"Keen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is spread, Keen blows the air, and cold, The spectre sleeps in its earthy bed, 'Till St. Edmond's bell ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the wolf had stayed the charge had given Ben his chance. With a swift motion of his arm he had projected the single rifle shell into the chamber of the weapon. The stock snapped to his shoulder; and his keen, glittering eyes ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... finances of the kingdom, by three different committees of your House. The first was in the year 1786. On that occasion, I remember, the report of the committee was examined, and sifted and bolted to the bran, by a gentleman whose keen and powerful talents I have ever admired. He thought there was not sufficient evidence to warrant the pleasing representation which the committee had made of our national prosperity. He did not believe that our public revenue could continue to be so productive as they had assumed. He even went ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... repartee sparkle in his keen eyes. His music is being very much played now—"Fra Diavolo" and "Dieu et la Bayadere," and others of his operas. His music is like himself—fine and dainty, and full of esprit; his name is Daniel Francois Esprit. M. de Persigny said, "Madame Moulton desires to know you, Monsieur ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... to think they were next congeners to the incapable Marquesan. But the Paumotuan not only saves, grudges, and works, he steals besides; or, to be more precise, he swindles. He will never deny a debt, he only flees his creditor. He is always keen for an advance; so soon as he has fingered it he disappears. He knows your ship; so soon as it nears one island, he is off to another. You may think you know his name; he has already changed it. Pursuit in that infinity of isles were fruitless. The result ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... investigation, you must, after all, take the man who has no interest whatever in its results: he is the warranted incapable, the positive fool. The most useful investigator, because the most sensitive observer, is always he whose eager interest in one side of the question is balanced by an equally keen nervousness lest he become deceived.[3] Science has organized this nervousness into a regular technique, her so-called method of verification; and she has fallen so deeply in love with the method that one may even say she has ceased to care for truth by itself ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... fixed his keen eyes on the boy who was now on his feet, motionless, his brows knitted. He was a little bewildered by the unexpectedness of the thing. Yet he did understand—tumultuously, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... courage, and, after the first instant of shock, she had herself in hand. She had quickly observed his condition, had marked the candour of the eye and the decision and character of the face, and doubt of him found no place in her mind. She had the keen observation of the dweller in lonely places, where every traveller has the potentialities of a foe, while the door of hospitality is opened to him after the custom of the wilds. Year in, year out, since she was a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the leopard are the whiskers. You cannot get a skin from a native with them on, and gay, reckless young hunters wear them stuck in their hair and swagger tremendously while the Elders shake their heads and keep a keen eye on their ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... to one of the great modistes, a creator of gowns known on two continents, and Daphne had Miss Doane wait in a reception-room while she interviewed the great lady herself. This arbitrator of fashion came smilingly to Miss Doane and with her keen, professional eye saw her "possibilities." ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... temper with ready wit, and much resolution of character. His wife was hardly formed for popularity, but she was highly respected. She was not exactly open-handed, but she had a great idea of the claims of family ties, and a keen sense of justice as between herself and others. The couple were unusually devoted to each other. The only crook in their lot appeared to be the constant gout attacks from which the husband suffered, and the necessity for frequent visits to Bath: visits, by the way, which had helped ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... every portion, exhibits traces of former prosperity and immense population. Even these uninhabited and chilly regions, up to an elevation of seven thousand feet, are not blank pages in the book of Nature, but the hand of man is so distinctly traced that the keen observer can read with tolerable certainty the existence of a nation long since ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... soon as these tidings were spread abroad, every one else was indifferent as to whether they went or not; but of those girls who, day after day, never put their foot outside the doorstep, which of them was not keen upon going, the moment they heard the permission conceded to them? Even if any of their respective mistresses were too lazy to move, they employed every expedient to induce them to go. Hence it was that Li Kung-ts'ai and the other inmates signified their unanimous intention ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Already the keen salt air of the ocean smote their faces. Ramona drank it in with delight. "I taste salt in the air, Alessandro," ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... also on the part of apprehension: because the apprehension of reason and imagination is of a higher order than the apprehension of the sense of touch. Consequently inward pain is, simply and of itself, more keen than outward pain: a sign whereof is that one willingly undergoes outward pain in order to avoid inward pain: and in so far as outward pain is not repugnant to the interior appetite, it becomes in a manner pleasant and agreeable by way of inward joy. Sometimes, however, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... their immediate protection. The Barons possessed everything and ruled everything for their own profit; they defended their privileges with their lives, and they avenged the slightest infringement on their powers by the merciless shedding of blood. They were ignorant, but they were keen; they were brave, but they were faithless; they were passionate, licentious and ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... down very considerably during the night, and had hauled round to about due north; the sea went rapidly down; the sky was cloudless and intensely blue; the air became keen and frosty; and when the sun rose, it found us standing to the westward under topgallant- sails, without a single sail ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... forbidding and imperious. For even people of no notable height, with soft features, dark brown eyes, and a delightful little laugh, may appear rather regal at times. Lambert did not quite understand why she should take this attitude. If he had been as keen regarding his own affairs of the affections as in the case of Frank Armour and his Indian bride, he had known that every woman has in her mind the occasion when she should and when she should not be wooed, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... aspects see Plotinus, translated by T. Taylor. Porphyry was, after Plotinus, the greatest of the Neo-Platonists, and brought out most clearly those religious elements which were rivals to Christianity. His attack upon Christianity was keen and bitter, and he was consequently especially hated by the Christians. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... little dog, but he takes such an extremely keen interest in hunting, and is so active, that when he is out on the grounds with us we merely catch glimpses of him as he flashes by. The other night after the Judicial Reception when we went up-stairs to supper the kitchen cat suddenly appeared parading ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... whom I recognized as having been present in court when Carter was brought up before the magistrates; a quiet, noticing sort of man whom I remembered as appearing to take great and intelligent interest in the proceedings. And he and the other man now with him seemed to take just as keen an interest in what Chisholm and I had to tell; but while Murray was full of questions to both of us, they asked none. Only—during that questioning—the man whom I had never seen before quietly lifted the hanging which I had spread over Hollins's dead body, and took ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... Keeler was over eighty years old. He had a tall, powerful frame—at least, it spoke of great power in the past—and I thought his eye must have been uncommonly dark and keen once. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... was ended at last and Uncle Rufus wheeled out Aunt Sarah's beautiful sewing table, with her other smaller presents upon it. Ruth told her how happy it made them all to give it to her. Aunt Sarah's keen eye lit up as she was shown all the interesting things about her new acquisition; but all the verbal comment she made was that she thought "you gals better be in better business than buying gewgaws for an old woman ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... social board The impetuous flood tide poured Of curbless mirth, and keen sparkling jest Vanished like wine-foam ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... Masashige, whose picture was the daily object of his prayers and worship. All was grist to the mill of his designs; but not association with such a chief—or lieutenant—as Kosaka Jinnai. Forewarned Marubashi and Yoshida (Dentatsu) held coldly off and sought no intimacy. Thus watched by keen wits of greater comprehension Jinnai rushed on his course into the claws of Aoyama Shu[u]zen and the meshes of the Tokugawa code for criminals of ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... his first sociable with the representatives of the money power, neither he nor they had a very keen perception of what they wanted of each other; the rebellion was not then developed in the gigantic proportions it has since assumed; and it was hoped and expected, with some show of reason, that two or three hundred millions would be ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... black forest of pines, pricking the sky with their black spires, and in front of it the ground fell sharply to the valley, in which no light gleamed; beyond the valley rose the dim hills again. Nor was there any sound except the torrent. The air at this height was keen and fresh with a smell of primeval earth. Wogan hitched his cloak about his throat, and his boots rang upon the rock. The Princess raised her head; Wogan walked to the door and stood for a little ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... that the insectivorous bats, though nocturnal, are deficient in that keen vision characteristic of animals which take their prey ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... of the tame or domestic duck. But perhaps you have never noticed its curious bill, which is constructed so as to filter, through its toothed edges, the soft mud in which these birds love to dabble. The tongue of the duck is full of nerves, so that its sense of taste is very keen, and thus provided the bird can find out all that is savoury to its palate in puddles, ponds, etc., and throwing away all that is tasteless, swallow only what it likes. Try and examine the bill of the next duck that you see, and you will discover this wonderful apparatus which ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... lady will ever be guilty of personality in conversation. No wit, however keen; no sarcasm, however humorous, can make personal remarks anything ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... nightfall of the same day, on one of the little inner islands, Marcel Lefort stood leaning upon his long boat paddle, awaiting orders; his pirogue was drawn up among the reeds hard by. He lifted his head, but hardly had his keen eye caught the shadowy outlines of a boat on the bay before ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... suggestion; he suppressed himself and his own tastes completely and utterly; and he found too, to his vast delight, that he could be entertaining and amusing. The books he had read, the fiction with which he had crammed himself, his keen eye for idiosyncrasies and absurdities, all came to his assistance, and he was amply repaid by ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... reckoned with even by the "powers" along the line of rail. They were the two chiefs of the "underground," the men who controlled the most dangerous element from Miette to Fort George. He had once seen Culver Rann, a quiet, keen-eyed, immaculately groomed man of forty—the cleverest scoundrel that had ever drifted into the Canadian west. He had been told that Rann was really the brain of the combination, and that the two had picked up a quarter of a million in various ways. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... error of his thought became manifest to him, whenas he saw the green down on his cheeks dispread like myrtles springing from the heart of a rose bright-red. And he feared his onslaught and quoth he to those with him, "Woe to you! Let one of you charge down upon him and show him the keen sword and the quivering spear; for know that when many do battle with one man it is foul shame, even though he be a kemperly wight and an invincible knight." Upon this, there ran at Kanmakan a horseman like a lion in fight, mounted ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... extraordinarily tall young man, with a keen hatchet face, restless brown eyes, and straight auburn hair parted accurately in the middle—considered ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... day into the darkness of the night. For two years and a half—longer than almost any other here—she had pursued her labors in this hospital, and with her ready sympathy with the suffering or wronged, had ministered to many needy ones the balm of comfort and healing. Her quick wit and keen repartee has served to brighten up many an hour otherwise dull and unhomelike in our little circle of workers, gathered ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... are all afoot. The truth is, our own country hasn't enough combat planes to send out a patrol. They are developing some mystery motor, I hear, but I'm not very keen about trying out any mystery motors. Our Camels are mystery enough to suit me. When I'm up against the ceiling with a fast flying Albatross or tri-plane Fokker on my tail, I don't want any mysteries to handle. No, Red, for the ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... broad, sturdy man, with thick brown hair over keen watchful eyes. His open look was fearless and winning. His hands, which grasped the rail, had both the strength and the skill of the trained mechanic and the writer. For John Williams could build a ship, make ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... together, and Estelle's improved health and spirits were proof enough. The gardens of the two houses, which joined, the woods, the rocks, the sea, were more than enough to keep them all happy and occupied; and to Estelle was added the keen pleasure of an only child to whom everything ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... clever man, and a keen observer: he had seen many different people owing to his profession, and was fond of reflection, condemned as he was ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... web of life my mother spread Around my infant head, and so I grew, An image of my sire; and my mute look Was aye a bitter and a keen reproof To her and base AEgisthus[1]. Oh, how oft, When silently within our gloomy hall Electra sat, and mus'd beside the fire, Have I with anguish'd spirit climb'd her knee, And watch'd her bitter tears with sad amaze! Then would she tell me of our noble ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... in closing to say a few words of Dr. Storrs as a friend. Through many years he was not only my pastor but the most honored and beloved friend of my life. His sense of humor was keen, and his playfulness of manner constituted not the least of his charms to those who knew him intimately. He never seemed to take a narrow view of any subject, but was always lenient to and tolerant of those whose ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 3, July, 1900 • Various
... was still more inclined when he found how noiselessly they approached, and saw that the horse looked pale, and remembered what he had read about Death in the Revelation. He therefore deposited the collar by a tree, and hid himself behind it. The horseman came on, and the youth, whose eyes were as keen as telescopes, to his great ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... the naval officer's keen kindly face grew stern and hard. "Germans I can respect," said he, "even those that pretend to be our friends. But one of our own folk—to sell us like this—ugh! Take the vermin away; Dawson, and stamp ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... he mused, "is, no doubt, keen-eyed and eminently shrewd, and one in this world who has ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... will content myself with the horse." Burton was willing to hope, and allowed himself once more to fill into his old pleasant way of talking about the business, as though there were no other subject under the sun so full of manifold interest. He was very keen at the present moment about Metropolitan railways, and was ridiculing the folly of those who feared that the railway projectors were going too fast. "But we shall never get any thanks," he said. "When the thing has been done, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... years of sleep-unsheltered hours, And moments aye divided by keen pangs Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, Scorn and despair,—these are mine empire. More glorious far than that which thou surveyest From thine unenvied throne, O, Mighty God! Almighty, had I deigned to share ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... far gone in misery to speculate as to how this genial stranger came to know his name. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Windlebird, keen student of the illustrated press, had recognized Roland by his photograph in the Daily Mirror. In the course of the twenty yards' walk from house to tennis-lawn she had put her husband into possession of the more salient points in Roland's history. ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... drab light of the early day fell upon the faces and the melancholy funeral lights. The coming of the day, keen and cold, had a depressing effect upon the atmosphere of the room, ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... 'leaden messenger of death,' as meteor-like he flashed by us. One bound, and the noble animal lay prostrate within fifty feet of where I stood. Leaping from my horse, and placing one knee upon his shoulder, and a hand upon his antlers, I drew my hunting knife; but scarcely had its keen point touched his neck, when, with a sudden bound, he threw me from his body, and my knife was hurled from my hand. In hunters' parlance, I had only 'creased him.' I at once saw my danger, but it was too late. With one bound, he was upon me, wounding ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... himself up on his elbows. His keen ears had caught a distant purring sound. Two yellow balls of fire were rapidly approaching—the headlights of a ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... the poet's childhood; and during his visit to the Brownings in Paris he had produced many of these drawings which became the delight of his grandson as well. The Paris streets furnished him with some inimitable suggestions, and Robert Barrett Browning, to this day, preserves many of these keen and humorous and extremely clever drawings of his grandfather. Thierry, the historian, who was suffering from blindness, sent to the Brownings a request that they would call on him, with which they immediately complied, and they were much interested in his views on France. The one disappointment ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... persons, I fancy, who "do" the Alps; who look upon the Lake of Lucerne as one more task ticked off from their memorandum book, and count up the list of summits visible from the Goernergrat without being penetrated with any keen sense of sublimity. And there are mountaineers who are capable of making a pun on the top of Mont Blanc—and capable of nothing more. Still I venture to deny that even punning is incompatible with poetry, or that those who make the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Artillery are excellent; their Heavy Artillery is handicapped, in comparison with ours, by its smaller ammunition supply and fewer opportunities for prolonged practice, but its methods are scientific and its personnel very keen and capable. The Italian Engineers have done much wonderful work, to which I ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... brother, with a longer chin and a peculiar twist of the lips. His eyes were lighter in colour, and rather too close together. A keen observer would have put him down as a boy who in manhood might go wrong. The strange thing was that no one could have hesitated for a moment in selecting Luke as the cleverer ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... happy emotion, of admiration, of keen looking forward, was the property of the past. Lawn sleeves, purple, perhaps,—for who is more hopeful than this type of woman in the golden moments of life?—perhaps even an archiepiscopal throne faded from before the eyes they had ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... same time so mixed with kindness, with thoughtful consideration for him, that the wonder was he did not succumb. "I must find out," she said to herself, "whether he does really care for me." How to do so she did not quite know—but woman's wits are proverbially keen. ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... records as paying in that month a fine of twelve-pence for having a dirt-heap in front of his house. His frequent appearances in the years that follow as either plaintiff or defendant in suits heard in the local court of record for the recovery of small debts suggest that he was a keen man of business. In early life he prospered in trade, and in October 1556 purchased two freehold tenements at Stratford—one, with a garden, in Henley Street (it adjoins that now known as the poet's birthplace), and the ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... whim, when the Baron was out of hearing, the Bailie used sometimes gently to rally Mr. Rubrick, upbraiding him with the nicety of his scruples. Indeed it must be owned, that he himself, though at heart a keen partisan of the exiled family, had kept pretty fair with all the different turns of state in his time; so that Davie Gellatley once described him as a particularly good man, who had a very quiet and peaceful conscience, THAT ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... I loved Nettie still, but now with the intensest jealousy, with the keen, unmeasuring hatred of wounded pride, and baffled, ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... day, the air is keen and sweet here in the heart of the old-fashioned garden, full of the odor of budding leaves and freshly-turned earth, mingled with the perfume of the great lilac-trees, which are ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... Some keen observer of human nature has said, "Would you know a man's real disposition, ask him to dinner, and give him ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... his head and ceased his operations on the dusty hat. His keen old eyes, full of opposition, were fixed on Eve's face. He was quite ready to be rude again, but women know how to avoid these shallow places better than men, with a policy which is not ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... clear to Nasmyth that she had been observing him, but he did not realize that she was then watching him with keen, half-covert curiosity. He was certainly a well-favoured man, and though his conversation and demeanour did not differ greatly from those of other young men she was accustomed to; there was also something ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... stepped forward, and the illusion passed. "I thank you," he said, holding out his hand, "for taking me at my word, and answering me thus in person." He paused a moment, surveying Lionel's countenance with a keen but not unkindly eye, and added softly, "Very ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... healthy tan on Clayton's face, his brown hair crisply curled upon a well-set head, his keen blue eye and soldierly mustache finely setting off ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... glad of the opportunity for a short rest, and both boys were hungry. The moment they had eaten, however, the Indians were on their feet keen for the chase. The sledge was lightly laden now, and the dogs traveled so rapidly that Charley and Toby were able to ride much of the time, though the Indians ran ahead to keep ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... things. All this, irrelevant and egotistic as it may seem, is related by way of accounting for the meagreness of the light that I am able to throw upon a subject that has engaged so much of my attention, and concerning which there is so keen and general a curiosity. With my powers and opportunities, another person might doubtless have an explanation for much of what I present simply ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... looked up he had seen a speck in the vaulted heaven. It was slowly soaring around and around in vast circles, and with each circle coming nearer and nearer to the ground. A pair of keen and powerful eyes were aloft there piercing the distance, looking, searching, in every direction, until at last their glance fell upon the figure upon the rock. The circling stopped. There was a swift rush through the air. A black feathered body passed between the buccaneer and the sun, and ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... plainly directed against Lady Bradstone, who was a zealous patriot: her ladyship retorted, by some reflections equally keen, but rather more politely expressed, each party addressing their inuendoes to the bookseller, who afraid to disoblige either the rich or the fashionable, preserved, as much as it was in the power of his muscles, a perfectly neutral countenance. At last, in order to relieve himself from his constraint, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... nights. As the "good run" meant milder weather, a night or two was not a bitter experience; indeed, I have never heard any one speak nor seen any account of a night spent in a sugar-camp except with keen expressions of delight. If possible, the time was chosen during a term of moonlight; the snow still covered the fields and its pure shining white light could be ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... zest, by their being for him, for his amusement. She rode and walked in the beautiful open spring country with grandpapa, to whom she was a most valuable companion; and on her return she had two to visit, both of whom looked forward with keen interest and delight to hearing her histories of down and wood, of field and valley, of farm-house, cottage, or school; had a laugh for the least amusing circumstance, admiration for the spring flower ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... confines himself—provided he sticks to his theme. It often tells no more about the substance of the thought within those limits than a man's name tells about his character. It is usually easy to tell "what a page is about"; but it usually requires keen thinking to word its principal idea sharply in a full sentence. Many students are inaccurate in the interpretation of authors and in their own thinking, not so much because they lack mental ability as because they lack the energy to continue their thinking to this point of wording ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... notice of the fact that her companions were pretty nearly too blown to speak. There was a brisk life and color in her face, and all her attention was absorbed in watching the flight of the birds. Lavender fancied he saw in the fixed and keen look something of old Mackenzie's gray eye: it was the first trace of a likeness to her father ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... the papers. I guess they got what they deserved. The workin' people in the world ain't any too keen on buyin' any more diamond tiaras for loafers. I reckon it was about time for a new deal all around ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... advanced that you knew Monsieur le Comte. But there was madame, who, it is said, was at one time affianced to you." Mazarin was a keen physiognomist; and as he read the utter bewilderment written on the Chevalier's face, his ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... Press, like that of the United States or Great Britain, the truth on any question of public interest is reasonably certain to come to light sooner or later. Competition is keen, and if one paper does not dig up and publish the facts, a rival is likely to do so. The German Press was gaining a limited degree of freedom before the war, but that has been wiped away. As in other belligerent countries news of ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... furs, took seats on our respective sledges, and at a laconic "tok" (go) from the taiyon we were off; the little cluster of tents looking like a group of conical islands behind us as we swept out upon the limitless ocean of the snowy steppe. Noticing that I shivered a little in the keen air, my driver pointed away to the northward, and exclaimed with a pantomimic shrug, "Tam shipka kholodno"—"There it's awful cold." We needed not to be informed of the fact; the rapidly sinking thermometer indicated our approach to the regions of perpetual frost, and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... tender to something particularly hard. He was an orphan, and had inherited nothing from his parents save a dash of the artist from his mother. It was not enough to help him to earn a living, but it transformed itself into a keen appreciation and some ambitions in literature, and it gave a light and shade to his character which made him rather complex, and therefore interesting. His best friends could not deny the shade, and yet it was but the shadow thrown ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... descended the hill, my heart expanded and my spirits rose under the influences which surrounded me. The keen, clear, bracing air of the morning, the bright, slanting sunshine, the merry songs of the small birds, and the distant sounds of awakening labour that floated up from the plains, all conspired to stir my heart within me, and more like a mad-cap boy, broken loose from school, than a man of sober ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the passage causes it to be nearly filled up. In some places there is not more than the vacancy of a foot left, which you must contrive to pass through in a creeping posture, like a snail, on pointed and keen stones, that cut like glass. After getting through these passages, some of them two or three hundred yards long, you generally find a more commodious place, perhaps high enough to sit. But what a place of rest! surrounded by bodies, by heaps of mummies in all directions; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... concluding, that if they did not take steps to disperse their nocturnal visitors (who treated them to numerous appeals which were anything but euphonic), they would stand a very poor chance of enjoying any rest. Besides the probability that a keen appetite might induce the dogs to extend their favours to the horses, it was also a matter of prudence to insist upon their removing themselves to some more distant location; and to support this with a forcible argument, the travellers ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... greatest of the Greeks—a keen pleasure, intellectual and aesthetic, awaits the man who turns to Plato's Republic and his Laws. Jowett's great translation is in every public library. And we must read Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and his Politics. Here little ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... myself,—I, who have a "clearness of understanding," "a power of discrimination between different kinds of Truth[359]" unknown to the Apostolic Age!" ... Of course the preacher does not say all this. He has too keen a sense of "the dignity of the pulpit." And so he puts it somewhat thus:—"While we are disposed to recognize substantial agreement, and general conformity in respect of details, among the synoptical witnesses, in their leading external outlines, we are yet constrained to withhold our unqualified ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... thousands like him," she remarked,—"good-looking, very British, keen sportsman, lots of pluck, just a little careless, hating to talk about himself and serious things. I have known him since he was ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... once my pleasure to spend an evening with Jim in his home; really a football home. Mrs. Rodgers knows much of football and as Jim enthusiastically and with wonderfully keen recollection tells of the old games, a twelve-year-old boy listens, as only a boy can to his father, his great hero, and as Jim puts his hand on the boy's shoulders he tells him the ideal of his dreams is to have him make the Yale team some day, and ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... Tarifa, though we had promised ourselves going from the first. But it was very charming to linger in the civilization of that hotel; to wander through its garden paths in the afternoon after a forenoon's writing and inhale the keen aromatic odors of the eucalyptus, and when the day waned to have tea at an iron table on the seaward terrace. Or if we went to Gibraltar, it was interesting to wonder why we had gone, and to be so glad of getting back, and after dinner joining ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... his ambition. Any systematic training of the historical processes by which a particular language had been developed was unknown, and of course the result could not be anticipated. The work, indeed, required a keen logical faculty of definition, and wide reading of the English literature of the two preceding centuries; but it could of course give no play either for the higher literary faculties on points of scientific investigation. A dictionary in Johnson's sense was ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... us were swarthy men of mixed blood. They were barefooted and scantily clad, and each carried a long, clumsy spear and a keen machete, in the use of which he was an expert. Now and then, in thick jungle, we had to cut out a path, and it was interesting to see one of them, although cumbered by his unwieldy spear, handling his half-broken little horse with complete ease while ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... what I have to suffer is so keen that the absence of the habitual object of my love would kill me. When I was unknown to you, I gradually approached closer and closer to you, until—but let us not go into the past. Little by little my letters ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... about to rush forward and secure the prize—the lost pocketbook—but caution whispered, 'Be sharp! you may be seen.' And then, with the cunning and slyness of an old thief—thus suddenly taught by keen suffering—he sauntered along, crossing the gutter, stumbled and fell; then put out his hand, covered and secured his treasure, slowly arose, and feigning a slight lameness, he retraced his steps towards the depot, entered the waiting-room, which ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... the railway, and, mapped in points of light on the opposite slope, the streets of Bursley. To the right the eternal conflagration of the Cauldon Bar furnaces illumined the sky with wavering amber. And on the keen air came to her from the distance noises, soft but impressive, of ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... mentions his other preparations for holy orders. If he walked out with his bull-terrier, it was generally to Bagley Wood, where a pretty, dizened gipsy girl named Selina told fortunes; and henceforward he took a keen interest in Selina's race. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... sternly. He rose with more open signs of agitation than Reuben had yet seen in him, and walked hurriedly to and fro. "Reuben! Reuben!" he repeated, in a voice of keen reproach. "Ah! when was ever youth and folly separate? I never thought thee wast the lad to cry thine uncle's trouble ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... and no mistake, for the blow from the keen sword had struck it at a sharp angle, and cut three parts of the way through the thick metal tube, which had been driven with tremendous force ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... the political testament of the great university doctor in exile. The Maid's victory gladdened the last days of his life. With his dying voice he sings the Song of Miriam. But with his rejoicings over this happy event are mingled the sad presentiments of keen-sighted old age. While in the Maid he beholds a subject for the rejoicing and edification of the people, he is afraid that the hopes she inspires may soon be disappointed. And he warns those who now exalt her in the hour of triumph not ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... his lips the great black bow was bent and ere the echoes died away the horse, struck in its side by the keen arrow, sank dying to ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... better than, they ever did in their lives. Three camels make no material addition to your baggage train, while, as there are thirty or forty of us, it would make a serious item in ours, and the General's keen eyes would ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... qualified to observe in their turn, and to describe, the metropolis of the East. The ambassador of the great Otho, a bishop of Cremona, has painted the state of Constantinople about the middle of the tenth century: his style is glowing, his narrative lively, his observation keen; and even the prejudices and passions of Liutprand are stamped with an original character of freedom and genius. [11] From this scanty fund of foreign and domestic materials, I shall investigate the form and substance of the Byzantine empire; the provinces and wealth, the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... half-a-share, "by reason that, when they take a better vessel than their own, it is the duty of the boys to set fire to the ship or boat wherein they are, and then retire to the prize which they have taken." All shares were allotted on the good old rule: "No prey, No pay," so that all had a keen incentive to bestir themselves. They were also "very civil and charitable to each other," observing "among themselves, very good orders." They sailed together like a company of brothers, or rather, since that were an imperfect simile, like a company ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... Cris, y' mean? Wot's a woman, or a 'ole bloomin' depot o' women, 'longside o' the chanst of field-service? You know I'm as keen on goin' as you," ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... but it prevents the heartburn, which maere causes when taken alone. I take mushrooms boiled instead; but the meat is never refused when we can purchase it, as it seems to ease the feeling of fatigue which jungle-fruit and fare engenders. The appetite in this country is always very keen, and makes hunger worse to bear: the want of salt, probably, makes the gnawing ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... of "thick oak" so strong that we could not feel them vibrate when we tried to shake them, and so firmly locked in the middle that we almost despaired of opening them. The wall was too high to scale, and for a moment it looked as though our journey had been in vain. But Betty's keen wits came ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... forward in this manner several hundred yards, not a word being spoken, and the keen eyes of both the hunters constantly ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... essentially the city of intelligence in early modern times. Other nations have surpassed the Italians in their genius ... but nowhere else except at Athens has the whole population of a city been so permeated with ideas, so highly intellectual by nature, so keen in perception, so witty and so subtle, as at Florence." (Symonds, J. A., The Renaissance ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... proved astonishingly difficult. The two women were in an extraordinary condition now. They were continually on the alert. In fact, the word "alert" scarcely described the state of mind, the keen, desperate watchfulness which filled every one of their waking hours, and caused each to remain awake as long as possible; so that they invariably fell to sleep without warning. They could not be ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... of our factory?" asked the man of business and of success, turning his keen, aggressive face towards ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... the loyal salutation spiritedly, and awoke a prompt response from the mountaineer, who sounded his voice wide in the keen upper air. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on down the river to Glenora in a fine canoe owned and manned by Kitty, a stout, intelligent-looking Indian woman, who charged her passengers a dollar for the fifteen-mile trip. Her crew was four Indian paddlers. In the rapids she also plied the paddle, with stout, telling strokes, and a keen-eyed old man, probably her husband, sat high in the stern and steered. All seemed exhilarated as we shot down through the narrow gorge on the rushing, roaring, throttled river, paddling all the more vigorously the faster the ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... have charmed you to hear with what modesty he recounted the services which his father and grandfather had done to the corporation; with what eloquence he expatiated upon the shameful infraction of the treaty subsisting between the two families; and with what keen and spirited strokes of satire he retorted the sarcasms ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... upon him sufferings such as few in modern times have had to endure. The solemn anthem chanted over his grave, "His body is buried in peace, but his memory shall live for ever," echoed far and wide, and awakened in every breast keen sentiments of sympathy for what he had borne and of pride in what ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... of view the character of Eugene Field is seen, genius—rare and quaint presents itself is childlike simplicity. That he was a poet of keen perception, of rare discrimination, all will admit. He was a humorist as delicate and fanciful as Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, Bill Nye, James Whitcomb Riley, Opie Read, or Bret Harte in their happiest moods. Within him ran a poetic vein, capable of being worked in any direction, and ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... the can slipped, and some of the oil was spilled on the floor. This terrified Mell, for that kitchen-floor was the idol of Mrs. Davis's heart. It was scrubbed every day, and kept as white as snow. Mell knew that her step-mother's eyes would be keen as Blue Beard's to detect a spot; and, with all the energy of despair, she rubbed and scoured with soap and hot water. It was all in vain. The spot ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... perpendicular heights of Jersey and the slopes and bluffs of New York. It was a morning, and a piece of nature, to make the quicksilver in Hamilton race. The arch was blue, the tide was bluer, the smell of salt was in the keen and frosty air. Two boats with full white sails flew up the river. On either bank the primeval forest had burst in a night into scarlet and gold, pale yellow and crimson, bronze, pink, the flaming hues of the Tropics, and the delicate tints ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... watch (the chain broken) found in his waistcoat pocket. In his coat-pocket were found (of course, in no very presentable condition) his cigar-case, his initials stamped on it, for Mark had, in his day, a keen sense of property; his handkerchief, also marked; a pocket-book with some entries nearly effaced; and a letter unopened, and sealed with Lord Chelford's seal. The writing was nearly washed away, but the letters 'lwich,' or 'twich,' were still legible ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... stirless surface of the ground The hot air trembles. In pale glittering haze Wavers the sky. Along the horizon's rim, Breaking its mist, are peaks of coppery clouds. Keen darts of light are shot from every leaf, And the whole landscape droops in sultriness. With languid tread, I drag myself along Across the wilting fields. Around my steps Spring myriad grasshoppers, their cheerful notes Loud in my ear. The ground ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... a boy,—fortunately, for I don't admire the name Edwina, and I shouldn't have liked to handicap a child with it. Carlotta and Ed were delighted, but I felt a momentary keen disappointment. I had wanted a girl. Girls never leave their parents completely, as boys do. Also I should rather have looked forward to my child's having a sheltered life, one in which the fine and beautiful ideals do not have to be ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... feet, dropped down in a full power dive, and"—he gestured widely—"biff! The flames caught us neatly at the regulation thousand feet. They got thirteen men. Only two got away, Praed and myself." His keen eyes were inquiring, and the ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free: And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea. All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught: And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things distraught. And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind: And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart of Ind. Such glory, ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... live. It was a boom town with material reasons for substantial growth. Behind it were the resources of a railroad company which would anticipate the development of a section of country bigger than a dozen Old-world states, and men with brains keen enough to realize the commercial possibilities it held. It had Corrigan for an advance agent—big, ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... devouring thick slices of bread and butter. He wore a long blue overcoat over his uniform, and high boots. But the dominant note was given to his appearance by the thick white beard which seemed to be touched with a light silver frost. Under the great thatch of eyebrow the keen little eyes twinkled. He made John think of a huge, ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hear of a man who has been a leader among men—a brilliant lawyer, a keen thinker—taken from his place and confined in a hospital for the insane. The same evil power has done this. ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... back on her knees to the room to shut out the poisoned air from pursuing them into the passage. After closing the door, she waited, without daring to look at him the while, for strength enough to rise and get to the window over the stairs. When the window was opened, when the keen air of the early winter morning blew steadily in, she ventured back to him and raised his head, and looked for the first time closely at ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... they have a keen sense of the enjoyment consequent upon what they call being "well." They admire mental health and love it in other people, and take all the pains they can (consistently with their other duties) to secure it for themselves. ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... just as keen as they make them, and it is his great sorrow that, being in an important Government office, he is not allowed to enlist. For my liking he is too smart; when he does a "right-turn" he does it with a jerk that you can ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... the supposed gambols of the two men with keen, but impersonal, interest. But here at last was something he could understand. Instinct teaches practically every dog the sinister nature of a thrown object. The man on the ground had hurled something at the man whom the collie had begun ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... in his pew under the gallery. He sat down again at once, but everybody in view had seen him, and that night folks in all the length and breadth of Grafton River discussed the dramatic occurrence with keen enjoyment. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of questionnaire returns classified peculiar children as heavy, tall, short, small, strong, weak, deft, agile, clumsy, beautiful, ugly, deformed, birthmarked, keen and precocious, defective in sense, mind, and speech, nervous, clean, dainty, dirty, orderly, obedient, disobedient, disorderly, teasing, buoyant, buffoon, cruel, selfish, generous, sympathetic, inquisitive, lying, ill-tempered, silent, dignified, frank, loquacious, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... of the day and night This wretched Woman thither goes; And she is known to every star, And every wind that blows; 70 And there, beside the Thorn, she sits When the blue daylight's in the skies, And when the whirlwind's on the hill, Or frosty air is keen and still And to herself she cries, 75 'Oh misery! oh misery! Oh woe ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Marsilio, Plato became a god and Gemisthos not less than divine for bringing the tidings. He kept a lamp always burning before Plato's bust, and later founded the Platonic Academy, at which Plato's works were discussed, orations delivered, and new dialogues exchanged, between such keen minds as Marsilio, Pulci, Landini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Leon Battista Alberti, the architect and scholar, Pico dell a Mirandola, the precocious disputant and aristocratic mystic, Poliziano, the tutor of Lorenzo's sons, and Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. It was thus from the ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... We saw plenty of squirrels and pigeons on the trees which overhung the river, and we shot and picked up as many as we thought we could use for food. When we fired our guns the echoes rolled up and down the river for miles making the feeling of loneliness still more keen, as the sound died faintly away. We floated along generally very quietly. We could see the fish dart under our boat from their feeding places along the bank, and now and then some tall crane would spread his broad wings to ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... to be a very rash proceeding," Harry said. "It is true that Bajee has apparent liberty, and can have with him in his camp many of his friends; but a gathering of armed men can scarcely escape the eye of so keen an observer as Balloba." ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... ten of them, big tan and white collies, vying with one another to come first to their master. Splendid animals all of them, but at the fore ran the most splendid of them all, the father and patriarch of his flock. It was his keen nostril and eye that was wont first to know who came; his superb strength and speed carried him well in the lead and he guarded his supremacy jealously. His sharp teeth snapped viciously when a hardy son ran close at his side and the youngster, though he snarled and bristled, swerved ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... and, as Frankl fell, he gave him one other in the temple, with "Down, down to hell, and sye I sent thee thither"; and to dead O'Hara near he gave one in the cheek, with "Go up, thou bald-head, it is": all in two seconds' space; and he was now about to turn anew to hack at Frankl, when his keen ear heard a creak; and he sprang up a spinning motionlessness—the Reality ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... the room restored me. I knew not whence it came, but its soft presence yielding to my keen detector restored my professional pride and self-respect. I then felt I was something of a detective after all. I eyed a revolving ventilator in the window-pane as a possible avenue of its entrance from the culinary department. I did not ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... kafirs, when out to-day, only one would come to me; he was a very tall man, with a savage face, light keen eyes, returning from a forage on the Safis: he was an Arunsha man, and a Tor kafir, who are represented as very different from the Espheen or white ones, who are found in the mountains adjacent to Balk, etc. Arunsha is three days journey from this, and has a lame, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith |
