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Artful   Listen
adjective
Artful  adj.  
1.
Performed with, or characterized by, art or skill. (Archaic) "Artful strains." "Artful terms."
2.
Artificial; imitative.
3.
Using or exhibiting much art, skill, or contrivance; dexterous; skillful. "He (was) too artful a writer to set down events in exact historical order."
4.
Cunning; disposed to cunning indirectness of dealing; crafty; as, an artful boy. (The usual sense.) "Artful in speech, in action, and in mind." "The artful revenge of various animals."
Synonyms: Cunning; skillful; adroit; dexterous; crafty; tricky; deceitful; designing. See Cunning.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Artful" Quotes from Famous Books



... at all, it was grey. Dick Cheeser was staring at it, and the night was staring back at him, and seemed to be threatening him; it was grey, grey as an old cat that they used to have at home, and as artful. Yes, thought Dick Cheeser, it was an artful night; that was what was wrong with it. If shells had come or the Germans, or anything at all, you would know how to take it; but that quiet mist over huge valleys, and stillness! Anything might happen. ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany

... office-seeker, and the public, resenting the imputation, demanded the evidence. Greeley himself echoed the prayer by a blast from his silver trumpet which added to the interest as well as to the excitement. "This carefully drawn indictment," he said, "contains a very artful mixture of truth and misrepresentation. No intelligent reader of the Tribune has for months been left in doubt of the fact that I deemed the nomination of Governor Seward for President at this time unwise and unsafe; and none can fail to understand that I did my best at Chicago to ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... would sneak into the house with his stolen vegetables, and the farmer would drive on. Then back would come the miser, and lay in ambush for another load, and thus, in course of a few hours, he would raise enough vegetables to give his household a dinner. Another "dodge" of this artful old dodger, was to take all the coppers he got (and, of course, a poor creature like him handled a great many), and then go abroad among the stores and trade off six for a fourpence, and when he had four fourpences, get a quarter of a dollar for them, and thus in getting ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... William," said Meadows with a smile that provoked William as the artful one intended ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... two friends; and have heard the latter spoken of in the highest terms, as the keenest and severest piece that has appeared here a long time. Lord Mansfield, I hear, said of it, that it was very ABLE and very ARTFUL indeed; and would do mischief by giving here a bad impression of the measures of government; and in the colonies, by encouraging them in their contumacy.... What made it the more noticed here was, that people in reading it ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More

... Now therefore the artful Irregular whom I described above as the real author of this diabolical Bill, determined at one blow to lower the status of the Hierarchy by forcing them to submit to the pollution of Colour, and at the same time to destroy their domestic opportunities of training ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott

... present occasion this piece of furniture was located elsewhere. It stood below the Sovereign's portrait. A delicate compliment to the formidable lawyer-champion of Catholicism, sworn enemy to the House of Savoy. People commented favourably on this little detail. How artful of him! they said. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... after her for some time, in anxious silence. "I did ill," she at length murmured, "to let her wring this out of me; but she is artful, bold and serviceable—and I think faithful—or, if not, she will be true at least to her interest, and that I can command. I would I had not spoken, however—I have begun a hopeless work. For what has he said to me, to warrant my meddling in his fortunes?—Nothing but words of the most ordinary ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... they not be more passionate, and therefore more easily influenced by the demagogue? Will they not be more easily caught and enraptured by superficial declamation, because more incapable of profound reflection? Will not their weakness render them subservient to the strong and their ignorance to the artful? ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the book has made familiar to every one it is not my purpose to speak. To name one or two will be enough. Bumble and his wife; Charley Bates and the Artful Dodger; the cowardly charity-boy, Noah Claypole, whose Such agony, please, sir, puts the whole of a school-life into one phrase; the so-called merry old Jew, supple and black-hearted Fagin; and Bill Sikes, the bolder-faced bulky-legged ruffian, with his white hat ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... and the marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too. The first are practising in a back settlement near Battle-bridge[13]; the second put themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr. Tomlinson, to whom they offer terms to be bought off; and the third, in the person of an artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner, waiting for some traitor-tradesman to reveal the place and hour of breakfast, ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood

... the artful maid addressed In cruel words from raging breast, The queen, sore troubled, spoke in turn; "What evil news have I to learn? That mournful eye, that altered cheek Of sudden woe or ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... a will, and that his mind had been so completely disordered and prostrated by excessive grief for the loss of his daughter, that he became the dupe and victim of undue influence in the person of a selfish and artful girl—that artful girl being no other than Alice Goodwin, aided and abetted by her family. Every circumstance, no matter how trivial, that could be raked up and collected, was now brought together, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... he returned to the Court, where his uncle was lying ill, attended by Lady Audley. He demanded a private audience of my lady, at which he told her he had discovered the whole of the conspiracy concocted by an artful woman who had speculated upon the chance of her husband's death, and had secured a splendid position at the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... the European war by Mr. G.B. Shaw in THE TIMES of Sunday appeals to me as a noteworthy specimen of what an artful literary genius can do in the way of argumentative cantankerousness. His chief grievance is British diplomacy as represented by Sir Edward Grey, upon whose devoted head he empties the vials of his ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... manner, almost as Bellarmine would have had the Popes exercise rights over the temporal power of kings. In truth, the external actions that do not exceed our powers depend absolutely upon our will; but our volitions depend upon our will only through certain artful twists which give us means of suspending our resolutions, or of changing them. We are masters in our own house, not as God is in the world, he having but to speak, but as a wise prince is in his dominions or as a good father of a family is in his home. M. Bayle ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... love existed only by desire; that most women deceived themselves in loving; that they loved for reasons unknown to men and to themselves; that they wanted to deceive themselves, and that the best among them were artful. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... you, or without you; and in the wreck of all that once was happiness, I cling to some unsubstantial shadows, which, when I grasp them, only mock my utter desolation. Such are those held out by the last lines of your letter. You never wrote truer or more artful words; true as the arrow which strikes to the heart—artful as the skill of the archer who aims it. You are right—I alone know you; I alone can read every turn of your countenance, every emotion of your soul. I know 'your eye's quick flash through its troubled shroud.' ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... we arrived, supper was announced. At first he refused to take any, but on the artful landlady bawling in his ear, that all gentlemen supped when they arrived, he hesitated to consider (which certainly was not at all necessary) whether he was not bound to take some. Another very important remark of ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... unfairness of Mr. Sumner. If we should notice all such instances of artful design in his speech, we should have no space for his logic. To this we would now invite the attention of the reader, in order to see if ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... orders, and off we went, a second cab following, with the driver of my taxi as a fare. Evidently, the Count was not well posted in New York distances, because he grew restive, and wondered where I was taking him. He tried to be artful, too, and when we reached East Broadway he pulled me up at the corner of Market Street, told me to wait, and lodged a five-dollar bill as security, saying I would have annozzaire when we got back to the hotel. Didn't that make things easy? He plunged into the crowd—you know what a bunch ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... hardly been pitched, when Ali caused a salute of twenty-one guns to be fired in his honour, and sent a messenger, bearing a letter of congratulation on his safe arrival. This letter, artful and insinuating, was calculated to make a deep impression on Kursheed. Ali wrote that, being driven by the infamous lies of a former servant, called Pacho Bey, into resisting, not indeed the authority of the sultan, before whom he humbly bent his ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... soft curls with a suggestion of his old lightheartedness, the Etheling laughed with him. "You bantling! Who would have dreamed you to that degree artful? Are you certain your craft will bear you out? I would not have you suffer their anger. Are you capable ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... dances; and there was cake, and there was a great piece of cold roast, and there was a great piece 30 of cold boiled, and there were mince pies and other delicacies. But the great effect of the evening came after the roast and the boiled, when the fiddler, artful dog, struck up Sir Roger de Coverley. Then old Mr. Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too, with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... position, but the enemy does not appear on the scene, the advantage thus obtained cannot be turned to any practical account. He who intends therefore, to occupy a position of importance to the enemy, must begin by making an artful appointment, so to speak, with his antagonist, and cajole him into going there as well." Mei Yao-ch'en explains that this "artful appointment" is to be made through the medium of the enemy's own spies, ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu

... far from spending my childhood days in composition, her principal recollection of me is that of a practical stirring little person, clad in a linsey woolsey gown, eternally dragging a red and brown sled called "The Artful Dodger." She adds that when called upon to part with this sled, or commanded to stop sliding, I showed certain characteristics that may perhaps have been "foreshadowings," but that certainly were ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... to be artful flatterers to cajole me!" nurse Li added; "do you imagine that I'm not aware of the dismissal, the other day, of Hsi Hsueeh, on account of a cup of tea? and as it's clear enough that I've incurred blame, I'll come by and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... has gotten in with that artful chambermaid of the Princess Ludovicka, out there at Doornward, and they are engaged to one another. But people do not say much good of Madame Alice: she is a ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... devoted to, Bonaparte. An innocent instrument in their hands, of those impious compliments pronounced by him to the Emperor and the Empress, he did not, perhaps, even understand the meaning. From such a man the vile and artful Villetard might extort any promise. I observed, however, with pleasure, that he was watched by the grand vicar, Malaret, who seldom ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... a frank medium precluded exact rendition. Except, possibly, for his first chiaroscuro, he always translated freely, with the aim of making good woodcuts rather than accurate representations of his subjects. Jackson's work after others, in short, was consciously intended as artful approximation. This emphasis on the spirit rather than the letter, together with his novel techniques, often gave his prints a somewhat hybrid character— an ambiguous look that might serve to explain the uneasy feelings of many critics. But his largeness of feeling is unmistakable, and this ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen

... with crooked beak, while his vans beat the air: even so Tarchon carries Tiburtus out of the ranks, triumphant in his prize. Following their captain's example and issue the men of Maeonia charge in. Then Arruns, due to his [760-796]doom, circles in advance of fleet Camilla with artful javelin, and tries how fortune may be easiest. Where the maiden darts furious amid the ranks, there Arruns slips up and silently tracks her footsteps; where she returns victorious and retires from amid ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... that this happy thought of getting Cousin Helen to the "Celebration," was Clover's. She it was who had proposed it to Papa, and made all the arrangements. And, artful puss! she had set Bridget to sweep the hall, on purpose that Katy might not hear the ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge

... he was ready to tell everything—anything. Not even the apparent desperation of his circumstances could teach him that a promise to tell the truth was a more direct way of speaking. Indeed, the hitting of the truth would have seemed to him a sort of artful archery, the burden of which should devolve upon the questioner, whom he supplied with the relation ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... other moiety.' He then plunged boldly into the MARE MAGNUM of accompts between the parties; he pursued each false statement from the waste-book to the day-book, from the day-book to the bill-book, from the bill-book to the ledger; placed the artful interpolations and insertions of the fallacious Plainstanes in array against each other, and against the fact; and availing himself to the utmost of his father's previous labours, and his own knowledge of accompts, in which he had been sedulously trained, he laid before the court a clear and intelligible ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... his mistress spoke Such artful words of cheer As "Oh, how nice!" and "Oh, how clean!" And "There's ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... like Rebecca's aged and venerable sire, nor did Miss MACINTYRE—who, by the way, is charming as Rebecca, and who is so nimble in skipping about the stage when avoiding the melodramatic Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan, and so generally active and artful as to be quite a Becky Sharp,—nor, I say, did Miss MACINTYRE seem to treat her precocious parent (Isaac must have married very young, seeing that Becky is full twenty-one, and Isaac apparently ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various

... suffice, Thou in the chamber's secrecy, Didst with thy artful words entice Samson to give his heart to thee, And tell thee ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... is best for the players to arrange themselves in a half circle round the room. Then one begins: "I love my love with an 'A,' because she is affectionate; I hate her with an 'A,' because she is artful. Her name is Alice, she comes from Alabama, and I gave her an apricot." The next player says: "I love my love with a 'B,' because she is bonnie; I hate her with a 'B,' because she is boastful. Her name is Bertha, she comes from ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman

... Creek. Dick knew that here was the crucial test of his ability to perform his enterprise, set his teeth grimly, put his knees well into her flanks, and changed his defensive tactics to brisk aggression. Bullied and maddened, Jovita began the descent of the hill. Here the artful Richard pretended to hold her in with ostentatious objurgation and well-feigned cries of alarm. It is unnecessary to add that Jovita instantly ran away. Nor need I state the time made in the descent; it is written in the chronicles of Simpson's Bar. Enough that in another moment, ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... suit, the least word of the Law!) And, lastly, bartering life's dear bliss for pain; But evermore in vain; For joy (rejoice ye Few that tasted have!) Is Love's obedience Against the genial laws of natural sense, Whose wide, self-dissipating wave, Prison'd in artful dykes, Trembling returns and strikes Thence to its source again, In backward billows fleet, Crest crossing crest ecstatic as they greet, Thrilling each vein, Exploring every chasm and cove Of the ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... the wise man guard his thoughts, for they are difficult to perceive, very artful, and they rush wherever they list: thoughts well guarded ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown

... youthful dreamer's heart. One offered wealth—another spoke of fame, And held a wreath to twine around his name. One brought the pallet, and the magic brush, By which creative art bids nature blush, To see her rival—and the artful boy, His story told—the all-entrancing joy His skill could give,—but well the rogue concealed The piercing thorns that flourish, unrevealed, Along the artist's path—the poverty, the strife Of study, and the weary waste of life— All these, the drawback of his wily tale, The little ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... he said defiantly, checking the porter's artful attempt at cross-examination. "I ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson

... and their men, And where the press is noisiest, and the tides Of trade run highest and widest, there and then You shall behold him, edging with equal strides Along the kerb; hawking in either hand Some artful nothing made of twine and tin, Cardboard and foil and bits of rubber band: Some penn'orth of wit-in-fact that, with a grin, The careful City marvels at, and buys For nurselings in the ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley

... the matter came under the consideration of lawyers and other skilled persons, with the result that it appeared that, if the Courts took a strict view of the agreement, ruin stared me in the face, so far as my literary affairs were concerned. To begin with, either by accident or design, this artful document was so worded that, prima facie, the contracting publisher had a right to place his cheap edition on the market whenever it might please him to do so, subject only to the payment of a third of the profit, to be assessed by himself, which ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... of those which seem longer than usual but still have far to go, it was once a custom in Millwall to find a pair of boots of which it could be claimed that it was time they were mended, and to carry the artful parcel around to Mr. Pascoe. His cobbler's shop was in a street that had the look of having retired from the hurry and press of London, aged, dispirited, and indifferent even to its defeat, and of waiting vacantly for what must come to elderly and shabby despondence. Each grey house in the street ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... I cannot but remember that in speaking to you, I may be speaking to people many thousands of miles away, but all the same I shall speak to you and to them perfectly frankly. I don't myself believe in artful diplomacy; I have no gift for it. There are two sets of people you have got to consider. First of all, I hope that the Government of India, so long as I am connected with it and responsible for it to Parliament and to the country, ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... men, these holds forego, Nor trust such cunning elves; These artful emblems tend to show Their ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... critics remarks that the poem in which he celebrates his release embodies a nearer approach to passion than all his Oriental songs of love, sorrow, or wine. It is a joyous dithyrambic, which, despite its artful and semi-impossible metre, must have been the swiftly-worded expression of a genuine feeling. Let me attempt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... Provisional Government for the time being will know what to charge for its provisions. The restaurateur addressed his little account, "A Sa Mageste (sic) Louis Philippe-Robert ('ROBERT' was in it) Duc d'Orleans." In styling Le Petit Duc "His Majesty" the artful restaurateur evidently had in view a future restauration. The restaurateur, who expected to provide the young Duke of ORLEANS with a second dinner, of course quoted ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various

... from the Trunk; thus, as I say, nothing suggests the presence of the Trunk, by any hint, yet everything studiedly leads up to it, step by step. Let us examine into this, and observe the exquisitely artful artlessness of the plan. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... I need not say What abuse I hurled at his head that day; But, when he began in his artful way To talk of Insurance (Life), And asked me to take out a policy for My conjugal partner, my cordium cor, "No, no," said I, "If my spouse should die We should enter again into strife; You would come and say at the funeral, 'Sir, Your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various

... government with which her own sympathies would naturally have lain. It must have been a new experience to the town-bred girl—life in this castle-eyrie among the hills, where mercenary troops and rude peasants thronged the courtyard, and manners, one surmises, must have been at once more artful and more brutal than among her bourgeois friends. We hear of picturesque scenes, where men and women afflicted of demons are brought writhing into her presence, to be welcomed, cared for, and healed. She had the comfort of the company of several confessors; the first of these letters shows them labouring ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... 1. Change artful into a confusion. 2. Change a Persian king into a mixture. 3. Change a cutter into listeners. 4. Change a cheat into musicians. 5. Change repaired into healed. 6. Change a drink into a class embracing ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... general change, to imbue. 4. Loathed, hated, detested. Brag'gart, a boaster. 5. Vow'ing, making a solemn promise to God. Tes'ti-mo-ny, open declaration. 6. Fal'tered, hesitated. Mo'tive, that which causes action, cause, reason. 7. Sub'tle (pro. sut'l), artful, cunning. Stud'y, a private room devoted to study. 10. Glim'mer-ing, ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... an artful fox," the leader of the brigands said, when this had been translated to him. "But where is the Jew he put ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... unless he is first shewn the manner in which they are set. These traps are not made to catch the legs, but to ruin the fortunes and break the hearts of those who unfortunately step into them. Their baits are artful, designing, wicked men, and profligate, abandoned, and prostitute women. Paris abounds with them, as well as Lyons, and all the great towns between London and Rome; and are principally set to catch the young Englishman of fortune from the age ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... pretty, very well-made, with the most amorous eyes in the world, and eyelashes a yard long. Coquette beyond measure, artful as Cleopatra, and completely mistress of all her passions and projects. Indeed, eyelashes three-quarters of a yard shorter would have served to conquer such a head as ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... were explained to Baahaabaa, he was in a frenzy of excitement. As judge, his decision was to be final, which should have warned Whinney, who, as the challenged party, had the right to select the subject. His choice was distinctly artful. ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... with gunpowder, through the touch-hole of a pistol. At the same time, he was caressed by divers serjeants of the British army, who severally and in secret contemplated his qualifications with a father's pride, excited by the artful declaration with which the mother ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... skin, but that if there remained the slightest vestige of it in the vessels, this became a permanent germ of the disorder, so that the dancing fits might again and again be excited ad infinitum by music. This belief, which resembled the delusion of those insane persons who, being by artful management freed from the imagined causes of their sufferings, are but for a short time released from their false notions, was attended with the most injurious effects: for in consequence of it those affected necessarily became by degrees convinced of the incurable ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... colors the enormous opulence and commercial monopolies of the republic; and he filled the whole population with revenge against the fated city, by exaggerated accounts of its treasonable designs against the internal security of the empire. Thus, by artful insinuations of the personal advantages and general benefits that were to spring from the overthrow of Novgorod, he succeeded in neutralizing all the opposition he had any reason to apprehend, and in exciting increased enthusiasm on the part of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... Higher Powers have not conferred on men the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he is, so far as Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue, though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply to the three Thomases. It follows, that, until a man can be found who knows himself as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... met their travellers in the most unexpected places. They reproduce the colour of Strega, its minty flavour —everything, in short, except the essential: its peculiar strength of aroma and of alcohol. They can afford to sell this poison at half the price of the original, and your artful restaurateur keeps an old bottle or two of the real product which he fills up, when empty, out of some hidden but never-failing barrel of the fraudulent mixture round the corner, charging you, of course, the full price of true Strega. If you complain, he proudly points to the bottle, the cork, the ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... helped me the more to be artful, to be adroit, to allow time to elapse before renewing my suit. There were plenty of speculations for the interval, and one of them was deeply absorbing. Corvick had kept his information from his young friend till ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James

... remedy it at this time, when the war is so lately over, when the North is naturally sensitive as to securing the hard-won results of it, when, consequently, every squeak of a penny whistle is easily interpreted into a rebel yell by the artful devices of Mr. Blaine and his crew, — this was simply to invade the North again as we did in '64. And we have met precisely another Gettysburg. The whole community is uneasy as to the silver bill and the ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... been content with Samuel or Nathan; but no, this one's must, call in 'apt alliteration's artful aid,' ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... word charity is the soul of social life." "By the bowstring I can repress violence and fraud." "Some by being too artful forfeit the reputation of probity." "With regard to morality I was not indifferent." "Of all our senses sight is the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... ran her hand over the smooth sheen of her dress; her gown was chaste, even stern, in its simplicity—the expensive simplicity that is artful rather than artless. ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... days Oliver saw much to wonder at. When he woke up, Fagin was sorting over a great box full of watches, which he hid away when he saw Oliver was looking. Every day the boy who had brought him there, whom they called "the Artful Dodger," came in and gave the Jew some pocketbooks and handkerchiefs. Oliver thought he must have made the pocketbooks, only they did not look new, and some seemed to have money in them. He noticed, too, that whenever the Artful Dodger came home empty-handed Fagin seemed angry and cuffed and kicked ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... he turns into the forest where he is accosted by a wild looking being who laughs at his impotent rage and offers his help. Hans, perceiving the cloven hoof and the horns, at once recognizes the Devil in this queer fellow, and is at first unwilling to follow his advice; but the Devil is artful and insinuating, and at last Hans is induced to make an agreement with him by which he engages himself as Stoker {391} in the infernal regions; he has to keep the fire burning under the caldron in which poor lost souls are being roasted. When he has served the devil for one year Hans will ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... reluctant, except in a case of manifest and extreme necessity, to take upon myself a responsibility which might possibly subject me to the displeasure of His Imperial Majesty, and would most certainly expose me to be continually harassed by prejudicial reports and false accusations, supported by artful intrigues, against which neither prudence ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... requested the subject might never be mentioned to her. Nor would he be more explicit, and there was evidently some mystery, and he was becoming blindly indulgent and besotted by the blandishments of an artful woman. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... his speeches were those in which he endeavoured, by artful appeals to the good sense and patriotism of his hearers, to win them over to his views; and the frequent success that attended such efforts is their highest praise. He seldom attempted an ambitious flight, and when he did his best friends felt it was not his true ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... understandings; but these qualities, unless ennobled by freedom, and enlightened by study, will degenerate into a low and selfish cunning: and it is a proverbial saying of the country, "From the Jews of Thessalonica, the Turks of Negropont, and the Greeks of Athens, good Lord deliver us!" This artful people has eluded the tyranny of the Turkish bashaws, by an expedient which alleviates their servitude and aggravates their shame. About the middle of the last century, the Athenians chose for their protector the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... thought Mole; "he is trying the artful dodge on; and he's going to jump up and give me one for myself—not for Isaac. By jingo! What a topper I could give him as ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... that there is one means of conveying such suggestions which was outside the scope of his genius. One of the methods which poetry most often uses to suggest the ineffable is by the artful choice and arrangement of words. A word, simply by being cunningly placed and given a certain colour, can, in the hands of a good craftsman, open up indescribable vistas. But Keats, when, in reply to a letter of criticism, ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow

... practicable. The king and his worthless adherents are got at their old game of dividing the Continent, and there are not wanting among us, Printers, who will be busy in spreading specious falsehoods. The artful and hypocritical letter which appeared a few months ago in two of the New York papers, and likewise in two others, is an evidence that there are men who want ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... Dunstane thought she had worn a mask, in the natural manner of women trying to make the best of their choice; and she excused her poor Tony for the artful presentation of him at her own cost. But she could not excuse her for having married the man. Her first and her final impression likened him to a house locked up and empty: a London house conventionally furnished and decorated by the upholsterer, and empty of inhabitants. How a brilliant ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Blank Verse is retained. But—and the thoughtful reader will discern that the same fatal influence is at work here as elsewhere—Hughes relapses, deliberately, into the artificial speech of Appius and Virginia. Alliteration charms him with its too artful aid. Nowhere has R.B. such rant as falls from the pen of Hughes. In the last battle between Arthur and Mordred 'boist'rous bangs with thumping thwacks fall thick', while the younger leader rages over the field 'all fury-like, frounc'd up ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... the Carlovingian monarchy. His defence was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and the emperor was content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his fortresses, and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord. The artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of father, but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and Benventum insensibly escaped from the French yoke. [110] IV. Charlemagne was the first who united Germany ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... farewell. We are very sorry to find the revered Mr. Alexander Knox saying, in his correspondence with Bishop Jebb, that he had a severer idea of Lady Austen than he should wish to put into writing for publication, and that he almost suspected she was a very artful woman. On the other hand, the unsentimental Mr. Scott is reported to have said, "Who can be surprised that two women should be continually in the society of one man and quarrel, sooner or later, with each other?" ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... and give him the High Office. His Wife, being unacquainted with the Secrets of the Lodge Room, was unable to understand why he was so Fascinated with the Life. She was exceedingly Inquisitive and often tried to Pump him by the most Artful Methods, but of course he did not dare to Divulge or his Right Arm would have Withered and his Tongue would have Cleaved to the Roof of his Mouth, and he would have been an Outcast on the Face of the Earth, despised by all other Members ...
— More Fables • George Ade

... Accordingly, in an artful and well-concocted way, which we may readily conceive, but it were weary to detail, John Dillaway managed to forge a will of Jane Mackenzie aforesaid; and inducing some dressed-up "ladies" of his acquaintance to personate the weeping nieces ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... exhibited, in the sixth print, venting curses on his folly for having lost his last stake.—This is, upon the whole, perhaps, the best print of the set. The horrid scene it describes, was never more inimitably drawn. The composition is artful, and natural. If the shape of the whole be not quite pleasing, the figures are so well grouped, and with so much ease and variety, that you ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... to the popular expression, was so "slow" as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon himself, in emulation of a juggling trick achieved by his arch enemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the snare prepared for him as the old lady into this artful pitfall. The fact of Tackleton having walked out; and furthermore, of two or three people having been talking together at a distance, for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that mysterious ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... in the hollows of the skeleton pile; he mounts the ladder; the lock of the door before him yields to his rude implements but artful hand. He is in the long gallery; the moonlight comes broad and clear through the large casements. What wealth of art is on the walls! but how profitless to the robber's greed. There, through the very halls which the master had built in the day of his ambition, saying to himself, "These ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... though it rendered his appetites eccentric, and his temper savage, never impaired the powers of his stern and penetrating mind—conscious of failing strength, raging with capricious sensuality, yet to the last the keenest of observers, the most artful of dissemblers, and the most terrible of masters. The task was one of extreme difficulty. The execution ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... here, to give weight and completeness to the story. Both Owings and Dade showed a considerable degree of southern chivalry in the liberality of their rewards. Doubtless, the large sums thus offered awakened a lively feeling in the breasts of old slave-hunters. But it is to be supposed that the artful fugitives safely reached Philadelphia before the hunters got even the first scent on their track. Up to the present hour, with the owners all may be profound mystery; if so, it is to be hoped, that they may feel some interest in the solution of these wonders. The articles ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... A very shy and artful bird is the junco. I had had brief glimpses of the male many times about the place. The morning I found the nest I had seen one male spitefully pursuing another male along the top of the stone wall opposite, which fact, paralleled in a human case, would afford a hint for ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... after his own design, what appeared to be four shelves laden with works suggestive of thought and erudition. As a matter of fact, it was not a bookcase, but merely a flat board, the books merely the backs of volumes that had long since found their way into the paper-mill. This artful deception William Clodd had screwed upon a cottage piano standing in the corner of the editorial office of Good Humour. Half a dozen real volumes piled upon the top of the piano completed the illusion. As William Clodd had proudly ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... had he been the most artful of schemers he could not have pursued a wiser policy. Bird-like in her love of individual freedom, the last woman in the world to be bullied in her affections, she keenly appreciated the niceness ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... intense, that it was rendered necessary for the States, of Holland and Zeeland to write to their agent Ortell in London, that he might forestall the effect of these perpetual misrepresentations on her Majesty's government. Leicester, on the other hand, under the inspiration; of his artful advisers, was vehement in his entreaties that Ortell should be sent away ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... we ascended to the woods of Verrieres, and there, in the grass, under the soft, fresh foliage, we found some tiny violets which seemed to be dreadfully afraid, and contrived to hide themselves with all sorts of artful ruses. During two long hours I scoured the grass and peered into every nook, and as soon as ever I found a fresh violet I carried it to her. She bought it of me, and the price that I exacted was a kiss. . . . And I thought of all those things, of all that happiness, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... all the artful ways of a spoiled child, judged that the moment was a favorable one in which to risk his request. Accordingly, he assumed an extremely soft tone ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... his oss At Tattersall's did lodge; There came a wulgar oss-dealer, This gentleman's name did fodge, And took the oss from Tattersall's Wasn that a artful dodge? ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... amongst them. "Beside," as the Labour Master said, "yo'd hardly believe what a difference there it i'th wark o' two men wortchin' at the same heap, sometimes. There's a great deal i'th breaker, neaw; some on 'em's more artful nor others. They finden out that they can break 'em as fast again at after they'n getten to th' wick i'th inside. I have known an' odd un or two, here, that could break four ton a day,—an' many that couldn't ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh

... also begun to laugh with the air of an artful idler who was more particularly attracted by the free dissipation of Paris life. "Oh! minister?" said he, "I haven't much taste for that. I would much sooner win a million at once so as to ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... began both to do and to teach" (Luke i. I, 2). The author of the Acts of the Apostles certainly intends to say that he is the writer of the Third Gospel. If he is not the author of the Third Gospel he is an artful and shameless deceiver. But the whole atmosphere of the book forbids the theory that it is a cunning imposition. And the internal evidence that the two books were written by the same author is ample and convincing. ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... given at the second trial has obviously been dressed up to suit the occasion, or even when it is absolutely contrary to the truth, we must blame not only those who gave it, but those who received it. In its elicitation the latter were too artful. This evidence has about as much value as the evidence in a trial by the Inquisition. In certain matters it may represent the ideas of the judges as much as ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... triumph of handicraft as truly as sculpture and architecture. The fingers which can plan and build a steamship or a suspension bridge, which can make the Quinebaug and the Blackstone turn spindles by the hundred thousand, which can turn a rag heap into spotless paper, and make myriads of useful and artful articles from rough metal, are fingers which this age alone has evolved. The craft which makes useful things cheap can make cheap things beautiful. The Japanese will teach us how to form and finish, if we do not first teach them how to slight ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... handling a relic of infancy—sticking on the head of a broken soldier or trying the lock of a wooden gun. It was essentially, in him, the IMITATION of depravity—which, for amusement, as might have been, he practised "keeping up." In spite of practice he was still imperfect, for these so artlessly-artful interludes were condemned, by the nature of the case, to brevity. He had fatally stamped himself—it was his own fault—a man who could be interrupted with impunity. The greatest of wonders, moreover, was exactly in this, that so interrupted ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... give them he neither mentions the persons, the times, the occasions, or motives for any of his actions. He adds, "I did not think it worth my care to observe the same means with the rest." For some purposes, he thought it necessary to use the most complicated and artful concealments; for some, he could not tell what his motives were; and for others, that it was mere carelessness. Here is the exchequer of bribery!—have I falsified any part of my original stating of it?—an ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the string. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... till I was on the wrong side of forty!" said Sir Sedley, with a slight shade on his brow. "Nobody would ever think you were on the wrong side of forty!" said I, with artful flattery, winding into my subject. "Miss ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... tells you that—but she's twenty, if she's a day! She's 'doing' you, all round, and so is that artful old creature Gigue! Taking your money all for nothing!—you may be sure the two of them are in a perfect conspiracy to rob you! I can't imagine why you should go out of your way to pick up such people—really I can't—when you might marry ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... enlightened by means of the Scripture spurned it from the island with disgust and horror, the land instantly after its disappearance becoming a fair field, in which arts, sciences, and all the amiable virtues flourished, instead of being a pestilent marsh where swine-like ignorance wallowed, and artful hypocrites, like so many Wills-o'-the-wisp, played antic gambols about, around, and above ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... The artful Terrence kindled the flame, and a short time after sunset, Fernando and Sukey were awakened from a doze by hearing a wild uproar on the streets. They sprang to their feet and ran ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... in His honour with the choicest viands and costliest drinks to which the disciples, who were somewhat hungry and thirsty, heartily did justice, while the Master, who never spoiled a glad hour, cheerfully did the same. When tongues were loosened, the host wanted straightway to begin with artful allusions and questions, but his guest was a match ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... irretrievably loses her reputation. No woman can escape him, for he has her in his writings, though his other attacks be ineffectual; and in the age we live in, the one is as bad as the other in the eye of the public. In the mean time nothing is more dangerous than the artful insinuating manner with which he gains possession of the mind: he applauds your taste, submits to your sentiments, and at the very instant that he himself does not believe a single word of what he is saying, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... Dress and Beauty, Wit and Fortune, when purchas'd only at the Price of Liberty—then sweeten her again with ogling Smiles, look Babies in her Eyes, and vow she's handsome; and when she thinks each artful Glance has caught me, that now's the time to Conquer, and to Laugh, and with malicious Cunning mentions Marriage, I'll start, and change, and beg her not to name it, for 'tis a Thought that rouses Madness in me, 'till out of Spight and Spleen, and Woman's Curiosity, ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... tangible but surprising forms which were daily exhibited to his confidential gaze, was more than he could bear. The knowledge saddened all his hours and was the more maddening because it could in no wise be shared by Teacher, who noticed his altered bearing and tried with all sorts of artful beguilements to make him happy and at ease. But her efforts served only to increase his unhappiness and his love. And he loved her! Oh, how he loved her! Since first his dreading eyes had clung for a breath's space to her "like man's ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... "cocu imaginaire;" but these domestic embarrassments multiplied. Mademoiselle, reckless of the distinguished name she bore, while she gratified her personal vanity by a lavish expenditure, practised that artful coquetry which attracted a crowd of loungers. Moliere found no repose in his own house, and retreated to a country-house, where, however, his restless jealousy often drove him back to scenes which he trembled to witness. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... vice. A more brazen, a more impudent, a more hardened little scapegrace—in schoolboy language, "a cooler hand"—it would have been impossible to find. He had early gained the name of Raven from his artful looks. His manner was a mixture of calm audacity and consummate self-conceit. Though you knew him to be a thorough scamp, the young imp would stare you in the face with the effrontery of a man about town. He was active, sharp, and nice-looking, and there was nothing which he was either afraid ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... of the country are our fellow-citizens, and interested with us in the passage and faithful execution of wholesome laws. They can not be swerved from their duty of citizenship by artful appeals to their spirit of brotherhood born of common peril and suffering, nor will they exact as a test of devotion to their welfare a willingness to neglect public duty ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... because the land on the mountains was altogether waste and uncultivated, and there was much store of silver and gold and precious stones and pearls still in the mountains. Wherefore God made the dwarfs very artful and wise, that they might know good and evil right well, and for what everything was good. Some stones give great strength, some make those who carry them about them invisible. That is called a mist-cap, and therefore did God give the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... our foes retreated We knowed we couldn't win For they was out, that artful like, To lure us to Berlin. But touch that 'ome of culture? We'd rather far be shot; We simply worship Kaiser Bill ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... of Venice would deserve a page to themselves. They are infinitely more numerous than the arriving stranger can suppose; they nestle with a charm all their own in the complications of most back-views. Some of them are exquisite, many are large, and even the scrappiest have an artful understanding, in the interest of colour, with the waterways that edge their foundations. On the small canals, in the hunt for amusement, they are the prettiest surprises of all. The tangle of plants and flowers crowds over the battered walls, the greenness makes an ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... when there was a stall to be set out and a career to be made? With that stall, indeed, David was truly in love. How he fingered and meddled with it! —setting out the cheap reprints it contained so as to show their frontispieces, and strewing among them, in an artful disorder, a few rare local pamphlets, on which he kept a careful watch, either from the door or from inside. Behind these, again, within the glass, was a precious shelf, containing in the middle of it about a dozen volumes of a kind dear ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... take the chickens and the cow with you, of course," this artful girl went on; "for the children must have milk and eggs, and I never tasted more delicious milk ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... some converts in Rhode Island and New York, and died in 1819. She is said to have been a very beautiful, but artful woman. ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... branch banking establishments among them. It must not, however, be supposed that Mike gets his paltry four or five pounds on his promissory note without further security. Nothing of the kind. Mike must go through as much artful financiering to raise his five pounds as the Hon. Algernon Deuceace to raise his "monkey." His bill must be well backed by his friends, Thady and Tim. Now, Thady's name on the back of a five-pound bill is not good for much. He is but a peasant, ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... face; there are key-notes in the thrilling human voice, simply uttered, which can haunt the heart, rouse the passions, lull rampant multitudes, shake into dust the thrones of guarded kings, and effect more wonders than ever yet have been wrought by the most artful ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Then the artful Teed moved to the door and turned the knob. Litton could not speak; but he threw a look that was like a grappling-iron and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... Watching the elder ghosts beyond the moon. But here in common sunshine I have seen George Hirst, not yet a ghost, substantial, His off-drives mellow as brown ale, and crisp Merry late cuts, and brave Chaucerian pulls; Waddington's fury and the patience of Dipper; And twenty easy artful overs of Rhodes, So many stanzas ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... is not yet hatched, I should have hardly believed but that it had been a locusta whispering in the bushes. The country people laugh when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful creature, skulking in the thickest part of a bush, and will sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge where it haunted, and then it would run, creeping like a mouse, before us for a hundred yards together, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... maister, doan't let this black come-along-o't quench 'e quite. That's better! You such a man o' sense, tu! 'T was awver-ordained by Providence, though a artful thing in a young gal; but women be such itemy twoads best o' times—stage-players by sex, they sez; an' when love for a man be hid in 'em, gormed if they caan't fox ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... He landed a party of men fully armed, and loaded the ship's guns with grape and canister; he then proceeded to Muda Hassim, protested that he was well disposed towards the rajah, but assured him, at the same time, that neither he nor himself was safe against the practices of the artful and desperate Macota. Muda Hassim was frightened. One of the Dyak tribes took part with Mr Brooke, two hundred of them, with their chiefs, placing themselves unreservedly at his disposal, whilst Macota was deserted by all but his immediate slaves. The Chinese and the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... waste my labor on the shrewd and evil thing which has no more need of me than I of it! And now let me go hence, sire, unmolested, for the sake of chivalry. Could I have come to the brave man I had dreamed of, I would have come cheerily through the murkiest lane of hell; as the more artful knave, as the more judicious trickster"—and here she thrust him from her—"I spit upon you. ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... event, Alphonso de Aviero carried an ambassador from the king of Benin to the king of Portugal, requesting that some missionaries might be sent for the conversion of his subjects; and, although the artful conduct of that African prince threw many difficulties in the way of this mission, many of the Negroes of that country were converted. From the ambassador of Benin, the king of Portugal received information of a powerful monarch, named Organe, whose territories lay at the distance ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... be a fair question why the young man was not cured by it. But it is a much graver question why a man who has shrewdness and learning enough to go so far after his facts, should think it right to treat them with such astonishing negligence or such artful unfairness. ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... even if there be nothing in it! As a faithful servant I ought to have no eyes to watch my master, but I have not failed to observe that the Chevalier Bigot is caught man-fashion, if not husband-fashion, in the snares of the artful Angelique. But may I speak my real opinion ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... all of them, this I believe to be a point of chief necessity,—that they shall seem to stand, and shall verily stand, in their own strength; not by help of buttresses nor artful balancings on this side and on that. Your noble tower must need no help, must be sustained by no crutches, must give place to no suspicion of decrepitude. Its office may be to withstand war, look forth for tidings, or to point to heaven: but it must have in its own walls the strength to do this; ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... said. "Artful old dog, Verity! But why in—why didn't 'e tell me you was comin' aboard this trip? We 'aven't the right fixin's for a lady, so you must put up with the best we can do for you, Miss Yorke. Nat'rally, we're tickled to death to 'ave ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... snub, but agreeably so. Sophia had a fine Roman nose; she was a beautiful creature, beautiful and handsome at the same time. They were both of them rather like racehorses, quivering with delicate, sensitive, and luxuriant life; exquisite, enchanting proof of the circulation of the blood; innocent, artful, roguish, prim, gushing, ignorant, and miraculously wise. Their ages were sixteen and fifteen; it is an epoch when, if one is frank, one must admit that one has nothing to learn: one has learnt simply everything in the previous ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... our side, tho he was not much to boast of in a rough-and-tumble fight, owing to the weakness before mentioned. General Ames put him among the gunners, and we were quickly made aware of the loss we had sustained by receiving a frequent artful ball which seemed to light with unerring instinct on any nose that was the least bit exposed. I have known one of Pepper's snowballs, fired point-blank, to turn a corner and hit a boy who considered himself ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... various and unlooked for. Sometimes she patronized Matilda, as a little country girl; sometimes she admonished her, very unnecessarily, in the same character; sometimes Judy took a tone more offensive still and accused her of artful practices to gain Mrs. Laval's favour. David and others were present; but they did not always see what was going on; or if they attempted to put Judy in order, the attempt was too apt to provoke more trouble than it stopped. Matilda bore a good deal of trial, those weeks; for ...
— Trading • Susan Warner

... I cannot relate, as the artful bird, followed by her ardent suitor, soon flew away beyond my sight. It may not be rash to conclude, however, that she held out no longer than ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... Tarquin had recourse to the following stratagem. 6. He caused his son Sextus to counterfeit desertion, upon pretence of barbarous usage, and to seek refuge among the inhabitants of the place. There, by artful complaints and studied lamentations, Sextus so prevailed upon the pity of the people, as to be chosen their governor, and, soon after, general of their army. 7. At first, in every engagement, he appeared successful; till, at length, finding himself ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... King my husband. He therefore resolved to try what he could effect through Madame de Sauves. In order to do this, he obtained such an influence over her that she acted entirely as he directed; insomuch that, by his artful instructions, the passion which these young men had conceived, hitherto wavering and cold, as is generally the case at their time of life, became of a sudden so violent that ambition and every obligation of duty were ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... visit Geirrod without his hammer, belt, or magic gauntlet. Loki then flew back to Asgard, and told Thor that he had been royally entertained, and that his host had expressed a strong desire to see the powerful thunder-god, of whom he had heard such wonderful tales. Flattered by this artful speech, Thor was induced to consent to a friendly journey to Joetun-heim, and the two gods set out, leaving the three marvellous weapons at home. They had not gone far, however, ere they came to the house of the giantess Grid, one of Odin's many wives. Seeing Thor unarmed, she ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... gin crawl e'vry night, [9] An' very, very often come 'ome tight, [10] But now of all sich 'abits I've got rid, I al'us wants to git 'ome to the kid. In teachin' 'im I takes a regular pride, Not books, of course, for them 'e can't abide, But artful little ikey little ways, [11] As makes the people sit up where ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... I could say boldly and with truth,—"my brother has sent me a few lines from Berlin, the substance of which you might care to hear." Of course they would be falling over each other to hear, but that is my artful way. "He camped out," I should go on, "in the Thiergarten. He says that to see the French waving their arms and cheering on the top of the Brandenburg Gate was one of the finest things possible to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various

... to the crowd and my skill as an 'artful dodger,' up to this moment quite closely; but I now fell back, and withdrew myself a little distance from the aisle where all three were now loitering, the woman examining with wondering eyes marvellous Turkish slippers with turned-up toes, and olive-wood beads and bracelets, proffered ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... a person of such and such evident characteristics will do under such and such conditions. As I have already stated to you, I know, both from observation and from hints dropped by Hugh Mainwaring, that if ever a dangerous woman existed,—artful, designing, absolutely devoid of the first principles of truth, honor, or virtue,—that woman is Mrs. LaGrange. I know that Mainwaring stood in fear of her to a certain extent, and that she was constantly seeking, by ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... by which Balfour pressed Morton to accept of this dangerous promotion, as soon as he had gotten rid of his less wary and uncompromising companion, Macbriar, were sufficiently artful and urgent. He did not affect either to deny or to disguise that the sentiments which he himself entertained concerning church government, went as far as those of the preacher who had just left them; but he argued, that when the affairs of the nation were at such a desperate crisis, minute ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... child, was a stodger, and a codger, and a very artful dodger; he carried his bones to David Jones, and asked to be took as ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... get," growled Pablo, and did so; whereupon the artful Murray took advantage of his absence to dart over to the royal chamber and remove the potato ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... servitude under the slaves of their fathers; and offered to their hopes the dominion of their new, or the liberty of their ancient, country. In the right wing of Bajazet the cuirassiers of Europe charged with faithful hearts and irresistible arms; but these men of iron were soon broken by an artful flight and headlong pursuit; and the janizaries, alone, without cavalry or missile weapons, were encompassed by the circle of the Mongol hunters. Their valor was at length oppressed by heat, thirst, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Guy Patin, that many of the Roman catholics would do justice to Calvin's merit, if they dared to speak their minds. It must excite a laugh at those who have been so stupid as to accuse him of being a lover of wine, good cheer, company, money, &c. Artful slanderers would have owned that he was sober by constitution, and that he was not solicitous to heap ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... satellites adroitly took advantage of this state of things to sow dissension among the patriots. Autograph letters from Philip to the principal lords were distributed among them with such artful and mysterious precautions as to throw the rest into perplexity, and give each suspicions of the other's fidelity. The report of the immediate arrival of Philip had also considerable effect over the less resolute or ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... ten years an angry controversy has existed upon this question of Slavery. The minds of the people of the South have been deceived by the artful representations of demagogues, who have assured them that the people of the North were determined to bring the power of this Government to bear upon them for the purpose of crushing out this institution of slavery. I ask you, is there any truth in this charge? ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various



Words linked to "Artful" :   pawky, scheming, cunning, designing, perverted, distorted, crafty, cute, deep, sly, dodgy, slick, guileful, artfulness, adroit, tricky



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