"Keen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sculptor was Sid Norman, for, without lifting a hand, or using any other tool than a keen eye and a sharp tongue, he had wrought out before him, carved as in cold marble, the statue of a beautiful, bad woman. Such is genius. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... came, anxious and flurried, for already he had heard some rumour of what had chanced. His keen eyes went from me to my mother and ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... sufficient; and therefore he resolv'd to try a shorter path, which some few men had trod not unsuccessfully; that is, to print a Book; if that would not do, a second; if not that, a third of an higher extraction, and so forward, to give experiment against their former party of a keen stile and a ductile judgment. His first proof-piece was in the year 1665, the Tentamina Physico-Theologica; a tedious transcript of his common-place book, wherein there is very little of his own, but the arrogance ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... Michael from the Armory of God Was given him tempered so, that neither keen Nor solid might resist that Edge: It met The Sword of Satan, with steep Force to smite Descending, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the odd name of Pansie, and whether it was really her baptismal name, I have not ascertained. More probably it was one of those pet appellations that grow out of a child's character, or out of some keen thrill of affection in the parents, an unsought-for and unconscious felicity, a kind of revelation, teaching them the true name by which the child's guardian angel would know it,—a name with playfulness and love in it, that we often observe to supersede, in the practice of those ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... down a narrow lane—darkest and dirtiest of all the lanes, the cobble stones only showing here and there above the universal black puddle. Yet the air is not foul and many a broad street by the Basso Porto in Naples smells far worse. The keen high atmosphere of the Calabrian mountains is a mighty purifier of nastiness, and perhaps the pig is not to be despised after all, as sanitary engineer, scavenger ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... in some hurry." Here Victor lifted his hat in parting salutation, and as he walked away cast at Graham another glance keen and scrutinising. "I have seen that man before," he muttered, "where?—when?—can it be only a family likeness to the father? No, the features are different; the profile is—ha!—Mr. Lamb, Mr. Lamb—but why call himself ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of fun, too, remained keen as ever, and, strange as it may seem, one of the very few books which she liked to have read aloud was Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"; the dry humour of it—the natural way in which everything is told from a boy's point of view—and the ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... distinguished himself among the young men by the marvellous tact that he has shown in discovering the way to popular favour. If I were allowed to compare a marquis to one of the canine species, I should say that he has a keen scent for popularity; but one must respect rank in a period like ours, when we may go to sleep to the shouts of the canaille, and awake to the melodious sounds of "Vive Henri V!" "Long live ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... found them in the Taverne Alsacienne in Greene Street: "gathered around the tables absorbed in piquet, ecarte, or vingt-et-un ... most of them without coats, the shabbiness of their other garments lighted up by a brilliant red bandanna kerchief or a crimson overshirt." Keen glances were shot at strangers, for the tavern had a certain clientele outside of which it had few customers and suspicion was rife at any invasion. "They are drinking wine, vermouth, and greenish opaline draughts of absinthe. Staggering in unnerved and stupefied from the previous night's ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... he was about to turn away from the garden gate which he now stood facing, when he heard the house door softly open and as softly shut. The practice of his profession had given him keen eyes in the dark; he discovered Beaumaroy's tall figure stealing very cautiously down the narrow, flagged path. The next instant the light of another torch flashed out, and this time not in the distance, but full ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... 1749 he was dismissed, the alleged cause being a practical joke played by him on one of his fellow-choristers. He was, as Sir G. Grove relates in his article "Haydn" in the Dictionary of Music and Musicians, thrown upon the world "with an empty purse, a keen appetite, and no friends." Haydn took up his abode in an attic in the old Michaelerhaus. But it chanced that Metastasio lived in the same building, and the famous poet took an interest in the penniless ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... he, "I'll go into this business very carefully and make the most thorough enquiry. Don't think I'm not keen on getting at the bottom of it. You've got to get off at once and rejoin your ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... disinherited in favor of his younger brother, a keen, nervous, forceful fellow, he accepted it as a matter of course. His career was planned for him: he "took orders," married the young woman his folks selected, and slipped easily into his proper niche—his adipose ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Hochon. "If some good abbe, keen as I have known many of them to be, knew what a dilemma you are in, he would not think it sacrilege to bring your brother's lost soul back to God, and call him to repentance for his sins, by forcing him to send away the woman who causes the scandal ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... should be very glad if you would go into the house for a little while before going on to Ormeaux: you're a shrewd girl, you have always shown that you have a keen mind, and you notice everything. If you see anything that makes you think, you can quietly tell ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... a more serious question to her, I think, than it was to me. I knew that the sons of other fathers and mothers had wrestled with that life and come out strong. There were Murphy's boys, for instance. Of course the life would be new to my boy, but the keen competition ought to drive him to his best. His present life was not doing that. As for the coarser details from which he had been so sheltered—well, a man has to learn sooner or later, and I wasn't sure but that it was better for him to learn at an ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... need to dwell upon the mental agonies of that miserable night. Perhaps, of all the five, the one least qualified to endure it realized the prospect of suffering most acutely. Mrs. Vickers—lay-figure and noodle as she was—had the keen instinct of approaching danger, which is in her sex a sixth sense. She was a woman and a mother, and owned a double capacity for suffering. Her feminine imagination pictured all the horrors of death by famine, and having realized her own torments, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... 1862. There were almost no transactions for shipments to America, China, or the Indies[677]. Foreign purchasers as always, and especially when their needs had just been abundantly supplied by the great output of 1858-60, were not keen to place new orders in a rising and uncertain market. The English producers raised their prices, but they held their goods, lacking an effective market. The importance of this in British foreign policy is that at no time, until the accumulated goods ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... and chronic contempt and indifference, and who looked away from Gabriel the moment she had spoken to him, now turned toward him again suddenly with an expression like that of an animal which pricks up his ears. The keen fire of the old days shot for a moment into her eyes, for it was the first word of badinage or humor that Fanny Newt had heard for a ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... of its waking. How was all this? Eleanor walked her pony slowly along, and thought. Then she had been freshly under the influence of Mr. Rhys and his preaching; the very remembrance of which, now and here, stirred her like an alarum bell. Ay, and more than that; it wakened the keen longing for that beauty and strength of life which had so shewn her her own poverty. Humbled and sad, Eleanor walked her pony on and on, while each little crystal torrent that came with its sweet clear rush and sparkle down ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... e'en as the word he uttered, he drew his keen sword out Brazen, on each side shearing, and with a fearful shout Rushed on him; but Odysseus that very while let fly And smote him with the arrow in the breast, the pap hard by, And drove the swift shaft to the liver, and adown to ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... has just sat down, lives on Grumbling street," said a keen-witted Yorkshireman. "I lived there myself for some time, and never enjoyed good health. The air was bad, the house bad, the water bad; the birds never came and sang in the street; and I was gloomy and sad enough. But ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... commander. The army was thus compact and cohesive, undisturbed by discord and unembarrassed by jealousies of any moment; and it may be said that under a commander who, we believed, had the energy and skill necessary to direct us to success, a national confidence in our invincibility made us all keen for a test of strength with the Confederates. We had ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... himself—to the full realization of his powers, the true and clear perception of what it was his mind demanded for its satisfaction. His faculties were consciously stretched to their right measure, were at last exercised at their best. He felt the keen zest, not of success merely, but also of honor, and was raised to a sort of majesty among his fellow-men, who attended him in death like a dead sovereign. He had died dwarfed had he not broken the bonds of mere money-getting; would never have known himself had he not learned how to ...
— When a Man Comes to Himself • Woodrow Wilson
... bell was jangling, and the students were hurrying into the chapel, their long cassocks lending a foreign air to the Wisconsin fields. Only one other person was seated on the benches beneath the choir, a broad-faced young American, whose keen black eyes rested upon Alves. She was absorbed in the service, which was loudly intoned by the young priest. The candles, the incense, the intoned familiar words, animated her. Sommers had often wondered at the powerful influence this ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... say that he had no objection so long as it did not lead to anything rash. He began to wish that he had half a dozen or so of his most trusted men with him. Meanwhile his hands were tied and he could do no more than wait developments. He had naturally a keen desire to know what was going on behind the closed door of the dining-room, but on that score he would have to possess his soul in patience for the time. He had the comfortable assurance that he could bag his birds, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... flour, biscuits, and wax brought from Xapon are suitable commodities for this country. Some persons have already become so keen in their plans to dispose of these goods that they buy them by wholesale, store them, and retail them. This must be prohibited, and an order issued to the effect that this state shall be provided and supplied with them ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... great excitement. She realized that she had defied a man who could inflict the deepest injury on the father she dearly loved. How she could have done otherwise was not at all clear, but the terror which hung over her was none the less keen. The proposal of the negro—to marry her—filled her with a nameless dread that made her teeth chatter, though it was a warm day. Rather would she have cast her body into the tides that wash the shores of Manhattan Island. Even to save her ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... of cows, guns were screened by foliage or painted to merge into a ground scheme, and many other schemes were devised to prevent aerial observation. Troops were moved by night for the most part, owing to the keen eyes of the air pilots and the danger of bombs, though occasionally the aviator had his chance. There is one story concerning a British pilot who, on returning from a reconnaissance flight, observed a German Staff car on the ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... object lies behind the observer instead of in front of him. This anomaly can be explained by the curvature of space in the fourth dimension. If space is so curved, the path of light itself is curved also, and a man—were his vision immeasurably keen, not to say telescopic—could see the back of his own head! It is not worth while to give this question of negative parallax too much importance, by reason of the probability of error, but in this connection it should be stated that there appears to be an ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... broad heading of Politics, for one and all they deal with the life and destiny of the individual as a member of human society and a part of the Universe. There is no human being who, at least while he is young, does not feel a keen interest in such things; the deepest waters are stirred and the classroom becomes the meeting-place of minds engaged in an exciting adventure instead of being, as is so often now the case, a prison cell in ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... in safety. Each carried in addition to his rifle a Kukri—a heavy, sharp knife, shaped something like a reaping-hook, though with a curve not quite so pronounced. It was carried in a leather case, and was as keen as a razor. I believe the Ghurkas' particular delight is to use it in lopping off arms at the shoulder-joint. As events turned out we were to see a good deal of these little chaps, and ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... when Titee came home, to such a home as it was, and he had but illy performed his errand, so his mother beat him, and sent him to bed supperless. A sharp strap stings in cold weather, and long walks in the teeth of a biting wind creates a keen appetite. But if Titee cried himself to sleep that night, he was up bright and early next morning, and had been to early mass, devoutly kneeling on the cold floor, blowing his fingers to keep them warm, and was home almost before the rest of the ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... of both and to the greater embarrassment of Cleveland. Nothing discreditable to his honesty could be found, but an apparent lapse in his private conduct gave the pretext for wild and dishonest attacks upon his character. A few years later the novelist, Paul Leicester Ford, in a keen study of New York politics entitled The Honorable Peter Stirling, portrayed a situation somewhat resembling that of Cleveland, though disclaiming Cleveland as his model. The Boston Journal led in the exploitation of the charges, and partisans forgot decency ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... moreover which upheld virtue and laughed to scorn hypocrisy and vice. That was a moral which the dramatists of his epoch seldom taught.[A] And so the people crowded to the theatre, applauded the sentiment of the play, guffawed at the keen wit of the dialogue, and swore that this young rascal Steele was the prince of bright fellows. Then they went home—and revelled, as before, in the funerals of ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... out plain, "That no matter how keen the slight would be felt, he shouldn't attend to it if it wuz open Sunday." He said "that the country would be ruined if ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... understand what he meant; he began to explain, and I began to understand that he meant the cries with which the Western peasant follows his dead to the grave. Horrible savagery! and I ordered that there was to be no keening; but three or four women, unable to contain themselves, rushed forward and began a keen. It was difficult to try to stop them. I fancy that every one looked round to see if there were any clouds in the sky, for it was about a mile and a half to the chapel; we would have to walk three miles at least, and if it rained, we should probably catch heavy colds. We thought of the damp of ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... into history, not a nation of keen spiritual aspirations and altruistic ethics, but that pagan people, worshipping rocks, sheep and cattle, and spirits of caves and wells, of whom the Old Testament, tending towards its higher ideal, gives fragmentary ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... more frequent in the last ten years of Mr. Darwin's life, owing to Lord Farrer's marriage with Miss Wedgwood, a niece of Mrs. Darwin's, and the subsequent marriage of his son Horace with Miss Farrer. His keen love of science is attested by the letters given in the present volume. He published several excellent papers on the fertilisation of flowers in the "Ann. and Mag. of Natural History," and in "Nature," between 1868 and 1874. In Politics he was a Radical—a strong ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... ruins: dismantled of their original proportions they perpetuate the splendour of Roman historiography, as the crumbling remnants of the Coliseum preserve from oblivion the magnificence of Roman architecture. Some of the subtlest intellects, keen in criticism and expert in scholarship, have, for centuries, endeavoured with considerable pains, though not with success in every instance, to free the imperfect pieces from difficulties, as the priesthood of the Quindecimvirs, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... (some of them peculiar to the island) of the horse-shoe-headed Rhinolophus, with the strange leaf-like appendage erected on the extremity of the nose. It has been suggested that bats, though nocturnal, are deficient in that keen vision characteristic of animals which take their prey at night. I doubt whether this conjecture be well founded; but at least it would seem that in their peculiar oeconomy some additional power is required to supplement that of vision, as in insects that ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the fray Against the bold BUCCLEUCH's array, His clansmen. In the same old way He trusts to rally them to-day. Shall he succeed? Who, who shall say? But neither fear no doubt may stay His spirit keen and bold! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... reckless of their king; but all together took up rough clubs and spears and rushed straight on Polydeuces. But in front of him stood his comrades, their keen swords drawn from the sheath. First Castor struck upon the head a man as he rushed at him: and it was cleft in twain and fell on each side upon his shoulders. And Polydeuces slew huge Itymoneus and Mimas. The one, with a sudden leap, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... airily and her hat was trimmed with something soft and white, straightway forgot all the girls he had ever seen, and wondered if his mother could fail to approve such worth as this. And then again he began to talk about horses, and Dorcas began, in her rapt way, to listen, and put in a keen word here and there. Alida, she knew, had one idea of horses: that they were four-legged creatures likely to run away, or to bite your fingers if you gave them grass. It was easy to compete with her there, and also because Dorcas really ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... hat, a short P-jacket (so called from the abbreviation of pilot's jacket) reached down to just above his knees. His features were regular, and, indeed, although weatherbeaten, they might be termed handsome. His nose was perfectly straight, his lips thin, his eyes grey and very keen; he had little or no whiskers, and, from his appearance and the intermixture of grey with his brown hair, I supposed him to be about fifty years of age. In one hand he held a short clay pipe, into which he was inserting the forefinger of the other, as he talked with the captain. At the time ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... overlooking the one-time hunting paradise where for nearly a century he was the supreme ruler. Seth Nelson, Jr. was born in Potter County in 1838 and was brought to Three Runs, Clinton County, by his parents two years later. He is today a handsome old man, with keen blue eyes, regular features, long hair and snow white beard, hale and hearty at four score and ten. He accompanied his father on most of his great hunts and was his devoted and able assistant in his gunshop and forge. ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... rewritten and revised with infinite labour and care. Lombard Street, like The English Constitution in political studies, is thus a new departure in economic and financial studies, applying the same sort of keen observation which Adam Smith used in the analysis of business generally to the special business of banking and finance in the complex modern world. It is, perhaps, not going too far to say that the whole theory of a one-reserve system of banking ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... despair, not knowing into whose hands her letter had fallen; to return it to her and thus to allay her anxiety, was therefore a great proof of friendship; but my generosity, at the same time that it freed her from a keen sorrow, must have caused her another quite as dreadful, for she knew that I was master of her secret. Cordiani's letter was perfectly explicit; it gave the strongest evidence that she was in the habit of receiving him ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... he wrote to Volume I of the Land Report, as chairman of Lloyd George's Land Inquiry Committee (it seems a long time ago now that Lloyd George was a keen land reformer), my father sketched out the idea of setting up commissions to report parish by parish in each county, in the same way that commissions have reported on the parochial charities. They would record how the land was distributed, whether the ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... keen appreciation of the strong characteristics of his countrymen delights in the story of a druggist known both for ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... no variableness, neither the shadow of turning. There are no inadequate responses, no changes that we need fear. On that love the scythe of death, which mows down all other products of the human heart, hath no power; and its stem stands untouched by the keen edge that levels all the rest of the herbage. Love God, and thou lovest eternity; and therefore the joy of the love is eternal as its object. So he who loves God is building upon a rock, and whosoever has this for his treasure carries his wealth with him ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... visit to the Brownings in Paris he had produced many of these drawings which became the delight of his grandson as well. The Paris streets furnished him with some inimitable suggestions, and Robert Barrett Browning, to this day, preserves many of these keen and humorous and extremely clever drawings of his grandfather. Thierry, the historian, who was suffering from blindness, sent to the Brownings a request that they would call on him, with which they immediately complied, ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... stands in greater need of the humane and thoughtful consideration of all sections of our country than do the colored people, nor does any class exceed us in the measure of grateful regard for acts of kindly interest in our behalf. It is, therefore, to us, a matter of keen regret that a Christian organization, so large and influential as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, should refuse to give its sympathy and support to our oppressed people who ask no further favor than the promotion of ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... I, bewildered by Miss Henrietta's keen shafts and graceful manoeuvres, yield that a woman is, once in a century, gifted with a man's depth of thought and her sex's loveliness.' The comparison was odious. What did I do? Oh, I (the swarthy Ethiop) only rose from my faded arm ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for he was keen to have a hand in the work; but he was too well trained to protest. So all he said was: ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... of this paragraph seems to have been a keen sportsman; he regrets the not meeting with a single rebel, as he would the not meeting with a single hare or partridge; and he justly considers the human biped as fair game, to be hunted down by all who are properly qualified and licensed by government. To the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... abstract gods, and a considerable number of these it did produce;[1210] but here also philosophy, in the form of large theories of the constitution and life of man, got the upper hand and repressed the other development. The Romans had no pretensions to philosophic or aesthetic thought, but they had a keen sense of the value of family and civic life, and great skill in using religion for social purposes. It is they among whom specialized deities, including abstractions, had the greatest significance for the life ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... even from amongst their fiery comrades, when the danger of the Voivodin became known. These men were no mean contestants even in such a race, and, strong as I am, it took my utmost effort to keep ahead of them. They were keen as leopards, and as swift. Their lives had been spent among the mountains, and their hearts and souls on were in the chase. I doubt not that if the death of any one of us could have through any means effected my wife's release, ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... youth imagines love. Two or three fancies commonly precede his love. As each of these decays, he, in his inexperience, is eloquent about his blighted hopes, his dead first love, and so on. In the first blossom of his manhood, winds are keen to him—at his first plunge into the stream of active life, he finds the water cold. Who shall condemn his shiver? But if he is to be a healthy man, he will strike out right soon, and glow with cheerful exercise in buffeting the stream. Youth, Mr. Spruce, may be allowed to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... be an untroubled spirit from the moment he met Helene Delano. He had gone down to Monterey for polo, and he had forgotten the dinner to which he had brought a keen appetite, and stared at her as she entered the immense dining room with ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... choral hymn of praise, And trump and timbrel answered keen, And Zion's daughters poured their lays. With priest's ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... Captain Forreste and his friends. Presently Capel, who was looking at Kate so impertinently that she turned her face angrily away, caught her father's eye, and in a moment the Jews features flushed. Where had he seen those keen grey eyes and that square-set face before? Fraser continued to gaze steadily at the man, for he had noticed the fellow's leering glance at his daughter, ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... occupied much of his time and attention. His mental powers were still vigorous, and his energy but little impaired: his strong constitution, his regular habits of life, the systematic relief which he obtained by short holiday expeditions whenever he found himself worn with work, and his keen interest in history, poetry, classics, antiquities, engineering, and other subjects not immediately connected with his profession, had combined to produce this result. And in leaving office, he had no idea of leaving off work; his resignation of office merely meant for him a change ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... property, he felt, more than Humphrey could be expected to do, the mortification of being left a pauper, after such high prospects in his early days: his vindictive feelings against the opposite party were therefore more keen, and his spirit mounted more from the conviction under which he labored. His disposition was naturally warlike, and this disposition had been fostered by his father when he was a child—still a kinder heart or a more generous lad ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... dog did the same. "I will have an answer, by all that's blue!" was the ejaculation of the next six strides. The lieutenant stopped again, and the dog looked up in his master's face; but it appeared as if the current of his master's thoughts was changed, for the current of keen air reminded Mr Vanslyperken that he had not ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... heights his restless wishes tow'r, Claim leads to claim, and pow'r advances pow'r; Till conquest, unresisted, ceas'd to please, And rights, submitted, left him none to seize. At length his sov'reign frowns—the train of state Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate. Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye, His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly; Now drops, at once, the pride of awful state, The golden canopy, the glitt'ring plate, The regal ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... lady, pardon me, but that is just what we cannot very well do," said Chauvelin, whilst once again his eyes, keen as those of a fox on the alert, darted a quick glance at Marguerite. "I have a most perfect prescription against the worst form of ENNUI, which I would have been happy to submit to ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... to talk to. He became absorbed in his turn, and equally; ministering to the attention and curiosity and power of imagination he had aroused. What listeners her eyes were! and how quick to receive and keen to pass judgement was the intelligence behind them. It surprised him; however, its responses were mainly given through the eyes. In vain he tried to get a fair share of words from her too; sought to draw her out. Lois was not afraid ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... not love you, Sarka!" retorted Dalis frankly. "I despise you! Hate you! But I need the aid of that keen brain of yours! You see, hate you though I may, I do you honor still. I have something up here," tapping the dome of his brow, only less lofty than that of Sarka, "which you lack. You have something I have not, never can attain! But together we are complements, each of the other, and to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... Ripley seemed to take a keen delight in goading Mr. Bates. He took a sudden dash half-way down the length of the long room, as if going to the extreme other end of the plant, then suddenly whirled and retraced his steps to meet Biff coming after him; made an equally sudden dart for the mysterious ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... comically excited—or, we should rather say, so seriously excited—that it was with difficulty the nephew could restrain his laughter. He moved as if his veins had been filled with quicksilver, his eyes brightened, and his naturally keen and knavish-looking features were sharpened, as it were, into an expression so acutely sinister, that he resembled a staunch old hound who comes unexpectedly upon the fresh slot ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... narrative met again. This second meeting took place in the Karun, as before, but at a point some fifty or sixty miles below Bund-i-Kir. And now the moon, not the sun, cast its paler glitter between the high dark banks of the stream. It was a keen-eared young Lur who first heard afar the pant of the mysterious jinni. Before he or his companions descried the motor-boat, however, Gaston, rounding a sharp curve above the island of Umm-un-Nakhl, caught sight of the sweeps of the barge flashing ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... little period of withdrawal— it wonders at its strange happiness—broods over it—is fearful of disturbing emotions so exquisite—prefers the certainty of its delicious suspense to a more definite understanding, and finds a keen strange delight in its own poignant anxieties and hopes. These are the birth pangs of an immortal love—of a love that knows within itself, that it is born for Eternity, and need not to hurry the three-score-and-ten years ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... think that I have—except most superficially. That very penetrating observer and naturalist, Henry D. Thoreau, tells us that he would often make an appointment to visit a certain tree, miles away—but what or whom he saw when he got there, he does not say. Walt Whitman, also a keen observer, speaks of a tulip-tree near which he sometimes sat—"the Apollo of the woods—tall and graceful, yet robust and sinewy, inimitable in hang of foliage and throwing-out of limb; as if the beauteous, vital, leafy creature could ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... He saw Freeman and McGuire streaking wildly down the street with police in keen pursuit. Hollis stood staring dumbly inside the bank door. Alan saw ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... fondly before me, The recollection of the lehua blossom of Puna, Brought hither on the tip of the wind, By the light keen wind of the fiery pit. Wakeful—sleepless with heart ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... street, and walked on together; Milvain, with his keen eye and critical smile, unmistakably the modern young man who cultivates the art of success; his companion of a less pronounced type, but distinguished by a certain subtlety of countenance, a blending of the sentimental and ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... death seems to have been carefully kept from the knowledge of Augustus, who promoted Lollius to the consulship, and made him governor of a province; but, by his rapacity in this station, he afterwards incurred the emperor's displeasure. The true character of this person had escaped the keen discernment of Horace, as well as the sagacity of the emperor; for in two epistles addressed to Lollius, he mentions him as great and accomplished in the superlative degree; maxime Lolli, liberrime Lolli; so imposing had been the manners and ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Dandy were a corking little team. They'd run the whole distance from the railway to the ranch if you'd let 'em—and I never interfered. A straight line and the keen jump hits me all right when I'm going some place, although I can loaf with the next man on occasion. So we missed ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... this Jeffrey-Moore affair; greater ones than the public ever knew, keen as the interest in it ran both in and out of Washington. This is why I propose to tell the story of this great tragedy from my own standpoint, even if in so doing I risk the charge of attempting to exploit my ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... by sun and wind. The fine hard mouth under the little dark moustache was not so hard that it could not, sometimes, be tender. His irreproachable nose escaped the too high curve that would have made it arrogant. And his eyes, keen and hard in movement, by simply keeping quiet under lowered brows, became charged with a curious ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... admirers of her talent were numerous, and Leonard counted himself fortunate in that she was able to afford him the privilege of her society to-night. She came out to him in a red fur-lined cloak, for the air was keen. She was a majestic being with a florid complexion not entirely artificial, big blue eyes and teeth of that whiteness which is the practical equivalent of a sense of humor in evoking the possessor's smiles. They drove to ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... remembered, marked it not; Thrice clapped his hands, and called his steed,[137] Resigned his gem-adorned chibouque,[138] And mounting featly for the mead, With Maugrabeel[139] and Mamaluke, His way amid his Delis took,[140] To witness many an active deed With sabre keen, or blunt jerreed. The Kislar only and his Moors[141] Watch well the Haram's ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... consulting her on the expediency of mentioning the suspicion to the vicar, in case he should be deluding some foolish tradesman's daughter. Albinia strongly advised his doing so; she had much faith in her own keen eyesight, and could not mistake the majestic mien of Algernon; she thought the vicar ought at once to be warned, but felt relieved that it was not ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up," murmured Bechtel, and gave the order to submerge deeper, for he would not risk showing his periscope to the keen eyes on that bridge. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... projects. The way had been paved for the concession of complete free trade in the eastern seas by the reports of select committees and parliamentary debates under former governments. The consumers of tea, numbered by millions, promised themselves a better quality at a lower price, and a keen spirit of enterprise was kindled by the idea of breaking into the unknown resources of China. But public interest in the administration of India was languid. It might well have appeared that a board sitting in Leadenhall Street was fitter to conduct shipping and mercantile operations than to govern ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... have fallen a prey to some of the numerous deceptive artifices which originated in these causes, if the admirable political sagacity of his vigilant and august consort, the worthy daughter of Maria Theresa, aided by the keen council of our immortal Nelson, and the penetrative wisdom and address of the British minister and his accomplished lady, had not preserved his Sicilian, majesty's unsuspecting mind from the ruinous effects of such, destructive machinations. Nothing can possibly ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... tree, and mead - All eloquent of love divine - Receives their constant careful heed: Such keen appraisement ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... of Darwinism" by Alfred Newton, "Macmillan's Magazine", LVII. 1888, page 241. He tells how in 1858 when spending a dreary summer in Iceland, he and his friend, the ornithologist John Wolley, in default of active occupation, spent their days in discussion. "Both of us taking a keen interest in Natural History, it was but reasonable that a question, which in those days was always coming up wherever two or more naturalists were gathered together, should be continually recurring. That question was, 'What is a species?' ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... see that the hearts of these two visitants,—visitants not from Heaven, but from Paradise,—were fastened with a keen interest and strained attention upon the unfolding of that wondrous Life of Christ. His works and words were the theme of their adoring contemplation. May we not learn then, that what these two great Saints could do was, therefore, at least a possible thing to do, and, according to the ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... clotted blood. One of the tragic authors, finding himself assaulted in the dark, had, by way of a poniard, employed upon his adversary's throat a knife which lay upon the table, for the convenience of cutting cheese; but, by the blessing of God, the edge of it was not keen enough to enter the skin, which it had only scratched in divers places. A satirist had almost bit off the ear of a lyric bard. Shirts and neckcloths were torn to rags; and there was such a woeful wreck of periwigs on the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... a lively little maiden, and took so keen an interest in all about her, that her father often used joyfully to observe ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... mechanical invention as that of George Stephenson, and my father had come over now to consult him about several improvements, as well as an offer of partnership. It was a great pleasure to me to see the mutual regard of these two men. Mr Holdsworth, young, handsome, keen, well-dressed, an object of admiration to all the youth of Eltham; my father, in his decent but unfashionable Sunday clothes, his plain, sensible face full of hard lines, the marks of toil and thought,—his hands, ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... how keen I have always been to see Aunt Eleanor's home. Being with her can hardly ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... between the monarchy and the priesthood. At the time of her accession, indeed, she evidently meditated a partial reconciliation with Rome; and, throughout her whole life, she leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious parts of the Catholic system. But her imperious temper, her keen sagacity, and her peculiar situation, soon led her to attach herself completely to a church which was all her own. On the same principle on which she joined it, she attempted to drive all her people within its pale by persecution. She ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... having the Honorable Cuthbert at my elbow, it was easier than not to ignore every one else. The small keen eyes of Mr. Tubbs, under his lofty and polished dome of thought, watched us knowingly. You saw that he was getting ready to assume a bless-you-my-children attitude and even to take credit somehow as match-maker. He related anecdotes, in which, as an emissary of Cupid, he played ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Anders, who was a keen sportsman, "push him, paddle strong. Ho! Oblooria, paddle hard ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... is keen about her husband's profession, and will not let him leave the army yet, so that we see ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... launch strike the bottom. The open boats would then come alongside and we would have to get out of the launch and enter the boats and proceed to the top of the nearest hill to watch the efforts of the eunuchs trying to refloat the launch. It was a characteristic of Her Majesty to experience a keen sense of enjoyment at the troubles of other people. The eunuchs knew this quite well, and whenever opportunity offered, they would do something which they thought would amuse Her Majesty. So long as it was nothing of a serious nature Her Majesty would always overlook it, but in case it proved ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... ranks, borne back by the slow advance of the hedge of spears, harassed by the archers who dived below the horses, stabbing them in their bellies, or rising suddenly between them to smite down the riders with their keen, heavy, short handled axes, the English began to lose heart, and as they wavered the Scotch pressed forward more eagerly, shouting, "On them! on them! They give way! they ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... scientific man—that is, he does not know the chemical causes of all these things; but his knowledge is sound and useful, because it comes from long experience. He and his forefathers, perhaps for a thousand years and more, have been farming this country, reading Madam How's books with very keen eyes, experimenting and watching, very carefully and rationally; making mistakes often, and failing and losing their crops and their money; but learning from their mistakes, till their empiric knowledge, as it is called, helps them to grow sometimes quite as good crops as ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... on to talk of other matters. Charlotte pointed out the shop over the way, and gave an account of the neighborhood which showed such a keen appreciation of individual foibles, that her guardian found himself ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... our Secondary Schools was to provide students for the Universities and to supply the needs of the learned professions. But with the economic development of the country, and as a consequence of the keen international competition between nation and nation in the economic sphere, there has arisen a demand for a higher education different in kind from that provided by the older Universities, and a need for ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... appeared to me a perfect amateur in military science, although he has distinguished himself in the field. He is a most polished and easy man in all positions in society, and there is an air and manner by which he constantly reveals his French blood. He has a keen perception of the ridiculous, and a nice appreciation of the mock gravity of the heroic in character, and related to me a very effective scene of this latter kind, which occurred at Mr. John Johnston's, at St. Mary's Falls, on the close of the late war. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... the building and disappeared in the direction of a closed doorway. A second figure, larger than the others, passed on in the direction of another door. The third, a slim, alert creature, remained at the window. In one hand he held a long, keen-edged knife. In the other a heavy pistol loaded in ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... will doubtless appear to be the result of keen observation, the priest being able to see from the appearance of the animal that he was fed on straw. They will believe, perhaps, that the priest expressed his observations in the manner described to more fully impress the driver, but this conclusion will be erroneous. The priest, possessing ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... his policy was to be, had already been detected by eyes as keen as his own. More had seen in Wolsey's fall an opening for the realization of those schemes of religious and even of political reform on which the scholars of the New Learning had long been brooding. The substitution of the lords of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... In council he was keen, subtle, and ready. He listened to others' arguments judicially and gave them due weight before his own concluded the discussion. He was attentive to his own business to a fault, for he was rather more industrious ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... aye sae keen to crack, Douce-stappin' in the stoury track, Her emeralt goun a' kiltit back Frae snawy coats, White-ankled, leads the kirkward ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... market town where we sold our sheep. Mother managed the estate till Garry was old enough, when he took hold with a vigour and grasp that delighted every one. I think our little Mother stood rather in awe of my keen, capable, energetic brother. There was in her a certain dreamy, wistful idealism that made her beautiful in my eyes, and to look on she was as fair as any picture. Specially do I remember the delicate colouring of her face and her eyes, blue like deep corn-flowers. She was ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... my dear Lathrop, may I extend to you the greetings of the New Year. May you have a continuous and abiding and keen sense that you are doing good, ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Spot had a keen nose. He was always ready to chase the wild folk. And he always looked foolish when ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey
... Club used to spend their afternoons in pleasant conversation and discourse of future work, was a place of keen interest to Timrod, and when their discussions resulted in the establishment of Russell's Magazine he was one of the most enthusiastic contributors to the ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... complained that "there is not any government in America but has our settled Church and minister, but this of Connecticut." [82] Still all the Society could then do was to send a missionary priest, and to keep alive in England, among the powerful Church party there, so keen an interest that it would seize upon the first opportunity to use its great influence and to compel the English government to force the Connecticut authorities to comply with the demands of the colonial Churchmen for the ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... offender, the crime met with the punishment it deserved. The scouts compared him with Lee. The latter was so genial that it was a pleasure to report to him. Jackson cross-questioned them on every detail, treating them as a lawyer does a hostile witness, and his keen blue eyes seemed to search ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... and the beauty, and the keen salt air of this charmed spot, poor Sally Little lifted up her head, and began to live again, like a flower taken from desert sands and set by a spring. The baby also bloomed like a rose. In an incredibly short time, both ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the leveled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, And I must be, as he had been,—alone, 'As all must ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... Glancing aft once more, he caught the eye of Captain Staunton, who immediately raised his hand. This the mate took to mean an order to cut away the mast with all possible expedition; and whipping out his keen broad-bladed knife he thrust it into Brook's hand, and tapping the lanyards of the mizen rigging roared in his ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... or cleave the links of his shirt of mail. And nought that Cliges can reach stands firm before his blow; for he cleaves and breaks asunder all; he wheels round more quickly than the top which is urged on and driven by the whip. Prowess and love entwine him and make him bold and keen in fight. He has dealt so grievously with the Saxons that he has killed or conquered them all, wounded some, and killed others; but he let one of them escape because they were a match, one for the other, and so that, by him, the duke might ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... handkerchief of some thin material, purple in color, and worn like a turban, but entwined with ribbons and flowers until it became a gorgeous coronet, and added indescribably to the majesty of her presence. Already over seventy, with white hair, she was yet as erect as a girl, and her eye was as keen as an eagle's. Even my captain was abashed before its glances, which seemed to be taking a complete inventory of his physical, mental, and moral qualities. It was a bad quarter of an hour for me (whom she hardly deigned to notice), in spite of ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... literally steeped and moulded in the traditions of the past; in fact, she was a reminder of the noble women of the Revolutionary era, many of whom have left records behind them. She was gifted with a keen sense of humor, and her talent in repartee was proverbial. Although many years my senior, I found delightful companionship in her society, and her home was always a great resource to me. Her accomplished daughter, the wife of Captain ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... the autumn, and the trees were pretty nearly stripped of their leaves.—There was no place so favorable as the Common for the study of the heavens. The skies were brilliant with stars, and the air was just keen enough to remind our young friends that the cold season was at hand. They wandered round for a while, and at last found themselves under the Great Elm, drawn thither, no doubt, by the magnetism it is so well known to exert over the natives of its own soil and those who have often been under ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... advocate of Bordeaux, elected to the Legislative Assembly on the same day as Guadet and Vergniaud, his friends and countrymen, composed, with these deputies, that triumvirate of talent, opinion, and eloquence, afterwards termed the Gironde. An obstinate and dialectic style of oratory, bitter and keen irony, were the characteristics of the talents of the Gironde; it did not carry away by its eloquence, it constrained; and its revolutionary passions were strong, yet under the control ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... was in anguish, for suffering keen, And intense disappointment, too often had been New prepared for my portion, till now, as I lay By new sorrow re-stung, ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... in the keen air of the Volscian hills, he is a southern Italian, but of the mountains, and there is still about him something of the hill people. He has the long, lean, straight, broad-shouldered frame of the true mountaineer, the marvellously bright eye, the eagle features, the well-knit growth of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... preparation. My nerves are permanently shattered. You tell me, a man; I behold a tower, a mountain, Atlas crowned with clouds! Thousand thunders! what bulk! what sinews! and of my race! Amazing effect of—what? Climate? occupation? In France, this race shrinks, diminishes; a rapier, keen if you will, but slender like a thread; here, it swells, expands, towers aloft,—a club of Hercules. And with my father, who could sit in my pocket, and my grandfather, who could sit in his! Figure to yourself, Jacques, that I am called le grand Yvon!" He ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... farms and workshops were carried far and wide throughout medieval lands. The Arabs were keen merchants, and Mohammed had expressly encouraged commerce by declaring it agreeable to God. The Arabs traded with India, China, the East Indies (Java and Sumatra), the interior of Africa, Russia, and even with the Baltic lands. Bagdad, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... against it, looking at her. Something had wrought a wonderful change in him. He was not the Calumet she had known—brutal, vicious, domineering, sneering; though he was laboring under some great excitement, suppressing it, so that to an eye less keen than hers it might have seemed that he had been undergoing some great physical exertion and was just recovering from it. It seemed to her that he had found himself; that that regeneration for which she had hoped had come—had taken place between ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... another minute, for the first time in my life, I beheld a play. But the play did not fascinate me. It was the middle of some jocular after piece; roars of laughter resounded round me. I could detect nothing to laugh at, and sending my keen eyes into every corner, I perceived at last, in the uppermost tier, one face as saturnine as my own.—Eureka! It was the Captain's! "Why should he go to a play if he enjoys it so little?" thought I; "better have spent a shilling on a cab, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... P. Dunster turned at once and faced his questioner. He did so without haste—with a certain deliberation, in fact—yet his eyes were suddenly bright and keen. He was neatly dressed, with the quiet precision which seems as a rule to characterise the travelling American. He was apparently of a little less than middle-age, clean-shaven, broad-shouldered, with every appearance of physical strength. He seemed ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... delivers into our hands. But come, let the heralds of the brazen-mailed Greeks, summoning the people, assemble them at the ships, and let us thus in a body pass through the wide army of the Greeks, that we may the sooner awaken keen warfare." ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... casement and in at the door— All through the long night hear it fitfully roar, The mitre ethereal silently flies So keen and so cutting through ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... in the fanfare of the trumpets and the thunder of the captains and the shouting. Soldiers, said Luther, founding his opinion on the canon law, might be in a state of grace, for war was as necessary as eating, drinking or any other business. Statesmen like Machiavelli and Bacon were keen for the largest armies {488} possible, as the mainstay of a nation's power. Only Erasmus was a clear-sighted pacifist, always declaiming against war and once asserting that he agreed with Cicero in thinking the most unjust ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... that this girl spoke a wondrous truth was now to Jurgen a joy that was keen as pain. And he stood motionless for a while, scowling ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... was early upon the ground. He had quite slept off what he would have called the nonsense of last night, and was very keen upon settlements, consols, mortgages, jointures, and all that ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... had been quietly pursuing his researches in the Malay Archipelago, though not without a keen interest in all that was taking place at home in so far as this reached him by means of correspondence and newspaper reports—his only means of keeping in touch with the world beyond the boundaries of the semi-civilised countries in which he ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... teaching as far as we could—simple arithmetic, and easy things like that. But the classes in astronomy, farming science, the proper care of babies, with a host of other subjects, the Doctor had to teach himself. The Indians were tremendously keen about the schooling and they came in droves and crowds; so that even with the open-air classes (a school-house was impossible of course) the Doctor had to take them in relays and batches of five or six thousand at ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... tradition. It was this: "Just as we [Francoise and Alix] were parting, she [Alix] handed me the story of her life." I had already called my friend's attention to the anachronisms, and she was in keen distress, because totally unable to account for them. But as I further pondered them, this gloss gained new significance and I mentioned it. My new inquiry flashed light upon her aged memory. She explained ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... chap?" she said, taking off her glove, and letting her hand hang loosely just in front of his nose, with the back towards him. Vane nodded approvingly, though he said nothing; as a keen dog lover it pleased him intensely to see that the girl knew how to make friends with them. And not everyone—even though they know the method to use with a doubtful dog—has the nerve to use ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... to the stream's bank, and as he stood there his keen eyes saw something move across the short grass at the water's edge. Promptly he put an arrow to his bowstring and took deft aim. The shaft sped quickly to its mark, plunged into the body of a stoat, and pinned the animal ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... my duty, as well as my pleasure, to acknowledge one exception to the general rule of criticism. One writer, endowed with the keen vision and fine sympathies of genius, has discerned the real nature of 'Wuthering Heights,' and has, with equal accuracy, noted its beauties and touched on its faults. Too often do reviewers remind us of the mob of Astrologers, Chaldeans, and Soothsayers gathered ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte
... was easy to perceive by his whole extremely striking appearance that he was rightly numbered among the Emperor's shrewdest councillors. Barbara had heard marvellous tales of his learning, and it was really magnificent in compass and far more important than his keen but narrow mind. This time the loquacious man was allowing the Bishop of Arras to speak, and Barbara listened to his words and the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... father—all this Second Coming and the rest of it. We're in the Twentieth Century now, you know, and everybody knows that that kind of thing is simply impossible. Only an old maid or two ... Why, I don't believe you believe in it really, father. That's why you're so keen on making me believe. But I don't; it's no use. You can't make me. I don't believe there's any God at all. If there were a God he'd let a fellow have more free ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... fellow, who had stripped off his woollen shirt to protect my little body from the cold, at once sat up and tried to comfort me. The sea was as smooth as glass, and only a light air was blowing. Drawing me to his bare chest—for I was chilled with the keen morning air—he was about to lie down again, when he heard the creaking of blocks and then a voice say, 'Ay, ay, sir!' and there, quite near us, was a large ship! In a moment he sprang to his feet, and hailed with all his strength; he was at once answered, the ship was brought ...
— "Old Mary" - 1901 • Louis Becke
... straight again," said Capes with a note of relief, and assumed an easier position on the edge of her table. "But if you weren't keen on the suffrage business, why on earth did you go ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... reported to Belisarius that Narses had come with a great army from Byzantium and was in Picenum. Now this Narses[186] was a eunuch and guardian of the royal treasures, but for the rest keen and more energetic than would be expected of a eunuch. And five thousand soldiers followed him, of whom the several detachments were commanded by different men, among whom were Justinus, the general of Illyricum, and another Narses, who had previously come to the land of the Romans as a deserter ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... The whole machine was fastened together by means of tough lashings of raw seal-hide, so that, to all appearance, it was a rickety affair, ready to fall to pieces. In reality, however, it was very strong. No metal nails of any kind could have held in the keen frost—they would have snapped like glass at the first jolt—but the sealskin fastenings yielded to the rude shocks and twistings to which the sledge was subjected, and seldom gave way, or if they did, were easily and speedily renewed ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... landscape. At night the many creatures of the forest ventured out across the plains in search of food,—weasels; big white hares; deer, planting daintily their little sharp hoofs where the frozen turnips were most plentiful; porcupines in quest of anything they could get their keen teeth into;—and often the big timber wolves would send shivering across the waste a long whining howl. And in the morning their tracks would embroider the snow with ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... anybody else who might be disposed to accept his authority. The scheme stirred much enthusiasm in the religious world, but it deepened alarm among the more logical of the high churchmen. Ashley and the evangelicals were keen for it as the blessed beginning of a restoration of Israel, and the king of Prussia hoped to gain over the Lutherans and others of his subjects by this side-door into true episcopacy. Politics were ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Life's full o' disapp'intments to a romantic soul like me and not half so inter-esting as a good nov-el. Now if you'd only 'appened to be a murderer reeking wi' crime an' blood—but you ain't, you tell me?" he questioned, his keen eyes twinkling more brightly ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... cottages with one or two houses of a somewhat more pretentious character, which gather round the wheel-barrow factory down the river, a good mile's walk from the church. It was a bright afternoon in October. The woods were in the glory of their radiant death, the air was crisp and keen. Harry who now ran before, now loitered behind, and now walked sedately by my side, was full of spirits, and there was everything to make the soul feel hope and courage. And yet I had my misgivings. When ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... people could have resorted to had they been so disposed, and why they used the softer material I will leave to some archaeologist to determine. The tools themselves are made after no pattern, but selected for their cutting qualities, as they all have a more or less keen edge which could be used for cutting purposes, and were no doubt highly prized, as they were found all in a pile in one corner of the vault and on top of which was found a stone pipe. The pipe is made bowl and stem together, and it is curious that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... Monro would take her down, 30 Where o'er the gates, by his famed father's hand,[244] Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand, One cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye, The cave of Poverty and Poetry. Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess, Emblem of music caused by emptiness. Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain tied down, Escape in monsters, and amaze the town. Hence Miscellanies spring, the weekly ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... itself was in the highest condition, and of remarkable beauty. The horseman's air was erect and bold; a small but coal-black mustachio heightened the resolute expression of his short, curved lip; and from beneath the large hat which overhung his brow his long locks escaped, and waved darkly in the keen night air. Altogether, horseman and horse exhibited a gallant and even a chivalrous appearance, which the hour and the scene heightened to a dramatic and ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... head and Scott's brown one were very close together, and they were laughing in that intimate undertone characteristic of thorough understanding. Her brother's expression as he looked up at Kathleen Severn, was a revelation to his sister, and it pierced her with a pang of loneliness so keen that she started forward in sheer desperation, as though to force a path through something that was ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... susceptible to human kindness. At moments, when those honest blue eyes of Clara's looked into mine with such kindliness and such keen scrutiny, as if they wanted to look into my very soul, her goodness humiliated me so that I felt a desire to weep. Clara, in spite of my effort to seem as usual, noticed that I was changed, and with quick feminine intuition she guessed that I speak, live, almost think mechanically, and ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... own sixty per cent. of the plants of the entire Coast, including Alaska. That's why I've been so keen about that north country, Boyd. You never ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... me," said Miss Rutherford. "I feel snubbed, of course, but I wasn't really keen on having him for a ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... ever inexorable! Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings; upon Greek, and Roman; upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors; upon Napoleon dreaming of an Eastern Empire; upon battle and pestilence; upon the ceaseless misery of the Egyptian race; upon keen-eyed travellers—Herodotus yesterday, and Warburton to-day: upon all and more, this unworldly Sphinx has watched, and watched like a Providence with the same earnest eyes, and the same sad, tranquil ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... however, that they are most active in seeking their prey at night-time, and are especially fond of flying-fish, which, as is well known, is one of the swiftest of all ocean fishes. The sea snakes, however, seize them with the greatest ease, by rising cautiously beneath and fastening their keen teeth in the fish's throat or belly. A snake, not two feet six inches in length, I was assured, can easily swallow a flying-fish eight inches ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... Villiers, never speak of this again. Are you made of stone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts of the man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform, bound, the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle of the bolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; I should never ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen |
