"Shrewdness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they are the "nimble servitors" of genius and passion. In conclusion we may say, that, in the combination of accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual perception,—in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and sentiment,—and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,—"The Pearl of Orr's Island" does not yield to any book which Mrs. Stowe has heretofore contributed to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Then that other, his slight-built comrade and craft-brother; he with the long curling locks; with the face of dingy blackguardism, wondrously irradiated with genius, as if a naphtha-lamp burnt within it: that Figure is Camille Desmoulins. A fellow of infinite shrewdness, wit, nay humour; one of the sprightliest clearest souls in all these millions. Thou poor Camille, say of thee what they may, it were but falsehood to pretend one did not almost love thee, thou headlong lightly-sparkling man! But the brawny, not ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Furiously he flung himself into attacks on the classes from which his political opponents were drawn. He adopted new methods, he heeded not convention, made always for the thickest of the fray. All the time there was mixed with his fervor an element of shrewdness. It was this shrewdness, for instance, which sent him to a big gathering of his political opponents, where he sat quietly in a back seat in order to learn what they had to say about him, and listened to their abuse with keen satisfaction. Gleams of ambition ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure background (for few men's courage is proof against protracted ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Count as to be honest in his own interest. He hoped to get some place by his master's influence, and he made the Count's fortune his first care. His conduct so effectually gave the lie to his former life, that he was regarded as a slandered man. The Countess, with the tact and shrewdness of which most women have a share more or less, understood the man's motives, watched him quietly, and managed him so well, that she had made good use of him for the augmentation of her private fortune. She had contrived to make Delbecq believe that she ruled her husband, and had ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... of Cirencester. His appearance was that of a man whose body was worn by the constant workings of a restless and acrid mind. He was tall, lean, pale, with a haggard eager look, expressive at once of flightiness and of shrewdness. He had been known, during several years, as a small poet; and some of the most savage lampoons which were handed about the coffeehouses were imputed to him. But it was in the House of Commons that both his parts and his illnature were most signally ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was a lively, sharp-looking gentleman, with a professional shrewdness in his eye, and, generally speaking, a professional formality in his manner; but this he could slip off on a Saturday evening, when ... he joined in the ancient pastime of High Jinks.—Sir W. Scott, Guy ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Boston, Washington, and the tour of Europe, which meant a week in London, six months in Paris, and ten days in Rome. Unless he descended from the Sub-Treasury, and sought some business, such as making varnish, glue, buttons, soap, sarsaparilla, or sewing machines, could he marry? What shrewdness had he in the place of capital to bring to bear on the requirements of these Yankee callings? How he worried over the prospect which looked so pleasant the night before! Champagne, flowers, light, and perfume were gone from it. He pitied himself in his helplessness. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... was also brilliant and persuasive in conversation, being, in appearance at least, quite unreserved, and open in his attempt to capture the good will of his auditor. However, if there was no covert artifice, there was at all events the native shrewdness of the Swiss peasant to reckon with, and doubtless the subtlety of genius—which will not, or cannot, always reveal itself in full. In his later years, accordingly, though his winning manners and his desire that you should completely ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... to the remarks which dropped from his captain's lips, always full of shrewdness and ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... a strong game. But you don't lack shrewdness, all the same. The loan of the fifteen millions to the Bey—it was a good stroke, that. Ah! you are bold enough; only you hold your cards badly. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... in the diet of the ape to develop intelligence. The frugivorous and herbivorous animals do not need cunning and shrewdness to anything like the extent necessary in carnivorous animals. They do not need to pursue or lie in wait for prey; and they escape from their enemies mainly through strength, speed, concealment, or other ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... of trouble made for Keeper Thuman by Gunda, the Indian, and Kartoum, the African, Thuman grows enthusiastic over the shrewdness of their "cussedness." He is particularly impressed by their skill in opening chain shackles, and unfastening the catches and locks of doors and gates. And really, Kartoum's ingenuity in finding out how to open latches and bolts is almost ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... gentleman was short and slight, with a youthful eagerness in his face surviving on good terms with the grey locks that fell down his temples from under the brim of his soft felt hat. With the boyish sweetness of his looks blended a sort of appreciative shrewdness, which pointed his smiling lips slightly aslant in what seemed the expectation rather than the intention ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Philippine story has probably been something like this: To an early narrative about a wager between two neighboring kings or datus, in which the winner was aided by the shrewdness of an advisor (originally having a considerable amount of real ability), were added other adventures showing how the advisor came to have his post of honor. The germ of this story doubtless came from India via the Malay migrations; ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... lessons in kindness and shrewdness to any other man I know. If he hadn't chosen the gown he would have been a poet. I love the padre, with his snow-white hair and his withered leathery face. He was with the old king all through the ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... fight against a river and of a struggle between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... to enter the Church — probably the hope of winning his spurs was not yet dead within him; but he took very kindly to book lore, and had often shown a shrewdness and aptness in diplomatic negotiation which had made Master Bernard prophesy ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his body. He was skilled in single combat; as a general, he was almost invariably the victor. Yet it is not as a soldier that he remains fixed upon the memory; rather as a kindly and wise monarch, full of sense and shrewdness, like an old plain country farmer. When he had a mind to make a present of fish, he went to the fishing himself. When famine fell on the land, he remitted the tributes, cultivated a garden for his own support with his own hands, and set all his friends to do the like. Their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... attention, in spite of him, was divided. It was wise, we have implied, for Ramsey to take the exhorter while he was in a manageable humor. He had come to the roof with an improved regard, got by his fall in the cabin, for the "'Piscopalian play-actoh," and with brute shrewdness was glad to make an outward show of good-will to Gilmore, and accepted with avidity every pretty advance of Gid Hayle's "bodacious brick-top gal." Hugh could hear him answering Ramsey's inquiries regarding various pieces of river seen ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... escaped this time by a chance of fortune, not because your wits are keen, not because of your own shrewdness; simply because Fate willed it. It will not ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Denver, disliked very much the occasional visits to Las Plumas which his financial interests made necessary. He was still on the under side of thirty, but his business associates declared that he possessed a shrewdness and a capacity that would have done credit to a man of twice his years. Possibly people not infatuated with commercial success might have said that his ability was nothing more than an unscrupulous determination to grab everything in sight. Whatever ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... actor, and then a Methodist minister in St. Louis, a Mormon (some people said) after that; and finally he had invented a creed and founded a sect of his own. It does not speak very well for the vaunted New England shrewdness and intelligence that near two hundred and fifty persons of all ages cast in their lot with him, or, rather, cast in their lots for him. He chartered a vessel, freighted it with provisions, seed for planting, agricultural implements and lumber for houses, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... of the imperial party, and Adrian di Castello had received and obeyed an invitation to the Emperor's court. Under that monarch he had initiated himself in arms, and, among the knights of Germany, he had learned to temper the natural Italian shrewdness with the chivalry ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... in business, whose shrewdness can be overcome by ciphers. It is as though they were wise up to seven figures. Mr. Harley was of these; he had his boundaries. His instincts were solvent, his policies sound, his suspicions full of life and courage, so that you went no higher than nine ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... stories of Lincoln, his law partner, W. H. Herndon, told this as illustrating Lincoln's shrewdness as a lawyer: ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... merely give a poetical dress to affairs occurring in the prophet's or the poet's life time.[50] Even the prophets made but little if any claim to the great gift ascribed to them. They were good politicians who had made a study of their subject; and, from the mere force of natural shrewdness and long experience, could see coming events. Paulus argued at length against Christ's prophecy of his own resurrection. His first proof is that the apostles did not so understand him, as is clear from the women seeking to embalm him; and from the apostles not believing at first the ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... and smiled. "Five hundred men in three days," he mused. "Not bad for you, Sam; and good stuff at that"—for Sam was a judge of men. He was a squatter and as rich as Croesus. His big, bony frame spoke of strength, while his eye and face told the tale of shrewdness and resource. He was forty, and successful. Three hundred miles of land was chartered as his own. His sheep were counted in thousands, and his brand as familiar as a postage stamp. Yet, in all his struggles for success, ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... Maggie's native shrewdness suggested her simplest summer gown as likely to have committed the fewest errors, and the invaluable stupidity of Miss Grierson aided her toward correctness if not originality. When Dick came he was delighted with her appearance. On the way out he was ebulliently excited in his talk. Maggie averaged ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... whenever he spoke of it. In general, Bonaparte's judgment must not be confounded with his actions. His accurate mind enabled him to appreciate all that was good; but the necessity of his situation enabled him to judge with equal shrewdness ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... and proverbs inculcating non-generous ideals. When people have been "fooled" or misled, the most valuable of the social cementing qualities, faith in one's fellows, is weakened. Despite the disintegrating effect of unscrupulous shrewdness, it is common enough to hear men say of a successful votary of the art, "Well, I give him credit. He is a very clever fellow, and he has brought home the bacon." Success is so highly prized and admired that ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... bear to have any lies told him, which his natural shrewdness and knowledge of the world generally enabled him to detect; and when the party attempted to palliate them, his usual reply was—"Come, come, don't attempt to ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... it would be easy for Morar Gopal's shrewdness to find him in case he had something to report. And that the Hindu did not make his appearance was for him a disheartening proof that his servant had not hitherto succeeded in discovering Edith's whereabouts or in obtaining any certain news ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... from the door of the club, after the curious message on the wire, Shirley did not propose to expose his hand. Walking leisurely to the Avenue, he hailed a passing hansom. He directed the driver to carry him to an address on Central Park West. His shrewdness was not wasted, for as he stepped into the vehicle, he espied a slinking figure crossing the street diagonally before him, to disappear into the shadow of an adjacent doorway. This was the house of Reginald Van Der Voor, as Shirley knew. It was ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... decided by the aldermen, who sit in rotation, but at every important point there comes a nod or a whisper from the clerk; and it is that whisper which sets the defendant free or sends him to prison. Nevertheless, I suppose the alderman's common-sense and native shrewdness are not without their efficacy in producing a general tendency towards the right; and, no doubt, the decisions of the police court are quite as often just as those of any other ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... most of their meagre surplus in her shop and other girls who didn't work came in, throwing dollars about and talking about "gentlemen friends." Edith hated the bargaining but attended to it with shrewdness and with a quiet disarming little smile on her face. What she liked was to sit quietly in the room and trim hats. When the business grew she had a woman to tend the shop and a girl to sit beside her and help with the hats. She had a friend, the wife of a motorman on the street-car line, who sometimes ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... amassed a fortune by illicit trade with the Madagascar pirates, or a worse trade in rum and blackamoors on the Guinea coast, and that a quondam bookkeeper who has fairly won position and money by his own shrewdness is lower down than the lineal descendant of an Indian trader who waxed great by first treating and then cheating shivering Mohawks. Which only shows that we are prone to plant ourselves on the sound traditions of ancestors; for where is the aristocracy which does not ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Author in saying something of my self. I shall therefore beg leave to add, that I have purposely omitted setting those Marks to the End of every Paper, which appeared in my former Volumes, that You may have an Opportunity of showing Mrs. Honeycomb the Shrewdness of your Conjectures, by ascribing every Speculation to its proper Author: Though You know how often many profound Criticks in Style and Sentiments have very judiciously erred in this Particular, before they were let into the Secret. I am, SIR, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to hope that their enemies will long be deceived by the trick that has been played. When they overtake, or sight, the riderless horses, they must grasp the situation, and whirling about, look for the fugitives upon the back trail. No doubt their shrewdness will at once tell them just where those they seek may ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... stuff. His wife, loyal to him but still more loyal to the MacDermott clan into which she has married and which now includes a little MacDermott, is the first to recognise that her husband had best seek romance in the family grocery business. Then the MacDermott himself, with that shrewdness which may be late in coming to an Ulsterman but never fails him altogether, realises it too and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... Asgill retorted, showing his greater shrewdness, "who has the spirit to say that ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... Voltaire came to me, as if he wished to enter into conversation. He commenced talking about Yorkshire, its customs, legends, and superstitions, and then, with a tact and shrewdness which I could not resist, he drew me into a talk about myself. I felt that he was sifting me, felt that he was trying to read my very soul, and yet I could ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... she knew, perched astride a chair near the Bridge table, picking up, with uncanny shrewdness, all sorts of tips about the great game, as he picked up knowledge about everything that came his way. Up to this, his varied stock of information had not hurt him. Later—who ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... leaving his money absolutely to his son, who came of age at twenty-five. And, so far, Miles had justified his father's faith in him, for he had never done anything very foolish, and a certain strain of Yorkshire shrewdness prevented him from committing any ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... this, as he understood so few of the words that he heard, and he would not have been interested if he had understood them. The horse-dealer was the principal spokesman, but he would have been a poor representative of the shrewdness of his class, had he been trying to sell horses to sailors. He was endeavoring to do nothing of the kind. These men were his friends, and he was speaking to them, not of the good qualities of his animals, but of ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... me as much of a joke to pay a hundred and seventy-five dollars in gold fare, and then be horse-whipped by stage-drivers, for declining to chase mules. But people's ideas of humor differ in regard to shrewdness which "reminds me of ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... continued, with a look full of homely shrewdness, "that we on the bench have plenty of time to think over all that goes on under our eyes, while the gentlemen in court ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... that redounded to his credit, while it cost nothing and was in every way profitable. It was as though the whole catalogue of Christian virtues had been presented to Plausaby to select from, and he, with characteristic shrewdness, had taken the one trait that was ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... would endeavour to find out as much as he could about them, as they could not but suspect that he was engaged in some very unusual enterprise. He had therefore warned Giuseppi to be very careful in his replies. He knew that it was not necessary to say more, for Giuseppi had plenty of shrewdness, and would, he was sure, invent some plausible story without the least difficulty, possessing, as he did, plenty of the easy mendacity so general among the lower classes of the races inhabiting ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... sentiments meant to be inculcated by the play, when the least reflection might have taught him, that they proved nothing but the author's poetical conception of the character and costume of his subject. A writer might, with the same sinister, short-sighted shrewdness, be accused of Heathenism for talking of Flora and Ceres in a poem on the Seasons! What are produced as the exclusive badges and occult proofs of Catholic bigotry, are nothing but the adventitious ornaments ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... called him "her pigmy;" and "although," he observed with whimsical courtliness, "I may not find fault with the sporting name she gives me, yet seem I only not to mislike it, because she gives it." The strongest man among them was Valentine Dale, who had much shrewdness, experience, and legal learning, but who valued himself, above all things, upon his Latinity. It was a consolation to him, while his adversaries were breaking Priscian's head as fast as the Duke, their master, was breaking his oaths, that his own syntax was as clear as his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... will never do, Margaret, mark my words for it. It takes a woman of shrewdness, caution, and knowledge of the world, and one thoroughly versed in household economy, to get along in this pursuit. Even if you possessed all these prerequisites to success, you have just the family that ought not to ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... natural colour of his face was obscured by a host of freckles; his eyes were blue, and his nose had an upward turn; his expression was merry and good humoured, but there was a twinkle about his eyes that seemed to show that he was by no means wanting in shrewdness. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... sandy eyebrows. All this was true; and yet while Stephen looked into them over the Governor's outstretched hand, he told himself that they were the most human eyes he had ever seen. Afterward, when he groped through his vocabulary for a more accurate description, he could not find one. There was shrewdness in Gideon Vetch's eyes; there was friendliness; there was the blue sparkle of contagious humour—a ripple of light that was like visible laughter—but above all there was humanity. Though Stephen did not try to grasp the vivid impressions ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... a good ship to the bottom as speedily as went the "Maine." That the Spaniards at no time even seriously attempted a torpedo-boat attack on the blockading squadron seems to reflect on their courage. But what they lacked apparently in courage they made up in shrewdness. For weeks the best efforts of our board of strategy and our board of naval intelligence were baffled by the mysterious movements of the Spanish fleet under Admiral Cervera. This squadron, which numbered among its vessels the powerful armored cruisers "Vizcaya," "Maria Teresa," ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... predictions of impending national ruin were delivered with numberless merry quips and twinkles. Many good Republicans and good Democrats (the adjective is used in its political sense) might have envied him his sunny temper, joined, as it was, to a good stock of native shrewdness. For something in his eye made it plain that, with all his other qualities, our merry greenbacker was a reasonably competent hand at a bargain; so that I was not in the least surprised when his seat-mate told me afterward, in a tone of much respect, that the "Colonel" ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... spite of his unparalleled success and the accumulation of a great fortune, he retains the same simplicity of manner and conduct that characterized him when working at the bench for weekly wages, and with all his shrewdness and force of character he has preserved a simple, honest, childlike belief in humanity. Single-handed he conducted all his great enterprises on a plain, patriarchal basis, using their revenues ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... mean between the two extremes of excess and defect, each of which is a vice. Thus an excess of wisdom becomes shrewdness and cunning and deceit; while a defect means ignorance. The true wisdom consists in the middle way between the two extremes. Similarly courage is a mean between foolhardiness and rashness on the side of excess, and cowardice on the side of defect. Temperance is a ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... wanted his finger paid. They were insistent, clamorous, and at the same time curious to see how the stray foreigner would take it. I perceived gleams of humour in them, and to their disappointment, yet to their immense delight, for the Italian admires a degree of shrewdness, I stared them all over and burst into laughter. They saw at once that the game was up, and they shrieked with laughter at their own discomfiture. I gave the boy with the truck his lira, dropped an extra ten centesimi ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... the involutions of style and thought which might suggest a different judgment. He certainly does not write like Cobbett or Franklin, nor has he the thin, clear polish of the popular historian. Yet his shrewdness and tenderness will touch all simple-minded men; and twenty Cobbetts, or people's writers, sharply rubbed together, could never light the flame of his imperial imagination, for it is a kind of sunshine, sometimes hot enough, but broad, impartial, and quickening, wherever ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the fire. "She's such a queer mixture of shrewdness and simplicity," she went on. "She doesn't seem ever to have gone anywhere, or seen anyone, and yet she's so—so mature! I ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... is said, too, and perhaps with truth, that as many converts are made, among the natives, by presents, as by persuasion. But no small degree of the prosperity of the mission must be attributed to the superior shrewdness and ability of the persons engaged in it—to their skilful adaptation of their precepts and modes of instruction to the people with whom they have to deal, and to their employment of the maxims of worldly ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... anyone to assist him in its service; never was pig so well cared for as Antony, and as time went on he showed an intelligent appreciation of David's attentions not unmixed with affection. Perhaps in consequence of these attentions he soon developed much shrewdness of character, and had many little humorous ways which were the pride of his master's heart. The two were fast friends, and seemed to understand each other without the need of speech, though David had been known to talk ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... secretive, more self-assured, more at ease with his guilt. He looked the Wishbone men squarely in the eye, and it seldom occurred to him that he was a thief; or if it did, the word was but a synonym for luck, with shrewdness behind. Sometimes he regretted his timidity. Why three calves only? In a deep little coulee next the river—a coulee which the round-up had missed—had been more than three. He might have doubled the number and risked no more than for the three. ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... unanimous vote of the noble electors of the land. I was told by my father and teacher, of blessed memory, that the choice fell upon him in this wise: Saul Wahl was a favorite with Polish noblemen, and highly esteemed for his shrewdness and ability. The king of Poland had died. Now it was customary for the great nobles of Poland to assemble for the election of a new king on a given day, on which it was imperative that a valid decision be reached. When the day came, many opinions were found to prevail among the electors, which ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... been that the power of duping youth and shrewdness, as to which sister she really was, weighed too heavily with each of these girls in their assessment of the value of lovers' vows. And still more easily that—some three years later than the girlish jest related a page since—when Maisie, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... She has a strong judgment, a rich store of practical good sense, an ample fund of tact, skill, shrewdness, inventiveness, and management. Women are the best managers in the world so far as they have had experience and a field of action. Not one whit behind are they in every department of life to which they ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... three to Sidney's one. The product of a curious marriage,—when Tommy Harrison of Harrison's Minstrels, touring Spain with his troupe, had met the pretty daughter of a Spanish shopkeeper and eloped with her,—she had certain qualities of both, a Yankee shrewdness and capacity that made her a capable nurse, complicated by occasional outcroppings of southern Europe, furious bursts of temper, slow and smouldering vindictiveness. A passionate creature, in reality, smothered under hereditary ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was a small, swarthy man, in great contrast to the captain. He looked like a Spaniard. His hair was black and he wore a mustache and goatee, and his small, black eyes were as alert as a cat's and seemed to take in everything at once in all parts of the ship. His expression was one of keen shrewdness, but there was a look of care and anxiety that softened it. His actions and manner were those of a man who does not wish to attract attention. As they reached the deck he turned to the boys, and bowing, said with a slight ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... quartermaster was right; and, in my heart, I admired the shrewdness of the old drunkard. We kept on toward the wood, Poitevin leading, and the others following, with our pieces cocked. We marched slowly, stopping every hundred paces to listen. The shots grew nearer; they were fired at ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... Alexandria and at Athens. He began as a teacher of rhetoric in Rome, but, although he was the friend of Cicero, he was not very successful, and abandoned this study for the practice of medicine. He had a great deal of ability and shrewdness, but no knowledge of anatomy or physiology, and he condemned all who thought that these subjects of study were the foundation of the healing art. He specially inveighed against Hippocrates, and with some reason, for the disciples of Hippocrates had elevated the teaching of their master almost ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... a long breath, took off her checked apron and rolled it mechanically into a bundle. Her face had hardened; only the shrewdness was left ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Infinite. In the older man's eye dwelt chiefly reserve. The veil was always there except when he found it wise and useful to draw it aside. If ever the inner light flamed forth it was when the man so chose. Self-mastery, shrewdness, power, knowledge, lay in the dark blue eyes, and all at the ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... simple, active woman, with much tender affection and considerable shrewdness, finding that the fear of incurring needless expense distressed her brother, devoted herself to the ghastly and terrible task of nursing him through his illnesses. The children behaved with the same straightforward affection and goodness. None of the circle ever complained, ever said a word which ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... salanes,"—a title designating the one set in authority over all magistrates and over the whole army. Seoses was the first and only man who held this office in Persia; for it was conferred on no one before or after that time. And the kingdom was strengthened by Cabades and guarded securely; for in shrewdness and activity ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... Westmoreland peasant, with considerably less shrewdness than most border Englishmen or Scotsmen inherit; and no sense of humor: but gifted (in this singularly) with vivid sense of natural beauty, and a pretty turn for reflections, not always acute, but, as far as they ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... talent; Jkull is the best in all perilous adventures, but I,' he added, 'I am the least worth of us brothers, because the berserkr fits come over me, quite against my will, and I wish that you, my brother, with your shrewdness, would ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... hostile to him. The ambition of Burr, sustained by a daring spirit and unconquerable perseverance, awakened the apprehensions of Governor George Clinton lest he should be supplanted. The governor was a man of great sagacity and shrewdness. But these two sections, or, perhaps, more properly, the heads of them, united in their opposition ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... find out (without any body to tell them) that he could do them good, he advertised his medicines and invited the whole profession of every school, to examine and pronounce judgment on his formulas. He advertised liberally, profusely, but with extraordinary shrewdness, and with a method which is in itself a lesson to all who seek business by that perfectly legitimate means. His success has been something marvelous—so great, indeed, that it must be due to intrinsic merit in the articles he sells, more even than to his ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... admission to the bar, Mr. Chipman received him into partnership. But Mr. Fessenden was ill qualified to succeed in the profession of law, by his simplicity of character, and his utter inability to acquire an ordinary share of shrewdness and worldly wisdom. Moreover, the success of "Jonathan's Courtship," and other poetical effusions, had turned his thoughts from law to literature, and had procured him the acquaintance of several literary luminaries of those days; none of whose names, probably, have survived ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... descriptions and incidents but accessories, as in "The Pilgrim's Progress." A fable is generally briefer, representing animals as the speakers and actors, and commonly conveying some lesson of practical wisdom or shrewdness, as "The Fables of AEsop." A parable is exclusively moral or religious, briefer and less adorned than an allegory, with its lesson more immediately discernible, given, as it were, at a stroke. Any comparison, analogy, instance, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... city, and passed the night at his house. After tea he sauntered to the office to take a quiet cigar. To his surprise, he found it filled with a crowd—more than fifty—of brawny, beastly-looking men. The presence of the childlike old man, his face beaming with shrewdness and kindly humor, seemed alone to keep them from being a mob. His manner to them said,—"You poor wretches, I know how reckless you are; yet I am not sure but I should be as bad, had I been exposed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... rejected by the Liberal Government which had recently acceded to power, whose decision was that both the Khyber Pass and the Kuram valley should be abandoned. On this subject Sir Frederick Roberts wrote with great shrewdness: 'We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best thing to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself. It may not be very flattering to our amour propre, but I feel sure I am right when I say that the less the ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... mind—one which made him a poet, quickness and delicacy of observation and sympathetic interpretation, the realising and anticipating power of deep feeling and penetrative imagination; the other, at first sight, little related to poetry, a hard-headed, ingenious, prosaic shrewdness and directness of common sense, dealing practically with things as they are and on the whole, very little curious about scientific questions and precision, argumentative in a fashion modelled on Bishop Butler, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... whole, though he was but a gardener's lad, working in the green Cascine at small wages. But all he earned he brought home to his mother; and he alone kept in order the lazy, high-tempered Sandro, and he alone kept in check Bice's love of finery, and he alone could with shrewdness and care make both ends meet and put minestra always in the pot and bread ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Lack of delicacy was one of Mr. Hearn's gravest faults. While courtly, polished, and refined in externals, he lacked in tact and nicety of discrimination. He often said things which a finer-fibred but much worse man would never have said. He had an abundance of intellect, great shrewdness, vast will force, and organizing power, but not much ideality or imagination. This lack rendered him incapable of putting himself in the place of another, and of appreciating their feelings, moods, and motives. The most revolting thought to me of his union with Miss ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... what I recollect, he took more interest in that of Rome than of Greece or England. Virgil and Pope were his favourite poets. He was very earnest with his mother in studying the principles of the Christian religion. More than once my wife remarked, "that boy astonishes me by the shrewdness with which he puts questions on different points of doctrine." In his readings with me he was never satisfied with bare statements unaccompanied by reasons. He was always for arguing the matter before taking either side. One question, when very young, he would again and again recur to, as a ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... solemnity of the despairing hero, crossed in the prosecution of his love-suit. His clumsy interference with the intrigues of his friend, only serves to augment his difficulties, and occasions many an awkward dilemma. On the other hand, the shrewdness of the heroine's confidantes never seem to fail them under the most trying circumstances; while their sly jokes and innuendos, their love of fun, their girlish sympathy with the progress of the love-affair, their ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... face with oatmeal For everything you lose you get something No trouble like that which comes between parent and child Old clock in the corner "ticking" life, and youth, and hope away She had not much brains, but she had some shrewdness Take the honeymoon himself, and leave his wife to learn cooking The laughter of a ripe summer was upon the land Thought all as flippant as herself Turned the misery of the world into a game, and grinned at it When the heart rusts the ...
— Quotations From Gilbert Parker • David Widger
... after their coming into contact, not merely a man whom he disliked and distrusted, but one who, if allowed to pursue his plans unchecked, would in the end form a greater danger to the imperial authority than even the Taepings. It is not possible to deny Li's shrewdness in reading the character of the man with ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of the boxes is a weazened little man, all out of drawing, in a black velvet doublet, satin breeches and silk stockings. At his side is a rudimentary sword. The man's face is sallow, and shrewdness and selfishness are shown in every line. He looks like a baby suddenly grown old. The two friends in the pit have seen this man before, but they have never met him face to face, because they do ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... they hoped to rule their rulers; and to attain this object was the only reason which ever prompted the cities to unite with any degree of harmony. Local independence was what they aimed at, and their shrewdness showed them the only possible means in that ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... all that Sir Philip stated; but it was something more. It was a very artful epistle, drawn up by the joint shrewdness of Mr. Shanks, Mr. John Ayliffe, and Mrs. Hazleton. It concisely stated the claims of the young man who signed it, to all the property of the late Sir John Hastings and to the baronetcy. It made no parade of proofs, but assumed that those in the writer's possession ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... three years. This sapient faculty supplied him with further information; only two or three of the items of which, however, it is necessary to reproduce. He had been a great fool—an incredible fool—not to have discovered before this what was the matter with him! Bernard's sense of his own shrewdness—always tolerably acute—had never received such a bruise as this present perception that a great many things had been taking place in his clever mind without his clever mind suspecting them. But it little mattered, his reason went on to ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... you're a-gittin'. Git a plenty while you're a-gittin',' says I, 'fer 'twon't never be no cheaper'n 'tis now,' and it ha'n't been; I knowed 'twouldn't," and Mrs. Means took the pipe from her mouth to indulge in a good chuckle at the thought of her financial shrewdness. "'Git a plenty while you're a-gittin' says I. I could see, you know, they was a powerful sight of money in Congress land. That's what made me say, 'Git a plenty while you're a-gittin'.' And Jack, he's wuth lots and gobs ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... characteristics of a class now passing away from the face of the land, as their compeers, the yeomen, have done before them. Of such was William Dixon. He was a shrewd clever farmer, in his day and generation, when shrewdness was rather shown in the breeding and rearing of sheep and cattle than in the cultivation of land. Owing to this character of his, statesmen from a distance from beyond Kendal, or from Borrowdale, of greater wealth than he, would send their sons to be farm-servants for ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... not merely ripe scholars, but who had borne and were bearing a leading part in the great actions of that memorable epoch. Among such men he would be most at home, for there his wit, his shrewdness, his genial spirits, and high breeding would be best appreciated. But his own keen relish of life, and his delight in watching the lights and shades of human character, took him into that wider circle where witty and notable men are always eagerly ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... Nearly every player who put money down—secure in that egotistical valuation of one's own shrewdness which is the sure-thing-man's bank and goldmine and mint—rolled the dice, weighed them, eyed them sharply. Then they bet against the ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... dressed, of having money to spend, of appearing importantly busy at any cost; a certain pretentiousness, as if everything were shown at once and there were no reserve of power, nothing held in disciplined abeyance, interested her profoundly. She had a native shrewdness. ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... pay more than seventy or seventy-five," said Wilbur, his native shrewdness coming to the front, "and I think I ought to be able to pick up a good horse or two for that, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the sarcasm, Patience continued: "I believe your chief trouble lies in the fact that newspaper standards are so different from those of a college. On a newspaper it is a case of get the story and no questions asked. It isn't honor that counts. It is shrewdness, determination, dogged persistence, hardness of head, and deafness to personal appeal ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower |
