"Witted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... barking of the dogs, which soon came sniffing around the log. What shall they do now? Isaac is quick-witted. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... one or two of the more quick-witted men. Kennedy reached over and pulled me with him quickly ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... was not Dolores. Intimate as the devoted sisters were, Inez knew almost as much of the Princess as Dolores herself; the two girls were of the same height, and so long as the conversation was carried on in whispers, there was no possibility of detection by speech alone. The quick-witted blind girl reflected that it was strange if Dona Ana had not seen Dolores, who must have been with the court the whole evening, and she feared some harm. That being the case, her first impulse was to help her sister if possible, ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... had dropped into something of a routine in their daily lives. Bill's interest and participation in social affairs became negligible. Of Hazel's circle he classed some half dozen people as desirable acquaintances, and saw more or less of them—Kitty Brooks and her husband; Vesta Lorimer, a keen-witted young woman upon whom nature had bestowed a double portion of physical attractiveness and a talent akin to genius for the painting of miniatures; her Brother Paul, who was the silent partner in a brokerage firm; Doctor Hart, a silent, grim-visaged physician, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... instead of welcoming him, she only treated him with resentment and scorn. He knew the quick flash of those eyes, he had seen it before on other occasions. This was not the first time they had quarrelled, yet he, keen-witted and cunning, had always held her powerless to elude him, had always compelled her to give him the sums he so constantly demanded. That morning, however, she was distinctly resentful, ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... at her own request! Why, a quick-witted young lady like Mlle. Gerbois, who, moreover, harbours a secret passion at the bottom of her heart, was hardly likely to refuse the opportunity of securing her dowry. Oh, I assure you it was easy enough to make her understand that there was no other way ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... marvel if she niver come near the place at all," she said. "She's a bird-witted ould lady, an' niver in the wan way a' thinkin' two minutes thegether." But Fly could not have been calm if she had tried. She had spent her time going backwards and forwards to look at the kitchen clock. Now the time had come, dinner was over, Fly had her clean ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... the rest of our prospects out of jail. This sixteenth-witted District Attorney you have in this county had the idea he could charge Stephen Gresham with the killing. I had a time talking him out of it, and I'm still not sure how far I succeeded. And I was trying to get a line on where those ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... luxury of an ample supply of good water; and foreign engineers are doing or have done the same thing for other Spanish cities, though, in fact, only restoring the ancient supplies first constructed by the quick-witted Moors, and wantonly permitted to crumble into ruin by the Spaniards. They are not sufficiently enterprising or progressive to originate any such scheme for the public good. They even dislike the railroads, though they are compelled to use them; dislike them because they force them to observe punctuality, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... face with a great crisis. Of all things this was the most fatal which could have happened to him. Monty alive! He remembered the old man's passionate cry for life, for pleasure, to taste once more, for however short a time, the joys of wealth. Monty alive, penniless, half-witted, the servant of a few ill-paid missionaries, toiling all day for a living, perhaps fishing with the natives or digging, a slave still, without hope or understanding, with the end of his days well in view! Surely it ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... leaning forward to observe the antics of a tumbler who had spread his carpet beneath the trees, when the abate's face suddenly rose to the surface of the throng and his hand thrust a crumpled paper between the curtains of the litter. Odo was quick-witted enough to capture this missive without attracting the notice of his grand-aunts, and stealing a glance at it, he read—"Cavaliere, I starve. When the illustrious ladies descend, for Christ's sake beg a scudo of them for the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the quick-witted count to himself, "she will be doubly disgraced; if he declines to confess, I am at least revenged upon him." So, until the entrance of the policeman, the two men stood and glared at ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... foretell what I was to feel. I suppose she knew I was used to him, after fourteen years of it, and would be inclined to black humours for want of his voice. But she could not know just what Nino is to me, nor how I look on him as my own boy. These peasants are quick-witted and foolish; they guess a great many things better than I could, and then reason ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... marquis said, as they galloped forward. "The dangers you have gone through have made you quick witted indeed, Rupert. ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... conceptions. Without being at all unnatural, he has an amazing fund of peculiarity. Enraptured out of his senses at the voice of a song; thrown into a paroxysm of laughter at sight of the motley-clad and motley-witted Fool; and shedding the twilight of his merry-sad spirit over all the darker spots of human life and character; he represents the abstract and sum-total of an utterly useless yet perfectly harmless man, seeking wisdom by abjuring its first principle. An odd choice mixture ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... lass. You have got to do it, and one of these girls will help you. You were always nimble-witted, and you won't fail your own sister-born in a conspiracy so innocent and so amusing. While I 'm off alone for the cat, you other girls will find out the number of Leuchy's room, and have the nice rich cream ready for poor Jean. She can sleep with me afterwards. Well, then, ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... converse with unrespective boys And iron witted fools. None are for me that look into ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... tell the story! Being English, you were such dull-witted fools that you did not even hide the cartridge cases, or the bones of the Masai you shot! Bah-ha-ha-ha-hah! You can escape hanging yet by telling your secret. Jail you can not escape! Try it if you don't believe ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Carmichael ran up the hill after the retreating figure, and, as she was a good runner, and the poor wanderer was tired, she soon overtook her. Taking both her hands in her own, and kissing the woman, she said: "Come with us, Matilda, and we will drive you home." The half-witted creature responded to the caress, and allowed herself to be led to the boat. "I lost my way," she said. "It is a new road I had never been on before, and I got turned round and came back here three times, and I am very tired." The colonel and Mr. Terry made her enter ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... regulating will of every step that was taken. She never lost her head, or her patience, or her sweet quiet; though she was herself as busy as a bee and at the same time constantly directing the activity of the others. Wise, and quick-witted, and quick to remember, her presence of mind and readiness of resource seemed unfailing. So, as I said, before Saturday night came, an immense deal of work was accomplished, and done in a style that needed not to be done over again. All which, however, was not ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... rude tribesmen, who cannot do a sum of simple addition, or understand the symbolic character of a threepenny bit. We might as well be asked to give civic rights to cows and pigs as to this unhappy, half-witted race who can no more count than the beasts of the field. In every intellectual exercise they are hopelessly incompetent; no Jew can play chess; no Jew can learn languages; no Jew has ever appeared in the smallest part ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... But the Sergeant, although slow-witted as well as ugly, had had his experiences; he had carried weights both in the army and in other institutions which are officially described as His Majesty's, and had seen other men carry them too. From the set of Beaumaroy's figure as he arrived home on at least two occasions ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... Sandy, who will turn up in our history by-and-by, was a half-witted old man, who spent his life in fishing for flounders from a rotten old punt he had become possessed of. He earned a sort of living that way; and seldom went near the shore during the day except to beg for ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... him for the world. The cool, audacious self she exhibited in the camps of the Philistines was never shown to Griffith; in her intercourse with him she was only a slightly intensified edition of the child he had fallen in love with years before,—a bright, quick-witted child, with a deep nature and an immense faculty for loving and clinging to people. Dolly at twenty-two was pretty much what she had been at fifteen, when they had quarrelled and made up again, loved each other and romanced over the future brilliancy of prospect ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this time made overtures of renewed friendship to Caius. Jim was the same as of old—athletic, quick-witted, large and strong, with his freckled face still innocent of hair; the red brush stood up over his unnaturally high forehead in such fashion as to suggest to the imaginative eye that wreath of flame that in some old pictures is displayed round the heads of villains in the infernal regions. Jim was ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... gone, like the darting lizard, up a little puckering side issue of the Dike, at the very same instant that three broad figures and a long one appeared at the lip of the mouth. The quick-witted girl rode on to meet them, to give the poor fugitive time to get into his hole and draw the brown skirt over him. The dazzle of the sun, pouring over the crest, made the hollow a twinkling obscurity; and the cloth was just in keeping with the dead stuff around. The three ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... He wanted to fly at once; he had a horror of beginnings of apprenticeships. His early education had been so neglected that in order to recover lost time he would have been compelled to study hard—all the more so because, although he was quick-witted, and had a marvellous facility for entering into the thoughts of others, his own stock was poor; he had no ideas of his own, nor individuality of mind. He possessed a collection of half-talents; even in music, he was incapable of originating; when he attempted to compose, his inspirations ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... the first to make this discovery, being in the bow of the canoe. He heard no sound, but suddenly there loomed out of the darkness another canoe close to them—so close that they were on the point of running into it when the sharp-witted boy saw it, and, with an adroit turn of his paddle prevented a collision. Then he ceased to paddle, and held his breath. Not knowing what to do next he wisely did nothing, but left matters ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... although from circumstances most easily ascertained, even the assistant-overseer did not take the trouble to make himself acquainted. He was a parish child born in the workhouse, the offspring of a half-witted orphan girl and a sturdy vagrant, partly tinker, partly ballad-singer, who took good care to disappear before the strong arm of justice, in the shape of a tardy warrant and a halting constable, could contrive to intercept his flight. He joined, it was said, a tribe of gipsies, ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... and inventions, and are entertained by their jesters, who, I have it on the authority of a current advertisement, all democratically smoke the same kind of tobacco. 'You know 'em all, the great fun-makers of the daily press, agile-brained and nimble-witted, creators of world-famed characters who put laughter into life. Such live, virile humans as they must have a live, virile pipe-smoke.' There are, to be sure, some who find in this agile-brained and nimble-witted mirth an element of profound melancholy; it seems often a debased coin of humor, which ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... busy work of the final preparation. But Roderick followed me to my berth and had the matter of the handwriting out. I told him at once of the robbery of some of the papers, and the coincidence of the letter which the second mate had left with the skipper. He was quick-witted enough to see the danger; but he was quite reckless in the methods he proposed ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... sweet, and charming thing, that we who are old enough to remember a real modern war know to be the reality of belligerence. This world is for ample living; we want security and freedom; all of us in every country, except a few dull-witted, energetic bores, want to see the manhood of the world at something better than apeing the little lead toys our children buy in boxes. We want fine things made for mankind—splendid cities, open ways, more knowledge and power, and more and more and more—and so I offer my game, for a particular ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... plunged, but we held them together. The Bay Eagle, quick-witted as any woman, crowded the Cardinal close, throwing her weight against his shoulders, and El Mahdi, indifferent, but stubborn as an ox, held his ground as though he were bolted ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... one of the Hollanders' successes. R.R. Wilson says of him, "Bibulous, slow-witted and loose of life and morals, Van Twiller proved wholly unequal to the task in hand." Representing the West India Company, he nevertheless held nefarious commerce with the Indians—it is even reported ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... lips and flushed cheeks made quick-witted Jack Pennington suspect a joke somewhere, but he gravely offered his arm, and as they reached the broad veranda and walked toward a moonlighted corner of it, he said, "Interesting lady, that new aunt of ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... short-witted shepherds are we, the people of these free American States, invited by numbers of citizens to become. Just such, do I say? A thousand times more silly than such. Our national wolf meets us with jaws that drip blood and eyes that glare hunger for more. Instead ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... crafty wickedness of men. Hitherto, according to all evidence, she had shown herself on all occasions, as on all subsequent occasions she indisputably showed herself, the most fearless, the most keen-sighted, the most ready-witted, the most high-gifted and high-spirited of women; gallant and generous, skilful and practical, never to be cowed by fortune, never to be cajoled by craft; neither more unselfish in her ends nor more unscrupulous in her practice than might have been ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... fat-witted, with drinking of old sack and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou would'st truly know. What a devil hast thou ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... the colonel's manner, which the quick-witted child heeded. But she had not associated it with the entrance of the strangers, and as she obediently gulped down her ice, she went ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... you, my dear Ishmael! I knew you would. You will be of great assistance. Of course we must oppose this rascally viscount's petition, and do our best to unmask his villainy. But how to do it? I was never very quick-witted, Ishmael; and now my faculties are blunted with age. But I have much to hope from your aid in this case. I know that you cannot appear publicly for Lady Vincent; but at the same time you may be of ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... in his half-witted way. "That's a joke, too," said he. He knew himself to be necessary to ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Czarina, it was all withdrawn again. [Rodenbeck, ii. 171.] Looking into the deceased Czar's Papers, she found that Friedrich's Letters to him had contained nothing of wrong or offensive; always excellent advices, on the contrary,—advice, among others, To be conciliatory to his clever-witted Wife, and to make her his ally, not his opponent, in living and reigning. In Konigsberg (July 16th, seven days after July 9th), the Russian Governor, just on the point of quitting, emitted Proclamation, to everybody's horror: "No; altered, all that; under pain of death, your ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... who, after uttering some strange blasphemy, was struck with sickness, and died cursing. Another such scene he probably witnessed himself,[1] and never forgot. An alehouse-keeper in the neighbourhood of Elstow had a son who was half-witted. The favourite amusement, when a party was collected drinking, was for the father to provoke the lad's temper, and for the lad to curse his father and wish the devil had him. The devil at last did have the alehouse-keeper, and rent and tore him till he died. 'I,' says Bunyan, 'was ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... that, under circumstances such as these, old maids become, like Richard III., keen-witted, fierce, bold, promissory,—if one may so use the word,—and, like inebriate clerks, no longer ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... But the busy state of Wilder's thoughts left her no immediate opportunity to pursue the subject. He soon summoned the officer of the watch to his councils, and they consulted together, apart, for many minutes. The hardy, but far from quick witted, seaman who tilled the second station in the ship saw nothing so remarkable in the appearance of a strange sail, in the precise spot where the dim and nearly aerial image of the unknown vessel was still visible; nor did ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... to the other stations remained unanswered, because these were already in the hands of the Japanese, whose operators were not quick-witted enough to send back a reassuring answer. As the commander of the fort received no answer, he became suspicious, and these suspicions were soon justified when a number of soldiers were discovered trying to force their way into the narrow land entrance of the fort. A few shots fired during ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... country, so as to feel his way more surely and gradually to its ultimate aim; but he had no intention of burning his shining talents in a grazing district, however tall its grass might grow. His business was not with these stiff-jointed, slow-witted graziers, but with the supple, dangerous, far-seeing men who sit scheming by the gas-light in the great cities, after all the lamps and candles are out from the Merrimac to the Housatonic. Every strong and every weak point of those who might ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... then: Time is not scarce foure dayes old Since I and certaine Dons (sharp-witted fellowes And of good ranke) were with two Jesuits (Grave profound Schollers) in deepe argument Of various propositions; at the last Question was mov'd touching your marriage ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... sheltered his authority under the name of Arrhidaeus, who became the nominal, while Perdikkas was the virtual king of Macedonia. This Arrhidaeus was the son of Philip by a low and disreputable woman named Philinna, and was half-witted in consequence of some bodily disorder with which he was afflicted. This disease was not congenital nor produced by natural causes, for he had been a fine boy and showed considerable ability, but Olympias endeavoured ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... was in charge of every good claim in the district, the owners were ousted, their appeals argued and denied, and the court gone for thirty days, leaving him a clear field for his operations. He felt a contempt for most of his victims, who were slow-witted Swedes, grasping neither the purport nor the magnitude of his operation, and as to those litigants who were discerning enough to see its enormity, he trusted to ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... nice fish, darling," said the mother, who seemed to be one of those dull-witted persons whom it is impossible to interest in ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... him; and, since to fill the church was always the most difficult part of a clergyman's function, here was another ground for a careless sense of superiority. Besides, he was a likable man: sweet-tempered, ready-witted, frank, without grins of suppressed bitterness or other conversational flavors which make half of us an affliction to our friends. Lydgate liked him heartily, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... first thought, began to throw his saddle off, but was quickly prevented by a quicker witted soldier, but the action was not quick enough. Colonel Boone had observed without appearing to do so, the normal condition of the back of the horse, and something had flown to his mind, that "all was not right on the Wabash," and he concluded to keep cool. Something ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... and, coming back in the dark, had missed his way on the outskirts of the wood. She began to raise some objections, but he said she was not to excite herself, and went out to see Alec, who, not being a quick-witted fellow, was easily persuaded into an acceptance of a very modified version of the incident, and Father Oliver lay back in his chair wondering if he had succeeded in deceiving Catherine. It would seem that he had, for when she came to visit ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... Yet for Raphael, so loyal hitherto to the traditions of Umbrian art, to its heavy weight of hieratic tradition, dealing still somewhat conventionally with a limited, non-natural matter—for Raphael to come from Siena, Perugia, Urbino, to sharp-witted, practical, masterful Florence was in immediate effect a transition from reverie to [50] realities—to a world of facts. Those masters of the ideal were for him, in the first instance, masters also of realism, as we say. Henceforth, to the end, he will be the ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... spies had just been arrested in the neighborhood, and among them was a certain Yan Yost Cuyler, a queer, half-witted fellow not devoid of cunning, whom the Indians regarded with that mysterious awe with which fools and lunatics are wont to inspire them, as creatures ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... they are impossible to forget. That he survived is surprising. What wonder that this man, who was "violent," or who was made violent, would not permit the attendants to dress him! But he had a half-witted friend, a ward-mate, who could coax him into his clothes when his oppressors found ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... not content to let the matter drop. There was a little gnawing anxiety somewhere. He burst out: "And have I got to put myself to the trouble of taking this long journey, just because you're too thick-witted to understand my ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... seemliness and economy. He met my advances politely enough, but with an air of suspicion which offended me. I began by disliking him for it: afterwards I set it down as an unpleasant feature in the local character. I was doubly mistaken. Farmer Hosking was slow-witted, but as honest a man as ever stood up against hard times; and a more open and hospitable race than the people on that coast I never wish to meet. It was the caution of a child who had burnt his fingers, not once but many times. Had I known what I afterwards ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Somebody yelled and cursed vehemently, stepping on somebody else. A small-sized panic and melee ensued forthwith. More of the animals took alarm, and Algy was frightened half to death. His pony, a wall-eyed, half-witted brute, stampeded in the crowd. Then Algy was ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... "Love's Labour's Lost," in which he would appear to have gone to his own brain for the plot. Here we find a certain broad outlook upon contemporary life, with many a passing reference to matters of topical interest, while vivid recollections of life in Warwickshire among slow-witted rustics account for some of the humorous episodes. Historians can trace many of the references in the play, which is supposed to have been written in 1591, five years after the author left Stratford, revised in 1597, and published a year later. Cuthbert Burbie, who, like ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... It is a common fact that on many of these high buttes and mesas the pitiless weather of ages has chiseled figures, faces, and forms which, in their monstrous grotesquery, suggest the discarded clay modelings of a half-witted giant. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... during her twenty years of married life, it is probable she would have bored him too. But she kept her hold upon him because she was not only the most beautiful woman he knew, but she satisfied his artistic sensibilities all round. She was full of individuality and quick-witted decision. Long ago she had made up her mind that it was quite impossible to alter him, but she was equally assured as to her perfect right to differ from him in every possible way. He quite fell in with this view of the situation; so long as he was allowed ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... dismounted at our lodging place, when a man of forty, an idiot and goitrous, came to the door and with sadly imperfectly co-ordinated movements, gestured a message which he could not speak. Almost as soon as he had gone a deaf-mute boy passed. As we sat at our doorway, we saw a half-witted child at play before the next house. Goitre, deaf-mutism, and imbecility, all are fearfully common, and all are relatedly ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... were spoken, Mr. Wet-eyes gave a great sigh. At this they were all of them struck into their dumps, and could not tell what to say. Fear also possessed them in a marvelous manner; and death seemed to sit upon some of their eyebrows.[196] Now, there was in the company a notable sharp-witted fellow, a mean man of estate, and his name was old Inquisitive. This man asked the petitioners if they had told out every whit of what Emmanuel said. And they answered, Verily, no. Then said Inquisitive, I thought ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... already made up his mind what to do, and doubtless those other fellows would understand; they were quick-witted enough, surely, to grasp the meaning of such an action on ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... herself. She glanced quickly at Tommy who almost imperceptibly closed and opened one eye. Quick-witted, Tommy had not missed the little scene. Harriet wanted to laugh, but instead her face wore a grave expression as she listened to Mrs. Livingston explaining how they were expected to air their blankets out in the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... while she rendered her disagreeable in the eyes of Mrs. Wishaw, and let Mrs. Wishaw perceive that sympathy was possible between them; manoeuvring a trifle too delicate, perhaps, for the people present, but sufficient to blind its keen-witted author to the something that was being concealed from herself, of which something, nevertheless, her senses apprehensively warned her: and they might have spoken to her wits, but that mortals cannot, unaided, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... have been occupied with the case of a half-witted boy who consumed Penny Dreadfuls and afterwards went and killed his mother. They infer that he killed his mother because he had read Penny Dreadfuls (post hoc ergo propter hoc) and they conclude very naturally that Penny Dreadfuls should be suppressed. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... described by the Seer. Sir Hector Mackenzie, Bart. of Gairloch, was buck-toothed, and is to this day spoken of among the Gairloch tenantry as "An Tighearna storach," or the buck-toothed laird. Chisholm of Chisholm was hair-lipped, Grant of Grant half-witted, and Macleod of Raasay a stammerer. [For full details of this remarkable instance of family fate, see "The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer." - ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... for your service; so never be in dread, my good lord for look ye!' cried the reckless knight, sticking his arms akimbo 'look ye here! in Sir Terence O'Fay stands a host that desires no better than to encounter, single witted, all the duns in the united kingdoms, Mordicai ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... society, this notorious man loved good cheer and jolly companions beyond all other sources of excitement; and during his tenure of the seals, he was never more happy than when he was presiding over a company of sharp-witted men-about-town whom he had invited to indulge in wild talk and choice wine at his mansion that overlooked the lawns, the water, and the trees of St. James's Park. On such occasions his lordship's most valued boon companion was Mountfort, the comedian, whom he had taken from the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... made the poorest marriage of anybody that I have ever had to do with, though I have always understood that he was not a bad sort, beyond being as thick-headed as his brother the squire or an officer of dragoons. He get on at the bar! I dare say not. And he was no quicker-witted or longer-sighted in Australia. You must have heard me say how grieved I was once when I came across a fellow from Sydney who had been up the country, and remembered something of the Beauchamps and ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... They were a light gray animal, larger than the common gray squirrel, with beautiful bushy tails, which made them strikingly resemble the squirrel, but in cunning and deviltry they were much ahead of that quick-witted rodent. I have known them to empty in one night a keg of spikes in the storehouse in Yamhill, distributing them along the stringers of the building, with apparently no other purpose than amusement. We anticipated great fun watching the efforts of these rats to escape the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Quick-witted Lottie, on seeing Hemstead and hearing his table-talk, had modified Addie Marchmont's suggestion in her own mind. She saw that, though unsuspicious and trusting in his nature, he was too intelligent to be imposed upon by broad farce. Therefore, ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... A subtle-witted man is like an arrow, which, rending little surface, enters deeply, but they whose minds are dull resemble stones dashing with clumsy force, ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... not seem to claim credit due to another. Dan it was—Dan of the strong arm and the soft smile, Dan the wise hater of all useless labour, sharp-witted, easy-going Dan, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... pity that Americans as a rule do not consider this, for I know few things that would so much increase American respect for Englishmen in the mass as the discovery that the latter were not the ponderous persons they supposed, but even keener-witted than themselves. At the time of the Venezuelan incident, it is probable that more than all the laborious protests of good men on both sides of the ocean, more than all the petitions and the interchange of assurances of good-will between societies in either country, the ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... cried Kendale. "She will not bother us until we've had time to formulate our plans. Ha, ha, ha! how easy it is for a sharp-witted fellow like myself to make a million ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... to grow up in the country poorhouse, midst surroundings often vulgar, profane and brutal. One day two sweet babes, unnamed and unwelcomed, lay in the garret of a county-house in the outskirts of London. Then a poor, half-witted spinster, hearing of the young mother's death, found her way to the garret, brooded o'er the babes with all the dignity of our Mother of Sorrows, took the babes to her heart and planned how, with six shillings a week, she might keep bread ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... now-a-days is spinach, I believe. One day after dinner, a large family were taken very ill. The doctor was called in, who attributed it to the greens, of which all had frequently partaken. Living in the family was a half-witted boy named Jake. On a subsequent occasion, when greens had been gathered for dinner, the head ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... very exhausting, and require refreshment, and relaxation, and rest. Seated round this pleasant table, and in the enjoyment of the good things that were placed thereon, the spirits of the young ones of the party rose considerably; and Harry Maitland, who was quick-witted and fond of joking, created plenty of juvenile mirth by his remarks upon the monkey tribe, though of course he avoided saying anything that ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... business.' 'To do what?' asked his listener. 'To make wigs for the Signers of the Declaration of Independence!' replied J——, with a pompous air. Now the professor's comrade was not very quick-witted, as we have already hinted, and it did not occur to him at the moment whether the signers were men only of yesterday, or of the last century; and he rejoined, in a tone of wonder: 'What! do they all wear wigs?' 'All?' replied the professor, with a look of mingled piety and triumph; ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... would not the more go off. And it had no chance to wear off, for somehow, the occasions never lasted long something was sure to break them up while an unfortunate combination of circumstances, or of connivers, seemed to give Mr. Thorn unlimited facilities in the same kind. Fleda was quick-witted and skilful enough to work herself out of them once in a while; more often the combination was too much ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of France, which had been accepted in an emergency, was far from carrying with it the support of the whole of the Assembly or of the people, and the aged, but active and keen-witted Thiers had to steer through a medley of opposing interests and sentiments. His government was considered, alike by the Monarchists and the Jacobins, as only provisional, and the Bourbons and Napoleonists on the one hand and ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... delicacy of lace. Here was a cluster of flowers of delicious purity, there a fat nosegay, whatever one might dream of for the hand of a marchioness or a fish-wife; all the charming quaint fancies, in short, which the brain of a sharp-witted child of twelve, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... do in yours, but just imagine it once in the ascendant and me with a bad headache (which I never have),—it can only give you pain to hear of it—so I tell you of it the next day. But if I had told you at the time—what conjurations of your little fingers! what quick-witted alleviations!—till the headache becomes almost a pleasure to both ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... of years. As a matter of fact the collision did take place on November 27, 1872, and the result, so far as the earth was concerned, was a magnificent display of arial fireworks! But a more telling piece of ready-witted sagacity than this prompt employment of the telegraph for the apprehension of the nimble delinquent can scarcely be conceived. The sudden brush of the comet's tail, the instantaneous telegram to the opposite side of the world, and the glimpse thence ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... shirra blame the sojers?" exclaimed this quick-witted Egyptian. "Weel, that cows, for he has nane to ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... But it throws no light upon his remark that he had been expecting the arrival of a friend who, it would appear, had been dead two years. Helwyse himself may have been puzzled by this; or, being a quick-witted young man, he may have divined its explanation. He looked at his entertainer with critical sympathy not untinged ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... fixed rules and methodical procedure; and these he imposed more or less upon the household. Justizrath Otto (or Ottchen, as his mother continued to call him to her life's end), though acting as a dead weight upon his high-spirited, quick-witted nephew's intellectual development, by his efforts to mould him to his own course of life and his own unpliant habits of thought, nevertheless planted certain seeds in the boy's mind which proved of permanent service to him throughout all his subsequent career. To this ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... knit briskly till a purchaser applied, when she would drop her work, dive among the pink innocents, and hold one up by its unhappy leg, undisturbed by its doleful cries, while she settled its price with a blue-gowned, white-capped neighbour as sharp-witted and shrill-tongued as herself. If the bargain was struck, they slapped their hands together in a peculiar way, and the new owner clapped her purchase into a meal-bag, slung it over her shoulder, and departed with her squirming, squealing treasure as calmly as ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... expressions of delight and gratitude from her for his unasked and inconvenient kindness. Lady Marney had struggled against this tyranny in the earlier days of their union. Innocent, inexperienced Lady Marney! As if it were possible for a wife to contend against a selfish husband, at once sharp-witted and blunt-hearted! She had appealed to him, she had even reproached him; she had wept, once she had knelt. But Lord Marney looked upon these demonstrations as the disordered sensibility of a girl unused to the marriage state, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... shadow of the over-arching elms to the little bridge at the foot of the hill, where the lane to the Hope Farm joined another road to Hornby. On the low parapet of that bridge I found Timothy Cooper, the stupid, half-witted labourer, sitting, idly throwing bits of mortar into the brook below. He just looked up at me as I came near, but gave me no greeting either by word or gesture. He had generally made some sign' of recognition to me, but this time I thought he was sullen at being dismissed. ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... galoot, 'Let's have a throw.' Now the galoot knew old Bell was looking over the fence So he says, 'All right,' and he gives Jim the first shot—Jim fetched down the big pear, got his teeth in it, and strolled off to the house, kind of pitiful of the galoot for a, half-witted ass. When he got to the door, there was the old man. 'What are you here for?' says he. 'Why,' says Rickets, in his off-hand way, for he always had great confidence, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Jake Noyes, under his breath. Simon Basset said not another word; his grandfather, his uncle, and a brother had all taken their own lives, and he knew that the others were thinking of it. They all wondered if the boy had been keen-witted enough to give this hard hit at Simon intentionally, but he had not. Poor little Jerome had never speculated on the laws of heredity; he had only meant to deny that his father had come to any more disgraceful end than ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ioie and delightful iettings aboute these rare and vnseene chariots, and being once vndertaken, it is as vneasie to leaue off: besides the notable companie of yoong youths, and the increasing troups of innumerable faire and pleasant Nymphs, more sharpe witted, wise, modest, and discreet, then is ordinarily seene in so tender yeeres, with their beardles Louers, scarce hauing downy cheekes, pleasantly deuising with them matters of Loue. Manie of them hauing their torches burning, others pastophorall, some with ancient spoiles vppon the endes ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... thus to conclude, he is so well proportioned of body, arm, leg, and every other limb to the same, as nature cannot work a more perfect pattern, and, as I have learned, of the age of 28 years. His majesty I judge to be of a stout stomach, pregnant-witted, and of ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... one is of the deep— It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody, Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep; And one is of an old, half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That glass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep; And, Wordsworth, both ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... one Mr. Polkenhorne, who, like himself, had sundry schemes for obtaining money without toiling for it in the usual vulgar way. Polkenhorne was a man of thirty-five, much of a blackguard, but keen-witted, handsome, and tolerably educated; the son of a Clerkenwell clockmaker, he had run through an inheritance of a few thousand pounds, and made no secret of his history—spoke of his experiences, indeed, with a certain pride. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... Salcedo, nor more prudent than Legazpi, nor more manly than Morga, nor more studious than Colin and Gaspar de San Agustin, our contemporary writers, we say, find that the native is a creature something more than a monkey but much less than a man, an anthropoid, dull-witted, stupid, timid, dirty, cringing, grinning, ill-clothed, indolent, lazy, brainless, immoral, ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... be the life of an indolent heir, fat-witted and self-contented, Dwelling at ease in the house that others have builded, Boasting about the country for which he has done nothing? Is it to be an age of corpulent, deadly-dull prosperity, Richer and richer crops to nourish a race ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... added more strength to the monarchy, than my criticisms on incidental questions and situations could abstract from the Cabinet. But my free language disturbed the blind partisans of absolute power in the Church and State, and the Abbe Frayssinous, short-witted and weak though honest, obeyed with inquietude rather than reluctance the influences whose extreme violence he dreaded without ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to the will of his superior, whose mind is also under the same arbitrary control; and so on to the top. If at the head there were God, it would be well; but man is there, and consequently the whole society is a gigantic mistake. To be a sincere member of it, a man must be a half-witted fool, a religious fanatic, or a rogue for whom no duplicity is too scurrilous, even though ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... to use an elegant expression of your own, he twists them all round his thumb. Critically, if superiority in mere intellect and strong self-will, or even success in the object he designs, constitute a hero, the clear-witted, audacious, subtle Ancient has entirely the upper hand of the trusting, hood-winked ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... a man as shrewd, as subtle-minded, as quick-witted, and adroit as himself—a man who had passed through so many troubled epochs, who had served with the same obsequious countenance all the masters who would accept his services—to think that such a man should have been thus duped ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... ocean. And as for Quicksilver, with his keen, quick, laughing wits, he appeared to discover every little thought that but peeped into their minds, before they suspected it themselves. They sometimes wished, it is true, that he had not been quite so quick-witted, and also that he would fling away his staff, which looked so mysteriously mischievous, with the snakes always writhing about it. But then, again, Quicksilver showed himself so very good-humored, that they would have been rejoiced to keep him ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... Lucullus, O Catulus, on the matter itself, moved me a good deal, being the discourse of a learned and ingenious and quick-witted man, and of one who passes over nothing which can be said for his side; but still I am not afraid but that I may be able to answer him. But no doubt such authority as his would have influenced me a good deal, if you had not opposed your ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... that," I said, smiling broadly now. "'Tis easier than debating the matter, and an old man can't hope to hold his own in argument with you quick-witted youngsters." ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... was past, the Settlement men, who were quick-witted people, entered into the spirit of the plot readily enough; indeed, Peter caused them to repeat the story to him, so that he might be sure that they had ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... his plans to the men, as a rule, until a very short time before they are carried out. Jesse James is very cautious and suspicious. He knows that the hand of every honest man is turned against him. He is even on the alert for danger. He is quick witted, deep, dark and cunning, and he wouldn't trust his own brother out of his sight. That probably accounts for the wonderful success he has always had at carrying out his daring plans, and ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... be in the same class as his more brilliant chum. Tom fitted for becoming an expert in the line had chosen for his calling. On the other hand Jack began to believe that he was a little too slow-witted ever to make a shining success as a fighting aviator, where skill must be backed by astonishing quickness of mind and body, as well as something else within the heart that is an ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... This attracted the attention of Sibthorp, as he lounged through the room the other day with a companion. "Why," said his friend, "is that statue placed between the other two?" "To preserve it to be sure," replied the keenly-witted Sib. "You know the old saying teaches us, 'In medio ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... said, "we want a dashing, spirited young officer of the greatest fidelity, a man who is brave without doubt; ready-witted, and apt to deal with the smuggling and fishing craft likely to be the bearers of emissaries from the enemy's camp. We want such an officer at once for the Kestrel, and in the emergency, as we find those qualities in you, the admiral decides to set the question of years aside, while, as his spokesman ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... of M. Annaeus Novatus (the Gallio of Acts xviii. 12-17), and of Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero. 'Rhetoric and Stoic dogma were the staple of his mental training. For a much-petted, quick-witted youth, plunged into such a society as that of Rome in the first century A.D., hardly any training could be more mischievous. Puffed up with presumed merits and the applause of the lecture-room and the salon, he ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... angrily, "this is the second time you've done that! If you are merely thick-witted, much can be forgiven to your infirmity; but if you've a mind to joke, let me tell you ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... He was not quick-witted, but at once he jumped to the conclusion that his wife had just had in a furniture dealer, and that this ten pounds represented all their nice furniture upstairs. If that were so, then it was the beginning of the end. That furniture in the first-floor front had cost—Ellen ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the town looked at each other aghast, believing the enemies outside had neglected or perhaps betrayed them. General doubt and misunderstanding reigned in both camps. While they were debating what plan they must now adopt, the sharp-witted watchman had time to communicate with the magistrate and with the governor of the town. The alarm was raised, the citizens warned, and the treacherous plan completely wrecked. The enemy at last, tired of the useless siege, ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... satisfied that the Dictator was right, and that it would be better to keep a keen look-out and let the plot develop itself. The most absolute reliance could be put on the silence of the Sarrasins; and better look-out could hardly be kept than the look-out of that brave and quick-witted pair of watchers. Therefore Ericson told Hamilton he meant to sleep ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... late to prayers," was all the landlady said. She treated Litton as if he were a half-witted son. And he obeyed her, forsook his unfinished tea and hurried away to the chapel. Thence he went to his class-room, where Teed achieved some further miracles of mistranslation. Litton thought how curious it was that this young man, of whom his scientific professor spoke so ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... prudent to defer the undertaking, for undertaking it undoubtedly was, till another year. Next summer, I said to myself, as soon as the snows were melted, I would again climb the Roof of France. And delightful as was the society of a bright, amiable, ready-witted girl, I would instead find a travelling companion of maturer years, and ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... doing what they can, and the Greeks are very quick-witted, and learn easily. They are excellent sailors, clever merchants, and ready linguists, and they get on and prosper very fast; but till they learn truth, honesty, and mercy, and can clear their country of robbers, it does not seem as if anything could go really well with their kingdom, or as if it ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dull-witted these countrywomen are. And she and I had no time to spare. So we worked out a little scene in a hurry ... and she really didn't act it so badly. It was all in the right key: terror, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... or to observe the birds, to see how they alighted, how they sharpened their beaks. He caught a hedgehog and made a playmate of it, went out fishing all day long with the village boys, or listened to the tales about Pugachev told by a half-witted old woman living in a mud hut, greedily drinking in the most singular of the horrible incidents she related, while he looked into the old woman's toothless mouth and into the caverns of ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... all," Mrs. Pole had added, very properly. The people of Exeter had expressed such an opinion, and had been quite just in doing so. I do not know how it happens, but it always does happen, that everybody in every small town knows which is the brightest-witted in every family. In this respect Mrs. Pole had only expressed public opinion, and public opinion was right. Lucy Robarts was blessed with an intelligence keener than that ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... neither. Labe Keeler's been talkin' to ME, and when you come down here and began proposin' the same scheme that I was just about headin' up to your room with to propose to you, then—well, then the average whole-witted person wouldn't need more'n one guess. It couldn't be Labe, 'cause he'd been whisperin' in MY ear, so it must have been the other partner in the firm. That's all the miracle there ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... she, poor thing!" said Bruce, looking after her commiseratingly; "and a stranger might think her no more nor half-witted. But she has sense enough, poor crittur! and, I reckon, is just as smart, if she war not so humble and skittish, as any ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... me!" she mocked, "and you used to be so quick-witted, my ascetic. Still, health and happiness do not always sharpen the wits. You are healthy and ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... pleased. "But it is only for their own use," said a courtier who favored the colonies, and taking a New England coin from his pocket, he showed it to the King. "What tree is that?" demanded the aggrieved monarch. "That," said the quick-witted courtier, "is the royal oak which saved Your Majesty's life." "Well, well," said the King, "those colonists are not so bad after all. They're a parcel of honest dogs!" Perhaps they were, even if their likenesses of pine ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... but the outcome of these good gifts, if strained or perverted to capricious use, may prove no less barren of profit than the labours of a pedant on the letter of the text. It is a tempting exercise of intelligence for a dexterous and keen-witted scholar to apply his solid learning and his vivid fancy to the detection or the interpretation of some new or obscure point in a great man's life or work; but none the less is it a perilous pastime to give the reins to a learned fancy, and let loose conjecture on the trail of any dubious ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... her helplessness to avert evil from her fellow-sufferers. If it were not for the strong vein of humor which lightens up the darkest passages, the interest would be too painful. But Samantha intervenes with her quaint epigrams and keen-witted analysis, and lo, a smile broadens before the tear has dried!... Alongside of the fun are genuine eloquence and profound pathos; we scarcely know which is the more delightful."—The ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... coerce and power to relieve, power to bind and power to loose, the ascendency over her weakness was secured. She was twenty-one years and twenty-one days old, when he brought her home to the gloomy house, his half-witted, frightened, and submissive Bride of ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea. Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... formerly, near Bagdad, a half-witted fellow, who was much addicted to the use of bang. Being reduced to poverty, he was obliged to sell his stock. One day he went to the market to dispose of a cow; but the animal being in bad order, no one would bid for it, and after waiting ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... doubtful halt, and again with his eyes on Ruth Josselin. He was not a quick-witted man, outside of his calling, nor a man apt to think evil; but he had been married a month, and this had been long enough to teach him that women and men judge ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... remainder of that night, not in dreams of paradise and of spirits redeemed from the thraldom of the flesh, but in increasing the population of this astonishing planet, by assisting to deliver a scrofulous, half-witted shrieking servant-girl of twins—illegitimate—in the fusty atmosphere of a cottage garret, right up ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... was not as happy in Florence as he had hoped to be. The social life there overwhelmed him. In February he wrote: "Our two months in Florence have been the most ridiculous time that ever even half-witted people passed. We have spent them in chasing round after people for whom we cared nothing, and being chased by them. My story isn't finished yet, and what part of it is done bears the fatal marks of haste ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... He did it, too, without wasting precious time by asking questions. In a situation which might well have thrown the quickest-witted of men off his balance, he acted with promptitude, intelligence and despatch. The fact is, George had for years been an assiduous golfer; and there is no finer school for teaching concentration and a strict attention ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... half-droll remarks of this Diogenes of Istria was all that now afforded enjoyment to the broken-down old hero. It was with intense delight that he heard the social grandeur and distinctions that had cost him so dear made ridiculous by this half-witted fellow, whose peculiar forte it was to jeer at the pomp that surrounded the governor, and imitate French elegance in a highly-burlesque manner; and when he did this, his poor princely friend's delight ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... aback, nevertheless kept her head. She had not the faintest comprehension of his meaning, but she was naturally quick-witted, and felt it imperative to "keep her end up" as she ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... dwells a man mighty in all things and blown up with pride. He is named Ospakar Blacktooth. His wife is but lately dead, and he has given out that he will wed the fairest maid in Iceland. Now, it is in my mind to send Koll the Half-witted, my thrall, whom Asmund gave to me, to Ospakar as though by chance. He is a great talker and very clever, for in his half-wits is more cunning than in the brains of most; and he shall so bepraise Gudruda's ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... do, sir, to send the vice-governatore to try the prisoner; perhaps he might persuade him to seem to consent—or some such thing, you know, sir, as might justify a delay. They say the Corsicans are the keenest-witted fellows in all these seas; and Elba is so near to Corsica, that one cannot fancy there is ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Pomp Cooper was quick-witted enough to understand that this utterance was in the nature of a hint for him to depart, and he stood not on the ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... while an open ocean might only have awed and intimidated them, this ever-luring prospect of shore beyond shore rising in turn on the horizon made them sailors, made them friendly traffickers among themselves. Always meeting new faces, driving new bargains, they became alert, quick-witted, progressive, the foremost race of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... The quick-witted child knew just as well then as she did next morning, that the dog—a King Charles spaniel—was intended for her. Mrs. Allen was so amused that she could scarcely ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... Ockley. Better let him die than bring a sharp-witted medical practitioner to my house, to-day of ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... intellectual endowments. It too often happens that the religiously disposed are in the same degree intellectually deficient; but the Irish ever have been, as their worst enemies must grant, not only a Catholic people, but a people of great natural abilities, keen-witted, original, and subtle. This has been the characteristic of the nation from the very early times, and was especially prominent in the middle ages. As Rome was the centre of authority, so, I may say, Ireland was the native home ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... is what I cannot understand;—men who ought to be keen-eyed and quick-witted. That magistrate believes it. I saw men in the Court who used to know me well, and I could see that they believed it. Mr. Monk was ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... poor Peter for years. And Peter was still free, Susie suspected, because in the presence of that widow he emulated Hamlet and always put an antic disposition on. Did the most absurd things, and appeared to be little more than half-witted. The widow in question had even spoken to Susie about her uncle's eccentricities and intimated that his segregative manner of life might in ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... rich in joy Though blind, thy tunes in sadness hum; And mourn, thou poor half-witted Boy! Born deaf, and living ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... small inland city where she resided, and few greater misfortunes in her estimation could occur than to lose this status. She never hesitated to humor any of her son's whims and wishes which did not threaten their respectability, but the quick-witted boy was not long in discovering that she would not tolerate any of those vices ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe |
