"Astuteness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... regular and formal jurisdiction of Prize Courts. Strike the Prize Court out of modern maritime law and the whole system falls, and capture on the sea becomes pure barbarism,—distinguished from piracy only by the astuteness of a legal technicality. The Southern Confederacy could give no guaranty. Just as it undertook to naturalize foreign seamen upon the quarter-deck of its roving cruisers, so it undertook to administer a system of maritime law which precluded the most solemn and important of its provisions— a judicial ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... dirty one-pound notes round the potato dish, and after due haggling received back one, according to the mystic Irish custom of "luck-penny". On the sofa two farmers carried on a transaction in which the swap of a colt, boot money, and luck-penny were blended into one trackless maze of astuteness and arithmetic. On the wall above them a print in which Ananias and Sapphira were the central figures gave a simple and suitable finish to ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... valued for ship-building, and the canal was lined with shipyards, most of which belonged to the prince. The so-called republic had been established before Joro was born, but the reigning family of Hanlon had always been richly endowed with astuteness. Deprived of their feudal holdings by a coup of state, they had won back nearly all they had lost in the fields of finance and trade. Joro was a monarchist for sentimental reasons, not for the profits that might accrue ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... of Saxe-Coburg, who was born in 1861 and was the son of the gifted Princess Clementine of Bourbon-Orleans, daughter of Louis-Philippe. This young man combined great ambition and tenacity of purpose with extreme prudence, astuteness, and patience; he was a consummate diplomat. The election of this prince was viewed with great disfavour by Russia, and for fear of offending the Emperor Alexander III none of the European ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... made a fortune out of contracts, and was now preparing to increase it in the South, where the mountain region, filled with coal and iron, lay virgin for the first comer with sufficient courage and astuteness to take it. He found the new legislature of the State an instrument well fitted to his hands. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... on board what the newspapers called his floating palace, the senator could refuse him even the prize, legation of Europe, there was no value in modest merit. As yet, Livingstone had not hinted at his ambition. There was no need. To a statesman of Hanley's astuteness, the largeness of Livingstone's contribution to ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... in the astuteness of her uneasy heart, the old woman had pursued with secrecy and determination. That was the time when her daughter Winnie could not help passing a remark to Mr Verloc that "mother has been spending half-crowns and five shillings almost every day this last week in cab fares." ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... it is true, is an aristocratic privilege, confined to the world of English society. In democratic America, no doubt because all men there are supposed to be born free and equal, we ignore the first event, and mention only the last two episodes, about which our national astuteness asserts no such ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... no need to ask the professor whether the case interested him or not. He began by being complimentary about my report, praised my astuteness in not calling upon the doctor, and he made me give him a verbal description ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... rascals, like birds of passage, stayed but a short time in the new town of Lafayette. They came up the river with sadly depleted purses, confident of "easy pickings" among the vainglorious amateurs, and be it said in behalf of their astuteness, they seldom if ever boarded the south-bound boats as ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... profession with something of a patriotic feeling. I felt that I could make it an instrument for putting down the oppressor, the wrong-doer—for asserting right, and maintaining innocence! I had my admiration, too, at that period, of that logical astuteness, that wonderful tenacity of hold and pursuit, and discrimination of attribute and subject, which distinguish this profession beyond all others, and seem to confirm the assumption made in its behalf, by which it has been declared the perfection ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... correct, sir," returned Mr. Harker respectfully. "You will find that you have in reality benefited by his cunning and astuteness, even after the ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... stood there, a crowned King, a Princess born "under the purple," and a powerful minister, it presented another and a more extraordinary aspect. Stolid and resolute as were alike the mother and the son, they were totally unable to cope with the superior talent and astuteness of the man whom they had themselves raised to power; and before the termination of the interview Richelieu had convinced both that his counsels and services were essential to ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... it in the least probable might be started against him by either the bench or the bar. I told him, on one of these occasions, that I thought "he need not give his enemy credit for such far-sighted astuteness."—"Oh," said he quickly, "never undervalue an opponent: besides, I like turning up law—I don't forget it, and, as Lord Coke says, it is sure to be useful at some time or another." In court, he was absorbed in his case, appearing to be sensible of the existence of nothing else but his opponent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... from the Revolution, fully armed for every kind of contest. His mental superiority impressed diplomats as his strategy baffled the Imperialist generals; and now he was to give further proofs of his astuteness by intervening in the internal affairs ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... bet for a disinclination to take advantage of a friend's reckless mood, Alfred resented the implied insult to his astuteness. ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... that her arms were empty. It was not long, however, happily,—and a propos of the number of my responsibilities, I was taken to task severely one day, and discovered that I had in my son a staunch supporter and a counsellor whose astuteness was not ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... famous for his astuteness in the pursuit of his ordinary business has allowed himself to fall an easy victim to the forger, thus exemplifying the familiar adage that we are easily persuaded to believe what we ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... have been prompted by the most profound Machiavelism. Southern natures often hide under the outward impulsiveness of action and speech a certain amount of astuteness. ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... should happen to the President. Senator Cannon, however, is, as far as we know, the first President-elect who has begun this grooming before the Inauguration. This, in our opinion, shows both wisdom and political astuteness." ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett
... mind that in comparison with the diabolic astuteness of this man, such knowledge and experience of business as I had gathered were as those of the primary student to the post-graduate scholar's. Again, there was no quarreling with his logic ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... school. The shrewd sense of an artist led him to conceal the profits he was beginning to lay by from his mother and Madame Descoings, aware that each had her road to ruin,—the one in Philippe, the other in the lottery. This astuteness is seldom wanting among painters; busy for days together in the solitude of their studios, engaged in work which, up to a certain point, leaves the mind free, they are in some respects like women,—their thoughts turn about the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... lawyer's trade, it grades high in the conventional scheme. The lawyer is exclusively occupied with the details of predatory fraud, either in achieving or in checkmating chicanery, and success in the profession is therefore accepted as marking a large endowment of that barbarian astuteness which has always commanded men's respect and fear. Mercantile pursuits are only half-way reputable, unless they involve a large element of ownership and a small element of usefulness. They grade high or low somewhat ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... the duchess knew also that a single word would be all-sufficient. Her reputation for worldly astuteness surpassed that of any other old woman in Europe, though it was, perhaps, not altogether deserved. Forty years before, she had been a healthy and happy girl, whose experience of the world had been confined to the family estate near Gemuenden. And the estate was ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... of conventions, she was no fool; the instinct of wisdom was strong within her, so strong that in many ways it ruled her conscious efforts. Had any one told her that her preparations for this interview were made deliberately with some of the astuteness that dominated the Devil when he took Jesus to the top of a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth at His feet, she would have, and with truth, denied it with indignation. Nevertheless ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... We agreed that there were many mysteries in connection with life and things which it was high time to unravel, and that an opportunity was now afforded us which might not readily occur again. All we had to do was to be true to ourselves and equal to the occasion. We laid our plans with great astuteness. We would be fast asleep when the lady came up to bed, but our heads should be turned in the direction of her bed, and covered with clothes, all but a single peep-hole. My brother, as the eldest, had clearly a right to ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... capable woman. That school offered for her powers too limited a sphere: she ought to have swayed a nation; she should have been the leader of a turbulent legislative assembly. Nobody could have browbeaten her, none irritated her nerves, exhausted her patience, or overreached her astuteness. In her own single person, she could have comprised the duties of a first minister and a superintendent of police. Wise, firm, faithless, secret, crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and insensate—withal perfectly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... learned the august personage who desired her, he would raise the price to a prohibitive figure; for he was mean as well as stupid and lazy, wherefore he had few goods, and although Zalu Zako was a rich man she knew that any man save a fool loves to drive a good bargain if only to prove his astuteness. Therefore was another imperative necessity to procure every means of magic and charm to fan the flame of her ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... slain in action. Jerusalem fell soon afterwards. Pope Alexander III roused the conscience of Europe, and induced the pick of chivalry to embark upon the Third Crusade in 1189. But the prowess of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, the gallantry of Richard I of England, the astuteness of Philip Augustus of France, were of no avail. The Fourth and Fifth Crusades were equally unsuccessful, and the tide of Islam's ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... been pulled down were it not for the remonstrances which the old uncle made to the representatives of the "Pickaxe company." To increase the old man's wrath, a distant relative (one of those cousins of small means and much astuteness about whom shrewd provincials are wont to remark, "No lawsuits for me with him!") had, as it were by accident, come to visit Monsieur de Bourbonne, and incidentally informed him of his nephew's ruin. Monsieur Octave de Camps, he said, having wasted his means on a certain ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... about him half angrily, half frightened. He would have been glad to make his escape from that accursed chamber, but he had astuteness enough to see that there was no escape for him. Cocardasse had somehow or other managed to get between him and the door, and the other ruffians seemed to be entirely in sympathy with the Gascon's conduct, and to have no regard whatever for ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the Congress, Cavour kept in the background; his instinct as a man of the world, and that mixture of astuteness and simplicity which he shared with many of his countrymen (even those of no education), guided him in filling a difficult and, in some respects, an embarrassing position. He spoke, when he did speak, in as brief terms as could serve to express his opinion. But this modest attitude only threw into ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... his native tongue. His head was clear; his knowledge was accurate and varied. Calm, cold, astute, adroit, with infinite tact, he was now brought face to face with Talleyrand, Napoleon's minister of foreign affairs, his equal in astuteness and dissimulation, as well as in the charms of conversation and the graces of polished life. With this statesman Metternich had the pleasantest relations, both social and diplomatic. Yet there was a marked ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... reflected upon the interview on the Mercuriusberg, the more strongly he felt it to be his intellectual duty to persuade himself that the whole affair was an illusion, not a reality. He would have been glad, even at the sacrifice of his confidence in his own astuteness, to believe that the Swiss doctor had been amusing himself at the expense of his credulity. But the remembrance of the scene in the Baron's bedroom at the Badischer Hof was too vivid to leave the slightest ground for this theory. He was obliged to be content with the thought ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... for them. Only of course "the good man" could never be guilty of Mr. B.'s meditated relapse from the path of rectitude, nor (one may perhaps add) does Miss Byron seem to possess the insinuating astuteness by which ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... leading spirits of the junto as from personal knowledge; but of the three, Bucks, Hendricks and Meigs, the attorney-general was the least known to him. Prior to his nomination on the State ticket Meigs had been best known as the most astute criminal lawyer in the State, his astuteness lying not so much in his ability as a pleader as in a certain oratorical gift by which he was able to convince not only a jury but the public of the entire innocence ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... not so occult as to justify a doubt upon that subject; and moreover, Salome, lack of astuteness is far from being your greatest defect. My motive should eloquently plead pardon for my candor, if I venture to tell you that your frequent affectation of unconsciousness of the presence of others, 'is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance,' and may prove prolific of annoyance ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... rather open our eyes, and see in these old Elizabeth gallants our own ancestors, showing forth with the luxuriant wildness of youth all the virtues which still go to the making of a true Englishman. Let us not only see in their commercial and military daring, in their political astuteness, in their deep reverence for law, and in their solemn sense of the great calling of the English nation, the antitypes or rather the examples of our own: but let us confess that their chivalry is only another garb of that beautiful tenderness and mercy which is now, as ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... looked up with an expression of surprise and annoyance on his face. He instinctively disliked Mr. Fox, as a lion might be irritated by a cat, and the instinctive enmity was all the stronger because of a certain family likeness. But Mr. Allen's astuteness had nothing mean or cringing in it, while Mr. Fox heretofore had been a sort of Uriah Heep to him. Therefore his surprise and annoyance at his new ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... contiguous to the limits which the United States had acquired definitely by the treaty of peace of 1783. In order to augment, at the expense of her neighbors, her possessions, already immense, and not yet well populated, she set about acquiring territory by astuteness, by cunning, by violence, and also by justifiable means, when such were available. Spain first, and Mexico afterward, have been her victims; and to-day these rich and powerful states display the spoils, for such they ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... mood, the first thing Mr. Bennett would have done on crossing the threshold of the door facing the staircase would have been to notice resentfully that Mr. Mortimer, with his usual astuteness, had collared the best bedroom in the house. The soft carpet gave out no sound as Mr. Bennett approached the wide and luxurious bed. The light of the candle fell on the back of a semi-bald head. Mr. Mortimer was ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... she had been to blame in not interpreting that sigh to Francis. But she had to give Christabel, and Christabel especially, the loyalty of one woman to another. She would not wrench from her in a few words the pride Francis took in her, to which she sacrificed her fears. Rose had the astuteness of a jealousy she would not own, of a sense of possession she could not discard, and she had known, from the first moment, that Christabel was afraid of horses and dreaded the very name of hunting. And Rose divined, too, that if she herself had not been a horsewoman of some repute, Christabel would ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... to Les Iles I saw that there was a sorrow weighing upon the family; and it took no great astuteness on my part, Mr. Ritchie, to discover that Antoinette was the cause of it. One has only to see Antoinette to love her. I wondered why she had not married. And yet I saw that there had been an affair. It seemed very strange to me, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... master-butcher, and a sullen slack mouth. His look at you, when he raised his eyes from the ground, had the hint of brutality—as if he were naming a price—which women mistake for mastery, and adore. But he very rarely crossed eyes with any one; and with the Abbot he had gained a reputation for astuteness by seldom opening his lips and never shutting his ears. He was therefore a most valuable book of reference, which told nothing except to his owner. With all this he was a great rider and loved hunting. His Sursum Corda was like a view-holloa, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... on the caprice; but you flatter yourself with too much security; you are known to one more besides my father, myself, and the honest man whom you have robbed of all his astuteness, which I believe ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... much at ease as can a man who has dined well and knows that his affairs are prospering beyond all expectations, and, as his eyes half closed, he listened dreamily while his host, for the hundredth time, told yarns of the diamond fields, he silently congratulated himself on his astuteness in having employed so successful a messenger. He had not yet had an opportunity to ask any questions about the diamonds. He had his own reasons for not wanting those present to learn too much of his plans. There would be plenty of time when he could get the vice-president alone. So ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... against monastic interests, as identified with a central authority—king, emperor, or pope—they pushed forward the local, and, so to call it, secular authority of their [110] bishops, the flower of the "secular clergy" in all its mundane astuteness, ready enough to make their way as the natural Protectors of such townships. The people of Amiens, for instance, under a powerful episcopal patron, invested their civic pride in a vast cathedral, outrivalling neighbours, as being in effect their ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... previous speakers. Thus their debates were excessively prolix; and the consumption of tobacco was immoderate. The result, however, was a thorough sifting of the matter in hand; while the practised astuteness of these savage politicians was a marvel to their civilized contemporaries. "It is by a most subtle policy," says Lafitau, "that they have taken the ascendant over the other nations, divided and overcome the most warlike, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... marching a force from Cabul to Candahar. His reply was that the tribes might be hostile, but that if no long halts were made by the way he would have no objections to such a march. In this he showed his astuteness, since the defeat of Ayoub Khan by a British army would obviously save him a contest. So willing to be of service on this matter was he that when the march was decided on he sent influential persons of his party in advance to arrange with the local maliks to have supplies collected for the ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... it to herself in any such form. Still, whether she was aware of the fact or not, her point of view was exactly what the first Reuben Vanderpoel's had been on many very different occasions. She had before her the task of dealing with facts and factors of which at present she knew but little. Astuteness of perception, self-command, and adaptability were her chief resources. She was ready, either for calm, bold approach, or equally calm ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... nationalities are, in their turn, subjected to Austria, and it has only been the traditional astuteness of this state which has unchained the ethnic passions of the oppressed races, inciting one against the other in order more easily to rule them. Hence, it seems natural and necessary to follow the opposite policy from that which has so greatly helped the enemy, and to establish ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... to Mr. Kruger for his magnanimity and much profit for his astuteness! Great credit is also given to Mr. Chamberlain for his prompt impartiality. And surely some day a tribute of sympathy and admiration will go out from a people who like pluck and who love fair play to two Englishmen who hold that a solemn pledge is something which even a Boer should ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... they always cause reflection. One represents to you civilization stunted, repressed; he comprehends everything, the honor of the galleys, patriotism, virtue, the malice of a vulgar crime, or the fine astuteness of elegant wickedness. Another is resigned, a perfect mimer, but stupid. All have slight yearnings after order and work, but they are pushed back into their mire by society, which makes no inquiry as to what there ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Ben Aboo's doom was sealed. The people received him with a long furious roar, a cry of triumphant execration, as if their own astuteness at length had entrapped him. He stood with his back to the high wall; the bellowing crowd was before him on either side. By the torches that many carried all could see him. Turban and shasheeah had fallen off, ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... the quiver of arrows which the sly fellow thought to hide under his coat. The face and expression could belong alone to Cupid. The mouth is shaped in a genuine Cupid's bow, and the pointed chin shows his astuteness. Mischief lurks in the corners of the eyes and in the ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... annihilated by M. Funck-Brentano. But the story is so strangely complicated; the astuteness and the credulity of the Cardinal are so oddly contrasted; a momentary folly of the Queen is so astonishing and fatal; the general mismanagement of the Court is so crazy, that, had we lived in Paris at the moment, perhaps we could hardly ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... like that of his good humour. He came and went, acted, wrote, conceived, directed, planned, and executed, what time M. Binet took his ease at last in comparative affluence, drank Burgundy every night, ate white bread and other delicacies, and began to congratulate himself upon his astuteness in having made this industrious, tireless fellow his partner. Having discovered how idle had been his fears of performing at Redon, he now began to dismiss the terrors with which the notion of Nantes ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, 'are they even or odd?' Our schoolboy replies, 'odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself, 'the simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and then you like to have me listening because I understand," said Gilian, smiling with pleasure at his own astuteness. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... not over-scrupulous clerk, he gradually picked up a practice, a thing mainly of shreds and patches, but still a practice of a sort. At the Middlesex Sessions, and at the Central Criminal Court, his name began to be mentioned; and in a certain money-lending case it was acknowledged that his astuteness had prevented the exposure of his client from being as crushing and complete as the rate of per-centage had seemed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... lying," he said with boyish pleasure in his own astuteness. "You knew no such couple. You are trying ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... man's unexpected flashes of astuteness, and Lily could not help joining in the laugh with which he had ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... delight in making him the ideal of all a monarch should be; they attributed to him every virtue—gentleness, bravery, moderation, justice, and wisdom. There is no reason to doubt that he possessed the qualities of a good general—activity, energy, and courage, together with the astuteness and the duplicity so necessary to success in Asiatic conquest—but he does not appear to have possessed in the same degree the gifts of a great administrator. He made no changes in the system of government which from the time ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... probable that Augustus might participate in the belief which he knew to be only too common. There was, no doubt, an idea prevalent that the squire and the captain were in league together to cheat the creditors, and that the squire, who in these days received much undeserved credit for Machiavellian astuteness, knew more than any one else respecting his eldest son's affairs. But, in truth, he at first knew nothing, and in making these assurances to his younger son was altogether wasting his breath, for ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... the stranger, with a smile. "What I said was intended to be jocular, and to put Brokedale at his ease. The Americans present, with their usual astuteness, would term it bluff. It was. I merely rattled on. I simply did not wish to offend the gentleman by letting him know that I had penetrated his disguise. Imagine my surprise, however, when his eye brightened as I spoke, and ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... been the order to liberate all the literate class among his Chinese prisoners, and they had formed the nucleus of the civil service Kublai attached to his interests and utilized as his empire expanded. In his relations with Buddhism Kublai showed not less astuteness, and in realizing that to attain durable success he must appeal to the religious side of human character, he showed that he had the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... well known in Carlingford; but it would come natural to be with a friend of the family. There aint a servant in the house, sir, as will stay when the ladies go, and I think as Miss Wodehouse would speak for me," said John, with natural astuteness. This address made Mr Proctor a little uneasy. It recalled to him the unpleasant side of the important transaction in which he was about to engage. He was not rich, and did not see his way now to any near prospect of requiring the services of "a steady ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... I turned on my heel to quit the house, the garrulous Frenchman's three shipmates fell upon him, figuratively, tooth and nail, heaping reproaches upon the unhappy man's head for having warned me against the chief mate's astuteness. I did not wait to hear how the matter ended, but, leaving the house briskly, as though I were the bearer of an important message, I hurried across to the wharf and, dropping into the dinghy, cast off her painter and sculled her ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... needn't be," responded Miss Standish, with an asperity born of impatience at her own lack of astuteness. "For my part, I have no doubt she has enjoyed the situation thoroughly from beginning to end. No, don't talk to me. I know those hysterical people. All they care about is making a sensation and being the centre ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... attacking Canada. That happened which might be expected where bodies of men with inflated ideas of glory and no experience attack men fighting desperately for their homes, and officers and veterans who had seen such service as the Napoleonic wars. The British, with an astuteness which is oftener the character credited to their opponents, managed to get earliest word of the Declaration sent to their own forts on the Lakes, and promptly captured the American fort Michilimackinac. They then followed with ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... to be trying the case against the defendant. An illustration of one of these occurred during the prosecution of a bartender for selling "spirituous liquors" without a proper license. He was defended by an old war-horse of the criminal bar famous for his astuteness and ability to laugh a case out of court. The assistant district attorney who appeared against him was a young man recently appointed to office, and who was almost overcome at the idea of trying a case against so well known a practitioner. ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... With great astuteness, perseverance, and alertness, the Federation has pursued this method to its uttermost possibilities. In Washington it has met with singular success, reaching a high-water mark in the first Wilson Administration, with the passage of the Clayton bill and the eight-hour railroad bill. ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... of this fiery persecution the conduct of the Calvinists was wonderfully fine. They showed great adroitness in evading the law by all means save recantation and great astuteness in using what poor legal means of defence were at their disposal. On the other hand they suffered punishment with splendid constancy and courage, very few failing in the hour of trial, and most meeting death in a state of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... society seems on the whole established and secured against external dangers, it is this fear of our neighbour which again creates new perspectives of moral valuation. Certain strong and dangerous instincts, such as the love of enterprise, foolhardiness, revengefulness, astuteness, rapacity, and love of power, which up till then had not only to be honoured from the point of view of general utility—under other names, of course, than those here given—but had to be fostered and cultivated (because they were ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... reveals with great astuteness the ulterior motives underlying the English proposal and draws attention to the danger of the situation in which Belgium had become involved by a one-sided partisanship in favor of the powers of the Entente. In this very detailed ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... Transcendentalists would have appeared. He was their victim rather than their cause. He was always tolerant of them and sometimes amused at them, and disposed to treat them lightly. It is impossible to analyze their case with more astuteness than he did in an editorial letter in The Dial. The letter is cold, but is a masterpiece of good sense. He had, he says, received fifteen letters on the Prospects of Culture. "Excellent reasons have been shown us why the writers, obviously persons of sincerity and elegance, should ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... with an astuteness he had not suspected himself of possessing, which was probably the result of the harrowing experiences he had lately undergone, he hit upon a plan of action. "I'll go to a shop," he thought, "and change this sovereign, and ask to look at a timetable—then, if ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... whom the news could have interested was Samuel Shuckleford. But as he was that morning riding blithely in the train to Liverpool, reading the Law Times, and flattering himself he would soon make the public "sit up" to a recognition of his astuteness, ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... with the requisite astuteness, and it does not need much, the state of affairs and her own position at home. She would be ready enough to change it, that he sees. With a touch of secret elation he knows he could make this woman ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... I, "didn't it occur to you that your astuteness might be overreaching itself and that you might find me here—well—in the not infrequent position of a bachelor man who desires to withdraw himself from ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... are now inextricably mingled with those of Seneca, was accompanied to the throne by the acclamations of the people. Wearied by the astuteness of an Augustus, the sullen wrath of a Tiberius, the mad ferocity of a Caius, the senile insensibility of a Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a bright and beautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... smiled and nodded. He judged in a detached spirit—a mere spectator at a play—and he was forced to admit to himself that it was subtly done of his brother, and showed an astuteness in this thing, at least, of which he had never ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... hundred years, the Bismarck psychology behind the old Tower's superstitious appeal remains substantially the same. We shall see at times as we sketch for you the life portrait of Otto von Bismarck a mysterious atavism; the self-same mental astuteness that stood his ancestors in such good stead, enabling them to frighten the peasants ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... of no common character. Even in India her nature had exhibited remarkable traits. Child as she then was, her astuteness and self-control were such as might have excited the admiration of Macchiavelli himself. By persistent flattery, by the indulgence of every whim, and, above all, by the most exaggerated protestations of devotion, she had obtained a powerful influence over Zillah's uncontrolled ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Whatever may be said of this man's political principles, there can be no question as to the shrewdness of his political methods. It is the opinion of the present writer that in the entire history of our political system no man has ever surpassed him in astuteness. Even to- day all parties are using the methods which he either devised or introduced. The trouble with him was that he was on the wrong side. He did not count sufficiently on the ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... the new name, which is the prize of Jacob's victory, and the sign of a transformation in his character. Before this time he had been Jacob, the worker with wiles, who supplanted his brother, and met his foes with duplicity and astuteness like their own. He had been mainly of the earth, earthy. But that solemn hour had led him into the presence-chamber, the old craft had been mortally wounded, he had seen some glimpse of God as his friend, whose presence was not 'awful,' as he had thought it long ago, nor enigmatical ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... his marvellous cleverness in the training of the young. He had no children himself, he said, but he had "raised" two young men in his office, and as a proof of their wonderful astuteness from his teaching, "I give you my word, Ma'am," he said, "either of them could draw a contract now for me, out of which I could slip at ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... that we no longer allow the individual to take the law into his own hand, and that logically we should equally prohibit the nation from doing so. This is unanswerable, but its force has been greatly weakened by the assumption, which it requires no great astuteness to find unwarranted, that the settlement of individual quarrels by individual force has resulted from—or at least resulted in—the discontinuance of violence altogether, or in the dawn of a general era of good-will, man to man. ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... whether there is anything religious in it, as there was when we were boys. The Anti-Semitic hatred is the hatred of money-making, more particularly of that kind of money-making which requires no hard work, but only a large capital to begin with, and boldness and astuteness in speculating, that is in buying and selling at the right moment. The sinews of war for that kind of financial warfare were mostly supplied by the fathers and grandfathers of the present generation. ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... following him now with intense interest, thinking of the astuteness of a mind capable of thinking of ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... Constantine, joint Emperors in Constantinople, sent ambassadors to Rome to Otto the Third, and with them came a certain John, a Calabrian of Greek race, a man of pliant conscience, tortuous mind, and extraordinary astuteness, at that time Archbishop of Piacenza, and formerly employed by Otto upon a mission to Constantinople. Crescenzio, as though to show that his enmity was altogether against the Pope, and not in the least against the Emperor, received ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... first seed and said the color resulted from the blood of the red men he had slain. William and Charles Lewis, the colonel's brothers, also were noted border men. Charles undoubtedly ranked as high for courage and astuteness as any ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... that night of violence, Freya continued her recollections with feminine astuteness.... It was Ulysses who had wanted to kill her; she reiterated it ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... she admires and loves their spirit and moral; or doctrines, to pronounce on whose truth or falsehood is beyond her subject. This difficulty Mr. Newman, in the "Lives of the English Saints," edited and partly written by him, turned with wonderful astuteness to the advantage of Romanism; but others, more honest, have not been so victorious. Witness the painfully uncertain impression left by some parts of one or two of those masterly articles on Romish heroes which appeared ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... hair. Where you find one or more of these indications, you find the easiest road to favorable attention through the appetite of the individual for praise. If he is of the intellectual type, praise him for his smartness. If he is a fat man, praise him for his popularity, his political astuteness, his financial acumen, his artistic ordering of a dinner, for his impartiality. If he is of the bony and muscular type, praise him for his mechanical ability, for his strength, skill and agility, for his love of freedom and independence. If he is of the literary and artistic type, praise ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... that he would do something unusual. Could anything much more unusual have been provided than that a man, who had absolute splendour of rank and wealth to offer, should for strange reasons of his own use the tact of courts and the fine astuteness of diplomatists in preparing the way to offer marriage to a penniless, friendless and disgraced young "companion" in what is known as "trouble"? It was because he was himself that he understood what he was dealing with—that splendour and safety would hold no lure, that protection from disgrace ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Nothing escaped him, least of all a hint of any kind of shirking. He was quicker than Jean's whip, more sure, and more compelling. But while Jean saw all this, and more, with genuine admiration for Jan, and for his own astuteness in foretelling this exceptional capacity and acquiring ownership of the hound, he also saw, with angry puzzlement, that his team was falling off in condition and in ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... arrive to throw themselves on them. They pursue them with incredible audacity through the smoke close to the flames and always retire in time to avoid singeing. A member of the Crow family who inhabits India, Anomalocorax splendens, enjoys a deserved reputation of astuteness and allows no opportunity to escape without seizing it by the forelock. In ordinary times his food is composed of very varied substances—crabs, insects, worms, etc.; but if he perceives afar an ascending cloud he immediately abandons his ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... sank upon his knees; and that exclamation completed the awe and horror which prevailed in the breasts of all present. Stung by a sense of the danger he had drawn upon himself, and despair and excitement restoring, in some measure, not only his natural hardihood, but his natural astuteness, Houseman, here mastering his emotions, and making that effort which he was afterwards enabled to follow up with an advantage to himself of which he could not then have dreamed,—Houseman, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... result a materially useful passion. It allows us to see in the deeds of Henry VIII's Parliament not the blind working of political development, the impersonal and inevitable action of economic laws, but the hot greed of a king and the astuteness ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... rebellion of the Romans, and Pio Nono's restoration to his dominions (though not by France, that the intelligent reader will on politico-logical grounds pronounce impossible, but more probably by the Spaniards),—yet can we suppose that a power which was always celebrated for its astuteness and subtlety would choose that very moment of humiliation and ignominy to rush into an act so audacious as that of reestablishing the Romish hierarchy in England,—in a nation by far the most powerful in the world at that time,—a nation which, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... with his astuteness, his cruelty, his superstition and his cowardice is followed closely from Comines, and is the more effective when set up against his bluff and war-like rival. It is not often that historical characters ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... astuteness she goes through the motions of making it difficult to get membership in her Church. There is a twofold value in this system: it gives membership a high value in the eyes of the applicant; and at the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... merciful. Understand this, child: a girl whom Lucien loves has claims on their regard, as a true Christian worships the slough on which, by chance, the divine light falls. I came to be the instrument of a beneficent purpose;—still, if I had found you utterly reprobate, armed with effrontery and astuteness, corrupt to the marrow, deaf to the voice of repentance, I should have abandoned you ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... little of their keen commercial spirit from the English. If this be so, they may take credit for having in some respects surpassed their teachers. By the gift of persuasiveness and the abundance of words, by aplomb, combined with astuteness, they are fitted by nature to be the most successful traffickers on earth. But in return for a little work they expect a great deal of enjoyment, and more than most industrious cities is Bordeaux given up to the worship ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... renowned, as it is the most beautiful, of Dalmatian towns, Dubrovnik (Ragusa), was always more preoccupied with commerce and letters than with warfare. It managed to maintain itself in glory for a very long time, thanks to the astuteness of the citizens, who were ever willing to give handsome tribute to a potential foe. On occasion the Ragusans could be nobly firm, refusing to deliver a political refugee to the Turks, and so forth. ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... worth of Bank of England notes were not so much troubled about proving the truth of Yada's strange story as Yada himself was—the main point to them was that they had recovered their property. Naturally they felt remarkably grateful to Melky Rubinstein for his astuteness in circumventing Yada at what might have been the last moment. And one day, at that portion of it when business was slack and everybody was feeling comfortable after dinner, Melky called on Mrs. Goldmark and became confidentially closeted with her in a little parlour behind her establishment ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... a woman of strong logical faculties, but she had in some things a very surprising and awful astuteness. She seldom introduced any purpose directly, but bore all about it and then suddenly sprung it upon her unprepared antagonist. At other times she obscurely hinted a reason, and left a conclusion to be inferred; as when she warded off reproach for some delinquency by saying in a general way that she ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... seemed exhausted when I saw them," said Cleggett, "all three of them. But if you will permit me to say so, the astuteness with which you are reconstructing this ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis |
