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Cleverness   Listen
noun
Cleverness  n.  The quality of being clever; skill; dexterity; adroitness.
Synonyms: See Ingenuity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cleverness" Quotes from Famous Books



... his face, and become pulpy and pretentious. Even his power of persuasion, which was certainly very surprising, stood in some danger of being lost or neutralised by over-confidence. He lied in an aggressive, brazen manner, like a pert criminal in the dock; and he was so vain of his own cleverness that he could not refrain from boasting, ten minutes after, of the very trick by which he had deceived you. 'Why, now I have more money than when I came on board,' he said one night, exhibiting a sixpence, 'and yet I stood myself a bottle of beer before I went to bed yesterday. And as ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... maze of dancers, who were spinning easily round to the lively melody of one of Strauss's most fascinating waltzes. Presently I also found myself circling the room with an amiable young German, who ambled round with a certain amount of cleverness, considering that he was evidently ignorant of the actual waltz step; and I caught a glimpse now and then of Amy's rubies as they flashed past me in the dance—she was footing it merrily with a handsome Austrian Hussar. The room was pleasantly ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... Persians had fancied his message before the battle of Salamis was really meant to serve them, and that he was suffering for his attachment to them, so the new king, Artaxerxes, the "Long-armed," who had a great esteem for his cleverness, was greatly delighted, offered up a sacrifice in his joy, and three times cried out in his sleep, "I have got ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... much better that it seems as if they must have been doing mendacious gymnastics simply to keep themselves in practice; but they will hardly ever steal. If they do, it will be sometime when you are looking squarely at them, carrying a thing off from under your very nose with a cleverness which they seem to think, and you can hardly help feel yourself, makes them deserve praise instead of blame. I have repeatedly left much valuable property with them, as I did in this case with Mateo, and have come back to find every article just ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... Carmen better. Carmen had charm and knew how to use it to her advantage, while he could not imagine Alice's employing her beauty to gain an object. She was proud, with an essentially clean pride, and sincere, while Carmen had a talent for intrigue. The latter enjoyed using her cleverness to put down a rival or secure a prominent place; she was a hustler, as they said in the West. Alice, he thought, would not even claim what was hers; it must be willingly offered or she would let it go. Yet he ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... who made it practically their life's work, to overcome the difficulties, and must admire the cleverness with which they left certain items for the ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer

... cleverness of the joke (which I should be sorry to defend) was recognized at once. It spread like wildfire over the town, and, though the mortar and the placard were speedily removed, our triumph was complete. The whole community was on ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... is a native of Oajaca, one of the Pacific States, and the same that contained the vast estates bestowed upon Cortes, to whom the Valley of Oajaca furnished his title of Marquis. A poor Indian boy, and a fruit-seller, Juarez found a patron, who saw his cleverness, and gave him an education, and so enabled him to play no common part in his country,—the independence of which he seems prepared to destroy, in the hope, perhaps, of securing for it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... John Milton wrote." Not long ago Mr. Crosland became involved in a trial in the courts in connection with Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas and Robert Ross. He defended himself with much spirit and considerable cleverness. Among other things he said, as reported in the press: "What is this game? This gang are trying to do me down. Here I am a poor man up against two hundred quid (or ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... of their colour and quality—so silent is he upon everything that could throw light upon the motives of their wearer. In fact, granting the writer every desire to be impartial, he is too foolish to be so. It requires some cleverness to judge accurately of a very clever man in very difficult circumstances; and the worthy biographer is utterly incapable of giving us any clue to the actions of Rienzi—utterly unable to explain the conduct of the man by the circumstances of the time. The weakness of his vision causes ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... a full-blown speech, intended to prove Pompilia's innocence, though really in every word a confession of her utter depravity. His sole purpose is to show off his cleverness, and he brings forward objections on purpose to prove how well he can turn them off; assumes guilt for the purpose of arguing ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... the position in which they are develops a kind of cunning rather than acuteness or cleverness?-Yes; it fosters a sort of low cunning. The system having been continued, one might almost say, for centuries has fostered that element ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... not indeed that this would make him like any better her having had the innocence to invite such a person as Mrs. Saltram on such an occasion. It could only strike me that I had never seen a young woman put such ignorance into her cleverness, such freedom into her modesty; this, I think, was when, after dinner, she said to me frankly, with almost jubilant mirth: "Oh you don't admire Mrs. Saltram?" Why should I? This was truly a young person without guile. ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James

... idiom upon a great many American heiresses—addressed her a great deal of very polite nonsense; he was extremely urbane, and the young American, who said nothing, reflected upon that profundity of Italian cleverness which enables people to appear more gracious in proportion as they are more acutely disappointed. Giovanelli, of course, had counted upon something more intimate; he had not bargained for a party of three. But ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James

... is discernible, even unto this day, in their characters; witches occasionally start up among them in different disguises, as physicians, civilians and divines. The people at large show a keenness, a cleverness and a profundity of wisdom, that savors strongly of witchcraft; and it has been remarked, that whenever any stones fall from the moon, the greater part of them is sure ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... reverses when all the other members of the Court were intent only upon winning the good graces of the monarch and his favourite. The time was now come, as he at once saw, to profit by so signal a proof of policy and forethought; and Richelieu was prepared to use it with the craft and cleverness which were destined to shape out his future fortunes. To his active and ambitious spirit a residence in the capital in the character of a deposed minister was impossible; while he equally deprecated the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... their shortcomings; and she heard them whisper: "Isn't she pretty? What black eyes! What lovely curls!" But she was not proud, and by her ladylike manners soon made them feel at home with her, even though they stood agape at her cleverness: none of THEM could claim to have absorbed the knowledge of a whole house. With one of her admirers she had soon formed a friendship that was the wonder of all who saw it: in deep respect the others drew back, forming a kind of allee, down which, ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... great prudence on this occasion, and that her language was so dignified and proper that some may think it apocryphal, if there were not the very best authority for all that is related here, and if we did not know, besides, the wonders the natural cleverness of a woman may work when she is spurred on by interest or by some ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... (Porte St. Martin, 1847); 'La Vieillesse de Richelieu' (Theatre Francais, 1848); 'York' (Palais Royal, 1852). Some of them are written in collaboration with Paul Bocage. They are dramas of the Dumas type, conventional, not without cleverness, ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... curiosity as one of my own townswomen who has weathered cape forty without a husband, and her tongue goes like a dog-vane in a calm, first one way and then another. But here is her dictionary. Now own, Griff, in spite of your college learning and sentimentals, that a woman of ingenuity and cleverness is a very good sort ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... "Perhaps I am wrong. The young chief may be an enemy of Cetchwayo, and he it is who has sent the army to destroy him. He knows the bravery and cleverness of Mangaleesu, who, had he gained an inkling of what is intended, would have made his escape into Natal. There may be some other cause for the intended attack, but I am not far wrong, master, you ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston

... men are very dull," replied the other voice. "Now I should have suspected at once that the man was not a German. But he shall answer for his cleverness. Let him be removed at once. We have word from the vessel outside that they are short of oxygen, and you must be locked out and ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... boy; I am not nearly as strong as Malines or Morris, or the Binneys. Besides, you forget that 'the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,' and as to cleverness, that does not consist in a superior education or a head crammed full of knowledge, but in the right and ready application of knowledge. No; I have no ambition to be a king. But it won't do for us to stand here talking, else we ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne

... had been going along conversing in this fashion, the curate observed to Dorothea that she had shown great cleverness, as well in the story itself as in its conciseness, and the resemblance it bore to those of the books of chivalry. She said that she had many times amused herself reading them; but that she did not know the situation of the provinces or seaports, and so she had said at haphazard ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... literary lesser lights from London, and they enjoyed all this, envying the richer and more ostentatious families of the city as little as they despised the poor of Hester Street. The one quality which they insisted upon in their guests was intellectual cleverness. Perhaps they were a ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... inhabitants of the manor house were informed that a friend of Sir Walter's had come to visit Chadlands, and they saw nothing to make them doubt it. For Peter was a great actor. He had mixed with all classes, and the detective had the imitative cleverness to adapt himself in speech and attire to every society. He even claimed that he could think with the brains of anybody and adapt his inner mind, as well as his outer shape, to the changing environment of his activities. He appreciated the histrionics that operate out of sight, ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... the naughtiness of the antique nineties than anything belonging to these more vigorous days. I am far from suggesting that, as a study in super-sensibility, the book lacks skill. There are indeed scenes of almost painful cleverness. My complaint is that it is out of date, or (I should perhaps better say) conspicuously out of harmony with the present time. But if you hanker for these pictures of the past that is another matter. I will ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various

... that trick. I can tell Sweetheart more than she could have found out herself if she had come. Now for something that's a little more fun." He chuckled at his cleverness as he stepped on a car to go the faster to his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various

... ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to glimmer through my mind. But, strange to say! I was neither astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it was a kind of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to display in extricating myself from this dilemma; and I never, for a moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as a question susceptible of doubt. For a few minutes I remained wrapped in the profoundest meditation. I have a distinct recollection of frequently ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Mrs. Brownlow's house; and now, as they wandered about the lawn and shrubberies of Popham Villa, she took care not to be with him out of earshot of the others. In all of which there was ten times more of womanly cleverness,—or cunning, shall we say,—than had yet come to the possession ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... affairs were political matters treated; but in order to avoid a prosecution, these questions had to be cautiously approached in parable fashion. Never was greater cleverness shown in this respect than at Shakspere's time. Every poet, every statesman, or otherwise highly-placed person, was 'heckled' under an allegorical name—a circumstance which at present makes it rather difficult for us to fully fathom the meaning ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde

... could this be known? Without doubt it has the advantage of making one rely on the essential interest of a situation and not cocker up and validify feeble intrigue with incidental fine writing and scenery, and pyrotechnic exhibitions of inappropriate cleverness and sensibility. I remember Bob once saying to me that the quadrangle of Edinburgh University was a good thing and our having a talk as to how it could be employed in different arts. I then stated that the different doors and staircases ought to be brought before a reader of a story ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his finger at you in any such manner and say, "I need you." And besides, there is the moral side of it. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, but the dividing line between it and dishonesty is not always clear. And the law cannot every time prosecute the offender, for there is a kind of cleverness that enables a man to pilfer the ideas of another and recast them just sufficiently to "get by." It would be very stupid for a man not to profit by the experience of other men, but there is a vast difference between intelligent ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... resounded with the plaint. Thereupon the brigand, fiery with fury, rose straight in his shovel-stirrups and struck fiercely at Khudadad with his huge sword and, but for the Prince's cunning of fence and the cleverness of his courser, he would have been sliced in twain like unto a cucumber. Though the scymitar whistled through the air, the blow was harmless, and in an eye-twinkling Khudadad dealt him a second cut and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... with as little noise as possible. But it seemed a question which was most deceived, the general or the city fathers. The latter found the former a shallow pated man, who from mere joking, had been made to believe himself a great politician, and by a singular cleverness in committing to memory the altered speeches of others, had created for himself a respectability that always vanished on an acquaintance with him; while the former declared that the population of a city was no proof of the amount of moral rectitude by which its government was conducted, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... that Woodford would meet the loss, if it stripped the coat off of his shoulders,—meet it with a smile and some swaggering comment. And I knew as well that, if by any hook or crook he could prevent the contract from being carried out, he would do it with the devil's cleverness. ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... he published the first of his works on Bismarck—a book entitled Bismarck und seine Leute, waehrend des Krieges mit Frankreich, in which, under the form of extracts from his diary, he gave an account of the chancellor's life during the war. The vividness of the descriptions and the cleverness with which the conversations were reported ensured a success, and the work was translated into several languages. This was followed in 1885 by another book, Unser Reichskanzler, chiefly dealing with the work in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... you suppose that the dog would have got those birds by himself?" he asked. "You give him credit for more cleverness than he possesses." ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... has a very agreeable song, which is soft and musical, and he often shows cleverness as a mocker of other birds. He has been taught to whistle parts of tunes, and is as readily tamed as any of ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... is that "the purposes of heaven are not to be served by a lie; and that the simplicity of the young son of truth-loving Achilles is better in the sight of heaven, even when it seems to lead to failure, than all the cleverness ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull

... believe that the sun didn't set. That fellow's a fox for cleverness and a bulldog for persistence. Yet I don't see that we need feel bad, even if he does know where your camp is. We've learned more than he has. We know he's back in these parts and that he is making a secret visit to this timber; for you may be very sure he intended it to be ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... his mother's eyes and sent a glow of self-satisfaction through his whole being. The look was familiar to him and meant that his mother was annoyed by the question but pleased with his cleverness in thinking ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... held captive in his home by the softest chains. He lived, almost in spite of himself, under the influence of his wife, who made herself gay and amusing to cheer him, who used the resources of feminine genius to attract and seduce him to a love of virtue, but whose ability and cleverness did not go so far as ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac

... little flat cap by a means at once simple and ingenious. All the time he was working the women's eyes literally absorbed him; only those of Grace flashed vivid curiosity, Jael's open orbs were fixed with admiration and awe upon his supernatural cleverness. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... answered. "I've named you one ace already. Ace number two is the fact that these German officials are brutes pure and simple—brutes who don't understand how to be anything else, with brutal low cunning and no other cleverness." ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... another word, outside, Locke leaped into the waiting car and the four were off, leaving the false turnkey chuckling over his cleverness and ready to ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... political ability. Few generations had passed without a Dartmouth distinguishing himself, and those members of the family less gifted were not in the habit of having their fine intellectual qualities called to account. The consequence was that their young descendant, who inherited all the family cleverness, although as yet he had betrayed the possession of none of its higher gifts, paid the penalty of his mental patrimony. His brain was abnormally active, both through conditions of heredity and personal incitement; and the cerebral excitation necessarily produced ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... At college Lemercier was never considered Alain's equal in ability or book-learning. What a stride beyond his school-fellow had Lemercier now made! How dull and stupid the young provincial felt himself to be as compared with the easy cleverness and half-sportive philosophy ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... However lacking in cleverness, in merit, or in imagination a man may be, there are in our Western world, if his existence there be so much as noticed at all, three occasions on which he appears in print. His birth, his marriage, and his death are all duly chronicled in type, perhaps as sufficiently typical of the general ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... a phase when he smuggled his food under the bedclothes, pretending with diabolical cleverness to eat it; when the milk left by his side was poured out of the window the moment he had been left alone. But Joyselle, discovering these crimes, had taken to sitting by the boy when his meals were brought, and with him Tommy was almost painfully ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... ability his intermittent disposition to make a figure in orchids. She wondered whether they mightn't have a few people at Brinton; but when she mentioned the idea he asked what in the world there would be to attract them. It was a confoundedly stupid house, he remarked— with all respect to HER cleverness. Beatrice and Muriel were mystified; the prospect of going out immensely had faded so utterly away. They were apparently not to go out at all. Colonel Chart was aimless and bored; he paced up and down and went back to smoking, which was bad for him, and looked drearily out of windows ...
— The Marriages • Henry James

... a close transcript of them from memory,—the substance of them is identical, and in many instances the words also. The extraordinary power shown by Lina Dale in maintaining the character she had assumed and sustained during two years and a half was fully carried out by the skill and cleverness of her pretended correspondence; and in reading over these piles of letters, so full of originality, one could not but feel regret at the perversion of powers so remarkable,—powers which might have been developed by healthy action into means of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... imprudent in the king to forget her was—that she was awfully clever. In fact, she was a witch; and when she bewitched anybody, he very soon had enough of it; for she beat all the wicked fairies in wickedness, and all the clever ones in cleverness. She despised all the modes we read of in history, in which offended fairies and witches have taken their revenges; and therefore, after waiting and waiting in vain for an invitation, she made up her mind at last to go without one, and make the whole family miserable, like a princess ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... loved, she was bound to rejoice once more; and rejoice she did, not even allowing herself to be hindered by Mr. Harrison's too obvious failures to comprehend her best remarks. Helen argued that she was not engaged to the man because of his cleverness, and that when she had come to the infinite happiness towards which she was traveling so fast, she would have inspiration enough for two. She had enough for the present to keep them both happy throughout the drive, and when she returned she found that some of the neighbors had driven over to see ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... his lady, who loves the pleasures of the town, balls in the Strand, and masques; Device, the fantastic gallant,—these are well-known figures in Shirley's plays. No other playwright of that day could have given us such exquisite poetry as we find in Captain Underwit. The briskness, too, and cleverness of the dialogue closely recall Shirley; but it must be owned that there are few plays of Shirley's written with such ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... many charming women, perfectly natural and perfectly at her ease, and full of receptive interest. When she talked it was always to draw out her interlocutor and never to show off her own cleverness. She was quite as popular, indeed I had almost said more popular, with women as with men, and had as great a fascination for young people as for old. I remember well our pleasure in being told of a letter written by one of the big London ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... half enough to content him. I confess I felt piqued that he only looked on me as a sort of pythoness to solve enigmas about you. I had a grim satisfaction in leaving his curiosity irritated, but not satisfied. I praised your beauty, goodness, and cleverness up to the skies, however. I was not untrue to old friendship, Amelie!" Angelique kissed her friend on the cheek, who silently allowed what, in her indignation a few moments ago, she ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... with his fear, Corrigan had felt a slight disgust for himself in yielding to his sudden panic. He had never been in the habit of running. He had been as proud of his courage as he had been of his cleverness and his keenness in planning and plotting. It had been his mental boast that in every crisis his nerve was coldest. But now he nursed a vagrant, furtive hope that waiting for him at Manti would be ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... indirect steps the pious Agaric was put into communication in a room in the Moulin de la Galette, with comrades Dagobert, Tronc, and Balafille, the secretaries of three unions of which the first numbered fourteen members, the second twenty-four, and the third only one. Agaric showed extreme cleverness at this interview. ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... said, "I don't know which to admire most—your cleverness and pluck, my stupidity, or Miss Bartlett's acuteness of observation. Can we ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... companions! Many and many a time had the younger man come down to these lodgings, with all his troubles and wild impulses and pangs of contrition ready to be revealed; and then Ingram, concealing the liking he had for the lad's generous waywardness, his brilliant and facile cleverness and his dashes of honest self-depreciation, would gravely lecture him and put him right and send him off comforted. Frank Lavender had changed much since then. The handsome boy had grown into a man of the world; there was less self-revelation in his manner, and he was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... ones—amongst which we were not numbered. Poor Driffield was much disgusted; he had looked upon gold-finding as the simplest thing in the world—and so it is if you happen to look in the right place! and when you do so it's a hundred to one that you think your own cleverness and knowledge guided you to it! Chance? Oh dear, no! From that time forth your reputation is made as "a shrewd fellow who knows a thing or two"; and if your find was made in a mine, you are an "expert" at once, and can command a price for your report on other ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... rot—proverbs standing on their heads and grinning like dwarfs in a condemned street-fair! Who wants to be told that impropriety is the spice of life and that a roving eye gathers remorse? You may call that sort of thing cleverness, if you like; I call it damn' foolishness." And the emphasis with which he said this left no doubt that the Colonel spoke his ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... besides flies. So one day, after several weeks of thinking, he crawled out of his house in the sunshine, which he did not like at all, and went across the grass to the iron railings, where the spider had then got his web. The spider saw him coming, and being very proud of his cleverness, began to ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... an out and out street dog, a rascally little cur that Buffon himself would have been puzzled to classify. He was ugly, but his features were uncommonly mobile and sparkled with cleverness. He seemed to understand what was told him, and his expression would change according as the words addressed to him, in the same tone of voice, were flattering or injurious. He rolled his eyes, turned up his lips, indulged in the wildest of nervous twitchings, or else grinned and showed his ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier

... amazement. I had insulted him; I had sent him away alone; now, if ever, he would take what was the only sensible resource, and fetch the constable. But there was something instinctively treacherous about the man which shrank from plain courses. And, with all his cleverness, he missed the occasion of fame. Rowley and I were suffered to walk out of his door, with all our baggage, on foot, with no destination named, except in the vague statement that we were come "to view the lakes"; and my friend only ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Yankee stands for a peculiar sort of closeness in money matters and a shrewdness which has even given its slang name to a neighboring New England State, the "Nutmeg State." Perhaps we have both done too much in the past to deserve this reputation for super-cleverness. One of you has referred to the fact that there are Jews who do not like to acknowledge their race. In that respect we are alike, for there are many Yankees who are ashamed of being known as such. Long years ago, when I was a student ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... and though the girls felt a little chagrined at being taken in, they were generous enough to appreciate Dolly's cleverness and be ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells

... on the first appearance of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," I found the author, who was then generally understood to be Lord Byron, not only jesting on the subject—and with sufficiently provoking pleasantry and cleverness—in his verse, but giving also, in the more responsible form of a note, an outline of the transaction in accordance with the original misreport, and, therefore, in direct contradiction to my published statement. Still, as the Satire was ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... quite up to the mark that evening, I cannot tell why. If John flatters himself it was because he behaved so brutally in disappointing me, he is very much mistaken; and as for Captain Lovell, I am sure he may ride with anybody he likes for what I care. I wonder, with all his cleverness, he can't see how that woman is only laughing at him. However, it's no business of mine. So I went into my boudoir, drank some tea, and then locked myself in ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... competitors did their turn round the ring, some propping and bucking over the jumps, others rushing and tearing at their fences; not one jumped as a hunter should. Some got themselves into difficulties by changing feet or misjudging the distance, and were loudly applauded by the crowd for "cleverness" in getting themselves out of the ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... often do things in that way, in order to be odd. It is a sign of cleverness to be odd, you know.—But I, too, am sent into these seas on a ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... heart; but she possesses some warmth, much honesty, and great hospitality. She has acquired the character of being—oh, odious thing!—a clever woman! There are two descriptions of clever women, observe; the one is endowed with corporeal cleverness—the other with mental; and I don't know which of the two is the greater nuisance to society; the one torments you with her management—the other with her smart sayings; the one is for ever rattling her bunch ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... self-contained, better instructed and stronger, a lover of moral dissertations, a counsellor of the public, a sort of lay preacher, less bent on defending the poor, more bent on censuring man; brought to the aid of satire a sustained common-sense, great knowledge of the heart, consummate cleverness, powerful reasoning, a store of meditated hatred, and persecuted vice with all the weapons of reflection... His novels are a war against the upper classes ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... of her cleverness. From Ben's description of the man who had won the shooting match she had been able to lead Ferguson to the admission that he had been the central character in that incident, and now it had transpired that Leviatt was the man ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... on the Vedas he never, as far as I recollect, defended the divine origin of his own sacred writings in the abstract, but he displayed great casuistic cleverness in maintaining that every argument that had ever been adduced in support of a supernatural origin of the Bible could be used with equal force in favor of a divine authorship of the Veda. His own ideas of the Veda were chiefly derived from the Upanishads, and ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... guard and possibly have led to his escape; for he is a man of no common boldness and resource. Those facts I shall now set forth. But I have, I confess, no liking for the story of treachery and perverted cleverness which I have to tell. It leaves an evil taste in the mouth, a savor of something revolting in the deeper puzzle of motive underlying the puzzle of the crime itself, which ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... betrayed itself in their slightest word; and doubtless Amedee thought it legitimate and even worthy of praise. However, he did not believe—must we admit his lack of confidence?—that so many glorious efforts were ever crowned with success. He went so far as to ask himself whether the character and cleverness of these bourgeoisie would not lead them to ignore not only the works, but even the existence, of the authors who sought to "astonish" them; and he thought, not without sadness, that when La Guepe ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... her actual standard? Why is it that, speaking of this friend or that, we say in the tender mercies of our hearts, "No, she is not quite so bad as Becky?" We fear not only because she has more heart and conscience, but also because she has less cleverness. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... that it was a perfect likeness. He was surprised at Paul's cleverness at drawing, and for the first time in his life saw that he cut a ridiculous figure wearing that long, loose, swallow-tailed coat, with great, flaming brass buttons, and resolved upon the spot that his next coat should be a frock, and that he would ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... the news-agents and booksellers of both Great Britain and America are entirely at the disposal of any hostile power which chooses to buy them up quietly and systematically. It is merely a question of wealth and cleverness. And if the failure of the Germans to grip the Press of the French and English speaking countries has been conspicuous, she has been by no means so unsuccessful in—for example—Spain. At the present time the thought and feeling of the Spanish speaking world is being educated ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... A 1, but he was afraid you wouldn't get your First in Greats. He said you had a lot of difficulty in expressing yourself and didn't seem to get the lead of their philosophy and stuff—and—and generally wanted cleverness." ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... with moments of hideous pessimism, enthusiasts at various stages of Parnassus, the peak of which is lighted with a huge dollar sign. A friendly, kindly lot, hard-working and temperamental, with some brilliance and a rather high level of cleverness—slaves of the magazine, probably, and therefore not able to throw stones farther into the future than the end of the month. This is not a country in which literature and art can ever grow big; the cost of living is too high. The modern Chatterton detests garrets and must drive something ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... should say it is an excellent likeness, possessing, to a large degree, the peculiar quality of all Dalmain's portraits:—the more you look at them, the more you see in them. They are such extraordinary character studies. With your increased knowledge of the person, grows your appreciation of the cleverness of the portrait." ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... said the third. And the Queen nodded her head and smiled, for though she esteemed beauty and cleverness, she knew that neither was of any ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans

... King, with great success-the result, in no small measure, of his posing as a puritan; for the boy had all the uncompromising partisanship natural to the morbid precocity which his ill-health and Tudor cleverness combined to develop. If Edward had lived, no doubt the Tudor penetration would have unmasked Northumberland in due course; but this the Duke would hardly have anticipated in any case, and, as it was, he laid his plans on the hypothesis that Edward ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... unconscious she assumed with charming cleverness a pose of artistic contemplation. One would have said that she was really absorbed in the music, or that she was following the advice of the ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... stopping, and had beaten his wife till he'd half killed her. He listened, and read his book, and recalled the whole train of ideas suggested by his reading. It was Tyndall's Treatise on Heat. He recalled his own criticisms of Tyndall of his complacent satisfaction in the cleverness of his experiments, and for his lack of philosophic insight. And suddenly there floated into his mind the joyful thought: "In two years' time I shall have two Dutch cows; Pava herself will perhaps ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... dost not know thine own Lord, whereof art thou so proud? Put thy cleverness away: mere words shall never unite thee to Him. Do not deceive thyself with the witness of the Scriptures: Love is something other than this, and he who has sought it ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... had the palm of cleverness conceded to her ever since she could recollect, when she read better at three years old than her sister at five, and ever after, through the days of education, had enjoyed, and excelled in, the studies that were a toil to Grace. Subsequently, while Grace had contented herself with the ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... discriminations, doubtless of the invidious kind, for which that language was the most apt. The girl had taken this, she let him know, as a reflection on her own French, which she had always so dreamed of making good, of making better; to say nothing of his evident feeling that the idiom supposed a cleverness she was not a person to rise to. The Prince's answer to such remarks—genial, charming, like every answer the parties to his new arrangement had yet had from him—was that he was practising his American in ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... it impossible to resist the fascination of her conversation, and few declined to share in the banquet of gossip which she was always ready to spread. She was quick witted, and possessed of many resources and much cleverness of a certain sort; but it must be confessed that she had done mischief in her day, having been the murderer of more than one neighbor's peace of mind and the assailant of many a reputation. But if she were a dangerous inmate of one's household, few were so attractive or entertaining ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... to see this marvellous monkey, and they flocked down to the Santa Maria in such numbers, and so often, that at last the sailors got tired of them. A mob of schoolboys invading the deck every afternoon, and paying uproarious homage to the cleverness of a monkey, was more or less of a nuisance. Accordingly, by way of a gentle hint, the rope ladder, by which easy access was had to the vessel, was removed, and a single rope put in ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... thoroughly competent for the work. Everything went on prosperously; and, in the midst of all my engagements, I found time to woo and win the hand of Miss Rosa Wann, of Vermont, Belfast, to whom I was married on the 26th of January, 1860, and by her great energy, soundness of judgment, and cleverness in organization, I was soon relieved from all sources of care and anxiety, excepting those connected ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... intercourse with him I saw the god, or lord—the native word bears either meaning—Oro genuinely astonished. He started and stepped back, and for a moment or two seemed a little frightened. Then muttering something as to the cleverness of this light-producing instrument, he motioned to his daughter to take it from Bickley and hold it in a certain position. She obeyed, and in its illumination he began to study the engraved plates, holding one of them in ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... the book, and displayed a head, sketched, it is true, with admirable spirit and cleverness, but—the head of an ass, with a thistle ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... figure delighted his artistic eye, while the white topee hat, with the long blue veil, failed to hide the attractive carriage of her head. He felt impatient to see her unhatted and unveiled. Certainly she was not dowdy, nor had she any aggressive cleverness about her. Indeed, there was something which suggested a man's directness of mind and a simplicity which was quite unusual and fascinating. He could almost have laughed aloud when he thought of the picture which he had conjured ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... good editorial work," she said mendaciously, "but, after all, you are only playing at journalism. The real journalist—as I know him—is a Bohemian; a font of cleverness running to waste; a reckless, tender-hearted, jolly, careless ne'er-do-well who works like a Trojan and plays like a child. He is very sophisticated at his desk and very artless when he dives into the underworld ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... faculty connected with it. In many cases, as between the best individual minds of both sexes, the difference is no doubt very slight. There have been women of a very high order of genius; there have been very many women of great talent; and, as regards what is commonly called cleverness, a general quickness and clearness of mind within limited bounds, the number of clever women may possibly have been even larger than that of clever men. But, taking the one infallible rule for our guide, judging of the tree by its fruits, we are met by the fact that the greatest ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... you you are silly, Alyosha. You know nothing about it, with all your cleverness. I am not offended that he is jealous of a girl like me. I would be offended if he were not jealous. I am like that. I am not offended at jealousy. I have a fierce heart, too. I can be jealous myself. Only what ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... but it was not for such facile cleverness as The Candidate that the lovers of poetry were impatient. Up to this point Crabbe shows himself wholly unsuspicious of this fact. It had not occurred to him that it was possible for him safely to trust his own instincts. And yet there is a stray entry in his diary which seems ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger

... however, was on her guard, for she feared they would rush her, and try to take away her weapon, the unexpected display of which, as much as her cleverness in shooting away the hat of Paz, had held the Indians at bay for the ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker

... humanity had made in its movement heavenwards. That is the way with us; never to be concerned with the newest clever trick of our enterprising fellow-men till a sudden turn of affairs shows us, by the immediate threat to our own existence, that that cleverness has added to the peril of civilized society, whose house has been built on the verge of the pit. War now would be not only between soldiers. In future wars the place of honour would be occupied by the infants, in their cradles. For war is not murder. Starving children ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... than scientific. Yet the Pomfrets, as a result of family pride and over-specialization, had become a sufficiently queer lot to warrant a normal girl in any violence of house-breaking to be free of them. Therein of course lies the cleverness of the book; it is full of atmosphere, and the atmosphere is full of dust, Pomfret dust. You can feel how heavy to rebellious lungs must have been the air of the Pomfret houses, where lived Philip, the intriguing father, and his sons Anthony ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various

... but our author is far more ambitious—more venturesome in aim—which is nothing less than to lift the veil of ISIS, and solve the phenomena of universal nature. With what success remains to be considered. That great skill and cleverness, that a very superior mastery is evinced, we have conceded, and, we will also add, great show of fairness in treatment ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous

... dog, Viper, partly fox-terrier; though not very "well bred," his manners were unexceptionable and his cleverness extraordinary. One summer afternoon Mrs. Bell was greatly surprised by Viper coming to her house much distressed and trying to tell her the reason; he was not to be put off or comforted, and, seizing her skirts, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... Raphael is nearly as much overrated as Shakespeare; that it is all nonsense for people to pretend to admire headless trunks and dingy canvases. To them I have nothing to say: they find consolation in their own cleverness. But a great many are left with a mingled sense of disappointment and yearning: they cannot get rid of the thought that they have missed a great pleasure—that a precious secret has remained hidden from them, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... safety to Caesar, riding at anchor at a distance from shore, was forced to wait the sentence of this tribunal. It seems they were so far different in their opinions that some were for sending the man away, and others again for inviting and receiving him; but Theodotus, to show his cleverness and the cogency of his rhetoric, undertook to demonstrate, that neither the one nor the other was safe in that juncture of affairs. For if they entertained him, they would be sure to make Caesar their enemy, and Pompey their master; or ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... is to inculcate joyousness in thought and feeling, in opposition to the sickly, sentimental seriousness which is so much affected in literature and in society. That a volume based on this one idea should be filled with reading that is never tiresome, is a proof of great cleverness. But Mr. Leland's varied learning, and his extensive acquaintance with foreign as well as English literature, combine with his native talent to qualify him for such a work. He has done nothing so well, not even his admirable translation of Heine's Reisebilder. He is thoroughly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... cleverness and kindness, I told him that I had been taught that every person requires so many cubic feet of fresh air; and, cold or no cold, how did he think I could get my share with my head covered up as he desired? "You must do with less out here," ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... accustomed to disregard all pretense of diplomatic technique; their discussions had been straightforward man-to-man talks; there had been nothing suggestive of pose or finesse, and no attempts at cleverness—merely an effort to get to the bottom of things and to discover a common meeting ground. The Ambassador, moreover, represented a nation for which the Foreign Secretary had always entertained the highest respect and even affection, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... talent whenever you find it in others! " cried the young prince with a pun, which would have delighted Padmavati. "Surely you are jealous of her!" he resumed, anything but pleased with the dead silence that had received his joke; "jealous of her cleverness, and of her love for me. She is the very best creature in the world. Even you, woman-hater as you are, would own it if you only knew all the kind messages she sent, and the little pleasant surprise that she has prepared for you. There! take and eat; they are made by her own dear hands!" ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... has called dull. There were many facets in Hester's character, and Lady Susan had managed to place her where they caught the light. Was she witty? Was she attractive? Who shall say? Man is wisely averse to "cleverness" in a woman, but if he possesses any armor wherewith to steel himself against wit it is certain that he seldom puts it on. She refused several offers, one so brilliant that no woman ever believed that it was ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... the fixed idea of these men, who seemed to enjoy so much the cleverness of their suspicions. It was the most dangerous of tempers to deal with. It made them as untrustworthy as so many lunatics. They were capable of anything, of decoying us alongside, and stoving the bottom out of the boat, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... observed the tobacco traveller, inclined to be genial even under difficulties. "She'll be full tomorrow night. Queer thing that them there prohibitionists can't keep the moon from getting full!" He laughed in hearty appreciation of his own cleverness. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... cut the skin into small strips, and with them encircled the whole hill upon which he had saved his prince's life. The Duke was highly pleased with this proof of Bruno's cleverness as well as courage, made him into a knight, and put him in a position of honour at his court. Bruno became dearer to his master every day, and rendered him many and great services. In later times he built a castle on the hill, which, in memory of the Duke's deliverance, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... I want to say a word against Clifford," he added quickly. "He's a very clever man of business, and I admire him for it. But a woman wants more than cleverness." ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... my brother should not have been pleased with this nation. For one who, like him, knows how to estimate men, must have seen that, in spite of the exceeding levity which is inveterate in the people, there is a manliness and cleverness in them, and, speaking generally, an excellent heart, and a desire to do right. The only thing is to manage them properly.... I have this moment received your dear letter by the post. What goodness yours is, at a moment when you have so much ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... day afterwards we kept upon high grounds, to avoid meeting any of the Beni Sukh'r—thus greatly increasing the length of the day's march, and having to scramble over rocky hills without visible paths. All this had been brought upon us by over-cleverness in bargaining with Shaikh Yusuf, our guide. We had stipulated that, in case of meeting with Bedaween Arabs, whatever should be demanded as ghufur, or toll for crossing their ground, should be deducted from his 500 piastres. He had informed us that the toll would be but a trifle; but ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... meant catsup at once to others. An infant in a high chair yelling for dear life, was of course ice cream, but the medical student was the only one to guess the meaning of a calf reposing on the grass. He explained his cleverness by saying that his mother often made veal loaf, and he was very ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard

... many an occasion; but if this was remarkable—a rabbit being reckoned one of the quickest of all animals for a hundred yards—his curious behaviour exhibited itself in quite another way. He was a dog of great character and cleverness, as well as perfect manners. It was the custom in the family at that date to have prayers on Sunday evenings. This Graf never failed to resent. There had been service in the church during the day, and Sundays were dull days for dogs: why have prayers ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry

... cried Alyosha, completely carried away. "They have no such great cleverness and no mysteries and secrets.... Perhaps nothing but Atheism, that's all their secret. Your Inquisitor does not believe in God, that's ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... derived from mere novelty in the reader, and the desire of exciting wonderment at his powers in the author. Oftentimes since then, in pursuing French tragedies, I have fancied two marks of admiration at the end of each line, as hieroglyphics of the author's own admiration at his own cleverness. Our genuine admiration of a great poet is a continuous undercurrent of feeling! it is everywhere present, but seldom anywhere as a separate excitement. I was wont boldly to affirm, that it would be scarcely more difficult to push a stone out from the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Cresswell expanded under the genial influences, and while his head still protested his heart was glad. He had to respect John Taylor's undoubted ability; and Mary Taylor was certainly lovely, in spite of that assumption of cleverness of which the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... country, whose name I had perhaps better withhold, "Is a Paradise for women." Quite a considerable fortune, either in money or jewels, may be reaped in a few months and sometimes in a few weeks. But the woman must keep her head; cleverness is more important even than beauty. I learnt that it was considered foolish to remain with the same partner for more than two nights, the oftener a change was made the greater the chance of gain. The richest presents are given as a rule ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... golden horns and the bells, and they rejoiced; 'For,' said they, 'THIS time the old woman will be on the watch, and let him be as clever as he likes, the bells on the horns are sure to warn her.' So when, as before, the king came down to the stables and praised the cleverness of their brother, the young men told him of that other marvel possessed by the witch, the goat ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... serious reason for alarm in the fact that Clarisse Mergy thought that she was shadowing and watching Daubrecq at a time when, on the contrary, Daubrecq was watching her, having her shadowed and dragging her, with diabolical cleverness, toward the places selected by himself, far from all help or ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... amazement doubled. Sinking into a chair he looked from his mother to Herr Kreutzer, from Herr Kreutzer to his mother, with an expression of bewilderment so genuine that, for the first time, his mother was a bit in doubt about her cleverness, for the first time Herr Kreutzer wondered if there might not, somewhere, be a ray of hope for him and ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... interrupted by some wonder 'How will he bring it off'? And when he has searched and contrived to 'ask us,' are we responsive to the ecstacy? Has he not—if I may employ an Oriental trope for once—let in the chill breath of cleverness upon the garden of beatitude? No man can be clever and ecstatic at ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... a natural Abolitionist, with a dark complexion. He is a remarkable youth in other respects, though I should first consider the enormous fact of George's master appropriating to himself the benefit of his servant's cleverness. Even with a show of right this may be a mean trick, but it is the way of the world. A large portion of New England men are at this time claiming each other's patents. I know of an instance down East, for Southerners can sometimes "tak notes, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... butler, bringing his left hand from behind the small of his back, produced the bottle with the corkscrew already inserted; uncorked it at a jerk; and placed the magnum and the cork before his master with the dignity of conscious cleverness. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... that part of the Marais, which was at certain hours enveloped by its smoke and its din, Risler's enthusiasm, his fabulous tales concerning his employer's wealth and goodness and cleverness, had aroused that childish curiosity; and such portions as she could see of the dwelling-houses, the carved wooden blinds, the circular front steps, with the garden-seats before them, a great white bird-house with gilt stripes glistening in the sun, the blue-lined ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... reply to an entreaty from Father Uria to tell them more of his mission and of the strange picture-book country they had never hoped to hear of at first hand, assumed a tone of great frankness and intimacy. "We were, with astounding cleverness, treated from the first like an audience in a new theatre. After we had solemnly been towed by a string of boats to anchor, under the Papen mountains, all Nagasaki appeared to turn out, men, women and children. Thousands of little ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... in the midst of sheep. Yet he is of friendly disposition, and it must be insisted that he is by no means so destitute of intelligence as he is often represented to be. On the contrary, he is capable of being trained into remarkable cleverness, as circus ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... feel a great interest in you; you are very handsome, and very clever; indeed, with your beauty and cleverness, I only wonder that you have not long ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... was terrified as he saw me; one word revealed to him all. Post horses were immediately fetched. I took only one of my people with me, an arrant knave, called Rascal, who had contrived to make himself necessary to me by his cleverness and who could suspect nothing of today's occurrence. That night I left upward of thirty miles behind me. Bendel remained behind me to discharge my establishment, to pay money, and to bring me what I most required. When he overtook me next day, I threw myself into his arms, and swore to him never ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... lively, fashionable people,—very much at home with books. Thanks to my uncle's care, I was well educated, even scholarly, for my age and sex. My studious habits, far from being discouraged, were praised by all the household, and I was looked upon as a prodigy of cleverness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... add that no shallow or petty person can paint. Mere cleverness or special gift never made an artist. It is only perfectness of mind, unity, depth, decision, the highest qualities, in fine, of the intellect, which will ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... as the aborigenes of Australia throw their boomerang with inimitable dexterity and security, the Sakai manages his blowpipe with a cleverness it is impossible to imitate or learn. The Malays, who have studied to make themselves masters of this weapon, are but poor shooters ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... not emphasized in the flattering portrait by Gerard—and her hair was unbecomingly dressed. There are reasons for thinking that Germaine bitterly hated her mother, and was intensely jealous of her charm of person. It may be also that Mme. Necker envied the daughter's cleverness, even though that cleverness was little more, in the end, than the borrowing of brilliant things from other persons. At any rate, the two never cared for each other, and Germaine gave to her father the affection which her mother ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... Challoner with dry amusement. "I can see their cleverness, but I'll admit that I think them rather a ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... There it is! You can do something with it, but not much. And what you do not do with it, it must do with you, if there is to be the contact which is essential to the artistic function. This contact may be closened and completed by the artist's cleverness—the mere cleverness of adaptability which most first-class artists have exhibited. You can wear the fashions of the day. You can tickle the ingenuous beast's ear in order to distract his attention while you stab him in the chest. You can cajole ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... uses for the purpose of involving his hero in perilous scrapes from which he no less dexterously extricates him by expedients which, however far-fetched they may appear to the unimaginative, are certainly not lacking in originality of device, or cleverness of construction.... This is a specimen incident—those which succeed it derive their special interest from the action of Rontgen rays, subterranean torrents, and devastating inundations. The book is very readable throughout, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... Amenemaupit had in turn all pronounced him innocent. Pharaoh himself, after citing him to appear in Egypt to give an explanation of his conduct, had allowed himself to be won over by his fair speaking, and had dismissed him uncondemned. Other princes, who lacked his cleverness and power, tried to imitate him, and from north to south the whole of Syria could only be compared to some great arena, in which fighting was continually carried on between one tribe or town and another—Tyre against Sidon, Sidon against Byblos, Jerusalem against Lachish. All ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... showed itself in his ineradicable love of jewellery and in a transparent habit of fibbing; the something possessed showed itself in his easy grace of movement, his delightful readiness to amuse and to be amused, and in a certain cleverness and rapidity of idea rarely, if ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall

... said quietly, and eyeing me with a sinister smile, 'and with cause you think, no doubt. Wat 'av you done to injure poor Madame? Well, I think I know, little girl, and have quite discover the cleverness of my sweet little Maud. Eh—is not so? Petite ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... that Tenniel and he were a well-matched pair, in kindliness, cleverness, and good looks; and I never can think of one without the ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... noble men in that hell. But little by little conviction of a deeper, less understandable, horror creeps upon the reader, only to be explained and confirmed on the last page. To be honest, The Romantic is an ugly, a detestably ugly book, but of its cleverness there ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various

... profound quiet, as if she could not move. She was held in a trance like those dreadful night-dreams when one is locked in deadly inertia, helpless. The net which had been weaving in Courtrey's fertile brain was finished, flung, and closing in upon her before she knew of its existence. An awe of his cleverness, his trickery, gripped her in a clutch of ice. The whole fabric of her own desires and plans and purposes seemed to crumple like the white ash in a dead fire, leaving her nothing. She had been out-witted instead of outfought. ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... this disease is of wonderful cleverness, for from it Hercules, Scotus, Socrates, Callimachus, and Mahomet ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various



Words linked to "Cleverness" :   resourcefulness, imagination, ingeniousness, inventiveness, intelligence, ingenuity, smartness, creativeness, high quality, creative thinking, creativity, clever



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