"Clever" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... generality of people he went away clever with his knavery. For what with his balance, his false balance, and good weight, and what with his slight of hand to boot, he beguiled sometimes a little, and sometimes more, most that he had to deal with; besides, those that use this naughty trade are either ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... will need some things most likely, for you can see how miserable her shoes are, while her clothes look mighty seedy. Now, Nellie, we both happen to know, is a clever hand at such things, and she'll be only too glad to take charge of Jeanne's wardrobe. So I'll accept your offer. Anyway, we've always shared alike in ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... They are clever and prosperous merchants, many of them being multi-millionaires, and they own Bombay and control its trade. Their faith involves a boundless reverence for fire, earth, and water. As the earth would be polluted ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... and had laid his plans well. Perhaps he feared the stability of the new government. If the English came into possession of Zaila again, he could invent some clever tale to disprove his connection with the Arab revolt; and who could bear witness against him? None, indeed, for the lips of those who alone knew his guilt would be hopelessly sealed. Africa never ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... clear and final. The old doctor, who loved Gwen as his own, was inclined to hope against hope, but Fawcett, the clever young doctor from the distant town, was positive in his opinion. The scene is clear to me now, after many years. We three stood in the outer room; The Duke and her father were with Gwen. So earnest was the discussion that none of us heard ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... to write to you and tell you that we adore the Slowcoach, which is the name we have given your caravan, and think you were awfully clever to think of it and to make ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... continued the latter, somewhat annoyed, "I shipped before the mast on her Majesty's submarine, the Equator, Captain Harry Oglethorpe commanding,—a great friend of mine, and a very brave and clever fellow. I knew him well before I got so deucedly down on my luck. But what was ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... down the room. He did not dare to glance at Kitty, for he knew only too well that, clever and sweet as she was, she had not ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... "There were three sons. Mrs. Hope hardly ever talks about them, but I've seen their photographs, and of course I have often been told about them—by Great-aunt Alison, and others—and heard how they died. They were very clever and good-looking and well-liked—the kind of sons mothers are very proud of, and they all died imperially, if that is an expression to use. Two died in India, one—a soldier—in one of the Frontier skirmishes: ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... reader—that is, if natural slumber has not ere this put him beyond my control—across the frontier, into the back parlour of Mrs. L.'s tobacco store. There I am operating on a boy—such a stupid little Flemish boy that no amount of fluid could ever make him clever. How I came to treat him to passes I don't remember; probably I used him as an object-lesson to amuse Carry. All I recollect is that I gave him a key to hold, and made him believe that it was red-hot and burnt his fingers, ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... the enemy's stern, and the crew to board the frigate. The rush was made; the galley-slaves, urged by blows of the whip, rowing with great force. The galley was suddenly nearing the stern of the frigate, when by a clever stroke of the helm the ship moved to one side, and the galley, missing it, rushed past. All the oars on that side were suddenly broken off, and the galley was placed immediately under the broadside ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... indeed there are who must receive many gifts before they are won, whilst there are others so stupid that hardly any device or craft can enable one to win them, and with these one must needs be ever thinking of some means or other. But when you have to do with a woman who is too clever to be deceived, and too virtuous to be gained by words or gifts, is there not good reason to employ any means whatever that may be at your disposal to vanquish her? When you hear it said that a man has taken a woman by force, you may be sure that the woman has left him ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... everything stuffy, narrow, stultifying. The gentlemen were stupid. The sky, the kisses, the girl friends, the Sunday afternoons became unbearable. The most she could do was cry. To her, becoming an actress would mean: to be clever, free, and happy. What that meant, she did not know. She had no way to determine ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... Spion Kop were lost in the same place. We have muddled through so often that we have come half to believe in a providence which watches over unintelligent virtue. "Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever," we have said to Britannia. So we have acquiesced in being the worst educated people west of ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... In the first place, his sixth sense had been triumphantly vindicated; and, in the second place, his hitherto shadowy enemies, with their seemingly supernatural methods, had been unmasked. At least they were human, almost incredibly clever, but of no more than ordinary ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... clever fellow he was, managed to Convince El Bizco that he was the most gifted of the three for the work. The cross-eyed thug, out of sheer vanity, always undertook the most difficult part of the task, seizing the booty, while Vidal and ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... France, and thus the world saw that a new universal monarchy might possibly arise out of this conjunction. Hence arose the War of Succession in Spain. With the object above mentioned of placing the Duke of Anjou on the throne of Spain, Louis had sacrificed his charming and clever niece, the granddaughter of our King Charles the First and Henrietta Maria to an imbecile husband, the thought of whom was hateful to her, and he also had engaged in a variety of other intrigues with the same object. The Spaniards in general gave the preference to ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... him," replied old Harmar. "He hated the whole set, and he had no mercy on any of them. Joe Bates was a clever fellow—as warm a friend and as quiet a companion as you would wish to meet in time of peace; but he hated like he loved—with all his heart, and would go through fire and death to get at ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... the barbecue, the bran dance, and the rout the unfortunate aspirants for public favor felt that they had experienced the extremest spite of fate; for although they realized in their superior education and sophistication that the panic-stricken rural crowd had been tricked by some clever ventriloquist, the political orators were left with only the winds and waters and wilderness on which to waste their eloquence, and the wisdom of their exclusive ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... delighted. The spectators, all of them crazy for the Army's success, broke into yells of joy. Dick had done the spectacular part of the trick, but he could not have succeeded without the swift, intelligent help that Holmes had given. Playing together, they had sprung one of the clever ruses that both had perfected back in the old ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... persecute me to know the end of it; I never get a Berlin Letter without something on that head;—and I have no resource myself but patience. We do all we can: but I cannot hinder the enemy from defending himself, and Gribeauval from being a clever fellow:—soon, however, surely soon, soon, we shall see the end. Our weather here is like December; the Seasons are as mad as the Politics of Europe. Finally, my dear Brother, one must shove Time on; day follows day, and at last we shall catch the one that ends our labors. Adieu; JE VOUS EMBRASSE." ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... said, "that's what comes of greediness and of trying to be too clever. Now, perhaps, you will learn ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... good ready made clothes and it is also an age of clever amateur dressmaking. With excellent patterns which may be easily handled there is no reason why the woman who can sew should not make her own clothes, and have smart clothes at a reasonable price—that is, provided she has the time to give ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... the joke. He knew pictures; that is, good pictures. He had had an invisible hand in more than one clever transaction in which handsome pictures alleged to have been smuggled in, Gainsboroughs and Romneys and such (there had been most profit for him in handling the forgeries of these particular masters), had been put, with ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... Anstruther's annoyance, an event had occurred which upset all his carefully laid plans. Miss Bidwell, whose sight had never been very strong, was threatened with cataract in both eyes, and acting on the advice of a clever little doctor who had lately come to the neighbourhood, she had decided to go to her mother's relatives in France and to take a complete rest until her eyes should be ready for operation. The news that Miss Bidwell's ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... well rewarded for the clever way he had brought about Bill's capture; and, well pleased with the way everything had come out, the boys ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... up into the window," said the toad; "all I can do is to crawl about the ground, but you can run up a wall quickly. How I do wish I was a spider, like you. Oh, dear!" And then the toad turned round, after bowing to the clever spider, and went back to ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... by Sainte-Croix for his fellow-prisoner did not last long, and the clever master found his pupil apt. Sainte-Croix, a strange mixture of qualities good and evil, had reached the supreme crisis of his life, when the powers of darkness or of light were to prevail. Maybe, if he had met some angelic soul at this point, he would have been led to God; he encountered ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and Otto, sons of the little German tailor. They were the youngest of us; ragged boys of ten and twelve, with sunburned hair, weather-stained faces, and pale blue eyes. Otto, the elder, was the best mathematician in school, and clever at his books, but he always dropped out in the spring term as if the river could not get on without him. He and Fritz caught the fat, horned catfish and sold them about the town, and they ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... it—apparently with very great difficulty, and almost perpendicularly—and the little pencil, of course, slipped off, and in the excitement of reading the message from the 'Summer-land,' who would think of looking for the pencil? It was so clever I wanted to applaud ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... old, we saw after some clever detective work had proved her to be the girl who in another town had repeatedly swindled shop-keepers. It seems she had been accustomed to take the train for localities where she had no connections whatever, and there enter ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... no one thought it necessary to make any remark if we had our arms round each other's waist. My father, if he heard anything about it, did not interfere. Young Reichardt had made himself so useful to him, and shewed himself so remarkably clever in everything he undertook, that the old man loved him ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... good sort is the Duke," Mr. Moyat declared appreciatively. "A clever chap, too. He's A1 in politics, and a first-class business man, chairman of the great Southern Railway Company, and on the board ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... father was appointed. The only trouble was that Jane, bright and clever as she is, bungled ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... those related. All the details and duties of the social side of his life Morton turned over to Kate, and such was her tact, and her skill and charm as hostess, that her rooms of a Tuesday afternoon were filled with a company of men and women as cheerful and as informal as they were clever and distinguished. Among these groups Serviss moved as detached of all responsibility as any of his guests, finding in this contact with bright minds one of the greatest pleasures of ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... I understand it is not intended for public representation, I have not done more than glance at it. I am told it is very clever, and called "The Mouse-trap." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... right side, he can forge a weapon out of public opinion that few evils could resist. And he is in just the position to discover these dragons. and drive them from their hiding-places. If, for instance, the clever paragraphist in this column, whose province, it seems, is to comment at the last moment on the events of the day, were as desirous of saying true, strong, earnest words, as bright and prophetic ones, in which the news ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... captain went on. "As a matter of fact, Germans often come over into our lines in British uniforms, and they are so thundering clever that you can't tell the difference. Why, not long ago, I yarned for half an hour with a major of the R.E., as I thought—didn't tell him much, luckily, but we hadn't parted five minutes when he was ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... tied-up bundles of young well-grown beans lying on the fresh cabbage-leaves would be one of the attractions of the village shop. A day or two ago all the plums that were ripe had gone the same way, to the children's disgust. Mrs. MacDougall was a clever gardener, and had a ready sale for her small stock of produce. To-day Elsie and Duncan would get no dinner beyond the bit of bread. That was the result of their loitering. They had lost the valuable time through ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Oh, Travail could be clever all right! Why else had he made no comment about the alien shells they both had seen on the television set, if he did know something of the ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... principle in man, defies the research of the most critical anatomist. You feel where it is not, yet you cannot describe what it is you want." Sir Joshua, or some other great painter, was looking at a picture on which much pains had been bestowed. "Why—yes," he said, in a hesitating manner; "it is very clever—very well done. Can't find fault, but it wants something—it wants—it wants—d—n me, it wants that!" throwing his hand over his head, and snapping his fingers. In talking of his ignorance of music, Scott said he had once been employed in a case where a purchaser of a Fiddle had been imposed ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... had only the faculties of observation and speculation. In the early days there was much speculative thinking, but it was without any sufficient basis of facts. Theology and philosophy flourished; their speculations were often very clever, but all their primitive notions about facts—such as the structure of the heavens, the form of the earth, mechanical principles, meteorological or physiological phenomena—were almost ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... had given me full liberty, if I should find it advantageous, to destroy you by flinging you on the ground like a cigar-end; but I have ruined you by a blunder. To escape from a difficulty, deluded by a clever question from the examining judge, your son by adoption and grace went over to the side of those who aim at killing you at any cost, and insist on proving an identity, which I know to be impossible, between you and a French villain. All ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... they saw that their son was clever, and they determined that he should be well taught. So when he left school they sent him to college, first to Aberdeen and then ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... system I must establish, the knowledge I must interpret." In another place in the same book the bitterness of his social failure again peeps out: "The incomprehensible bent of women's minds appears to lead them to see nothing but the weak points in a clever man and the strong points ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... presently wrote a series of satirical letters signed "Jonathan Oldstyle." In these letters, his earliest work of any significance, he touches the Addisonian string upon which his critics have harped so insistently ever since. They are decidedly clever for a boy of nineteen, but not cleverer than the best college work of to-day, and perhaps more consciously imitative. The fact that they were greatly praised and gained some vogue through copying in other journals, is rather an indication of the unfruitfulness of the period ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... formed gold; but other metals were mixed with and contaminated by various foreign ingredients. The object of the philosopher's stone was to dissolve or neutralize all these ingredients, by which iron, lead, copper, and all metals would be transmuted into the original gold. Many learned and clever men wasted their time, their health, and their energies, in this vain pursuit; but for several centuries it took no great hold upon the imagination of the people. The history of the delusion appears, in a manner, lost from this time till the eighth century, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... a factory, and as he was active and clever in his work, he soon earned enough to take a pretty little house, where they all lived together. Harry grew older, and went to school, where he was a good boy, and never forgot how God had preserved him from the ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown
... charioteer and in the use of weapons, so that his renown soon spread throughout the country. Sadyattes desired to see him, and being captivated by his bold demeanour, enrolled him in his bodyguard, loaded him with presents, and took him into his entire confidence. Gyges was clever enough to utilise the king's favour in order to enlarge his domains and increase his riches, and thus win partisans among the people and the body of "Friends." Carian mercenaries at that time formed one of the most vigorous and best disciplined contingents in the armies of the period.* The ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... paths so slippery that the feet of all were sorely fatigued, and on coming to Manyara's, I resolved to rest on 7th near Mount Kimazi. I gave a cloth and beads in lieu of a fine fat goat from the chief, a clever, good man. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... one than you think, perhaps," said Helen. "That a thing should seem absurd to one man, or to a thousand men, will not make it absurd in its own nature; and men as good and as clever as you, George, have in all ages believed in a God. Only their notion of God may have been different from yours. Perhaps their notion was a believable one, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... they'd throw away their pretty little frocks, the boys went off together. They simply had to think of something, and it would never do to copy the girls. They came back later with the quaintest little breeches, made out of broad flax leaves, stitched together with the points downwards. It was clever of the boys! They had also stuck some of the red-brown flowers in their hair. The girls were vexed that they hadn't thought of that, but they went one better. They made strings of the scarlet nikau berries and hung them round their ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... been reading Jack's Secret, by Mrs. LOVETT CAMERON, which, he says, has greatly pleased him. It has an interesting story, and is full of clever sketches of character. Jack, himself, is rather a weak personage, and scarcely deserves the good fortune which ultimately falls to his lot. After flirting with a born coquette, who treats him with a cruelty which is not altogether unmerited, he settles down with a thoroughly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... its success without admitting that any superhuman power attends its ministry, yet day after day, and night after night, the wonderful facts go on multiplying. The man who last night was drunk in a London slum, is to-night standing up for Christ on an Army platform. The clever sceptic, who a few weeks ago was interrupting the speakers in Berlin, and pouring contempt upon their claims to a personal knowledge of the unseen Saviour, is to-day as thorough a believer as any of them. The poor girl, lost to shame and hope, who a month ago was an outcast of Paris, is ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... first step it is well to disabuse one's mind of the idea that every spy is necessarily the base and despicable fellow he is generally held to be. He is often both clever and brave. ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... of such a thing," he said angrily, and something in the way he said it brought back a sudden memory to Phyllis and made her eyes dance. She lowered them quickly, for it was just possible that Don's cousin might prove as clever as Don. ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... had already extracted another volume and was absorbed in it, chuckling softly over the old-time humor. Joyce grouped the five candles on the floor and they sat down beside them, from time to time pulling out fresh volumes, reading aloud clever jokes to each other, and enjoying themselves immensely, utterly ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... most cordially received. Ottilie justified Kestner's praises. Pretty, but not strikingly so—clever, but not obtrusively so; her soft dark eyes were frank and winning; her manner was gentle and retiring, with that dash of sentimentalism which seems native to all German girls, but without any of the ridiculous extravagance too often seen in ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... begin with the most wonderful part of the story, it so happened that on the very day when Napoleon was born, his mother dreamed that the world was on fire. She was a shrewd, clever woman, as well as the prettiest woman of her time; and when she had this dream, she thought she'd save her son from the dangers of life by dedicating him to God. And, indeed, that was a prophetic dream of hers! So ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... old lady, "and has such a dear dog. My nephew's very interested in them. You may have heard of him—Wilfred Sinkin—a very clever man; on ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "There's only one Paris, after all, and that's New York. Don't laugh; I read that. We girls remember all the clever things we hear, and use them. Do you see the young person in black and white with the red-nosed man—the one who looks as if he were smelling a rose? Well, she's in our company, and she's very popular at these parties because ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... at him; then shakes with laughter.] Really, Gerald, that is the one clever thing I've ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... were once more safely hidden but two or three, these latter he carried to the top of a stump close beside the hole in the maple, and proceeded to make a meal. The stump commanded a view on all sides; and as he sat up with a nut between his little, hand-like, clever fore-paws, his shining eyes kept watch on every path by which an enemy ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... care of, much against their foolish wills, until old enough to look after themselves. Their namesakes, the parrots, they knew very well; and the dainty little sunbirds that flash from flower to flower like little living jewels in the sunlight; and the clever tailor-bird, which sews its own nest, knotting its thread like a grown-up human being; and the wise leaf-insect that can hardly be found till it moves; and the great, green, frisky grasshopper that seems to invite ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... country of Kakongo and Mayyume. In Bakunya are made potter's wares, which are in great demand; in Basanza, excellent swords; in Basundi, especially beautiful ornamented copper rings; on the Congo, clever wood and tablet carvings; in Loango, ornamented clothes and intricately designed mats; in Mayumbe, clothing of finely woven mat-work; in Kakongo, embroidered hats and also burnt clay pitchers; and among the Bayakas and ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... had openly scorned England. He had never lived in England. He had avoided the Royal Academy, honouring every country save his own. And was he such a great painter, after all? Was he anything but a clever dauber whose work had been forced into general admiration by the efforts of a small clique of eccentric admirers? Far be it from them, the organs, to decry a dead man, but the National Valhalla was the ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... kindly, "ye gied 's a clever slip yon morning and a gey fricht forbye! What possessed ye, lass, to ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... form of new questions, like the boy's, was all Nekhludoff got in reply to his one primary question. He found much that was clever, learned much that was interesting, but what he did not find was an answer to the principal question: By what right some ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... business. I wish MD walked half as much as Presto. If I was with you, I'd make you walk; I would walk behind or before you, and you should have masks on, and be tucked up like anything; and Stella is naturally a stout walker, and carries herself firm; methinks I see her strut, and step clever over a kennel; and Dingley would do well enough if her petticoats were pinned up; but she is so embroiled, and so fearful, and then Stella scolds, and Dingley stumbles, and is so daggled.(14) Have you got the whalebone petticoats among you yet? ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... staying together in a little country town. "I suppose you are going to church," said Huxley. "Yes," replied my friend. "What if, instead, you stayed at home and talked to me of religion?" "No," was the reply, "for I am not clever enough to refute your arguments." "But what if you simply told me your own experience—what religion has done for you?" My friend did not go to church that morning; he stayed at home and told Huxley the story of all that Christ had been to him; and presently there were ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... the world. It was difficult to say whether he was a greater favorite with men or with women. He was noisy, rattling, reckless, good-hearted, generous, mirthful, witty, jovial, daring, open-handed, irrepressible, enthusiastic, and confoundedly clever. He was good at every thing, from tracking a moose or caribou, on through all the gamut of rinking, skating, ice-boating, and tobogganing, up to the lightest accomplishments of the drawing-room. He was one of those lucky dogs who are able to break horses or hearts with equal buoyancy ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... fault if you don't. She has run into a cul-de-sac through being too clever; and, besides, women sometimes run away just to be caught, and hide on purpose to be found. I should not wonder if she has said to herself, 'He will find me if he loves me so very, very much—I'll ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... great works already discussed, Meyerbeer wrote two works for the Opera Comique, 'L'Etoile du Nord' and 'Le Pardon de Ploermel.' Meyerbeer was far too clever a man to undertake anything he could not carry through successfully, and in these operas he caught the trick of French ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... singing there, And castles ever building, Their destiny she'll carve in air, Bright with maternal gilding: Young Guy, a clever advocate, So eloquent and able! A powdered wig upon his pate, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... sorry, old man," he said, one day, after we got well acquainted, "that there's nothing going on in the social line. Drop in on me at six, to dinner; and I'll show you a clever fellow or two, and maybe have some music. You understand, my dear boy, we don't entertain now. After all, it's so late in the season there'd be little doing in peace times; but this infernal war has smashed us up completely. Getting your nose red taking leave of your ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... been placed; it caught fire and blew up; about forty persons were killed and double the number wounded, most of them severely. The exasperation only increased. It was soon observed that it was not blind fury alone which conducted the rebellion—clever management was evident. The Count of Monterey had given the people a sort of military constitution, as he divided them into companies according to the quarters of the town, which resembled those Hermandades which the Archbishop of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... Nirvana. Then, continues the text, why is it said that there are neither creatures which arrive at complete Nirvana, nor creatures which conduct there? Because it is illusion which makes creatures what they are. It is as if a clever juggler, or his pupil, made an immense number of people to appear on the high road, and after having made them to appear, made them to disappear again. Would there be anybody who had killed, or murdered, or annihilated, or caused them ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... bad that one may easily walk in one day through several districts, in each of which is spoken a language quite unintelligible to the neighbours; there are even adjoining villages whose natives have to learn each other's language; this makes them fairly clever linguists. Where, by migrations, conditions have become too complicated, the most important of the dialects has been adopted as a ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... same way, we fight crooks with crooks. We have clever white lawyers working with us. They are the back-fire." Then, as if remembering some particular incident, they both laughed aloud and said, "Yes, and sometimes they use us as the back-fire! ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... tragedy of six years ago there had been forming in the mind of Emmeline Lestrange a something—shall I call it a deep mistrust? She had never been clever; lessons had saddened and wearied her, without making her much the wiser. Yet her mind was of that order into which profound truths come by short-cuts. ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... by the people generally. Meanwhile the clever stock breeders have combined inbreeding with selection and have won the show prizes and sold the people "new blood" ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... "Clever! She couldn't get it away in time. And the camera, with half-a-dozen of its specially sensitized films already snapped over the last few ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... unknown, proposed also some theories. Of these, one that the benevolent was a disguised lady, who contrived in this way to give the rein at once to gallantry and charity, pleased him most; while I favoured that which had first occurred to me on the night of our sally, and held the unknown to be a clever rascal, who, to serve his ends, political or criminal, was corrupting the commonalty, and drawing ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... impressed with what the rector said. "I must really caution Giff," said Miss Deborah to Lois, "not to encourage dear Helen in thinking about things; it's very unfeminine to think, and Gifford is so clever, he doesn't stop to remember she's but a woman. And he is greatly attached to her; dear me, he has never forgotten what might have been,"—this ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... rule. He has always been able to secure what was justly his without encroaching upon the sacred rights or legitimate possessions of another. Harboring no malice in his own bosom he has softened the wrath of his neighbor and demonstrated how clever diplomacy and a manly appeal to the finer instincts of a possible enemy yields richer returns than all the force and invective that a century could bring to bear. If the battle is to be fought out on lines of mental competition and personal ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot always be laughing at a man without ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Brook is a clever little piece, delicate and refined. It begins with lovable simplicity, which is broken for a time by an expressive and characteristic passage marked sotto voce. The piece as a whole has for ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... would be unpleasant to get wet. On the other hand, this exasperating thunder has the advantage of covering the sound of our approach. The lightning's not so convenient. Ah, your house is fully illuminated! My clever Martin is punishing your stock of candles. He belongs to the unceremonious classes, which are also ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... cruel to be quite satisfied. He feared to harm the boy, but he wanted some proof that Bostanai was really a descendant of King David. The child grew up into a handsome, clever youth, and Hormuz, partly out of fear, but partly because he had really grown to love the boy, kept him constantly ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... in all the forms of Scudery, between Catiline, whose confidant is the Praetor Lentulus, and Tullia, the daughter of Cicero. The theatre resounded with acclamations. The king pensioned the successful poet; and the coffee-houses pronounced that Voltaire was a clever man, but that the real tragic inspiration, the celestial fire which had glowed in Corneille and Racine, was to be found in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had made a failure of his "New York Courier" in 1825, of the "Globe" in 1832, and of the "Pennsylvanian" a little later, and was only known as a clever writer for the press, who had saved a few hundred dollars by hard labor and strict economy for fourteen years. In 1835 he asked Horace Greeley to join him in starting a new daily paper, the "New York Herald." Greeley declined, but recommended two young printers, who formed partnership with ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... a great creature it is!" These, and similar ecstatic eulogiums, have I frequently heard murmured forth from muzzy mouths into tinged and tingling ears, as I have been leaving a company of choice spirits. There never was a greater mistake. Horseleech, to be candid, far from being a clever fellow, is one of the most barren rascals on record. Vampyre, whether drawn out or held in, is a poor creature, not a great creature—opaque, not luminous—in a word, by nature, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... to say." And then she ran off ever so far, and after she had run a mile she stopped and danced, calling out, "Oh! I'll give you nothing to eat; you could not kill me." The leopard went away very cross, and saying, "What a clever ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... a clever cook to provide a man with three savoury and substantial meals out of a mugful of flour, about a pound of tough trek ox, and a pinch of tea. Yet occasionally that was all it proved possible to serve out to the men, and their ingenuity in dealing with that miserable mugful ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... against ideas is carried so far that able men have come seriously to look upon progress as a matter for the manipulation of wirepullers, something to be 'jobbed' in committee by sophistical motions or other clever trickery. Great national issues really turn, according to this judgment, upon the arts of political management, the play of the adroit tactician and the complete canvasser. This is the 'work' that tells; elections, the ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... him the same expectations of solid eminence which his friend and senior, Audley Egerton, had excited. His eccentricities, his quaint sayings, and out-of-the-way actions, became as notable in the great world as they had been in the small one of a public school. That he was very clever there was no doubt, and that the cleverness was of a high order might be surmised, not only from the originality but the independence of his character. He dazzled the world, without seeming to care for its praise or its ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... age, and after such a shock as his dutiful son proposes to give him, I should come in for my third. And, oh, where so rich a widow as I should be! With forty or fifty years of life before me in which to enjoy my fortune! Ah, you see, my clever Mr. Fabian Rockharrt, though you frightened me out of self-possession at first, when I come to think over the situation, I find that you can do me no great harm. If you should put your threats in execution and bring about a violent separation between ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... great principle of housekeeping is regularity, and without this (one of the most difficult of the minor virtues to practise), all efforts to promote order must be ineffectual. I have seen energetic women, clever and well-intentioned, fail in attaining a good method, owing to their being uncertain in hours, governed by impulse, and capricious. I have seen women, inferior in capacity, slow, and apathetic, make excellent heads of families, as ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... bath—bedroom, sitting-room and dining-room. I can fix up a corner of the dining-room into a kitchen with my electric percolator and grills and things. Isn't it a glorious idea? And aren't you surprised that I thought of anything so clever ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... brain too much tormented with trying to find some plausible answer to the riddle which agitated her: "Who had planned this abominable robbery? Was it indeed Victor de Marmont himself? or had a greater, a mightier mind than his discovered the secret of this swift journey to Paris and ordered the clever raid upon ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... temperance crusade in his printing-house, and actually weaning some of his fellow compositors from their dearly loved "beer." One of these, David Hall, afterward became his able partner in the printing business in Philadelphia. Amid much bad companionship he fell in with some clever men. His friend James Ralph, though a despicable, bad fellow, had brains and some education. At this time, too, Franklin was in the proselyting stage of infidelity. He published "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... whether she was curable or not, until she was able to make a clean breast of her symptoms instead of concealing them? In their eagerness to stamp out disease, these people overshot their mark; for people had become so clever at dissembling—they painted their faces with such consummate skill—they repaired the decay of time and the effects of mischance with such profound dissimulation—that it was really impossible to say whether any one was ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... waited for, a few groups were being formed. Lieutenant Kolberg approached Frau Kahle and measured her from top to toe with approval. The adjutant made a clever attempt to find out from the hostess what particular dishes were in store for him. Having ascertained this, he at once swore they were his special delectation. Herr von Konradi was chatting with Captain Koenig ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... it evil enough, and darkness enough. But it is not so bad and so dark that a slip in diplomacy, a careless word, or an impolite gesture, can instantaneously, as if by magic, involve twenty million men in a struggle to the death. It is only clever, conceited men, proud of their neat little minds, who think that because they cannot fathom the causes of the war, it might easily have been prevented. I confess I find it difficult to conceive of the war in terms of simple ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... from Bow, East? In short, Mrs. Leroux wrote those letters before she left London; Soames never posted them, but handed them over to some representative of Mr. King; this other, in turn, posted them to Madame Jean in Paris! Morbleu! these are clever rogues! This which I was fortunate enough to discover had been on top, you understand, this billet, and the outer envelope being very heavily stamped, that below retained ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... subjective types or antitypes many days before they objectify through the microcosm. Their meaning is often wrapt in symbols, but sometimes the actual as it occurs in objective life is conveyed. Our own thought images which have passed before the objective mind may be perceived by the clever mind reader, but those antitypes which are affecting our future, but which have none other but subjective existence, are rarely ever perceived by any one except by the power of the higher self or the spirit ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... clever?' said Phinny to the cavalier on whose arm she leaned, as they retraced their way towards the lighted portion of the grounds. 'Now I ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... into his face, uncertain whether he had not missed a clever witticism of his own kind. But O'Malley did not meet his glance. His eyes were far away upon the snowy summit of Olympus where a flock of fleecy clouds hung hovering like the hair ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... reckon, if he did find it out, though," returned the other. "Don't you see the store is liable to be entered any night, if a clever fellow happened to find that key? You see the number of the store ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... won by reason of the marked cards did him very little good, remaining in his possession barely long enough to cause his vest pocket to sag a trifle. He lost it in a friendly game with the friends who were clever enough to plan the raid on the Bald-faced Kid's bank roll, using Henry as a tool, much as the coastwise Chinaman uses a cormorant in his fishing operations. Stripped of his opulence, Squeaking Henry found himself flat ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... his studies, will smoke at him until he kindles him into a flame. For the tutor's soul is not harassed by herding dull students, with dismissal hanging by a thread over his head in the class room. The American professor has no time to be interested in a clever student. He has time to be interested in his "deportment," his letter-writing, his executive work, and his organising ability and his hope of promotion to a soap factory. But with that his mind is exhausted. The student of genius merely means to him a student who ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... in heaven or earth with a baffling lightness, turned philosophy into a witty jest and made a sort of slang of classical terminology. Amongst a clever set in London she reigned supreme when she chose; but a false note or a pose offended her immediately, and the poseur or the insincere person would generally receive one of her exquisite snubs which cut like acid into tender skins. The pretentiousness ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... keenly, and beneath her indulgent smile I saw the hardness of the old campaigner. It was a clever trap she had ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... museum, library, technical and art school, the latter for young men only. These may belong to any nationality, and obtain their professional or artistic training free of charge. The exhibition of students' work sufficiently proclaims the excellence of the teaching. Here we saw very clever studies from the living model, a variety of designs, and, most interesting of all, fabrics prepared, dyed and woven entirely ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Trinity, and I found her at home on my coming down the second summer. I was much there that year—it was a beautiful one; and we had, in her off-hours, some strolls and talks in the garden—talks in which she struck me as awfully clever and nice. Oh yes; don't grin: I liked her extremely and am glad to this day to think she liked me, too. If she hadn't she wouldn't have told me. She had never told anyone. It wasn't simply that she said so, ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... half of these things," he remarked confidentially to Mrs. Bradley. "He knows more about the things we used to go in for at Oxford than lots of our men, and he's never been there. He's uncommonly clever." ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... forget what he did to Bill King. It occurred in German Samoa. Bill King was hailed the champion heavyweight of the American Navy. He was a big brute of a man, a veritable gorilla, one of those hard-hitting, rough-housing chaps, and clever with his fists as well. He picked the quarrel, and he kicked Otoo twice and struck him once before Otoo felt it to be necessary to fight. I don't think it lasted four minutes, at the end of which time Bill King was the unhappy possessor of four broken ribs, a broken forearm, and a dislocated ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... ceased in the harbor, and report assured him of the city at mercy, Mahommed gave order to make the Gate St. Romain passable for horsemen, and with clever diplomacy summoned the Pachas and other military chiefs to his tent; it was his pleasure that they should assist him in taking possession of the prize to which he had been helped by their valor. With a rout so constituted at his back, and an escort of Silihdars mounted, the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... "For a clever woman, Comptesse, who has heretofore played the game so brilliantly, you have grown singularly unobservant. I am not a crusader, liberating captive Christian knights. I am France's servant, playing a somewhat ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... still better illustrated if we turn to India. In the story of "How the Three Clever Men outwitted the Demons," told by Miss Frere in her Old Deccan Days, it is related how "a demon was compelled to bring treasure to the pundit's house, and on being asked why he had been so long away, answered, 'All my fellow-demons detained me, and would hardly let me go, they were so angry at ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... himself Benjamin Bathurst. This portrait was taken without its subject's knowledge. Baron von Krutz's nephew, Lieutenant von Tarlburg, who is the son of our mutual friend Count von Tarlburg, has a little friend, a very clever young lady who is, as you will see, an expert at this sort of work: she was introduced into a room at the Ministry of Police and placed behind a screen, where she could sketch our prisoner's face. If ...
— He Walked Around the Horses • Henry Beam Piper
... "Thanks; that's clever. I used to know a soldier who used to run up in this country," said the stranger, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... remember how glibly we talked of the "Russian steam-roller," in September, 1914? I remember that, at that time, I had a letter from a very clever chap who told me that "expert military men" looked to see the final battle on our front, somewhere near Waterloo, before the end of October, and that even "before that, the Russian steam-roller would be crushing its way to Berlin." How much expert ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... fixed upon a boy of his own age, one of the many sons of a Papuan missionary called Pomeroy who was glad to have found in Mr. Lidderdale a cheap and evangelical schoolmaster. Cyril Pomeroy was a blushful, girlish youth, clever at the routine of school work, but in other ways so much undeveloped as to give an impression of stupidity. The notion of pointing out to him the beauty and utility of the Catholic religion would probably never have occurred to Mark if the boy ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... HIGHNESS, THE PRINCESS LOUISE, DUCHESS OF. This artist has exhibited her work since, 1868. Although her sketches in water-color are clever and attractive, it is as a sculptor that her best work has been done. Pupil of Sir J. E. Boehne, R.A., her unusual natural talent was carefully developed under his advice, and her unflagging industry and devotion to her work have enabled her to rival sculptors ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... the message correctly, and when the old Dutchman heard it, his countenance brightened up. "A goot physician, a clever man—I only have drank twelve drams a-day, and he tells me to take sixteen. I have taken one oath when I was drunk, and I keep it; now dat I am sober I take anoder, which is, I will be very sick for de remainder of my days, and never throw my ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... arrangements, there will be no difficulty in making out an overwhelming case against them. No doubt until then we shall continue to hold up the British home as the Holy of Holies in the temple of honorable motherhood, innocent childhood, manly virtue, and sweet and wholesome national life. But with a clever turn of the hand this holy of holies can be exposed as an Augean stable, so filthy that it would seem more hopeful to burn it down than to attempt to sweep it out. And this latter view will perhaps prevail ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... understood the motive of Lady Glencora's visit, and thought that she would at any rate gain something in the very triumph of baffling the manoeuvres of so clever a woman. Let Lady Glencora throw her aegis before the Duke, and it would be something to carry off his Grace from beneath the protection of so thick a shield. The very flavour of the contest was pleasing ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... it. Whence did it derive the motives of its actions? Certainly not from the experience of the senses. What does it know of the outside world? Let us repeat, as much as a bit of an intestine can know. And this senseless creature fills us with amazement! I regret that the clever logician, instead of conceiving a statue smelling a rose, did not imagine it gifted with some instinct. How quickly he would have recognized that, quite apart from sense-impressions, the animal, including man, possesses certain ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... in Hebrew and History, the only questions he put to him were, "What is the Hebrew for skull?" to which John promptly replied "Golgotha," and "Who founded University College?" to which his reply was "King Alfred!" Both the brothers were very clever men, and the tutor developed into Lord Stowell, while the pupil ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Chinoises, gymnastic exercises, and other feats, and Mr. Gyngell performed several airs on the musical glasses; in another, Punchinello delighted the beholders with his antics; in a third a very expert Juggler played a variety of clever tricks and sleight-of-hand deceptions, and a couple of itinerant Italians exhibited their musical and mechanical show-boxes; in another part of the gardens the celebrated Diavolo Antonio went through his truly astonishing evolutions on the corde volante. The Duke of Gloucester's fine ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... With trembling hearts and anxious gaze the lookers-on watched each movement of the two vessels, a dead silence prevailing among them so long as they both followed in the same course, but the instant a clever tack was made by which the pursuers were baffled, up rose the shout of many voices, and cries were heard and prayers uttered that the darkness would come quickly on and afford their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... England largely supplied herself from this district with the lace called torchon, it was not unusual to earn five francs a day; and five francs in Monastier is worth a pound in London. Now, from a change in the market, it takes a clever and industrious workwoman to earn from three to four in the week, or less than an eighth of what she made easily a few years ago. The tide of prosperity came and went, as with our northern pitmen, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... graft was necessary for the purpose of effecting the transfer of power. Twice a year, in the spring and fall elections, millions of dollars were furnished by the businessmen and expended by this army; meetings were held and clever speakers were hired, bands played and rockets sizzled, tons of documents and reservoirs of drinks were distributed, and tens of thousands of votes were bought for cash. And this army of graft had, of ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... attempted but by those who, themselves, feel deeply the superiority of moral excellence to all else. Such teachers will see how the kindness of children to each other may be encouraged. They will take more notice of a good-natured thing than a clever one. They will show, how much, even in the minutest trifles, truth and fortitude weigh with them. They will be careful not to stimulate an unwholesome craving for praise in their pupils. They will look not only to the thing done, but also to the mode and spirit of doing ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... spin the flax he received as the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her son, who, he asserted, would become a clever man, if he were carefully ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... all this with a frank eagerness which increased as he talked, and there was a singular contrast between the meagre experience he described and a certain radiant intelligence which I seemed to perceive in his glance and tone. Evidently he was a clever fellow, and his natural faculties were excellent. I imagined he had read a great deal, and recovered, in some degree, in restless intellectual conjecture, the freedom he was condemned to ignore in practice. Opportunity was now offering a meaning ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... of glory, the marrow of the Gospel, the way of the cross, a state of perfection, the key of Paradise, and the bond of our eternal alliance. None of you is ignorant how greatly advantageous to us holy religion is. As the enemy who fights against us is extremely clever in inventing and executing everything which is malicious, and strews in our way all sorts of snares to effect our perdition, there are many whose salvation he would have brought into great peril, if religion had not been their shield. Study, therefore, your Rule, all of you, not only ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe |
