"Astute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... become warped and deranged in such out-of-the-way places as Southern Russia, Eastern China, Central Hindoostan, Southern Africa, and Northern America military men, who, in fact, could not be expected to understand questions of grave political economy, astute matters of place.-and party, upon which the very existence of the parliamentary system depended; and who, from the ignorance of these nice distinctions of liberal-conservative and conservative-liberal, had imagined ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... their minds was made clear in the campaign. No one would wish to minimize the unusual abilities of Mr. Hughes, but they are the abilities of an adroit lawyer. He makes "points." He pleases those minds which like cleverness and finesse. He deals with international affairs like an astute lawyer drawing a brief. But has he ever quickened the nation's pulse or stirred its heart by a single utterance? Did he ever make any one feel that behind the formalities of law, civil or international, he detected the heartbeats of humanity whom law is supposedly designed ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... know any more extraordinary man! He fought all the kings of Europe, and half the world was his, 'the sun never set on his dominions,' we Spaniards were masters of the world; you cannot either deny this. And still we have said nothing of Don Philip II., a king so wise and so astute that he made all the monarchs of Europe dance at his pleasure, as though he were pulling them with a string. Everything was for the greater glory of Spain and the splendour of religion. Of his victories and greatness we have said nothing; if his father was victorious at Pavia, he ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... presence in London, and his frequent colloquies with the Protector over French affairs, Spanish affairs, the movements of Charles II abroad, a rumoured dissension between Charles II. and his brother the Duke of York, and Mazarin's astute intimacy with all, are worthy of remark even now. It was on Dec. 10, 1656, that Lockhart received from his Highness the honour of knighthood at Whitehall; and on Feb. 3, 1656-7, it was settled by ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... long-lived of men' is a description involving only universals, which must apply to some man, but we can make no judgements concerning this man which involve knowledge about him beyond what the description gives. If, however, we say, 'The first Chancellor of the German Empire was an astute diplomatist', we can only be assured of the truth of our judgement in virtue of something with which we are acquainted—usually a testimony heard or read. Apart from the information we convey to others, apart from the fact about the actual Bismarck, which gives importance ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... occupied in horse-stealing or thimble-rigging on bush race-courses, had spent the intervening time in gaol. Pinkerton, who was an American of a somewhat similar type to Cheyne, but of a more villainous nature, was an expert burglar, and a very fitting companion to the astute and well-educated Forreste, and the Jew, ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... auld beird gray" is mentioned by Gawain Douglas, in his Palice of Honour, which the Shepherd can hardly have read, and Scott identified this Maitland with the ancestor of Lethington; his date was 1250-1296. On the whole, even the astute Shepherd, in his early days of authorship, could hardly have laid a plot so insidious, and the question of the authenticity and origin of the ballad (obvious interpolations apart) remains a mystery. Who could have forged it? It is, as an exercise ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... was, above all, an astute and well-balanced man, was a scamp of a temperate sort. This is the worst species; hypocrisy ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... they had sold out their interest in the alleged silver mine to Wiles and Pedro for a few hundred dollars,—succumbing to what they were assured would be an active opposition on the part of the Americanos. The astute reader will easily understand that the accomplished Mr. Wiles did not inform them of its value as a quicksilver mine, although he was obliged to impart his secret to Pedro as a necessary accomplice and reckless coadjutor. ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... American lines, anyway," said the astute Scots engineer of the gin-mill; "it's my belief ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... does not appear whether they were English or American, attempted his conversion; but the astute savage, after listening to their eloquent statements of the power of faith, pressed on them as a crucial test to throw themselves from the top of an adjacent precipice, making his reception of their religion contingent on their arrival unhurt at its base. He built large heiaus, amongst ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... the English colonists awakened to the importance of the valley of the Ohio, and adventurous frontiersmen of Virginia and Pennsylvania were already forcing their way into its wilderness, when France's ambition barred the way to their further progress. That astute Canadian, Governor La Galissonniere, in 1749, recognised the importance of the Ohio in relation to the Illinois and Mississippi, and sent Celoron, a captain in the French service, to claim possession ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... also so quick in discovering the merits of the generals opposed to him, that some of his most notable victories were obtained by his skill in detaching them from their service or by ruining their reputation by some intrigue more astute than honorable. Yet, all deductions made, Tsin Chi Hwangti stands forth as a great ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Courts, which had made incredible solicitations to him while he wavered, began, as soon as his purpose was fixed, to draw back,—a fatality due to the phlegmatic temper of the Spaniard, dignified by the name of prudence, joined to the astute politics of the house of Austria. You may observe at the same time that the Count, who had continued firm and unshaken three months together, changed his mind as soon as his enemies had granted what he asked; which exactly ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... does the more facile conduct of business permit industry and extra-industrial life to go on with less perturbation; but the resulting elimination of disturbances and complications calling for an exercise of astute discrimination in everyday affairs acts to make the pecuniary class itself superfluous. As fast as pecuniary transactions are reduced to routine, the captain of industry can be dispensed with. This consummation, ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... the struggle before them was likely to be the life-and-death struggle of the Southern Netherlands; they knew that there was risk of their being surrounded so that relief from without would be impossible; they knew that their assailant was one of the most astute and unconquerable of men, by far the greatest general of the sixteenth century. Therefore they proceeded to do just what our Republican Congress, under such circumstances, would probably have done, and just what the New York Tribune, if it had existed in those days, would have advised them to ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... for her success had excited her and she had never looked lovelier. She was at the other end of the table and Mrs. McLane and Mrs. Ballinger sat beside him. She interested him for the first time and he adroitly drew her history from his mentor (not that he deluded that astute lady for an instant, but she ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... analogy between the Chinaman's pigtail and the prehensile appendage of that very astute little animal, the monkey, for the proud possessors of either of these grotesque physical adornments lose social caste the moment they are bereft of them. That there are reasons to believe that the tail of the monkey is his credentials to the polite society of ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... Wellington Bry's strong point. The lady (whose consort was known as "Welly" Bry on the Stock Exchange and in sporting circles) had already sacrificed one husband, and sundry minor considerations, to her determination to get on; and, having obtained a hold on Carry Fisher, she was astute enough to perceive the wisdom of committing herself entirely to that lady's guidance. Everything, accordingly, was well done, for there was no limit to Mrs. Fisher's prodigality when she was not spending her own money, and as she remarked to her pupil, a good cook was ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... by such boldness (which, as you know, is never displeasing to you women), led captive by the conqueror's glance, by the astute yet candid air which Charles Edward can assume when he chooses, the lady rose, took the arm of her self-constituted escort, and went downstairs, but on the threshold she stopped ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... Coronation. As a masterpiece of diplomacy, where can you find its superior in our history? Did the King suspect its vast importance? No. Did his ministers? No. Did the astute Bedford, representative of the English crown? No. An advantage of incalculable importance was here under the eyes of the King and of Bedford; the King could get it by a bold stroke, Bedford could get it without ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... they discussed the matter with Judge Atkins without telling the details of the jollification, which doubtless he was astute enough to guess at. The result was that messages were sent to all the police precincts, and a detective was put on ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... be so very serious a matter, for Doctor Eberbach had just read something aloud at which the young Nuremberg ambassador, Lienhard Groland, could not help laughing heartily. It seemed to amuse the others wonderfully, too, and even caused the astute Dr. Peutinger to strike his clinched fist upon the table with the exclamation, "A devil of a fellow!" and Wilibald Pirckheimer to assent eagerly, praising Hutten's ardent love for his native land and courage in battling for its elevation; but this Hutten ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to tatters. It was so much put about, so constantly dinned into Lord Blackadder's ears, that he was goaded into a perfect fury, and was at length determined, by hook or by crook, to put away his wife, leaving it to certain astute and well-practised solicitors to manufacture a ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... a philosophical religion the Saint-Simonian school was not only true to its master's teaching but obeying an astute instinct. As a purely secular movement for the transformation of society, their doctrine would not have reaped the same success or inspired the same enthusiasm. They were probably influenced too by the pamphlet of Lessing to which Madame de Stael had invited attention, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... been Atahuallpa's purpose is not improbable. It explains his conduct in not occupying the mountain passes, which afforded such strong points of defence against invasion. But that a prince so astute, as by the general testimony of the Conquerors he is represented to have been, should have made so impolitic a disclosure of his hidden motives is not so probable. The intercourse with the Inca was carried on chiefly ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... unparalleled for astronomical purposes, has no observatory. The largest telescope in the city is about five feet long, but the astute professor of natural philosophy in the Jesuit College who has charge of it had not the most distant idea that an eclipse of the sun would occur on the 29th of August, and an eclipse of the moon ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... in college, not so much by hard study as by skilful veneering, and had taken great pains to stand well with the Faculty, at least one of whom, Byles Gridley, A. M., had watched him with no little interest as a man with a promising future, provided he were not so astute as to outwit and overreach himself in his excess of contrivance. His classmates could not help liking him; as to loving him, none of them would have thought of that. He was so shrewd, so keen, so full of practical sense, and so ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... his spirit-breaking. The explanation was probably the correct one. He was in the habit of wearing flowers in his coat and it was impossible that the convict should have obtained one by any other means. Had it been a fig of tobacco now, the astute Commandant knew plenty of men who would have brought it into the prison. But who would risk a flogging for so useless a thing as a flower? "You'd better not pick up any more, Jack," he said. "We don't grow flowers for your amusement." And contemptuously flinging the rose over the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... had wreathed about his big head. The slim, dark Captain's smile took on an amiable expression. Might he know why I was addressed as "Young Ulysses" by my friend? and immediately he added the remark with urbane playfulness that Ulysses was an astute person. Mills did not give me time for a reply. He struck in: "That old Greek was famed as a wanderer—the first historical seaman." He waved his pipe vaguely ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... one Peter the carpenter. At this point Matilda's turn came and she died. All this had happened in the interval of two months since the last manor court was held. The steward of the manor claimed a heriot from Wyninge's land and another from Oberward's. But the astute Peter was equal to the occasion: he pleaded that, according to the custom of the manor, no heriot could be levied from a widow till she had survived her husband a year and a day, and he demanded that the court rolls should be searched to confirm or correct his assertion. I suspect he knew ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... Vice-Chancellor of New Jersey, to be invalid on the ground that George's doctrines are "in opposition to the laws"; and this decision has bred an uproar in the press which is reviving popular attention all over the country to the doctrines and to their author. He is astute, persevering, as much in earnest as Mr. Davitt, and as familiar with the weak points in the political machinery of the United States as is Mr. Davitt with the weak points in the political machinery of Great ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... leader of the potato-bug dance in "Fol-de-Rol," and at length to the part of the maid "'Toinette" in "The King's Bath-Robe," which captured the critics and gave her her chance. And when we come to consider Miss Carrington she is in the heydey of flattery, fame and fizz; and that astute manager, Herr Timothy Goldstein, has her signature to iron-clad papers that she will star the coming season in Dyde Rich's new play, ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... now, but I didn't then. Nay, I even laughed at Ching Wang's ignorance when speaking to Tim Rooney, whom I met as I retreated from the galley, telling him that I wondered how the generally astute Chinaman could really fancy he was propitiating Buddha, or whoever else he believed in as his sovereign deity, by burning a few scraps of tinsel paper to do honour ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... circumspect and cold. The psychological labyrinths of Stendhal, the analytical detours of Duranty seduced him, but their administrative, colorless and arid language, their static prose, fit at best for the wretched industry of the theatre, repelled him. Then their interesting works and their astute analyses applied to brains agitated by passions in which he was no longer interested. He was not at all concerned with general affections or points of view, with associations of common ideas, now that the reserve of his mind was more keenly developed and that he no longer admitted aught but superfine ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... with Senator Platt—those meetings which caused so much alarm and suspicion among over-righteous reformers—took place while Roosevelt was Governor. Mr. Odell nearly always accompanied the Senator, as if he felt afraid to trust the astute Boss with the very persuasive young Governor. Having Mrs. Robinson's house as a shelter, Theodore could screen himself from the newspaper men. There he could hold private consultations which, if they had been referred to in ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... do my best to further her holy plans—he! he!—but I confess I begin to doubt of their being successful here—you put me out; old Fraser of Lovat! I have heard my father talk of him; he had a gold-headed cane, with which he once knocked my grandfather down—he was an astute one, but, as you say, mistaken, particularly in himself. I have read his life by Arbuthnot, it is in the library of our college. Farewell! I shall come no more to this dingle—to come would be of no utility; I shall go and labour elsewhere, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... she saw that the situation was not hopeless. There was one thing that might be done, and that successfully accomplished the game would be in her hands. Ralph must be made to go to Barport. A few days with Dora at the seaside, with some astute person there to manage the affair, would settle the fate of Mr. Ralph Haverley. At this thought her eyes sparkled, and she began to feel hungry. At this important moment she did not wish to occupy her mind with prattle and chat, and ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... he abandoned hope of getting direct evidence against McDougall himself. That astute lawyer had been careful to have nothing whatever to do with actual bribery or corruption, and he was crafty enough to disassociate himself from direct dealing with agents. Indeed, Keith himself was in some slight doubt as to whether McDougall had any actual detailed knowledge ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... then and there, but Hurd, more astute, interrupted his angry speech. "We'll see about that later, Mr. Pash," he said, soothingly; "meanwhile, what did you ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... Selpdorf posed as the suave, sympathetic, good-natured friend of those with whom he came in contact; Counsellor, as a man of no account, a rugged soldier, honest, strong, outspoken, a good agent to act under the direction of more astute brains, but if left to his own resources ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... of Turkey, son of Sultan Mahmud II., was born on the 9th of February 1830, and succeeded his brother Abd-ul-Mejid in 1861. His personal interference in government affairs was not very marked, and extended to little more than taking astute advantage of the constant issue of State loans during his reign to acquire wealth, which was squandered in building useless palaces and in other futile ways: he is even said to have profited, by means of "bear'' sales, from the default ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... him, she forgot that the boy whom she had brought up was no longer a child, and thus she unpardonably ignored his rights as a man. And now Miss Josephine's disapproval was vindicated, and her own casuistry was doubly punished. Miss Rieppe's astute journey of investigation—for her purpose had evidently become suspected by some of them beforehand—had forced Miss Eliza to disclose the truth about the phosphates to her nephew before it should be told him by the girl ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... was completely convincing. Ailsa expanded under the warm kindliness of his tone in a manner which surprised even herself. Hitherto this man had never appealed to her. She knew her husband's regard for him. She had always seen in him an astute man of business, with a strength of purpose and capacity always to be relied upon. But the sentiments he now expressed were surprising, and came as a welcome display such as she would never ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... cars advantageously, the railroads find it much better to rent them, or simply to haul them on a mileage. The business is a specialty in itself, and requires most astute generalship to make it pay. Cars have to be sent to Alabama in February and March; North Carolina a little later; then West Virginia. These same cars then do service in the Fall in Michigan. It naturally ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... had preserved in an old kodak book had impressed her by the big eyes (which he had probably grown up to by now). However, in the last month, when her winter visit to Sally had been decided on, he had assumed the proportions of a worthy adversary. Children, most astute of match-makers, plot their campaigns quickly, and Sally had played a clever correspondence sonata to Isabelle's excitable temperament. Isabelle had been for some time capable of very strong, ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... company of singers was a magnificent combination of musical talent, and the presentation of opera in every way admirable, the enterprise had a sickly existence for a time, and it was not until it had passed through various vicissitudes, and came finally into the hands of the astute Lumley, that the enterprise was settled on ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... sovereign people struggle at Washington in keen debate, inspired by the hostile sections of the Union. They quarrel over the slavery interests in the great West. Keen Tom Corwin, loyal Dix, astute Giddings, Douglass the little giant, and David Wilmot fight freedom's battle with the great apostle of State rights, Calhoun. He is supported by President Polk, the facile Secretary of State Buchanan, and that dark Mississippi man of destiny, Jefferson Davis. The fiery Foote and all the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... land wrester forced the town of Southampton to accept the insignificant sum of L10 for the greater part of forty miles of beach—a singularly profitable transaction for Smith, who cleared in one year L500, the proceeds of whales taken there, as he admitted to Bellomont.[17] Henry Beekman, the astute and smooth founder of a rich and powerful family, was made a magnate of the first importance by a grant from Fletcher of a tract sixteen miles in length in Dutchess County, and also of another estate running twenty miles along the Hudson and eight miles inland. ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... the Hog's Back he saw the Happy Family bunched around some object on the creek-bank, and he heard the hysterical screaming of the Kid up in the house, and saw the Old Man limping excitedly up and down the porch. A man less astute than Andy Green would have known that some thing had happened. He hurried down the last slope, galloped along the creek-bottom, crossed the ford in a couple of leaps and pulled up beside ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... advocates. Naturally, the change was urged most strongly by all those whose sons and daughters were sickly or malformed, and so were doomed to die in the very blossom of their years. It was urged by the nobles because the more astute among them perceived the possibility of so manipulating it that it would result in the creation of a distinctively servile class; and the priests urged it because they also perceived a way by which it might be made to provide more victims for sacrifice ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... the astute and unscrupulous instructor expected, and he determined to pursue his advantage and effect, if possible, the complete corruption of his pupil in a single ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... was arranged. Now, it had been settled the night before that Mr. Markrute should shoot with the Duke and the rest of the more serious men; but early in the morning that astute financier had sent a note to His Grace's room, saying, if it were not putting out the guns dreadfully, he would crave to be excused as he was expecting a telegram of the gravest importance concerning the new Turkish loan, which he would be ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... shaking his fist at the flag and furiously impatient at Chinese slowness, the wily Chinese were engaged upon other, more important matters. Hauling down the flag could wait; it was less urgent. The astute Chinese, with admirable foresight, hastily "acquired" the German concessions in Tientsin and Hankow for themselves—acted with remarkable intelligence and great haste, almost undue haste, before any of the foreign powers could "acquire" or "protect" these concessions for themselves; ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... simple and tactful, left no doubt as to their meaning. There was nothing in them which could be challenged, could be construed into active criticism of men or things; and yet much he said was horrifying. It made Achmet Pasha sit up aghast, and Nahoum Pasha, the astute Armenian, for a long time past the confidant and favourite of the Prince Pasha, laugh in his throat; for, if there was a man in Egypt who enjoyed the thrust of a word or the bite of a phrase, it was Nahoum. Christian though ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... came they to Ali Baba's house, and the captain craved lodging for himself and his beasts. Surely would Ali Baba have been captured, tortured, and put to death but for his maid, the faithful and astute Morgiana, who discovered men in the jars, and, boiling cans of oil, poured it upon them one by one, and so delivered her master. But the captain had escaped, and Ali Baba still went in great fear of his life. But when he returned, disguised so that he might have puzzled ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... delayed by the rising of the Chickahominy. He had fought a hard fight at Seven Pines; and the constant interference of Jackson had kept him waiting for McDowell. But, at the same time, he had displayed an excess of caution which was perfectly apparent to his astute opponent. He had made no attempt to use his superior numbers; and Lee had come to the conclusion that the attack on Richmond would take the same form as the attack on Yorktown,—the establishment of great batteries, the massing of heavy ordnance, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... will make an admirable judge, the most upright of public servants, the most devoted of deputies. And where would you find a sailor bolder, more adventurous, more astute than my Rene will be a few years hence? The little rascal has already an iron will, whatever he wants he manages to get; he will try a thousand circuitous ways to reach his end, and if not successful then, will devise a thousand ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... was to reduce that state to a degree of material poverty, political insignificance, and intellectual torpidity unknown before in her experience. Civil war was long delayed; the political necessities and the astute policy of Charles V., the conservative instincts and patriotic scruples of Luther, and the doubtful position of many of the German provinces and cities, long prevented any attempt by the emperor to enforce the orthodoxy required by the Diet of Worms, and induced ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... ask him more about my foster-cousin Manetho? Egyptians are more astute than affectionate. Would he cleave to my poor uncle for these last eighteen years merely for love? Why did he transfer that money so soon after we sailed? Ten to one, he has in his own hands the future as well as the present disposal of Doctor Hiero Glyphic's fortune! ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... things of the kingdom of God, so far as he had learned them out of the Holy Scripture. Very instructive and affecting it was, when, as sometimes, the aspiring philosopher, the uncompromising logician, the astute economist, the grave and learned dogmatist, renounced these and all other accomplishments of nature, or rather made them subservient to the greater accomplishments of grace. Then we admired, even to tears of thankfulness, how the wise man, in becoming a fool, becomes ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... a tall young man, thin, with a rosy face, a long nose, and a mouth almost from ear to ear, had the air of an astute but jolly person, and laughed at everything said to him. He was liveliness personified. When they entered his office ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... told Stafford what the situation was, that astute banker—who had been in many a ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... hands, would prove the key to a vastly larger situation involving more main-line mileage almost than there were spikes in the aforesaid dinky jerkwater. It was so simple that he had almost laughed aloud when it came to him. No wonder those astute and ancient enemies of his had passed ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... the Jews, oh most astute and yet most slow-witted master! The ten tribes have been upon me, and I have been harried and wasted, bound, ravished, and despoiled. Never was Agag, king of Amalek, more completely in the hands of the chosen, and the sole ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Alan Hawke, and therefore, he very delicately played his wary fish, the sybaritic young swell of the staff. Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther's reserve soon melted under the skillful bonhomie of the astute Alan Hawke. An easy-going patrician of the staff, he was in the magic circle of the viceroy. The heir to an inevitable fortune, and already vested with substantially stratified deposits at "Coutts" and Glyn, Carr and Glyn's, he would have been envied by most luckless mortals the heavy balances ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... colonial prejudices which, discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are, in the Governor of a mixed community, nothing less than calamitous. More than amply did he justify the evil reports with which rumour had heralded his coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James Longden, who was, on the whole, only a constitutionally timid man, Governor Irving threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the Sugar Interest, by whom he had been helped into his high office, and whose ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... the astute and able secretary and adviser to many Governors, the Hon. Herman W. Ryland, who died in ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... Gordon, as soon as that astute managing editor arrived, as to the handling of the difficult situation. The Ledger, always cynically intolerant of any effort to better the city government, as savoring of "goo-gooism," which was its special bete noire, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... faithfully set down by Popova, was carried away to the secret police of Morovenia, said to be the most astute in the world. They were instructed to watch all trains and guard the frontier and, as soon as they had their prisoner safely put away in the lower dungeon of the municipal prison, they were to notify the Governor-General, ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... Tannis. He sent her to school for four years in Prince Albert, bound that his girl should have the best. A High School course and considerable mingling in the social life of the town—for old Auguste was a man to be conciliated by astute politicians, since he controlled some two or three hundred half-breed votes—sent Tannis home to the Flats with a very thin, but very deceptive, veneer of culture and civilization overlying the primitive passions and ideas ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... were watching my progress from behind the green paper curtains of their 'sittin' room' windows, might possibly judge from my speed, that I had been called to a patient at last. Vain hope! idle precaution! every one of those astute matrons knew at least as well as myself the errand upon which I was bound, and far better than I, as I own in all humility, the state of health in the neighborhood, which precluded all possibility of any professional ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... transient smile passed over his face as he saw how neatly Aunt Eliza had deceived his astute sister. ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... had lately noticed, had become "as thick as two thieves," and were much in each other's company. Some act of kindness had endeared the "infantry" to his more astute and experienced associate, who had taken him under his patronage ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... should not be forgotten, for Richard Cromwell was formally taken to task for having the temerity to go to Hampton to hunt the deer! Then, despite the temptation it might prove, the Long Parliament offered Hampton Court to General Monck, but that astute man, thinking it a dangerous gift, would accept no more than the custody and stewardship of it for life—and was thus able to hand it over to Charles the Second on the accomplishment of that Restoration, in which he probably already regarded himself ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... early the next morning and walked briskly to Captain Tappken's office. Punctually at ten o'clock I announced myself at the Admiralty and after the usual procedure with the door man, I was received by Herr von Stammer, private secretary of Captain Tappken. A very astute and calculating gentleman is Herr von Stammer. Suave, genial, talkative, he has the plausible and unstudied art of extracting information without committing himself in turn. A marvelous encyclopædia of devious Secret Service ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... music-hall, the cafe chantant, or whatever place mademoiselle and her astute adviser may select as a safe haven wherein to avoid police espionage during the many months which must ensue before they dare to make the slightest effort to dispose of the ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... that Becky Sharp had appropriated to herself the money which he had given her to restore poor Miss Briggs' stolen property, he is not indignant at the deception. The admiration of the noble rogue is only increased for the woman who has shown herself to be possessed of a more astute roguery than ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... World." This is plain enough. What will be the final form of settlement we do not even conjecture. It is probable that the Emperor does not himself know. With our fortunes so unsettled, and with so many European jealousies to conciliate, even his astute genius may well be puzzled as to the wisest policy. But it is of no consequence what particular government France may impose upon the conquered State,—monarchical, vice-regal, or republican,—Maximilian, a Bonaparte, or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... so unworldly? The phrase rankled in her conscience like a thorn. And in what respect were those Society mothers less managing than the nun? she asked herself. Could any of them have been more astute, more eager, more bent on hooking the desirable parti for their girls than she had shown herself just now? And was this, again, an unworldly voice whispering to her that the publicity ensured by a paragraph penned by this gossip-loving little lady ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... his admiration for his young antagonist, however, one cannot help noticing that the generous and modest but astute counsel for the defence ended ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... and more stupid than usual. They were merely a few lines on the weather, the Emperor's health, or his desire to hear that his wife was "cheerful and happy." But, alas! cheerfulness and happiness were not for her! Too astute to be hoodwinked, she understood that her husband still had a friendly feeling for her but that his love was dead. In the eyes of a jealous woman, friendship is a slight thing. What does she care for the esteem and attentions of a friend who ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... astute lawyer and judge, was a believer in witchcraft, and entertained views on this subject similar to those of Mr. Forbes, as will appear from the following particulars of the trial of Rose Cullender and Ann Duny in 1664. These women were accused ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... superior in power," (in the first instance) "the whim of the populace was ascertained and the way in which their humour was to be dealt with, and" (in the second instance) "those persons were accounted astute in their generation and wise who made themselves thoroughly conversant with the disposition of the Senate and the aristocracy; then when a change took place in the Government" (from the Republic to the Empire), "there was the same state of things as when a King was the ruler":—"Igitur, ut ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... returns to cover near the carcass and lies down, or he wanders slowly and with satisfaction toward his happy home. In the latter case the hyenas, jackals, and carrion birds seize their chance. The astute hunter can often diagnose the case by the general actions and demeanour of these camp followers. A half dozen sour and disgusted looking hyenas seated on their haunches at scattered intervals, and treefuls of mournfully humpbacked vultures sunk in sadness, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... incorrigible, and while they seem the cleverest at first prove ultimately the least intelligent. They depend less on circumstances, but do not respond to them so well. In some nations everybody is by nature so astute, versatile, and sympathetic that education hardly makes any difference in manners or mind; and it is there precisely that generation, follows generation without essential progress, and no one ever remakes himself on a better ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... higher, mental life of a people chiefly through the medium of their economic and social life; hence its ultimate effects should be traced through the latter back to the underlying cause. But rarely has this been done. Even so astute a geographer as Strabo, though he recognizes the influence of geographic isolation in differentiating dialects and customs in Greece,[25] ascribes some national characteristics to the nature of the country, especially to its climate, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... that cool judgment, and that capacity to comprehend political grievances which were confessedly the characteristics of this eminent British statesman. Happily for Canada he was followed by a keen politician and an astute economist who, despite his overweening vanity and his tendency to underrate the ability of "those fellows in the colonies"—his own words in a letter to England—was well able to gauge public sentiment accurately ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... anew. Father willing to part, girl frightened—commenced to cry. The astute Charley brought out some new trade. Tirau's eye here displayed a faint interest. Charley threw her, with the air of a prince, a whole piece of turkey twill, 12 yards—value three dollars, cost about 2s. 3d. Tirau put out a little hand and drew it ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... the port without being observed, and if observed the inevitable consequence of being sunk, probably with all on board. The agent, having in mind his own considerable interest, played discreetly on the vanity of the commander, and laughed at the notion of an astute person like him allowing himself to be trapped; appealed to his nationality, and the glory of having run out of a port that was severely blockaded. The captain cut this flow of greasy oratory short by stating that for the moment he was ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... philosophical thought, and of legislation as well as poetry, from being swept away by the deluge of revolution. Confucius showed his wisdom by the high value he set upon the poetry of his native land, and his name must be set side by side with that of the astute tyrant of Athens who collected the poems of Homer and preserved them as a precious heritage to the Greek world. Confucius has given us his opinion with regard to the poems of the Shi-King. No man, he says, is worth speaking to who has not mastered ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... seem guilty of Constance's indiscretion if I politely wonder how it was that so astute a judge as Miss MARIE LOeHR accepted this play. Actor-managers, of course, have been known to produce indifferent work for the sake of a good acting part for themselves. If that was her motive I think she must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... silently; and as she worked she dreamed, and the dream was visible on her face, had any one been astute enough to understand it. She was working a lace collar to wear with a certain blue blouse, and upon that flimsy keystone was erecting an air-castle. She was going to the Elliot Academy, wearing ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... had their faces prepared for the market. Sometimes, it is recorded, a slave, after months of painful preparation, had the audacity to run away with his own head before the day of sale and decapitation. Astute vendors occasionally tried the more merciful plan of tattooing "plain" heads after death in ordinary course of battle. But this was a species of fraud, as the lines soon became indistinct. Such heads have often been indignantly pointed at ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... movements of political parties in New York State from 1774 to 1861, and embraces a series of brilliant character studies of the leaders, most of them of national importance, who, from the days of George Clinton, have drawn the attention of the nation to New York. The astute methods and sources of power by which George Clinton, Hamilton, Burr, DeWitt Clinton, Van Buren, Seymour and Thurlow Weed each successively controlled the political destiny of the State are ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... brazen effrontery of the ambassador's scoundrelly servant in passing himself off for a man of condition formed the point of departure for every conversation. It was discovered that there were but three persons present who had not suspected him from the first; and, by a singular paradox, the most astute of all proved to be old Mr. Bicksit, the traveler, once a visitor at Chateaurien; for he, according to report, had by a coup of diplomacy entrapped the impostor into an admission that there was no such ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... back from Berlin, having by an astute and not very creditable transaction secured the Island of Cyprus for the British Crown, besides compelling Russia to forego some of the fruits of her victory over Turkey, he met with a reception of extraordinary enthusiasm. A conqueror returning from the wars ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... you know, on the upstair passage there still is that queer slit through which the old abbots used to watch the monks at their devotions. Finding the shutter unlocked, the astute Thomas followed their example, as well as he could, for he says there was no light in the chapel except that of the fire, by which presently he made out your figure, Miss Fregelius, sometimes playing the violin, and sometimes singing, and that ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... longing to consort with the ghosts of an ancient line, as artistic appreciation of the mellowness, the dignity, the aristocratic aloofness of walls that have sheltered, and furniture that has embraced, generations and generations of the dead. To mere wealth, only his astute and incomparably modern brain yielded respect; his ego raised its goose-flesh at the sight of rooms furnished with a single check, conciliatory as the taste might be. The dumping of the old interiors of Europe into the glistening shells of the United States not only roused him almost ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... of these two forces. The single snowflake is to the indifferent eye something infinitesimal, too small to take individual notice of, once it reaches the ground. For most of us it hardly has any separate existence, however it may be to more astute observers. We see the flakes in the mass, and we judge by results. Now firstly, to talk of results, the filling up of a hollow, unless the drifting snow is simply picked up from the ground where it lay ready from previous falls, proceeds itself rather ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... THEIR part of the bargain, grew melancholy, wretched, nay, so absolutely dishonorable as to seek for every means of breaking through their agreement. The Englishman living in a country where the lawyers are more astute than any other lawyers in the world, took the advice of a Mr. Bagsby, of Lyon's Inn; whose name, as we cannot find it in the "Law List," we presume to be fictitious. Who could it be that was a match for the devil? Lord ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his manner was a little ridiculous, so that even Mrs. Lee, who was herself a warm reformer, sometimes went over to the other side when he talked. No sooner had he now shot his little arrow at the Senator, than that astute man saw his opportunity, and promised himself the ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... become ports of deposit for American products, whence they were conveyed in British ships to Great Britain and her dependencies, to which the Act forbade American vessels to go. The effect was to give the carrying of American products to British shipping, in precise conformity with the astute provisions of the Navigation Acts. British markets were reached by a broken voyage, the long leg of which, from Amelia and Halifax to Europe and elsewhere, was taken by British navigation. It was stated that there were at a given moment ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... in the reality of the transference of strong mental or physical impressions on the mother into physical changes in the child she is bearing is very ancient and widespread. Most writers on the subject begin with the book of Genesis and the astute device of Jacob in influencing the color of his lambs by mental impressions on his ewes. But the belief exists among even more primitive people than the early Hebrews, and in all parts of the world.[189] Among the Greeks there is a trace of the belief in Hippocrates, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... good fortune," said the Regent, turning to a man seated at another table at some distance, whose wily, astute countenance, piercing eye, and licentious expression of lip and brow, indicated at once the ability and vice which composed his character. "So like my good fortune, is it not, Dubois? If ever I meet with a tolerably pleasant fellow, who does not disgrace me by his birth or reputation, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... even that was full of difficulties. After all, the Homoeans were still the strongest party in 365. They were in possession of the churches and commanded much of the Asiatic influence, and had no enmity to contend with which was not quite as bitter against the other parties. They also had astute leaders, and a doctrine which still presented attractions to the quiet men who were tired of controversy. Upon the whole, the Homoean policy was the ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... divided, yet, as man to woman, though divided still united, and thus forming even in the cold regions of space a perfect image of our terrestrial existence? Who can say that our romantic French friend was altogether wrong in thus explaining the astute ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... and measures of his administration. At that meeting, which took place in less than a month after Lincoln's election, or early in December, 1860, Lincoln became convinced that war was imminent between the North and the South. Mr. Weed was a very astute man, and had a wonderful knowledge of what was going on. He told Lincoln of preparations being made in the Southern States that could mean nothing less than war. It was a serious time with all of us, of course, but Lincoln took it with the imperturbability ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... stand out definitely on one political side or the other. He was urged, at the end of September, to receive the inevitable torchlight procession planned in his honor by the Union of Norwegian Students. He was astute enough to see that this might compromise his independence, but he was probably too self-conscious in believing that a trap was being laid for him. He said that, not having observed that his presence ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... Russia repented of her generosity. She sought to regain control in Korea. She sent M. Pavloff, an astute and charming statesman, to Seoul, and a series of intrigues began. Yi Yung-ik sided with the Russians. ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... aver that the Dauphin Louis actually thought of obtaining a dispensation for marrying her. In the unsettled condition of the Church, when it was divided by the last splinterings, as it were, of the great schism, perhaps the astute Louis deemed that any prince might obtain anything from whichever rival Pope he chose to acknowledge, though it was reserved for Alexander Borgia to grant the first licence of this kind. To Jean the idea was simply abhorrent, alike as ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... adventures have finished. We are to contemplate a condition, not to watch the events that ultimate in it. Our detective, or anyone else, may of course meet with haps and mishaps on his way to the solution of his puzzle; but an astute writer will not color such incidents too vividly, lest he risk forfeiting our preoccupation with the problem that we came forth for to study. In a word, One ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... was entirely alone. It was impossible to make a guess as to the tribe to which he belonged, though Deerfoot suspected, without any particular reason, that he was an Assiniboine. As to how he came to be by himself, and traveling southward, no theory could be formed by the astute Shawanoe. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... day. Austria could do little for France but France could do much for Austria. So Austria worked for this alliance. It is a story of intrigue. Usually in France the King carried on negotiations with foreign countries only through his ministers, who knew the real interests of France. Now the astute Austrian statesman, Kaunitz, went past the ministers of Louis XV to Louis himself. This was the heyday of Madame de Pompadour, the King's mistress. Maria Theresa condescended to intrigue with this woman whom in her heart she despised. There is still much mystery in the ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... off by this will be to miss one of the pleasantest books of the season. What I might call true fiction has always held a peculiar charm for me. In the present work that clever writer, KATHARINE TYNAN, has been lucky and astute enough to find an ideal heroine, ready made to her hand, in the person of the charming woman who married DEAN DELANY. Upon the basis of her diaries and letters the romance has been built up, with the excellent result of a blend of art and actuality that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... pressed for an audience that very evening. A private one was at length granted them by the commander, in presence of one or two of his officers. The half-king reported the result of it to Washington. The venerable but astute chevalier cautiously evaded the acceptance of the proffered wampum; made many professions of love and friendship, and said he wished to live in peace and trade amicably with the tribes of the Ohio, in proof of which he would send down ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... quid quid debet judicare. Deligens igitur inquisitor et subtilis investigator sapienter quasi astute interrogat a peccatore quod ignorat, vel ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... Hill, and the solicitor came down for the purpose. My father and Ouvry were sitting over their wine when the old man was announced. 'We had better go in to him,' said my father. 'No, no,' said the astute lawyer. 'John,' said he, turning to the butler, 'show him into the study, and take him a bottle of the old port.' Then turning to my father, 'A glass of port will do him good; it will soften him.' After waiting about twenty minutes ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... townsmen.[109:2] In Pennsylvania, the coming of the Germans and the Scotch-Irish in such numbers caused grave anxiety. Indeed, a bill was passed to limit the importation of the Palatines, but it was vetoed.[109:3] Such astute observers as Franklin feared in 1753 that Pennsylvania would be unable to preserve its language and that even its government would become precarious.[109:4] "I remember," he declares, "when they modestly declined intermeddling ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... plundered and caroused for a week, and had hardly re-embarked when they met a small vessel having on board the governor of the island. She made a desperate fight, but was taken at last, and with her a rich booty. They thought to put the governor to ransom but the astute official deceived them, and, on pretence of negotiating for the sum demanded,—together with "four or six parrots, and as many monkeys of the sort called sanguins, which are very beautiful," and for which his captors had also bargained,—contrived to send instructions to his wife. Hence ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Suppose some astute lawyer could find some informality in the law authorizing the issue and sale of the bonds representing the British consols; would any member of either House propose in Parliament to repudiate such bonds, and would not such a motion cause his immediate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... rumour whispered the name of Nuth. Were I to say that this turned his head, there are those to whom the assertion would give pain, for his associates hold that his astute judgment was unaffected by circumstance. I will say, therefore, that it spurred his genius to plan what no burglar had ever planned before. It was nothing less than to burgle the house of the gnoles. And this that abstemious man unfolded to Tonker over a cup of ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... were too astute to offer battle. While the English were employed at Berwick, Sir James Douglas led their main force into the heart of Yorkshire. Douglas hoped to capture Queen Isabella, who was staying near York. A spy betrayed this design ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Alphonso saluted guiltily—evidently the astute Cockerell had "touched the spot"—and was turning away, when suddenly the billeting officer's eye encountered an illegible scrawl at the very ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... issues in regard to which there was a difference of view. This was a species of tactics not unknown to political parties, and might be used with great effect if Mr. Chase should be the nominee. The astute men who advocated his selection saw that the great need of the Democracy was to secure a candidate who had been unquestionably loyal during the war, and who at the same time was not offensive to Southern ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... polished as an icicle, and quite as cold. He may be very accurate and astute and profound, but certainly he is not half ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... with a firm gait. His characteristics are preserved by the artist to admiration; and his majestic front exhibits an attitude surpassing every other, that I have ever seen of the human skull. As a specimen for the craniologist, Red Jacket need not yield his pretensions to those of the most astute philosopher. He will long live by the painting of Weir, the poetry of Halleck, and the fame of his ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... The astute Fukara sheukh surpass all men in their coffee-drinking courtesy, and Zeyd himself was more than any large of this gentlemen-like imposture: he was full of swaggering complacence and compliments to an humbler person. With what suavity could he encourage, and gently ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Powhatan," should be crowned with all due ceremony, just at a time of year when every hand in the colony was needed for attending to the crops. Smith and Newport had just come to a reasonable understanding with that astute savage, by which he treated them with real respect; and the attention paid him by his "brother James," as he proceeded to call the King of England, rather turned his head. He liked the red cloak sent him, but had no idea what a crown meant. The raccoon skin mantle ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... writer states, with a dash of humour, that after a preliminary training on the sea, the bold deerstalker and mountaineer would have to transform himself into a courtier to receive and entertain a King of the French, and play the part of a staid and astute diplomatist. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... second day the doctor set out to cover as much ground as possible. He was astute enough to recognise the wisdom of moving on before his customers had time to compare notes. Before noon, he sold six bottles of the Healing Mixture for influenza, two bottles of the Rheumatic Balm, and one ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Yet the astute man of the world knows more than one way of ruining and disgracing simple-hearted, true-souled young fellows. Not even Satan is credited with appearing often in evil guise ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... October the "Ranger" left Portsmouth, and made for the coast of France. Astute agents of the Americans in that country were having a fleet, powerful frigate built there for Jones, which he was to take, leaving the sluggish "Ranger" to be sold. But, on his arrival at Nantes, Jones was grievously disappointed to learn that the British ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Premier has been as dumb as a graven image ever since. England has many enemies in different parts of the world, but I must confess that this speech by the Austrian Premier came as a surprise. There must have been something hidden, which is not visible from the outside. The Premier is too astute a man not to know exactly what his words meant, and he was under no delusion as to the manner in which England would take them. It is a case, then, of, 'When I was so quickly done for, I wonder what I was begun for'—that is ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... energetic Great Russian empire-builders and not the half-dreamy, half-astute, sympathetic descendants of the Free Cossacks that I wanted to study, I soon abandoned my idea of settling in the Holy City on the Dnieper, and chose Moscow as my point of observation; and here, during several years, I spent regularly some ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Mathurin. Tabary, who seems to have been very much Villon's creature, had ordered the supper in the course of the afternoon. He was a man who had had troubles in his time, and languished in the Bishop of Paris's prisons on a suspicion of picking locks; confiding, convivial, not very astute—who had copied out a whole improper romance with his own right hand. This supper-party was to be his first introduction to De Cayeux and Petit-Jehan, which was probably a matter of some concern to the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... morbid state of mind and of that habit of thought which would associate with every cause an effect of similar magnitude. Santa Ana welcomed him with friendly enthusiasm, and was ready to listen to his plans. That wily and astute politician, who was always abreast of progress and never in its lead, recognized in Estenega the coming man, and, knowing that the seizure of the Californias by the United States was only a question ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... incompetent as ever represented a great power, Gambier, Goulburn, and Adams. To face these the United States had sent John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, Henry Clay, James Bayard, and Jonathan Russell, as able and astute a group of players for great stakes as ever gathered round a table. In these circumstances the British representatives were lucky to secure peace on the basis of the status quo ante. Canada had hoped that sufficient of the unsettled Maine ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... Vice-Royalty. Colonel Miller, whose promotion after the affair of Cancha Rayadu had been rapid, was sent with a small but active force to land at Arica and operate in the Southern Provinces, where by astute strategy and several brilliant successes he confirmed his high reputation. San Martin soon after followed with the main army, escorted by the Chilian squadron under command of Lord Cochran; in running down the coast, he took in Colonel ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Once more the astute Tom produced his pin; and sticking it under the end of my minute-hand, disengaged it from its fellow and bent it back into its proper position. Instantly, as if by magic, the life rushed back into my body; my circulation started afresh, and my heart beat ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... astute leaders of the Rebellion were well aware that the end had not yet come, and that, unless some bold, paralyzing blow was struck, the struggle was but fairly begun. In response to the request for more men new armies were springing up at the North. The continent shook under the tread ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... the raw flesh. And now behold this gentleman, very wisely replaced in office by the French, paying us a morning visit in European clothes. He was the man of the most character we had yet seen: his manners genial and decisive, his person tall, his face rugged, astute, formidable, and with a certain similarity to Mr. Gladstone's only for the brownness of the skin, and the high-chief's tattooing, all one side and much of the other being of an even blue. Further acquaintance increased our opinion of his sense. He viewed the Casco in a manner then ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came East an odd thing happened. When he came East and they found that every word which they had read with such approval was the literal truth, and not just the industry of an astute press-agent, they were nonplused. Even suspicious, I believe. And ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... profane the loftiest prerogative with which civilized society can invest mankind, and sacrilegiously extinguish, in the name of justice, that sacred spark which only Jehovah's fiat kindles. To the same astute and unchanging race, whose relentless code of jurisprudence demanded 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life,' we owe the instructive picture of cautious inquiry, of tender solicitude ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... lifetime of Milneh, Russian influence was ever in the ascendant. The familiar roughness of tone and manner assumed by that Prince towards his uncultivated people procured for him great weight; while his astute cunning, his hatred of Turkey, and his Russian bias, would have given a most valuable ally to that power, had she procured his restoration before her armies crossed the Pruth. Fortunately no opportunity presented itself for him ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... have sufficed to give currency to his lines as to Greek Hexameters. In general, they are neither one thing nor another. Some few of them are dactylic verses—English dactylics. But do away with the division into lines, and the most astute critic would never have suspected them of any thing more than prose."—Pioneer, p. 111. The following are the last ten lines of the volume, with such a division into feet as the poet is ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... applied to him, as in Shakespeare's case, or that his mental sensitiveness approaches downright insanity, as in Shelley's. This fact, curiously enough, has escaped the observation of an otherwise extremely astute observer, namely Havelock Ellis. In his study of British genius he notes the fact that most men of unusual capacities are the sons of relatively old fathers, but instead of exhibiting the true cause thereof, he ascribes it to a mysterious quality whereby ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken |
