"Adroit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as possible away from him. During recess he learned from Yozhov that Smolin, too, was rich, being the son of a tan-yard proprietor, and that Yozhov himself was the son of a guard at the Court of Exchequer, and very poor. The last was clearly evident by the adroit boy's costume, made of gray fustian and adorned with patches on the knees and elbows; by his pale, hungry-looking face; and, by his small, angular and bony figure. This boy spoke in a metallic alto, elucidating his words with grimaces and gesticulations, and he often used words whose meaning ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... squadron under command of Captain Perry having met the British squadron of superior force, a sanguinary conflict ended in the capture of the whole. The conduct of that officer, adroit as it was daring, and which was so well seconded by his comrades, justly entitles them to the admiration and gratitude of their country, and will fill an early page in its naval annals with a victory never ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... an unpopular measure carried, he contrived to make M. Thiers oppose it violently, upset the government upon it, come into power upon his victory, and then take the measure up himself and carry it through. The Duc de Broglie was not a politician of this adroit and acrobatic type. His yea was yea and his nay, nay in politics as in private life. He kept aloof from the Second Empire, as his grandfather, Mr. Carlyle's 'War-god Broglie,' had kept aloof from the first. But he never fell into ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... every sinew to the utmost; his hand must be steady; his nerves under absolute control; his eye keen and clear. In the hunt he pits his well-trained skill against the instinctive cunning of his quarry. By the most adroit cleverness, he must approach within striking distance, and when he speeds his low whispering shaft and strikes his game, he has won by the strength of arm and nerve. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... truth, and an adroit perversion of the explanation which General Reed gave to the demands of the American Commander-in-Chief, respecting his correspondence with the British Commissioners, his descendants have managed, so far, with tolerably general success, ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... peaked muzzle To eat th' intruder as a bird. "Hold! do not wrong me," cried the bat; "I'm truly no such thing as that. Your eyesight strange conclusions gathers. What makes a bird, I pray? Its feathers. I'm cousin of the mice and rats. Great Jupiter confound the cats!" The bat, by such adroit replying, Twice saved ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... and, we have reason to fancy, a very true parallel, for Mme. Recamier. She compares her to the mendicant described by Sterne, (or Swift,) who always obtained alms even from those who never gave to any other, and whose secret lay in the adroit flatteries with which he seasoned all his beggings. The best passages in Mme. Ancelot's whole Volume are those where she paints Mme. Recamier, and we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... you, that way. And in any case, it wouldn't do for you to graduate from a co-educational State University. Not a person you know would have heard of it. You know you're due at Harvard next fall." With adroit fingers, she plucked the string sure to vibrate in Arnold's nature. "Do go and order a table for us in the Rose-Room, there's a good boy. And be sure to have the waiter give you one where we ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... that time, held command of the island, and, hearing of this unlicensed intrusion, despatched Francesco Roldan, the quondam rebel, to call Ojeda to account. The contest of stratagem and management that took place between these two adroit and daring adventurers has already been detailed. Roldan was eventually successful, and Ojeda, being obliged to leave Hispaniola, resumed his rambling voyage. He at length arrived at Cadiz, in June, 1500, his ships ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... our large cantonment, and avoiding what had now become a useless sacrifice of life.' The orders issued to Generals Baker and Macpherson to retire into the cantonment were executed with skill and steadiness. Jenkins' evacuation of the Asmai position was conspicuously adroit. When the order to quit reached that able officer, Major Stockwell of the 72d was out with a small detachment, maintaining a hot fire on the Afghan bodies ascending by the southern spur from the Chardeh valley. He fell back with great deliberation, and when he rejoined the retirement down the ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... been sufficiently remarked upon is that the French party made a very adroit use of her. The clerks at Poitiers, while inquiring at great length into her religion and her morals, brought her into evidence. These Poitiers clerks were no monks ignorant of the world; they constituted the Parliament of the lawful King; they were the banished members of ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... the seer had called Macrinus to him, but to inform him that the future empress was betrothed to a young Alexandrian, and that the tender intercourse between the lovers had not been interrupted during Caracalla's courtship. This had come to Serapion's ears yesterday afternoon, through his adroit assistant Kastor, and he had taken advantage of the information to prepare Caesar during the night for the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... interrogatory, and a most searching domiciliary visit. The object of this latter seems especially to have been, to ascertain whether they possessed any maps. Although convicted of having in their possession several of these prohibited articles, they managed, by their guarded replies, and a little adroit flattery, to lull the suspicions of the Chinese envoy, and even to obtain the favor of the Regent. This latter, indeed, repeatedly assured them, with that self-deceit by which the oppressed often seek to delude themselves into a belief ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... but his falsity is adroit enough. The Jew takes fright, tears his beard, rolls on the ground, sees the officers at his door, sees himself clad in the Sanbenito, sees his auto-da-fe all made ready. "My friend," he cries, "my good, tender friend, my only friend, what ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... him, and they all moved away together. At the hotel, however, he vanished, and it was only after a little adroit persuasion later that Mr. Pym got him to accept an invitation to dine with them in their private room ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... only money and time can overcome, though at the sacrifice of the trade and comforts of the people. Repeated attempts have been made to connect Rome with the rest of Europe; but hitherto, through the singularly adroit management of the Government, all such attempts have ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... of March I guess it to have been that Choiseul, by way of worming out poor Edelsheim's secrets, flung him into the Bastille for a day or two. Already in December foregoing, we have seen Choiseul's Black-Artist busy upon the Stolen EDITION of Friedrich's Verses. A Choiseul full of intrigues; adroit enough, ambitious enough; restlessly industrious in making mischief, if there were nothing else to be made; who greatly disgusted ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a probable fiancee, or a married belle with an uxorious husband,—in short, wherever he could make himself look dangerous and another man jealous or foolish, he came out particularly strong; at the same time, being adroit and not over belligerent, he always contrived to stop or get out of the way in time if the other party ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... lost not one jot of his coolness in that awful moment. Perfectly unarmed, he stood before the beast waiting his attack. Again and again the lion sprang, but each time he was evaded by the nimble gladiator, who by his own adroit movements contrived to reach the spot where his weapon lay and regain possession of it. Armed with his trusty sword, he waited a final spring. The lion came down as before, but this time Macer's aim was true. The sword pierced ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... for her companions. Once she began to ask questions, it was safe to predict that she would go on until despair seized those who were obliged to answer. Pixie recognised signs of the coming attack, and managed an adroit change of places which would leave Mrs Wallace free to enjoy the afternoon, and punctually at ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... known as smugglers; whereas their shore colleagues, many of whom were gentry, or offshoots from it, adopted every possible means to turn suspicion from themselves when the preventive men were on the scent. Smugglers of that day were adroit tacticians; they had their signs just as Freemasons or any other craft have theirs. The pursuit was exciting, and the romance of it attracted men and women of gentle as well as of humble birth into its ranks. The men who manned the luggers were ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... very servile letter of Robert Cushman to John Pierce (written while the former was at New Plymouth, in November-December, 1621, on behalf of the MAY-FLOWER Adventurers), that up to that time at least, the Pilgrims had no suspicion of the trick which had been played upon them. For, while too adroit recklessly to open a quarrel with those who could—if they chose —destroy them, the Pilgrims were far too high-minded to stoop to flattery and dissimulation (especially with any one known to have been guilty of treachery toward them), or to permit ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... in the Duchy of Lackeverything," replied La Mothe, bowing with an equal gravity, and at the adroit parrying of a difficult question the smile crept down from Ursula de Vesc's eyes until it loosened the hard lines of the mouth, and bent them to that Cupid's bow La Mothe so much desired to see. "I have many ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... arrangements they consider conducive to their own interests. But the real and ostensible causes of war are not always identical. When once irritation begins to rankle, and rival interests clash to an excessive degree, the guns are apt to go off by themselves, and an adroit diplomacy may confidently be trusted to discover some plausible pretext for ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... English gentleman; she had recently come to America, and had but few acquaintances, and still fewer friends; she felt the loneliness of her situation, and admitted that she much desired a friend to counsel and protect her; the adroit adventuress concluded her extemporaneous romance by adroitly insinuating that her income was scarcely adequate ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... dexterous, happy, proficient, adept, clever, expert, ingenious, skilled, adroit, deft, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... am sorry to say, of the way in which a naturally amiable and considerate householder might be expected to listen to the arguments of an adroit and accomplished burglar showing cause why he should be locked into the plate-closet to protect him from ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... of the canton, from whom the assembly must select its candidates. The lists lies spread out on the table, and the electors advance in turn, spell the names, and try to read it over. The president would not be very adroit and show but little zeal did he not help them in reading it, and if he did not point out by some sign, a tone of the voice, or even a direct word, what names were agreeable to the government. Now, this government, which has five hundred thousand bayonets at command, dislikes opposition: the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... amused suspicion. "Why did you call me Mr. Norman just then? Usually you don't call me at all. It's been weeks since you have called me Mister. Was your doing it just then one of those subtle, adroit, ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... the fight worth while, so accordingly he kept his eyes and his ears open for a handy weapon with which to jab Cappy through that same old rift in his armor—his passion for a large profit through an adroit and ingenious deal in a commodity where even a very modest profit was ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... missed," thought I, standing by in a silent part of this three-cornered convention. M'Iver smiled mildly, half, I should think, at the manner in which his thrust had been foiled, half to keep MacLachlan still with us. His next attack was more adroit though roundabout, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... racing, if they are only side by side, it is as good as though neither of them moved. [17] And the creature I have always envied," he continued, "the centaur—if only he had the intelligence and forethought of a man, the adroit skill and the cunning hand, with the swiftness and strength of a horse, so as to overtake all that fled before him, and overthrow all that resisted—why, all these powers I shall collect and gather in my own person when once I am a rider. [18] Forethought ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... does not mean the end of seeking. . . . They gave me little that I wanted. They were clever and adroit enough in the prelude. They knew how to create the illusion that in them alone could be found the fulfillment of all aspiration and desire. No doubt they satisfied many women, but they could not satisfy me. They ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... grew louder, and then a new speaker appeared on the platform, this time evidently a cultivated, thoughtful man and an adroit speaker. The organizers of the evening were unwilling to allow the meeting to retain the impression of Wilhelm's speech, and had placed a clever opponent to follow him, who said clearly and concisely that ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... become aware that somewhere in that body of adroit shufflers who were supposed to minister to his constitutional needs the confused cry of his conscience had evoked an echo. He saw under a high bald forehead kindly eyes watching him; and it was a kindly voice charged with considerateness ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... graceful; his features were clean-cut and expressive of both intelligence and amiability; his manner was cordial and unaffected; his mind was vigorous and his industry unremitting. Furthermore, he was an able lawyer, a fluent orator, a persuasive debater, an adroit parliamentarian. Upon entering the Senate at the early age of thirty-two, he had won prompt recognition by a powerful speech in opposition to the tariff of 1824; and by 1828, when he was reelected, he was known as the South's ablest and boldest spokesman ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... a sub-committee was appointed, at Hunky Ben's suggestion, to consider the whole matter, and take what steps seemed advisable. Hunky was an adroit and modest man—he could not have been a first-rate scout otherwise! He managed not only to become convener of the committee, but succeeded in getting men chiefly of his own opinion placed on it. At supper that night in Charlie's cottage, while enjoying May's cookery and presence, ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... afternoon and night, carried people outside the Heads, and provided them with lines and bait for six hours' fishing, at the rate of five dollars a person. I am told that some of them (doubtless adroit anglers) made a profit on the transaction. Occasionally he bought wrecks and condemned vessels; these latter (I cannot tell you how) found their way to sea again under aliases, and continued to stem the waves triumphantly enough under the colours of Bolivia or Nicaragua. Lastly, there ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... it applies to you, Mr. Raffles," the other was adroit enough to add. "Mr. Garland was no friend of mine, and he was a fool, whereas I hope I may say that you're the one and not ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... Trent to that conclusion which left an undisputed sovereignty in theological and ecclesiastical affairs to the Papacy. It would have been impossible for a man of Caraffa's stamp to achieve what these sagacious temporizers and adroit managers effected. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... purpose, and could not have suited better if it had been chosen at a rope-factory. Ben knew how to make a loop, and a loop was soon made to his liking; and then the cord was let down slowly and gently, so as not to close the noose before it reached the ground. Guided by the adroit hand of the sailor, the loop at length rested upon the earth, just before the muzzle of the musket; and was then drawn slowly and smoothly along the grass. Fortunately, the barrel did not lie close to the surface, and the cord passed easily underneath ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... have caused much discord between husband and wife, but Madame Claes's understanding of the passion of love was so simple and ingenuous, she loved her husband so religiously, so sacredly, and the thought of preserving her happiness made her so adroit, that she managed always to seem to understand him, and it was seldom indeed that her ignorance was evident. Moreover, when two persons love one another so well that each day seems for them the beginning of their ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... spoke of huckeny pokee, or huckeny ponkee, as it is sometimes called. It means in Rommany "sleight of hand," and also the adroit substitution of a bundle of lead or stones for another containing money or valuables, as practised by Gipsy women. The Gipsy woman goes to a house, and after telling the simple-minded and credulous housewife ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... in any other respect a remarkable man. He had come to the post by adroit management of a miscellaneous community, comprising British, Dutch, and Kaffirs. He was personally incorruptible, and he played the game according to the rules. He would have called himself, and so far as his opportunities admitted, he was, a constitutional statesman, justly ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... part-shams, part-enthusiasms of Hadrian's 'sumptuous' character. Spartian's account of the consecration, and his hint that Hadrian composed the oracles delivered at his favourite's tomb; Arrian's letter to the Emperor describing the island Leuke and flattering him by an adroit comparison with Achilles; the poem by Pancrates mentioned in the 'Deipnosophistae,' which furnished the myth of a new lotos dedicated to Antinous; the invention of the star, and Hadrian's conversations with his courtiers on this subject—all converge to form the belief that something ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... selects another; "sends deal boxes along with him," to bring home what cash there is. This one's name is Nussler; an expectant Prussian Official, an adroit man, whom we shall meet again doing work. He has the nine shillings a day, without hair-powder or blacking, while employed here; at Berlin no constant salary whatever,—had to "borrow 75 pounds for outfit ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... recoiled, as if at some bland satirical touch, delivered with such adroit garnish of apparent good breeding as to present no ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... he left for Rome to-night," I heard my Cousin Tom say (which was an adroit lie indeed, as no one could tell whether I had or no), "and he hath ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... of Queen Victoria sketches an interesting case of subordination and superordination in which the queen is the subordinate, and her adroit but cynical minister, Disraeli, is ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... brother Samuel, was not slow to say a word against him when opportunity offered. To speak the truth, Samuel was a cunning boy, and those even who loved him best could not but own that for one so young, he was too adroit in choosing his words, and too ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Andrews was an adroit student of men. No speech could have better served his purpose of inducing his followers to remain with him. It was as if he declared: "You may all desert me, but I will remain true to ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... luncheon with us on the day of our departure, and with an adroit privacy, which in a layman would have been sly, presented her, in right of his holy calling, with a little book, the binding of which was mediaeval and costly, and whose letter-press dealt in a way which he commended, with some points on which she was not satisfactory; ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... grace of blushing, but he had also the adroit and ready speech that prevents a blush from looking like embarrassment. He replied ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... astounded everybody by his briskness; and Mr. Balfour also entered on the fray with every sign of being in excellent health and spirits. There had been a great roar of triumph when he came into the House, and throughout his speech—clever, biting, and adroit—his party kept up a ringing and well-organized chorus of pointed cheers. The speech was a significant departure from the ordinary stamp—a fact which Mr. Gladstone, who is notably a great stickler for tradition, did not fail to notice. For ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... couches minces de neige les approches de cette redoutable montagne, quoique peut-etre en choisissant une annee ou il seroit tombe beaucoup de neige, et en prenant le temps ou cette neige seroit encore ferme, quelque chasseur adroit et courageux pourroit ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... Tom is the scapegoat of the neighbourhood; but so cunning and adroit, that there is no detecting him. Old Christy and the gamekeeper have watched many a night in hopes of entrapping him; and Christy often patrols the park with his dogs, for the purpose, but all in vain. It is said that the squire winks hard at his misdeeds, having ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... himself implicated in that transaction. It so happened that the King and a large concourse of prelates and nobility were holding a large dinner at Winchester, in honour of the Easter festival, when the butler, in bringing in a dish, slipped, but recovered his balance by making adroit ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... long to wait, for two men in livery came on with a table, arranged in all respects as the conjurer's table had been arranged in the music-hall on Saturday night, and Herr Pauer proceeded to play precisely the tricks the conjurer had played. He was just as adroit and swift and' agile as the original, and the audience ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... newfound river, declared "As for Sturgeon, all the World cannot be compared to it." They told of a unique and spirited way the Indians had of catching these huge, lubberly fish. In a narrow bend of the river where the sturgeon crowded, an adroit fisherman would clap a noose over the tail of a great fish (a fish perhaps much larger than himself) and go plunging about with his powerful captive. And he was accounted "cockarouse," brave fellow, ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... after that joking despatch. After having set out on the road to Marseilles, he retraced his steps, and, disguised as a courier, he had almost escaped all danger, when, at Saint Jean de Luz, a young girl recognised him; but a sign from him silenced her, and her adroit fidelity turned away all suspicion. It was thus that M. de Lafayette rejoined his ship, the 26th of April 1777; and on that same day, after six months anxiety and labour, he set sail ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... Tu, the monarchist pamphleteer. Although this individual still posed as the leader of the movement, in reality he was nothing but the tool of a remarkable man, one Liang Shih-yi, famous throughout the country as the most unscrupulous and adroit politician the Revolution had thrown up. This person, who is known to have been gravely implicated in many assassinations, and who was the instrument used in 1912 by Yuan Shih-kai to persuade the Manchu Imperial ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... did she bring them out, those vanities And trinkets of those girls of bygone days; with what adroit eloquence did she introduce all their foibles and virtues to Felicia! Oh, but she was a fine old gossip, was Margot! She couldn't quite trust herself to touch Octavia's clothes that first day. She ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... to the lance or the saber. The lance requires skillful vigorous cavalrymen, good horsemen, very well drilled, very adroit, for the use of the lance is more difficult than that of the straight sword, especially if the sword is not too heavy. Is not this an answer to the question? No matter what is done, no matter what methods are adopted, it must always be remembered ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... old ambassador; all the Marquis' harmless vanities were gratified, and the haughty grandee was completely duped. He tried hard to fathom Gaston's secret; but the latter, who would have been greatly perplexed to tell it, turned off M. de Champignelles' adroit questioning with a Norman's shrewdness, till the Marquis, as a gallant Frenchman, complimented his young visitor ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... that a contradiction in terms can be true and false at one and the same time. That, my Lord, and ladies, and gentlemen," he went on, raising his voice almost to a shout, "is still, and, I hope, in the interests of true science, and not adroit jugglery with figures and formulae, will ever remain, another impossibility. Professor Marmion has apparently trisected the triangle, squared the circle, and doubled the cube. It may be that he has persuaded some present that he really has done so; but, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... at the horse-show had not been noticeably prompt or adroit, but he cast about manfully for words and presently was able to voice his appreciation of Althea's feat (as it was regarded) and to congratulate her upon it. Johnny McComas was not at all displeased. Albert had not been light-handed ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... there were races and combats; the remains of the baskets were thrown to the most skilful and the most adroit; then came, ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... writings, were forceful; his plain dress and unassuming ways helped to make him extremely popular with the common people, in whom he had much greater faith than his cousin John had; and, above all, he was an eminently successful manager of men. Shrewd, wily, adroit, unfailingly tactful, an adept in all the arts of the politician, he is considered to have done more than any other one man, in the years immediately preceding the War of Independence, to mould and direct public opinion ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... disciplined, and better led than those of neighbouring states, more used to fatigue, to long marches and rapid evolutions. The brilliance of their success and its long duration are thus explained, for the chiefs of the empire never seem to have had the faintest suspicion of the adroit policy which was afterwards to bind so many conquered peoples to the Roman sceptre. The first necessity for civilized man is security: the hope, or rather the certainty, of enjoying the fruits of his own industry in peace. When this certainty is assured to him he quickly pardons and ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... never presume to attempt. And yet he seemed to have chosen her deliberately. He had set her literally at the head of his house. And Palliser, having heard a vague rumor that he had actually settled a decent income upon her, had made adroit inquiries and ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... long silent halls of sumptuous hotels are all abuzz with excited arrivals. The crystalline surface of Winnipiseogee is shattered with the stroke of steamer, laden with excursionists. The antlers of Adirondack deer rattle under the shot of city sportsmen. The trout make fatal snaps at the hook of adroit sportsmen and toss their spotted brilliance into the game-basket. Already the baton of the orchestral leader taps the music-stand on the hotel green, and American life puts on festal array, and the rumbling of the tenpin alley, and the crack of the ivory balls on the green-baized ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... they arrived at the house, the Indians, as well as the family were found to be gone, and no evidence appeared that any of the family had been killed. A search was made to find the direction the Indians had taken; but owing to the dryness of the ground, and the adroit manner in which they had departed, no discovery could be made. In this study and perplexity, the party being all good woodsmen, took that direction in pursuit of the Indians, which they thought it most probable they would take. After going a few miles, their attention ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... the word itself has come to mean something not to be touched without defilement. Consequently, what good men will not touch, bad men will. It is understood that bribery carries the election; and the Presidency is the result of an adroit process of financial engineering. I have myself been shown a handful of bank-notes publicly displayed in the ante-room of a Legislature, and sagaciously told: "That is the logic for legislators." Men think they cannot afford to go to Congress, and send other men to do their ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... twenty-eight, but he seemed at least four years older, partly because of a deep wrinkle which slashed down each cheek, and partly because he was so perfectly self-possessed and elaborately courteous. His intellect was apparently as alert and adroit as his physical action. A few words from Clara enabled ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... during which she skilfully finished the little roses, the silence had not been broken even by a single word. But her thread broke again, and she re-threaded her needle by feeling carefully under the frame, as only an adroit person can do. Then, as she raised her head, she again inhaled with satisfaction the pure, fresh air that came ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... due to a rift in the lute (a little matter of expert accounting on a joint operation), the firm of Macnooder and the Tennessee Shad had been dissolved and each financier had assumed an independent and belligerent attitude. The Shad had a certain adroit and devious imagination, but the practical mind was Macnooder. His point of view was purely economic. Hickey might plan the daring manoeuvre which made the conquest of the clapper possible, and revel in the ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... almost an hour. It was mostly about school matters and their friends and the teachers. Amy talked, too, about friends in Napsburg, where the Carringfords had lived before moving to Greensboro. Janice was adroit in keeping the conversation on rather general topics, and did not allow the question of Stella's party to come to the fore and never once did she speak of what any of the girls would ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... familiar and favourite occupation;—the writing of a long letter to his brother George in America. This epistle is, as one might expect, almost entirely concerned with the art of poetry—what else has Keats to write about?—whether from the side of technique, or inspiration. He dwells on the adroit management of open and close vowels—he shows how "the poetry of earth is never dead;" he discusses the need of constant application to work, and how "the genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man." And meanwhile, as fitful strains ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... shaved into XVIII century ashlar, or "restored" by a XIX century builder and a Victorian architect with a deep sense of the umbrella-like gentlemanliness of XIV century vaulting. The present occupant, A. Chelsea, unofficially Alfred Bridgenorth, appreciates Norman work. He has, by adroit complaints of the discomfort of the place, induced the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to give him some money to spend on it; and with this he has got rid of the wall papers, the paint, the partitions, the exquisitely planed and moulded casings with which the Victorian cabinetmakers ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... dexterity of her deft fingers; some memory of an exile from France in her name: Lorraine. Her friend was a mondaine. She had the social gift, a subtle understanding of things worldly, the glissey mortel n'appuyez jamais attitude toward life. By a touch of flippancy, an adroit turn of mind, she kept the knowing mastery over people which has mystified and delighted in all great hostesses ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... was in a mourning carriage with people who, according to custom, were praising the qualities of a deceased person whose name she did not even know. Accustomed to such positions, she waited; by adroit questions she managed to understand the situation, and no one suspected what had happened. Once when in her abnormal condition she discovered that her husband had a mistress, and was so overcome that she sought to commit suicide. Yet in her normal mind she meets ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... of the country, McClellan, has great reason to plume himself much upon his share in the revelations that are made in the course of this Inquiry. McDowell himself seems to have been intended, by nature for a scheming and adroit ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... and follies of the elders. Without a drop of Irish blood in his veins, he inspired the belief that he must be own cousin to the newly-landed Hibernian who announced himself as "agin the governmint," for post and regimental commanders without exception found him the most adroit, crafty, sinuous, and troublesome of captains,—one who was forever doing something to try them, yet nothing on which they could try him. Well he knew his unpopularity and sagely judged his opportunities. The liberties he had dared with Warren he would not now have ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... law which had now in their family become quite hereditary, and had coupled this with a scheme of study at Utrecht, after the plan he had himself followed at Leyden. A compromise had, in fact, been arranged by which this was to be pursued, and the career of arms dropped. Nothing can be more adroit than the way in which the young hopeful about to embark on the grand tour manages in his despatch to his lordship, with an eye to the Home Office, to suggest the furtherance of his own ideas under the supposed guise of Johnson's approval. 'He advises me to combat idleness ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... effect; its garrison skilful and efficient; its commander capable and brave. The ship is of the very best character, and in perfect order; the crew disciplined and courageous; its commander skilful and adroit; the wind, and tide, and sea—all as could be desired.[17] The numbers of the garrison and crew are to be no more than requisite, with no unnecessary exposure of human life to swell the lists of the slain. The issue of this contest, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... right; but she would not consent. By adroit questioning he found that her objection was dislike of being so much trouble to him. "That's too ridiculous," cried he. "Why, I wouldn't have missed this adventure ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... manner, and he too became hypnotized, fixing his blue eyes upon the strange lady. "I do not believe in patent foods for children," said Mrs. Brewton. "We agree on that, Mr. Smith, and I am a grandmother, and I attend to what my grandchildren eat. But this highly adroit young man has done you no harm. If he has the prizes, whose doing is that, please? And who paid for them? Will you tell me, please? Ah, you are all silent!" And she croaked melodiously. "Now let him and his manna go along. But I have enjoyed meeting you all, ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... tapestry. The king showed the corner of his letter to La Valliere, and the latter held out her handkerchief with a look which signified, "Put the letter inside." Then, as the king had placed his own handkerchief upon his chair, he was adroit enough to let it fall on the ground, so that La Valliere slipped her handkerchief on the chair. The king took it up quietly, without any one observing what he did, placed the letter within it, and returned the handkerchief to the place he had taken it from. There ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... thing of bringing city loan to par could be done. He made an arrangement at that time with Mr. Stener, the details of which you have heard from Mr. Stener himself, the result of which was that a large amount of city loan was turned over to Mr. Cowperwood by Mr. Stener for sale, and by adroit manipulation—methods of buying and selling which need not be gone into here, but which are perfectly sane and legitimate in the world in which Mr. Cowperwood operated, did bring that loan to par, and kept it there year after year as you have all ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... was small, slight, elegant, fragile-looking, with a notably handsome face. He was one of those clever, agreeable, plausible, managing little men who seem always to get their own way. They are very adroit and not too scrupulous about the means they use to attain their ends. They have that absolute belief in themselves which their friends call self-confidence ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... and I have known each other for a few moments only, but already we have a secret between us!'" The Kaiser was very tickled by my retort ... very tickled ... and the Queen told me afterwards that it was very adroit of me to get out of it like that. She said it ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Indian held medicine close to spiritual things, but in this also he has been much misunderstood; in fact everything that he held sacred is indiscriminately called "medicine," in the sense of mystery or magic. As a doctor he was originally very adroit and often successful. He employed only healing bark, roots, and leaves with whose properties he was familiar, using them in the form of a distillation or tea and always singly. The stomach or internal bath was a valuable discovery of his, and the vapor or Turkish bath was in general use. ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... session in London was at that time rendered impossible by the pestilential sickness already referred to, which every day increased in severity. Buckingham, who although pliant and adroit yet had no regard whatever for others, wished to keep Parliament sitting until it had made satisfactory grants. While the members, and even the Privy Council, wished for a prorogation, he urged with success that the sitting should only be transferred to Oxford. Thither the two Houses ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... adventures with the Texas Rangers among the cactus-studded plains of the Lone Star State, it is hard, even for one who knows the truth, to realize that this man is one of the greatest of detectives, or rather one of the most capable, resourceful, adroit, and quick-witted knights of adventure who ever set forth ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... this is your adroit and tactful way of suggesting that I should ask her," Mrs. Lenox ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... graceful wave of complacence; an abrupt closing of it that indicates vexation or anger; a gradual and cautious opening of its folds that signifies reluctant forgiveness; in short, the language of the fan in the hand of a Cuban lady is a wonderfully adroit and expressive pantomime that requires no interpreter, for, like the Chinese written language, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... with employing the painter largely at Fontainebleau and in Versailles, invested him with the order of St Michael, bestowed on him letters of nobility, and visited him frequently at his work, occasions when there were not wanting adroit courtiers to liken the Grand Monarque to the Emperor Charles V., ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... and people were greatly taken with it. He was something strange and great. Women generally were so much the more smitten with this original person because he was not to be caught by their flatteries, however adroit, nor by the wiles with which they circumvent the strongest men and corrode the steel temper. Their Parisian's grimaces were lost upon M. de Montriveau; his nature only responded to the sonorous vibration of lofty thought and feeling. And he would very promptly have ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... availability when it nominated Harrison on account of his military reputation. He lived only one month after his inauguration, and Tyler, the Vice President, who succeeded him, reverted to his old political principles, which were Democratic, and broke with the Whigs. By an adroit and steady use of the executive power he effected the annexation of Texas, but the master spirit in this enterprise was Calhoun, his Secretary of State. Polk, his Democratic successor, coveted California and New Mexico, tried to purchase them, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... regularity, accompanied Bertie, to whom were confided all details of dress, all keys and jewels, with entire confidence and safety. An elaborate doll seemed the red-and-white and stupidly-staring Euphemia. Yet was she adroit, obedient, and expert, just to move in the groove ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... wide wingspan, quite clearly visible, approached and hovered over us. When it was just a few meters above the waves, Captain Nemo's companion took aim and fired. The animal dropped, electrocuted, and its descent brought it within reach of our adroit hunter, who promptly took possession of it. It was an albatross of the finest species, a wonderful specimen of ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... Tallente was adroit and they left the restaurant just as Miller was rising to his feet. Nora sprang into the waiting taxi with a little laugh of triumph and drew her skirts on one side to make room for her escort. They drove slowly off along the ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... His antagonist was adroit, and a life spent in eluding the law had made him quick-witted. He turned the tables upon Ben by turning round, grasping him firmly by the arm, and repeating in a voice louder ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger |
