commenced to relax and enjoy himself. If they had no engine accident, there was no reason to suppose that Bill would wreck ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... superlatives in serious works on crime. I will read, I promise you, anything decently written in a fictional way about 'master' crooks, 'master' killers, kings, queens, princes, and a whole peerage of crime, knowing very well that never yet has a 'master' criminal had any cleverness but what a novelist gave him. But in works on crime that pretend to seriousness I would eschew, pace Mr Leonard R. Gribble, all 'queens' and other honorifics in application to the lost men and women with ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... it was still worse," mused the beast, "to construct a great wit like you and give him no seasonable occasion for the display of his cleverness." ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... sure I don't know how they get it. But I hear it is such a wonderful book you have written, Mr. Ernstone. I've not read it yet. My wretched health, you know. But really, when I think how clever you must be, I feel quite afraid to talk to you. I always consider it must require so much cleverness and—and perseverance—you know, to write ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... home with her as far as the opening of Church Cliff Road, and they talked of the cleverness and goodness of the brothers, except Richard at Leeds, who never seemed to be mentioned; how Theodore kept at the head of the school, and had hopes of the drawing prize, and how little Petros devoured tales of battles, and would hear of nothing but being ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... facility. The list of rivers would be read for the islands, and the islands for the rivers, quite indifferently, and with entertaining naivete. But he treasured the papers, and continued to delude his fellows with the display of what they considered to be wonderful cleverness. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... imaginings. It had not been difficult twenty-two years ago; she had worked then with pleasure and interest, and taken examinations with easy triumph. As Kay did now at Cambridge, only more so, because she had been cleverer than Kay. She was a vain creature, and had believed that cleverness of hers to be unimpaired by life, until she came to try. She supposed that if she had spent her married life in head work, her head would never have lost the trick of it. But she hadn't. She had spent it on Rodney and Gerda and Kay, and the interesting, amusing life led by the ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... with rapture, while Mrs. Moss declared she was almost afraid to have such a wonderfully intelligent animal in the house. Praises of his dog pleased Ben more than praises of himself, and when the confusion had subsided he entertained his audience with a lively account of Sancho's cleverness, fidelity, and the various adventures in which he had nobly borne ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... want to be told that. And I'm not going to be a tyrant. But I had no idea you were such a silly! For all your cleverness, you've positively never asked me what wages I ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... sent to the lycee—that is, the lay public school—of Cahors, and here he immediately won golden opinions by his cleverness, his industry, and the happy vivacity of his character. One of the half-yearly bulletins of the lycee, which has been preserved in his family, records that he was "passionate without being vindictive, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... after Amina entered as quietly as she had gone out. She undressed and stole into bed, congratulating herself apparently on the cleverness with which she had ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... facts to-day is to play into the hands of our enemies, as we have been steadfastly doing during the past thirty years. The British and their allies are being overcome less by German skill and cleverness than by their own sluggishness, narrowness of outlook and love of ease. As the German professor, whose utterances I have already quoted, tersely put it: "My confidence is founded above all else on our enemies' ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... without their full share of sound and shrewd sense, and who kept with Calandrino for that they not seldom found his singular ways and his simplicity very diverting. There was also at the same time at Florence one Maso del Saggio, a fellow marvellously entertaining by his cleverness, dexterity and unfailing resource; who having heard somewhat touching Calandrino's simplicity, resolved to make fun of him by playing him a trick, and inducing him to believe some prodigy. And happening one day to come upon Calandrino in the church of San Giovanni, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... surprise, and Kit saw he had not expected his offer to be refused. The fellow had a cynical distrust of human nature that had persuaded him Kit could not resist the temptation; his shallow cleverness sometimes misled him and had done so when he took it for granted ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... three portraits by Antonio Mancini, of unusual cleverness and very fine psychological characterization. Mancini's work grows on one. While seeming at first rather loose and superficial, these portraits disclose on more intimate study a fine constructive quality. They are not particularly interesting in colour; as a matter of ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... it is simply because I am a monstrous clever fellow. She distrusts my cleverness, she very often disapproves of it, and yet she values it as queer, as a sort of curiosity. Well, but who can deny that cleverness is truly a curiosity ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... continues to do a little something every now and then for the bold. In Joseph Grimwell's case, it overlooked the fact that he was neither brave nor bold but rewarded him for being interestingly tricky. Out of sheer respect for his cleverness in acquiring all of the timber land available, Fortune set about to outdo him in productiveness. It suddenly remembered that it had placed three rich copper deposits in separate and distinct parts of his land and kindly directed him to ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... she's homesick and doesn't know it," said Josephine to herself. "I'd better buck her up a bit and give her a good time." But because she had a generous admiration of Judith's cleverness she never thought of offering her any suggestions as to how to ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... punished, but frequently flourish and have happy children. Rewards and punishments are purely human institutions, and if government be relaxed they entirely disappear. No intelligence whatever interferes in human affairs. There is a most senseless belief now prevalent that effort, and work, and cleverness, perseverance and industry, are invariably successful. Were this the case, every man would enjoy a competence, at least, and be free from the cares of money. This is an illusion almost equal to the superstition of a directing intelligence, which every ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... they were alone. "I have spoken cheeringly to Alice, because she is a little girl and needs comfort, but you and I know that our case is a desperate one, and it will require all our united wisdom and cleverness to effect our escape from these ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... women simplicity lasts longer than it does elsewhere. They are slower in losing respect, and in weighing values and characters; they are less ready to suspect evil and to analyse their husbands.... They have not the cleverness, the advanced ideas, the assured behaviour, the precocity which with us turns a young girl into a sophisticated woman and a queen of society in six months. A secluded life and obedience are easier for them. More yielding and more sedentary, they are at once more reserved, more self-centred, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... now I have no means of knowing, nor can I say whether Mr. Kellner has any suspicion that the death of Mr. Farrell was more opportune than natural. You are the kind of man who is much impressed by his own cleverness, and when you met me in Devonshire it occurred to you to throw down a challenge, to pit your wits against mine. I suspected you then, for you overdid certain things, and a sinister intention had entered into your head. You confessed yourself charmed with Miss Lester, yet your whole attitude ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... press, and reticulated with folds, as in Flemish "Last Suppers." Creedle and the boy fetched and carried with amazing alacrity, the latter, to mollify his superior and make things pleasant, expressing his admiration of Creedle's cleverness when they were alone. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... he knew she laughed at him. Yes, laughed at him, for she had more than human intelligence. There was something demoniac in her cleverness, her immunity from harm, her prodigious energy, her malevolent mischief, her raillery. Actually, he had grown morbid about the beast; he had a superstitious feeling that in the end she would bring him bad luck. How ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... with his grand physique and cleverness, was not long in mastering the tricks of the carriers. He soon learned to build up a load and adjust a tump-line, after which practice made the carrying of a pack almost twice his own weight a not ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... me see!—who is he? Ah! I remember,—he is the Socialist lion, for ever roaring through the streets and seeking whom he may devour! I daresay he is not without cleverness!" ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... showed himself a worthy descendant of his father. In this respect, so much has been said about the first George's manners, that we need not enter into a description of the son's German harem. In 1705 he married a princess remarkable for beauty, for cleverness, for learning, for good temper—one of the truest and fondest wives ever prince was blessed with, and who loved him and was faithful to him, and he, in his coarse fashion, loved her to the last. It must be told to the honour ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to appear to stand all he might; and there was a certain command of the situation for him in this very wish not to look too much at sea. She was ready with everything, but so, sufficiently, was he; that is he was at one point the more prepared of the two, inasmuch as, for all her cleverness, she couldn't produce on the spot—and it was surprising—an account of the motive of her note. He had the advantage that his pronouncing her "all right" gave him for an enquiry. "May I ask, delighted as I've been ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... terrible, Herr Officer. The whole ground seems to be burning!" said the old man, completely disarmed by the cleverness of the lad's impersonation. "How much petrol do ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... the light we did not fall asleep. We were discussing the cleverness of the detective and the folly of the thief who had left a clue behind, and it was actually two o'clock when we pulled our rugs up to our necks and closed ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... changes in fashion render this practice hard to follow. No woman likes to look out of style. However, by a little cleverness garments and hats may be adapted to the prevailing mode (although the arbiters of fashion, in the interests of manufacturers, try by violent changes of style to render this impracticable). These adaptations may not be in the height of fashion, but they will be in good form and taste. ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... Omnium. So, too, some men are idiots, some are next door to a fool, some are stupid, some are worthy people, some are intelligent, some are clever, and some geniuses. But genius is only the culminating point of ordinary cleverness, and if you were to try and draw up a list of all the real geniuses in the last hundred years, no two people could ever be found to agree among themselves as to which should be included and which excluded from the artificial catalogue. I have heard Kingsley and Charles Lamb described as geniuses, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... broken, quite the contrary, and she likes you as much as ever. We're leaving town; it will be the end; just now therefore it's nothing to ask. I'll ask to-night," Kate had wound up, "and if you'll leave it to me—my cleverness, I assure you, has grown infernal—I'll make ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... pity. Still, I'm just to every one, and I will say that she's not extravagant—but has so much cleverness that she could manage very well on half ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... to a "Lady" anybody. He was perfectly well aware, also, that his companion had suspected this. The consideration of these facts left him, however, unaffected. He was disposed, if anything, to admire the cleverness of the young man who ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... no moment to speculate about that. So far it merely tended to prove the almost diabolical cleverness of the people with whom the police had to deal. The Rajah himself could be seen standing moodily in the doorway chewing a cigar between his strong, yellow teeth. Berrington observed ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... performer depends on his cleverness and the novelty of his material, in identically the same way the success of a vaudeville theatre lies in the cleverness and novelty of the acts it plays. Individual house managers, and therefore circuit managers, cannot afford ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... in favour of himself was that there were many worse than Edwin Clayhanger. Not merely the boys, but the masters, were sinners. Only two masters could he unreservedly respect as having acted conscientiously up to their pretensions, and one of these was an unpleasant brute. All the cleverness, the ingenuities, the fakes, the insincerities, the incapacitaties, the vanities, and the dishonesties of the rest stood revealed to him, and he judged them by the mere essential force of character alone. A schoolmaster might as well attempt to deceive ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... about her, they found it impossible to resist the fascination of her conversation, and few declined to share in the banquet of gossip which she was always ready to spread. She was quick witted, and possessed of many resources and much cleverness of a certain sort; but it must be confessed that she had done mischief in her day, having been the murderer of more than one neighbor's peace of mind and the assailant of many a reputation. But if she were a dangerous inmate of one's ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... together as I did at that dinner-table. Nearly opposite to me sat the red-haired merchant Wadel, with his long, dryly comical face, firing off one witticism after another, and at my side whispered the hump-backed clerk Gram, who was famed for his cleverness, and feared for his biting tongue. His sharp remarks upon the different people who sat at the table, grew in ill-nature as he drank, and if his words had been heard, the expression of many a beaming face would certainly have changed. I believe, also, that he ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... said. "I guess you've heard about the discovery? Shoved away in a rat-hole in the thatch of Harborough's shed these were, sir—upon my honour, I don't know what to make of it! You'd have thought that a man of Harborough's sense and cleverness would never have put these things there, where they were certain to ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... superiority. "You pick things up with a parrot-like sharpness, but haven't intelligence enough to make any practical application of them. A woman closely resembles a parrot in her mental processes, and in the use she makes of fine phrases which she does not understand to produce an effect of cleverness—such as 'advanced mathematics!'" ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... be demigods and angels, it is true that at forty he may have discovered that they are neither. Beginning by looking for men to be more perfect than they can be, he ends by thinking them worse than they are, and then he secretly plumes himself on his superior cleverness in having found humanity out. For the deadliest of all wet blankets give me a middle-aged man who has been most of a visionary in ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... Montague, when they were alone. "I have spoken cheeringly to Alice, because she is a little girl and needs comfort, but you and I know that our case is a desperate one, and it will require all our united wisdom and cleverness to effect oar escape ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... It cannot be said that he was afraid of such an insignificant force, but there was a strong vein of superstition in his nature, which caused a vague fear of the men that had escaped him with such wonderful cleverness. Individuals who could do that sort of thing, were capable of doing things still more marvellous, and to use homely language, King Haffgo ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... is so bright and clever and says such smart things, and can write. I adore cleverness. I'm not a bit clever. I work dreadfully hard to keep up in my classes. But Kathleen is actually brilliant, and, besides, she took me to the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... his East End life allowed him to have it. No one was ever more ready to take other men and women at their own valuation than he. Nothing was so easy to him as to believe in other people's goodness, or cleverness, or superhuman achievement. On the other hand, London is kind to such men as Robert Elsmere. His talk, his writing, were becoming known and relished; and even the most rigid of the old school found it difficult to be angry with him. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Baker Street, but she'd certainly tell him to-morrow; not indeed that this would make him like any better her having had the innocence to invite such a person as Mrs. Saltram on such an occasion. It could only strike me that I had never seen a young woman put such ignorance into her cleverness, such freedom into her modesty; this, I think, was when, after dinner, she said to me frankly, with almost jubilant mirth: "Oh you don't admire Mrs. Saltram?" Why should I? This was truly a young person without guile. I had briefly to consider before I could reply that ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... heard the hope with which she impulsively cried: 'It is something I can write your uncle. Who knows? Perhaps he may forgive me my marriage when he hears that my child is going to do so well!' Poor mother! she had felt the glamour of my lover's good looks and cleverness much more than I had. She saw from indications to which I was blind that I was going to marry a man of mark, and was much more interested in the possible reply she might receive to the letter with which she had broken the silence of years between herself and ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... experiments,[74] and not least that most testing of all school examinations, the war, have shown us that we must revise all our old notions as to cleverness and stupidity. We know now that, short of real mental deficiency, there is or ought to be no such personage as the dunce. Just as the criminal is generally a man of unusual energy and mental power directed into wrong channels, so the dunce ...
— Progress and History • Various
... clever man resolves on a villanous action, he hastens, by the exercise of his cleverness, to get rid of the sense of his villany. With more than his usual alertness, Randal employed the next hour or two in ascertaining how far Baron Levy merited the character he boasted, and how far his word might be his bond. He repaired to young ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and as soon as he was fast asleep got out of the window and took possession of the cloak without any opposition from his teachers, who extolled his cleverness to the skies. They set out for home, and the first thing they did when they arrived was to hide their booty. After this adventure, Tim's masters frequently discoursed with each other about their apprentice. His address and cleverness pleased ...
— The Story of Tim • Anonymous
... to question the payments made them, which represented sums below what they would have had if the business had been conducted as they thought it had been. When my final account was presented to me I was startled. Notwithstanding the "cleverness" of the "System," the deception was so obvious, so audacious, that the instant Mr. Rogers submitted it to me I exploded and denounced the transaction with such vehemence and conviction that within a few minutes there was forthcoming ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... not to open the house to visitors, for so it is with other show places. Look, it is written up, that until to-morrow there is no admission." As the man pointed to a card hanging from a hook, he and Allen smiled at the cleverness of this pretext for closing the door. In English, French, and Arabic, the reason was announced in neat print. Probably this was not the first time the same excuse had been ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... him. Evidence would be cooked up of course, and the retribution would be so swift that his friends would not be able to save him. This time his enemy would take no chances. He would be wiped out like a troublesome insect. The thing was diabolic in the simplicity of its cleverness. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... the pocket of rock was a pit of stagnant heat. The silence seemed like an ocean rolling in soundless waves across the hills; a silence that became disturbed by a faint sound as of one approaching cautiously. Waring thought Ramon had shown cleverness in working up to him so quietly. He raised on his elbow and turned his head. On the eastern edge of the pocket stood a rural, and ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... throughout medical work. The student must also possess the necessary capacity for acquiring knowledge. It is very usual to find among the general public—women in particular—an idea that a tremendous amount of a vague quality which they describe as "cleverness" is necessary in order to follow one of the learned professions. Certainly this is not so in medicine. It is, however, necessary to be possessed of average intelligence and a good memory, and it is difficult for people to pass the qualifying examinations if they have for many years given up "school ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... some people call laughter, could be worth remembering. With the best intention, therefore, to serve me, you have done me an injury, Aaron. I shall be afraid to see our favourites in the spring, because I shall fall infinitely short of their ideas of cleverness. Pray, do you recollect the opinion which Judge Candour solemnly pronounced upon us both, in a court of reason held at the Indian King? Why, then, will you expose my weakness by ascribing to me imaginary excellences? If you persist in such cruel conduct, sir, I will ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... prison hut and once more placed under strict guard. For they were trebly valuable now, having been condemned to die by the torture, and it was seldom indeed that an Indian was afforded so delectable a sight as that of a white man suffering the unspeakably hideous torments which, with fiendish cleverness, were designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain which the human frame could possibly endure, and still continue to live. Moreover there were two of them; big, strong men, apparently in the very ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... historian of Rienzi's clothes, so minute is he on all details of their colour and quality—so silent is he upon everything that could throw light upon the motives of their wearer. In fact, granting the writer every desire to be impartial, he is too foolish to be so. It requires some cleverness to judge accurately of a very clever man in very difficult circumstances; and the worthy biographer is utterly incapable of giving us any clue to the actions of Rienzi—utterly unable to explain the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... muttered, "she did it on purpose," and even with his hatred and malice was mingled a gleam of admiration at the cleverness that had outwitted him. He hurried on towards the cliff path, but the sunset light was already fading into dusk, and he had to choose his footing more carefully. When he reached the point where the rope began, Marie had already gone down and was leaning on the rock beside her father. Had ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... little pats which were caresses of her own invention, "and people see what you are and always have been, as they ought to have seen long ago, I don't want to feel as if I couldn't keep up with you and understand your plans. Perhaps I've got a little bit of your cleverness, and you might teach me to use it in small ways. I've got a good memory you know, Father love, and I might recollect things people say and make bits of notes of them to save you trouble. And I can calculate. I once got a copy of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' for ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Camusot, who was anxious to get the full benefit of his cleverness, took the two documents, read them through, and promised himself that he would show them to the public prosecutor and take his opinion on them. During this meditation, his usher came back to tell him ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... Their cleverness and their taste for thieving was as keen as is usual with the natives of the southern seas. It was necessary to take a thousand precautions, and they were often taken in vain, to guard against their larceny. The English, when they approached the shore, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... loose altogether against our neighbours, they would be like wild beasts uncaged, and bring a deluge of calamity on the whole civilised world." Melancholy words, and appropriate to our own age, when cleverness is almost universal, and genius rare indeed, and the choice between liberty and servitude hard to make, were ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... serious reason for alarm in the fact that Clarisse Mergy thought that she was shadowing and watching Daubrecq at a time when, on the contrary, Daubrecq was watching her, having her shadowed and dragging her, with diabolical cleverness, toward the places selected by himself, far from all help or ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... was very naughty cannot be denied, and the fact surprised no one so much as herself. The nuns, accustomed to all sorts of children of every variety of temper, of every shade of docility and wilfulness, of cleverness and stupidity, found nothing astonishing in one more perverse little specimen, but Madelon could not understand it at all. She was not used to feeling naughty, and did not know what it meant at first. In her life hitherto, when she had been as ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... the way John Milton wrote." Not long ago Mr. Crosland became involved in a trial in the courts in connection with Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas and Robert Ross. He defended himself with much spirit and considerable cleverness. Among other things he said, as reported in the press: "What is this game? This gang are trying to do me down. Here I am a poor man up against two hundred quid (or some such ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... awkwardness of retracting what she had said; her wisdom was shown rather in maintaining it and placing it in a favourable light. "My dear friend, Isabel would certainly not have had seventy thousand pounds left her if she had not been the most charming girl in the world. Her charm includes great cleverness." ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... cleverness of Margaret as they left the edge of the city and hurried away on the east turnpike. A mist was coming up from the sea. The air ahead had the color of a wool stack. They stopped at an inn to feed and water the horses and went on ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... at breakfast. He seems quite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy, 'who,' he says, 'is gradually driving all ideas of political honor out of the House, and accustoming it to the most revolting cynicism,' There is no doubt that a sense of humor has always been conspicuously absent ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... would study their habits, and took delight in watching with what grace they came and went, flew off loaded, and returned, watching with a quick eye the snares and nets; and he would laugh heartily at their cleverness in avoiding them. Tryballot senior went into a passion when he found his grain considerably less in a measure. But although he pulled his son's ears whenever he caught him idling and trifling under a nut tree, the little rascal did not alter his conduct, but continued to study the habits ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... obscurity. My husband finds him a most valuable man in his business. I'm very fond of Mrs. Russell. She hasn't the obnoxious ways of most progressive women, and she certainly has executive ability and common sense. Being such an indolent person myself, I have always been fascinated by her spirit and cleverness. I'm glad she has been given a chance. ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... sister. "As it seems you and Harry have had words about it, you had better not; but I'll call—I'll have her. And it shall be such an elegant, select little affair that it will show her off to charming advantage," she continued, with much animation, delighted with her own cleverness in the scheme. "He can't help but be ashamed of her. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... they never deserted their watch to accompany Sandy when he went on a hunt for water-holes or more abundant feeding grounds. They were wonderfully intelligent animals—these collies. Donald constantly marveled at their cleverness. They were quick in singling out the slow or wayward sheep and would bite their heels to hurry them along. They also recognized the leaders and it was to them that they communicated the directions Sandy gave them. Yet Sandy seldom spoke to his dogs. A motion of his arm ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... story, said "Your cleverness has indeed been great, and your personation of the Siddha wonderful. May you long continue to possess such wisdom and prudence, combined with wit and cheerfulness." Then, looking at Visruta, he said: "It is now your turn;" ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... usual, and then the plan was made known to me. At first I was startled by the daring proposition, which was nothing more or less than to rob Pearson's bank by means of forged checks. The checks, which had been already prepared by Pearson, were exhibited to me, and I was surprised at the cleverness of the forgery. It looked easy and safe, and I consented. The person selected as the victim was a rich farmer by the name of Henery Sharpless, whose accounts were only settled about twice a year, and consequently detection ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... new. She was a daughter of that Montessuy, who, at first a clerk in a Parisian bank, founded and governed two great establishments, brought to sustain them the resources of a brilliant mind, invincible force of character, a rare alliance of cleverness and honesty, and treated with the Government as if he were a foreign power. She had grown up in the historical castle of Joinville, bought, restored, and magnificently furnished by her father. Montessuy made life give all it could yield. An instinctive and powerful ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... Irish; why salesmanship lures them; why they are the most successful walking delegates, solicitors, agents, foremen, and contractors. In the higher walks of life you find them where dash, brilliance, cleverness, and emotion are demanded. The law and the priesthood utilize their eloquence, journalism their keen insight into the human side of news, and literature their imagination and humor. They possess a positive genius for organization and management. The labor unions are led ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... and, sitting in his cab, thought sadly that there was no place for him amid these people. Inwardly, he called them polished. He did not like their brilliancy, their faces, their smiles or their words, but the freedom and the cleverness of their movements, their ability to speak much and on any subject, their pretty costumes—all this aroused in him a mixture of envy and respect for them. He felt sad and oppressed at the consciousness of being unable to talk so much and so fluently as all these people, and here he recalled that ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... a walk with me is only another way of making use of your material. You are an artist and I happen to be the bit of colour you are using today. It's a part of your cleverness to be able to produce ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... piano, and Nathaniel Mellen sang some pathetic negro melodies.[581] Altogether it was a pleasant occasion and I felt quite proud of the varied talents manifested by our young people. Some English friends remarked on their cleverness and readiness, all spontaneously called out without any ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... lurked a secret and indefinable charm. Many other women possessed more regular features, but none of them had a greater power of seduction. We must add that she owed that power entirely to her physical perfections, for except in regard to the devices necessary to her calling, she showed no cleverness, being ignorant, dull and without inner resources of any kind. As her temperament led her to share the desires she excited, she was really incapable of resisting an attack conducted with skill and ardour, and if the Duc de Vitry had not been so madly in love, which ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to hear it, you saddle me with the secret. That's what you call in English a sell, isn't it? A sell! What a funny little word! I often wonder who invents the slang. Parrots pass it along, of course, but it must take some cleverness to start it. And isn't it curious," she went on, breathlessly, "how a new bit of slang always fills a vacant place in the language? The minute you hear it you know it's what you've always wanted. I suppose ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... been thinking the matter over, and I am convinced that Mowbray has got about him the most dangerous sort of a gang to carry on his work for him. Do you know if he is a man of any particular force and cleverness?" ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... was a pretty good sort of brother, as brothers go; and, in Linda's eyes, he was a prodigy of cleverness. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... letter of complaint was sent to his father. 'It seems to me,' writes the teacher, 'that his handwriting is getting worse than ever. I show him, again and again, how to hold his pen; but he will not do it properly. I think he ought to try to make up for his want of cleverness by being more docile, taking more pains, and listening to my advice.' And then poor old Dumas would end with an exclamation of despair—'What will ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... liking for Ellis had increased within the year. The young man was not only a good journalist, but possessed sufficient cleverness and tact to make him excellent company. The major was fond of argument, but extremely tenacious of his own opinions. Ellis handled the foils of discussion with just the requisite skill to draw out the major, permitting himself to be vanquished, not ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... with a passing wonder. She could not honestly say that her dress had cost her much thought then or at any other time. She had been content to be very simple, to admire other girls' cleverness. There had been influences upon her own childhood, however, that had somehow separated her from the girls around her, had made it difficult for her to think ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my mother's bosom, and have never even crossed the threshold of our dwelling. You know well that I am not guilty; but, if you wish, I will affirm it by the most solemn oaths." As the child stood before him, looking the picture of innocence, Zeus could not refrain from smiling at his cleverness and cunning, but, being perfectly aware of his guilt, he commanded him to conduct Apollo to the cave where he had concealed the herd, and Hermes, seeing that further subterfuge was useless, unhesitatingly obeyed. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... above all things in a gallop. He contrived to keep a dog and coursed hares: indeed, the boy was the marvel of the neighbourhood. His unrestrainable activity, his acuteness of sense, his shrewdness, and his cleverness, astonished everybody. ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... and insinuating. He was richly endowed with all those secondary gifts which often carry a man along faster, though less far, than the highest endowments. If he had not power, he had elasticity; if not judgment, cleverness. He always drifted, which made him always appear the politician up to date. His name was then associated with one catastrophe; before he died it was to be linked with two others, Aspromonte and Mentana; but such was his ability ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... gave him a smile for his compliment. And this idea that he wanted something, that circumstances should have forced him into the position of an applicant, distressed her. She grieved for him. She saw all his good qualities—his energy, vitality, cleverness, facile kindliness, his large masculinity. It seemed to her, as she gazed up at him from the music-stool in the shaded solitude or the drawing-room, that she was very intimate with him, and very dependent on him; and she wished him to be always ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... braver than you dream, Gretchen." And in truth he was, for he was about to set forth for the lion's den, and only amazing cleverness could extricate him. Man never enters upon the foolhardy unless it be to dazzle a woman. And the vintner's love for Gretchen was no passing thing. "Let us hurry; it is growing late. They will be shutting off the lights before ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Well-to-do families have every luxury, and no nation is apparently so well off, so completely supplied with the necessities of life as the American. One is impressed by their business sagacity, their cleverness in finance, their complete grasp of all questions, yet no people are easier gulled or more readily victimized. An instance will suffice. In making my investigations regarding methods of managing railroads, I not only obtained information from the road officials, but questioned ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous |
