"Wily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and ceremonies form a conspicuous part in the New Year's celebration. At this time the "Kitchen God," according to current superstition, returns to heaven to render an account of the household's behavior. The wily Chinese, however, first rubs the lips of the departing deity with candy in order to "sweeten" his report of any evil which he may ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... of variation and heredity, and even the possibility of improving breeds by selection, must have been appreciated by early men is illustrated by the old story of the way in which the wily Jacob made an attempt—however futile were the means he adopted—to ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... boat. Nothing more was ever seen of that batch! Another plan was to drop large stones or pieces of heavy iron into the frail craft; and in that case also no more was ever heard from them. These chances seldom came, however, as they were a wily lot, who nearly always made sure of their ground before embarking on a hazardous expedition. The crews of vessels were warned to keep a vigilant lookout, and sometimes the anchor watch succeeded in giving the alarm in time ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... in air, Crept under the leaf, and hid her there; The katy-did forgot its lay, The prowling gnat fled fast away, The fell mosqueto checked his drone And folded his wings till the Fay was gone, And the wily beetle dropped his head, And fell on the ground as if he were dead; They crouched them close in the darksome shade, They quaked all o'er with awe and fear, For they had felt the blue-bent blade, And writhed at the prick of the elfin ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... The wily bookseller, Pasvogel, without loss of time, sate down quietly to business: he ran through a cursory retrospect of all the works any ways moving or affecting that he had himself either published or sold on commission;—took a flying survey of the pathetic in general: and in this ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Megabates and the disappointment of Artaphernes—and he foresaw that his ill success might be a reasonable plea for removing him from the government of Miletus. While he himself was meditating the desperate expedient of a revolt, a secret messenger from Histiaeus suddenly arrived at Miletus. That wily Greek, disgusted with his magnificent captivity, had had recourse to a singular expedient: selecting the most faithful of his slaves, he shaved his scull, wrote certain characters on the surface, and, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... half so slow as it would have been to attempt the building up of someone's reputation; by reason of the law of gravitation the natural tendency is downward, so prevalent in human nature, and by reason of the intense delight which that wise and wily helper, Satan, has in a fuss of any sort. Do Mrs. Dr. Matthews the justice of understanding that she didn't in the least comprehend what she was about; that is, not the magnitude of it. She only knew that she had been stung, either by her conscience or else ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... from Bent's Fort. Seeing a small band of buffalo some distance away, we took the pack-saddles off of the mules and turned them out to graze, mounted our saddle-horses and were off for the herd; but the wily beasts got wind of us and started off before we got within gunshot of them. After running them about a mile we overhauled them, both fired and each killed a yearling calf while on the run. I fastened my rifle to the pommel of the saddle, drew my pistol, and there being a very ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... Buckalew dared to tempt him. Eskew's faded eyes showed a blue gleam, but he withstood, speaking of Babylon to the disparagement of Chicago. They sought to lead him into what he evidently would not, employing many devices; but the old man was wily and often carried them far afield by secret ways of his own. This hot morning he had done that thing: they were close upon him, pressing him hard, when he roused that outburst which had stirred the idlers on the benches in the Court-house yard. Squire Buckalew (sidelong ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... the craft, who has been expelled by "the Flaming Tinman," a half-gipsy of robustious behaviour. He is met by old Mrs. Hearne, the mother-in-law of his gipsy friend Jasper Petulengro, who resents a Gorgio's initiation in gipsy ways, and very nearly poisons him by the wily aid of her grand-daughter Leonora. He recovers, thanks to a Welsh travelling preacher and to castor oil. And then, when the Welshman has left him, comes the climax and turning-point of the whole story, the great fight with Jem Bosvile, "the Flaming ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... have followed the waggons, and I fear after all that the emigrants were not so far wrong in their conjectures as we supposed. I only hope the people on ahead have kept a careful watch and beaten back their wily foe." ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... flew by. The unwilling travellers, depressed beyond description, had given up all hope of leaving the car until it reached the point intended by the wily plotters. To their amazement, however, the speed began to slacken perceptibly after they had left the city ten or twelve miles behind. Truxton was leaning against the side of the door, gloomily ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Cupid, standing directly in front of her, had shot his darts ruthlessly and resistlessly into the passing hosts, and masculine Washington looked humbly to her for the balm that might soothe its pains. The wily god of love was fair enough to protect the girl whom he forced to be his unwilling, perhaps unconscious, ally. He held his impenetrable shield between her heart and the assaults of a whole army ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sight, busily plying their trade, and at any other time we should have been much interested in the quaint and cunning devices by which the patient, wily Chinaman succeeds so admirably as a fisherman. Our own fishing, for the time being, absorbed all our attention—the more, perhaps, that we had for so long been unable to do anything in that line. After the usual preliminaries, we were successful in getting fast to the great ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... was rehearsing to Evan, after his drunken fashion, the recent scene in Sybil's room, not even omitting his own expulsion by wily Mrs. Aliston. As he repeated, with wonderful accuracy, considering his condition, the wild words uttered by Sybil, his listener sat very erect, with wild staring eyes, and lips held tightly together, his teeth almost biting through them; with burning eyes, and quivering frame, and ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... personality in as full measure as Egypt's queen. The point of seeming unlikeness is as convincing as any likeness could be; the peculiarities of both women are the same and spring from the same dominant quality. Cleopatra is cunning, wily, faithless, passionately unrestrained in speech and proud as Lucifer, and so is the sonnet-heroine. We may be sure that the faithlessness, scolding, and mad vanity of his mistress were defects in Shakespeare's eyes as in ours; these, indeed, were "the things ill" which ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... and of how much you had done for her, and put yourself out. I said it so she'd appreciate things, of course, but she took it quite differently from what I had intended she should take it, and seemed quite cut up about it. Then she went away in that wily, impulsive fashion." ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... enticing arms, With all that glitters and with all that charms, Th' ideal goddesses to church repair, Peep thro' the fan and mutter o'er a pray'r, Or listen to the organ's pompous sound, Or eye the gilded images around; Or, deeply studied in coquetish rules, Aim wily glances at unthinking fools; Or shew the lilly hand with graceful air, Or wound the fopling with a lock of hair: And when the hated discipline is o'er, And Misses tortur'd with Repent no more, They mount the pictur'd ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... The wily old German had played out his purpose. He had turned the wild cheering, which he knew would have embarrassed Prescott, into a good-natured laugh. He had diverted the first big burst of attention away from the boys, much to the relief ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... always maintain the right, begot confidence and made him successful and great. Party opponents imputed his success under difficulties that seemed insurmountable to craft and cunning; but while not deficient in shrewdness, his success was the result not of deceptive measures or wily intrigue, but of wisdom and fidelity with an intuitive sagacity that seldom erred as to measures to be adopted, or the course to be pursued. It may be said of him, that he possessed inherently a master mind, and was innately a leader of men. He listened, as I have often ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... feeling in her bosom with which praise of Mrs. Hazleton could ever jar. She loved her well. Such eyes as hers are not practised in seeing into darkness. She had divined the Italian singer—perhaps by instinct, perhaps by some distinct trait, which occasionally will betray the most wily. But Mrs. Hazleton was a fellow-woman—a woman of great brightness and many fine qualities. Neither had she any superficial defects to indicate a baser metal or a harder within. If she was not all gold, she ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... means of following with greater success his licentious courses—Gomez Arias saw the beautiful Anselma. Her attractions and innocence could not escape his observation, and he marked her out for his prey. Curse the day his wily smile first lighted ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the signing of the peace, especially because their agent at Saint Germain had assured them that the Court was fully persuaded that the Parliament was but a cipher, and that the generals were the men with whom they must negotiate. I confess that Cardinal Mazarin acted a very wily part in this juncture, and he is the more to be commended because he was obliged to defend himself, not only against the monstrous impertinences of La Riviere, but against the violent passion of the ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... of Ro-a-no-ak, Where the Pale-Face slept unguarded, Sped the swift canoes of Red Men, Gliding through the silent shadows. As the sky grew red with dawning,[P] While they dreamed of home and kindred, Suddenly with whoop of murder Wily Indians swarmed ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... affairs of the kingdom," and it was mutually agreed that Juana was to be prevented by force, if necessary, from taking any part in the government of Castile! What happened in that interview no man can ever know exactly, but it certainly appears that the wily Fernando had been able by some trick or mass of false evidence to convince Philip that Juana was really insane, and yet he had been with his wife almost continually for the previous two years and had not thought of her in that light, and Fernando ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... would, in a moment, if he could be supplied with proofs," rejoined Powell Seaton, with emphasis. "Governor Terrero is a wily, smooth scoundrel who is well served by men of his own choice stamp. Terrero is wealthy, and backed by many other wealthy men who have been growing rich in the diamond fields. In fact, though they are wonderfully smooth ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... on the subject of the wily Mr. Bloomer and the rum drove the thoughts of Mr. Bangs' odd behavior from the mind of her maid. But the consciousness of conspiracy was always present with Galusha, try as he might to forget it. And he was constantly being reminded—of it. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... so far from the cowboys, I found hard to believe until, in the fall of 1893, I made the acquaintance of the wily marauder, and at length came to know him more thoroughly than anyone else. Some years before, in the Bingo days, I had been a wolf-hunter, but my occupations since then had been of another sort, chaining me to stool ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... parsimonious, pious (twice), profound in opinion, prone to regret his acts, prudent, rash, religious, reverent, self-confident, sincere, singular in mode of thinking, strong, temperate, unreserved, unsteady, valuable in friendship, variable, versatile, violent, volatile, wily, and worthy.' Zadkiel concludes thus:—'The square of Saturn to the moon will add to the gloomy side of the picture, and give a tinge of melancholy at times to the native's character, and also a disposition to look at the dark side of ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... coalition. The Prussian array was immediately withdrawn from the Russian frontiers, and M. de Haugwitz repaired to Bruenn to threaten Napoleon with it. But the battle of Austerlitz shut his mouth; and within a fortnight after, the wily minister, having quickly turned round to the side of the conqueror, signed with him the participation of the fruits ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... nevertheless, stimulated the Uzcoques to aggressions upon the subjects of both. The Archduke Ferdinand, a well-intentioned and virtuous prince, but young and inexperienced, was completely led and deceived by the wily and unprincipled politicians who governed in his name. He was kept entirely in the dark as to the real character of the Segnarese, and thus prevented from giving credence to the frequent complaints made against them by neighbouring ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... absurdly. Some, however, act otherwise. There is, for instance, Laches, one of the greatest at Prodicus's feast. He lives in a realm of mingled hopes and fears, although he is wealthy and well-educated.[*] He is all the time worried about dreams, and paying out money to the sharp and wily "seer" (who counts him his best client) for "interpretations." If a weasel crosses his path he will not walk onward until somebody else has gone before him, or until he has thrown three stones across the road. He is all the time worrying about the significance of sudden ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... Wali and the Mukaddam and the Kazi and the folk of the ward; but as regards the affair of the damsel whom they found stretched on the ground as one drunken, she on entering the Kazi's abode pulled herself together and recovered herself, for that she had wrought all this wily work for the special purpose of being led into the house there to carry out her wish and will. Presently the Judge lay down and was drowned in slumber and knew not what Allah had destined to him from the plans and projects ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... at him in real pain, in sincere compassion; for his nature, wily, deceitful, perfidious though it was, had cruelty only so far as was necessary to the unrelenting execution of his schemes. No pity could swerve him from a purpose; but he had enough of the man within him to feel pity not the less, even for his own victim! ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IX • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of Diamonds tries his wily arts, And wins (oh shameful chance!) the Queen of Hearts. At this, the blood the virgin's cheek forsook, A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look; 90 She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill, Just in the ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... a genuine appeal to high motives, flattered by it, and by the confidence of the Italians, he thought that he could educate his party, and by his personal influence induce it to do justice to Italy. But this conservative advocate of reform was not wily enough tactician for the times in which he lived, or the changes which he meditated. His attempts to improve on the devices of Saturninus and Gracchus were miserable failures; and the senators who used him, or were influenced by him, shrank from ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... haughty souls with dread, Shall roll innocuous o'er my shelter'd head, Safe in that mansion of unbroken rest, Which neither lightnings strike nor winds molest. Thus then in brief, relentless tyrant, take A fix'd resolve, thou hast no power to shake. Let wily Trollio try his utmost art, Join'd with thy power, on this determined heart. Let sorrows round me like an ocean flow, Let earth dividing yawn my grave below, Bribes, threats, nor torments, more shall bid me own Thy sway, ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... curious study for such men as love to gaze upon the dark and wily features of human character, to have watched the contrast between the reciter and the listener, as Beaufort, with much circumlocution, much affected disdain and real anxiety, narrated the singular and ominous conversation between ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tramp, and absorb something of the tramp's hygiene. It is impossible to be "cooped" at your desk, if you have to cross a garden or a lawn thirty times a day to get to it. And what reporter can reach that sweet seclusion across the distant housemaid's wily and experienced art? What autograph or lion hunter can ruin your best ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... Heav'en, there is no Hell; these be the dreams of baby minds; Tools of the wily Fetisheer, to 'fright the fools ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Resequenz, wily major-domo to the duke of Romagna, audacious, unscrupulous and treacherous.—William Waldorf Astor, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... not quite clear, but the governor's apparent amiableness did not in any way move Drake to exercise generosity. His object was ransom, and if this was agreed to good-naturedly, all the better for the Spaniards, but he was neither to be bought nor sold by wily tactics, nor won over by golden-tongued rhetoric. The price of the rugged Devonshire sailor's alternative of wild wrath and ruin was the modest sum of 100,000 ducats in hard cash. Mutual convivialities and flowing courtesies were at an end; these were one thing and reparation for the incarceration ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... child in blue silk pyjamas who flew gaily round the tables pursued by two stout and joyfully excited Southern Europeans in livery. The pursuit was lively, but short, for Tinker ran into the arms of a wily croupier who had slipped from his seat, and unexpectedly joined the chase. He was handed over to his pursuers and conducted from the rooms, amidst the plaudits of the gamblers. He bade good-night to his liveried friends on the threshold of the Casino, congratulating them on their increasing ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... was at once a bigoted Papist and a Protestant pope. He hated the French domination to which his brother had submitted; yet his pride as sovereign was subordinated to his allegiance to Rome and a superstitious veneration for the wily priests with which Louis XIV. surrounded him. As the head of Anglican heretics, he was compelled to submit to conditions galling alike to the sovereign and the man. He found, on his accession, the terrible penal laws against the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... what the pair were talking about. Had he known that the revelation of Bishop Pendle's secret formed the gist of the interview, he would have been even more enraged than he was. But, for the time being, Fate was against the wily chaplain, and, in the end, he was compelled to betake himself to a solitary and sulky walk, during which his reflections concerning Graham and Baltic were the reverse of amiable. As a defeated sneak, Mr Cargrim was not a credit ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... like a paste, To coop up and keep down on earth a space That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul) —To Abib, all sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, 10 Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term,— And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such deg.— deg.14 The vagrant Scholar to his Sage deg. at home deg.15 Sends greeting (health and ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... meantime the men in the fort had been inquiring diligently in various directions. There was still much talk of mysterious kingdoms, rich in gold. Once more they were duped into fighting his battles by the wily Outina, who promised to lead them to the mines of Appalachee. They defeated his enemies, and there was abundant slaughter, with plenty of scalps for Outina's braves, ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... trade a horse, while the wife trudges over the country, from one farm-house or cottage to another, loaded with baskets, household utensils, toys, or cheap ornaments, which she endeavors, like a true Autolyca, with wily arts and wheedling tones, to sell to the rustics. When it can be managed, this hawking is often an introduction to fortune-telling, and if these fail the gypsy has recourse to begging. But it is a weary life, and the poor dye is always ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... day roused the undercurrent of old thoughts and old hopes that taunted him,—trifles, too, that he would not have heeded at another time. Pike came in on business, a bunch of bills in his hand. A wily, keen eye he had, looking over them,—a lean face, emphasized only by cunning. No wonder Dr. Knowles cursed him for a "slippery customer," and was cheated by him the next hour. While he and Holmes were counting out the bills, a little white-headed ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... a concession! almost a half-surrender of the permission granted her by the Church at Poitiers to dress as a man. The wily court shifted to another matter: to pursue this one at this time might call Joan's attention to her small mistake, and by her native cleverness she might recover her lost ground. The tempestuous session had worn her and ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... private reflection, and retired to his cabinet with General Sebastiani, who was then hurriedly dispatched to the hotel of M. Talleyrand in the Rue St. Florentin. Talleyrand had been one of the firmest supporters of Legitimacy. Louis Philippe sought his advice. The wily statesman, who had lived through so many revolutions, had not yet left his bed-chamber, and was dressing. He, however, promptly returned the ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... and a bound, springs the eager, exulting Tamdka. Long and loud on the hills is the shout of his swarthy admirers and backers; "But the race is not won till it's out," said DuLuth, to himself as he gathered, With a frown on his face, for the foot of the wily Tamdka had tripped him. Far ahead ran the brave on the route, and turning he boasted exultant. Like spurs to the steed to DuLuth were the jeers and the taunts of the boaster; Indignant was he and red wroth, at the trick of the runner ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... very simple, but sometimes we think he is also a little sly. He can make very wily excuses about ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... very bloodthirsty. They had been atrociously treated by the natives, and had suffered much. They longed to get their enemies fairly before them, and the "Forty Thieves" were now keenly looking out for the approach of the wily Unyoros. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... wine forgotten, though forbidden to the faithful. The adopted father and son ate heartily, at the same time pushing about the spirit-stirring liquor, till at last Mazin, who had not been used to drink wine, became intoxicated. The wily magician, for such in fact was his pretended friend, watching his opportunity, infused into the goblet of his unsuspecting host a certain potent drug, which Mazin had scarcely drunk oft, when he fell back upon his cushion totally insensible, the treacherous ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... made possible by a revival of the policy of provincial and municipal assistance. Whether from reasoned conviction as to the indirect benefits of more roads, or because of the log-rolling activities of rival towns and wily promoters, a systematic and generous policy of aid was adopted. This aid came chiefly from the provinces and municipalities, the Dominion as yet confining itself to works of inter-provincial concern. Outright gifts for ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... all parties, at Madrid, he is spoken of as a man not naturally vicious, but equally prone to good or evil, according to the direction impressed upon him towards either of these two ends, arising from a wily indolence of character, that, conscious of its own inability, throws itself on another. Leave him, say they, but the name of king, his secretaries, his valets, and his favourite amusements,—give him his Havanna cigars, (a lot of which he sends daily to the officer of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... "envelop" in his pocket. It is a pleasant sensation to feel the stiff-cornered envelop tucked safely away in your vest pocket, or in the depths of your stocking, where Henrietta had hidden hers safe out of the reach of the wily pickpocket, who, she told me, was lurking at every corner and sneaking through every crowd on that Saturday evening, which was also ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... leave that to me," said the vile, wily knave, as he went to see to his arrangements for carrying the ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... young and helpless, trying to pit her girlish intelligence and strength against the wily miser, that another man would have been ashamed to press her. Not so Peabody—he had always considered that he was entitled to whatever he could get from others, information, cash, or ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... very fair liar he had become. Not that the lad was a bad fellow at heart; but he had been chosen by the harpies at home, on account of his "peculiar vocation;" in plain English, because the wily priests had seen in him certain capacities of vague hysterical fear of the unseen (the religious sentiment, we call it now-a-days), and with them that tendency to be a rogue, which superstitious men always have. He was now a tall, handsome, light-complexioned ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... which was the object of their desire, and now prepared, with commendable determination, to maintain themselves at the post thus captured; an impossible feat in consideration of the paucity of their numbers, which fact a wily enemy had already begun ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... almost unanimous in their belief that the wily Greek gave instructions to his guides to lead the army of the German emperor into dangers and difficulties. It is certain that, instead of guiding them through such districts of Asia Minor as afforded water and provisions, they led them into the wilds of Cappadocia, where neither was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... honest to confess to a decided preference for elbow-room when engaged in its actual fulfilment. This was a fight with man's first enemy in close and awkward quarters—a precipice behind, walls of rock in front and at either hand. Three times my length, strong enough to constrict to death a giant, wily enough to seek the cover of the matted roots of the tree, several points were in favour of the snake. My first wild haphazard stroke, which had merely scored its flesh, seemed to have roused its vindictiveness. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... there constituted an inevitable marriage. She pleaded with Adelle to leave her so-called husband and come back with her to the Neuilly villa "until the matter could be straightened out, and an announcement of the marriage made to the world," as she was wily enough to put it. But Adelle was adamant. Archie, to whom the woman next appealed, was more yielding. She succeeded in frightening him, talking about the dangers of French laws that had to do with minors. Of course ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... and falsehood's shameless shame They had not learned, until the white man came. He taught them, too, the lurking devil's joy In liquid lies, that lure but to destroy. With wily words, as false as they were sweet, He spread his snares for unsuspecting feet; Paid truth with guile, and trampled in the dust Their gentle childlike faith ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... without him as with him.' Truly, there was not a man to come up to her. She handled sword as well as any marshal of the King's host; no assault could surprise her, no disappointment could crush her, nor could any man, however wily, take her off her guard. When she had gone forward to Hennebon—for Rennes surrendered ere help could come from our King—man said she rade all up and down the town, clad in armour, encouraging the townsmen, and moving the women ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... her hand, but might as well have tried to free herself from the embrace of an affectionate boa-constrictor; if anything so wily may be brought into comparison ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Audience Chamber and was considerably puzzled to find several hundred soldiers drawn up in the court. Among them he discerned some of his own guards, distinguishable by their high crowned turbans. His wonder was still further increased by the excessive good humour of Garrofat and his wily brother Doola. Smilingly they waited while slaves bore in the great table; and with exclamations of delight greeted Bright-Wits as he demonstrated his success in mastering ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... contrives two or three planes of figures for the presentation of his ruling group. Yet there appears to my mind a defect of accomplishment, rather than a deliberate intention, in the delineation of Orsino. He seems meant to be the wily, crafty, Machiavellian reptile, whose calculating wickedness should form a contrast to the daemonic, reckless, almost maniacal fiendishness of old Francesco Cenci. But this conception of him wavers; his love for Beatrice is too delicately tinted, and he is suffered to break ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... fellowship, you know!" "Gaudissart, jolly dog!" Such was the first and the last phrase of all his allocutions. He begged for the bottom lines of the final columns of the newspapers, and inserted articles for which he asked no pay from the editors. Wily as a supernumerary who wants to be an actor, wide-awake as an errand-boy who earns sixty francs a month, he wrote wheedling letters, flattered the self-love of editors-in-chief, and did them base services to get his articles inserted. Money, dinners, platitudes, all served the purpose of his eager ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... a dozen mounted men leading the way, with the intent to get quite round the ridge, and cut off the retreat of these most wily beasts of prey, before the coming of the rear-guard should alarm them—and the remainder of the party, sleighing it merrily along, with all the hounds attached to them. The dawn was yet in its first gray dimness when we got into line along the little ridge which bounds that ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... attacks by feints and half-blows, but making no serious attack himself. There was a cool, calculating expression upon his sharp and cruel countenance, and he did not appear to be half so earnest or excited as his antagonist. I saw plainly that the wily savage was endeavouring to provoke the other to some careless or imprudent movement, of which he stood ready to ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... luckless European who, tempted by the beauty of their wares, has dealings with the wily Persian merchant. There is a proverb in Tiflis that "It takes two Jews to rob an Armenian, two Armenians to rob a Persian," and the "accursed Faringi" is mercilessly swindled whenever ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... the field, in the meantime, were entirely unaware of the awful scenes which were transpiring, and of their own impending peril. The wily Indians approached them, under the guise of friendship. Each party had its marked man. At a given signal, with the utmost ferocity they fell upon their victims. With arrows, tomahawks and war-clubs, the work was soon completed. Not ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... exhilaration of savage happiness seized me that I lost my head, and begged the Oneida to stop and let me set a flint and give the Royal Greens a shot or two; but the wily chief refused; and he was wise, for I should have known that the Sacandaga must already be a swarming nest of Johnson's foresters ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... passed out of sight down an obscure path that led into the brush where the bird was hidden. Though our ways differ, or rather, perhaps, because our ways differ, we are able to study in company. Certainly this circumstance proved available in circumventing the wily chat, and that happened which had happened before: in fleeing from one who made herself obvious to him, he presented himself, an unsuspecting victim, to another who sat like a statue against the wall. ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... still an 'amaaizin' instance of a pop'lar man,' exclaimed, as he rode among them, 'Ah! my good fellows, I'd rather you'd come up and had some ale than disturbed the cover'; a hint that the wily ones immediately took, rushing up to the house, and availing themselves of the absence of the butler, who had followed the hounds, to take a couple of dozen of his best fiddle-handled forks while the footman was drawing them ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... all hangs on that, and it will be a ticklish job. Tandy is as wily as any old fox. You're sure ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... present was, to ascertain my brother's real rank and family; for he persisted in representing himself as a poor wandering boy. Various means were vainly tried to elicit this information; until at length—like the wily Ulysses, who mixed with his peddler's budget of female ornaments and attire a few arms, by way of tempting Achilles to a self-detection in the court of Lycomedes—one gentleman counselled the mayor to send for a Greek Testament. This was done; the Testament was presented open at St. John's Gospel ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... without spending a bit of that $5 a day in slaking a tropical thirst. Indeed I question whether any but the prudish will loudly blame "Mac" even because he spent it a bit too freely and brought up in Empire dispensary. Word of his presence there soon drifted down to the wily plain-clothes man of Empire district. But it was a hot noonday, the dispensary lies somewhat up hill, and the uniformless officer of the Zone metropolis is rather thickly built. Wherefore, stowing away this private ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... difficulties of their position between the King and the Pope; the lords and the townsmen hastened thither irritated against the bull, heated by the violence of the royal answer. The members of the assembly were influenced each by the other according to their arrival; the pungent and wily eloquence of Peter Flotte did the rest. The chancellor, as the first of the great crown officers and the king's chief justice, opened the states by a long harangue in which, speaking in the name of Philip, he exposed with much force and ingenuity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... for conquest, wily, yet impassioned, she stole out, with noiseless foot and beating heart, to her appointment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... never realize her ambition that he become a statesman, warrior, philosopher, in short her ideal hero—this was unbearable! This phase of the question was so overpowering that she forgot to feel rage against Ahenobarbus and his wily ally. Cornelia threw herself down upon the floor, and cried to Agias to slay her quickly. She did not care to live; ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... broken the news at the table during luncheon, after which he went downtown. Stephen, having raved, protested, and made himself generally disagreeable and his sister correspondingly miserable, had departed for the club. It was a time for confidences, and the wily Mrs. Dunn realized that fact. She soothed, comforted, and within half an hour, had learned the whole story. Caroline told her all, the strange will, the disclosure concerning the country uncle, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... indulges and keenly enjoys an overwhelming passion—for drink or any other vice—is rarely moved by your fine talk, for the reason that he believes in his wily soul that you do not know ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... horsemen and yeomanry guarded an extended front in inaccessible country, and every man in the Division will long remember the troubles of supply in the hills. They had some stiff fighting against a wily enemy, and not for a minute could they relax their vigilance. When, with the Turks' fatal effort to retake Jerusalem, the 10th Division changed their front and attacked in a north-easterly direction, ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... by a more or less complete adaptation to their environment. The result of this twofold conflict between living beings is to evolve the manifold structures and functions—teeth, claws, skin, color, fur, feathers, horns, tusks, wily instincts, strength, stealth, deceit, and humility—which make up character in the animal world. According to the nature and number of each being's enemies has its own special mechanism been evolved, distinguishing it from its ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... trenches was alert. Post commanders moved about supervising, and the attached New Zealanders imparted useful information in regard to trench warfare methods, such as how to outwit the wily Turk; the essential discipline; and precautions to ensure safety to the individual. Opportunity of gaining an acquaintance with No-Man's Land was afforded through the necessity of examining and repairing the ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... quack comes to town—. Where's his wife? I say—where's his suffering children?—Don't tell me, anybody, that the man's not married, and run away from his suffering wife. Take his trail; glide like the wily savage back over his course, and mark me, sir, you'll trace the pathway of a besom of destruction: weeping mothers, broken-hearted fathers, daughters bowed in the dust. What's he here for? Why didn't he stay where he was? But I'll drive him out of ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... famous as a writer on Nity or "rules of government and polity", and the reputed author of numerous moral and political precepts commonly current in India. Nanda is slain by the contrivances of this wily Brahman, who thus assists Chandragupta to the throne, and becomes his minister. Rakshasa refuses to recognise the usurper and endeavours to be avenged on him for the ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... was always so glad to go to Boniface Newt's gloomy house—for some reason which he did not explain, and which even his sister Ellen did not know—or, at least, which she pretended not to know, although one evening that wily young girl talked with brother Gabriel about May Newt, as if she had some particular purpose in the conversation, until she seemed to have convinced herself of some hitherto doubtful point—yet with all the willingness to go to the house, Gabriel Bennet never went to ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... fear entered his heart, but the wily politician saw the force of Anak's argument. He would gain doubly by the course that ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... The wily Octavius now betrayed his party, and entered into terms with Antony and Lepidus. It was agreed that they three should adopt the title—so beautifully ironical—of Triumviri reipublicae constituendae, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... adventurers known in the Argonautic expedition, under AEolian leaders. In the north of Boeotia arose the city of Orchomenus, whose treasures were compared by Homer to those of the Egyptian Thebes. Another seat of the AEolians was Ephyra, afterward known as Corinth, where the "wily Sisyphus" ruled. He was the father of Phocus, who gave his name to Phocis. The descendants of AEolus led also a colony to Elis, and another to Pylus. In general, the AEolians sought maritime settlements in northern Greece, and the western side ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... not only the Mephistopheles of the office, debauching his editor's guileless mind with all the wily ways of the old journalistic hand; he was of real use in protecting Raphael against the thousand and one pitfalls that make the editorial chair as perilous to the occupant as Sweeney Todd's; against the people who tried to get libels inserted ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... are unseemly and ill befit your serious situation." It was evident the wily intention of the Scarlet Mask to ignore the guilty truth which Marjorie had flung at the masked assemblage. "You are one against many. It is not the purpose of the high tribunal to allow you to escape. You are at our mercy until such time as we shall choose to release you. You are pleased ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... pinnace, and with humble gestures offered to submit. Gallop ran alongside, and taking the man on board, bound him hand and foot, and placed him in the hold. A second redskin then begged for quarter; but Gallop, fearing to allow the two wily savages to be together, cast the second into the sea, where he was drowned. Gallop then boarded the pinnace. Two Indians were left, who retreated into a small compartment of the hold, and were ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... hope he did.' At this moment another person entered the garden. He did not come with the graceful motion, and the easy tread of Roland Gray; but moved wily a pompous stride, swinging his arms almost at right angles with his body. His air you could only describe by the word 'howling'; and he was just the man to immediately catch the attention of a vulgar girl. His hair was as dark as a crow's; and it was as coarse as the bristles of a hog. He ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... and yours alone, will be the glories of success, or the shame of not having sought it. Your distress has left the Repeal Association without funds to aid your contest, and we can do no more than to exhort and to advise. Let not the wily enemies of your freedom delude you. The duty is upon you; the means are in your hands, not in ours; if the duty be not done, poor Ireland will suffer the disastrous and ruinous consequences; but the blame of them, and the shame, will be upon you. Fellow-countrymen, this must not be—nay, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... we field the whole day long Hope's spark refuses to expire; A wily lob's successful job At once renews the slackening fire. Be Spartan, then! Crave not to flirt With Tennis and her female ball! 'Tis better to have tossed, And lost, Than never to have tossed ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... word he took the axe and smote her on the head, and she died. His deed was noised about; the woodcutter was seized and stoned for his crime. Therefore, continued the fox, I say unto thee, all women are deceivers and trappers of souls. And let me tell you more of these wily stratagems. ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... swirl of this more desperate venture. He knew Brad Steelman by sight and by reputation. The man's coffee-brown, hatchet face, his restless, black eyes, the high, narrow shoulders, the slope of nose and chin, combined somehow to give him the look of a wily and predacious wolf. The boy had never met any one who so impressed him with a sense of ruthless rapacity. He was audacious and deadly in attack, but always he covered his tracks cunningly. Suspected of many crimes, he had been proved guilty of none. It was a safe bet that now he had a line ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... would suffer ten such wounds gladly if I might but win my guerdon. Well for me, it may be, that I swooned, or, by Heaven, I should have run that wily Jesuit ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... put before the visitor a bottle of vodka and a wine-glass, while her face wore a very wily expression. ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a wily old Devil to deal with, and I believe that nothing gives him more malicious delight than to get sincere souls into the bondage of fear as to their state and standing. I believe many sincere souls hesitate to claim the blessing, and say they ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... could recover himself, and guard his body, the English captain thrust with all his strength, quite unprepared for the wily savage's next move. ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... clearer that it was a case of kill or be killed between Elizabeth and Mary, and that England could not afford to leave Marian enemies in the rear when there might be a vast Catholic alliance in the front. But, as a sovereign, Elizabeth disliked the execution of any crowned head; as a wily woman she wanted to make the most of both sides; and as a diplomatist she would not have open war and direct operations going down to the root of the evil if devious ways ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... Now the wily old elephant knew that this tree was a banana tree, although the fruit had not yet started growing on it. The tree looked quite hard and strong, but it was really very soft and easy to break, like all banana trees. But Salar did not ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... walls of the forts was the Russian soldier entirely safe from his wily adversary. For when silently beneath the moon the sentry is pacing the narrow rounds of the krepost, suspecting no enemy within a dozen leagues, but thinking rather of the hut on Polish plains or shores of Finnish lake fondly called a home, some Adigh or Lesghian who, unable to ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... heavily burdened, But perhaps a little relief may be got for them. Let us cherish this centre of the kingdom, To secure the repose of the four quarters of it. Let us give no indulgence to the wily and obsequious, In order to make the unconscientious careful, And to repress robbers and oppressors, Who have no fear of the clear will (of Heaven)[1]. Then let us show kindness to those who are distant, And help those who are near,—Thus ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... either in dashing parties on horseback, or in the light and elegant carriages which powder the philosophical pedestrian with dust. The hope of meeting some women of fashion, and of being seen by them—and the hope, less often disappointed, of seeing young peasant girls, as wily as judges—crowds the ballroom at Sceaux with numerous swarms of lawyers' clerks, of the disciples of Aesculapius, and other youths whose complexions are kept pale and moist by the damp atmosphere of Paris back-shops. ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... the Mississippi was to run the risk of betraying the object of the expedition to the defenders of the posts. Hence the wily commander decided to make the last stages of his advance by an overland route. At the deserted site of Fort Massac, nine miles below the mouth of the Tennessee, the little army left the Ohio and struck off northwest on a march of one hundred and twenty miles, as the crow flies, ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... that he might openly show himself now if the Sheriff would but ignore the dead King's decree of exile passed upon him. He was sounding Carfax in the matter, and the wily go-between was temporizing in his usual way—trying to make some gain to himself out of one or ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... was, lost his vogue. Seeing that, the wily woman resumed her shell. The memory, of Sir Julius breathing about her still, doubled ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was standing up in the boat with the oars in his hands, ready to make a dash at his Padroncina directly she reappeared, but she was wily, and came up behind the boat with a shrill cry that startled him. He looked round ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... of artificial life And manners finely wrought, the delicate race Of colours, lurking, gleaming up and down Through that state arras woven with silk and gold; 565 This wily interchange of snaky hues, Willingly or unwillingly revealed, I neither knew nor cared for; and as such Were wanting here, I took what might be found Of less elaborate fabric. At this day 570 I smile, in many a mountain solitude Conjuring up scenes as obsolete in freaks Of character, in points ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... account of his views on martial law has been taken. In one of them was a sentence which probably went further with the people of the North than any other: "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?" There may or may not be some fallacy lurking here, but it must not be supposed that this sentence came from a pleader's ingenuity. It was the expression of a man really agonised by his weekly task ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... detraction. It proceeded from an order of mind that can never be content with the existence of anything above its own level. "He hath," said Iago, speaking of Cassio, "a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly." Those detractors did not understand themselves as well as the wily Italian understood himself, and they did not state their attitude with such precision; in fact, they did not state it at all, for it was unconscious with them and involuntary. They saw a being unlike themselves, they vaguely apprehended the presence of a superior nature, and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Bassanio still pressing her to accept of some reward, she said, "Give me your gloves; I will wear them for your sake:" and then Bassanio taking off his gloves, she espied the ring which she had given him upon his finger: now it was the ring the wily lady wanted to get from him to make a merry jest when she saw her Bassanio again, that made her ask him for his gloves; and she said, when she saw the ring, "And for your love I will take this ring from you." Bassanio was sadly distressed, that the counsellor should ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... further to fear from the English, who evacuated Egypt in September, 1807, began to give scope to his ambitious schemes, when the easily disturbed policy of the Porte saw fit to send the wily pasha against the Wahabis, who threatened to invade the Holy Places. Before obeying these injunctions, the viceroy deemed it wise, previous to engaging in a campaign so perilous, to ensure Egypt against the dangers with which, in the absence of the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... its march, picking up small bands of refugees. When they reached Gilberttown the next night, they numbered nearly fifteen hundred men. They hoped to find Ferguson at this place, but the wily partisan had sharp eyes and quick ears. He had been told by his Tory friends that the army ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell |
