"Sly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... come home to me, and I 'll work and slave for you, and you shall keep up your head and be a gentleman still, as you are, every inch of you. Don't mind what I've said at the beginning, dear: don't you know I'm hasty; and I was hurt. But you could not mean to be sly and underhand: 'twas only your high spirit, and it was my fault; I should not have shown you the letters. I hope you are well, and have quite lost that nasty cough, and that Mr. Vance treats you with proper respect. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... me with pathetic amusement in her honest wrinkled face. "I said right out to Is'iah, before a roomful o' the neighbors, that I expected it of him to git me home an' bury me when my time come, and do it respectable; but I wanted to airn my livin', if 'twas so I could, till then. He'd made sly talk, you see, about my electin' to leave the farm and go 'long some o' my own folks; but"—and she whispered this carefully—"he didn't give me no chance to stay there without hurtin' my pride and dependin' on him. I ain't said that to many folks, but all ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... keep order. He's started in with a spite at you on general principles, and the boys know it. They know he'll back them up in secret, no matter what they do, just to prove his opinions. Cropper is sly and slippery, and it is ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... make a reply. If Collins really was in the conspiracy against Lyman, he would probably show his hand within the next few minutes. Just as Ned anticipated Collins gave the other a sly signal before he opened his mouth. Ned was not supposed to see this evidence of a common understanding, but his watchful eyes caught not only that but the answering ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Blaisdell might imitate some insects; mightn't he, Professor Skillings?" suggested Frank, with a sly look. "You know there are insects that live ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... bold hand "Charles Travers and wife." I asked for the best room with a pleasant out-look. The smiling clerk, trained to dissimulation, would appear as unconscious as the blank safe behind him, but he knew all the while, the sly rascal, that we were on a wedding trip, and he paid special attention to our comfort. We saw the glories and wonders of the mountains, and shared their inspiration as with a single heart. We rose early to drink the clear air and greet the rising sun together. ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... that so 'vile a rake' (I hope he will never see this!) should be a 'learned man'; that is to say, that a 'learned man' may be a 'sly sinner,' and take opportunities, 'as they come in his way'—which, however, I do assure ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... Billy, an' you'll see it better," said Dick Moy, with a sly look, for Dick had by this time learned to appreciate the mischievous spirit ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... concerns. But in his case, the scolding or pouting should not be inexorable; for in one way he atones amply for all his impertinence. He paints his young ladies pretty and graceful, being, with all his sly satire, evidently fond of the sex, the juvenile portion at least. Surely, a Compliment so uniform and tasteful must more than outweigh his teasing and banter with the amiable subjects ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... come?" How should she tell her story? "Oh, he came, of course, about the robbery. They have found out everything. It was the jeweller, Benjamin, who concocted it all. That horrid sly girl I had, Patience Crabstick, put him up to it. And there were two regular housebreakers. They have found it all out ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... colossal carvings as of huge rock-gods and sacrificial altars, and great beasts, along its sides, were made living by the very mystery of light and darkness, on that violent day of spring—I remember sitting there, and an old gentleman passing close behind, leaning towards me and saying in a sly, gentle voice: "How are you going to tell it to the folks at home?" America has so much that one despairs of telling to the folks at home, so much grand beauty to be to her an inspiration and uplift towards high and free thought and vision. Great poems of Nature she has, wrought ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... sort of sly and sheepish, like they wasn't used to indulgin' in such frivolity. They seemed to enjoy it, though, and the first thing I know I'm bein' put through a sort of highbrow third degree, the object being to show up what an empty loft I wear my pink ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... recess-hour. At the first stroke of the school-house bell, the canal seemed to give a tremendous shout, and grow suddenly alive with boys and girls. The sly thing, shining so quietly under the noonday sun, was a kaleidoscope at heart, and only needed a shake from that great clapper to startle it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... bonbons on it, with the words, "From Lady Adelheid." I took them; and observed on one of them, scribbled in pencil, "and Seraphina." My blood coursed tumultuously in my veins. I sent a glance in Adelheid's direction, which she met with a most sly and archly cunning look; and taking her glass in her hand, she gave me a slight nod. Almost mechanically I murmured to myself, "Seraphina!" then taking up my glass in my turn, I drained it at a single draught. My glance fell across in her direction; I perceived that she also had drunk at ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... you. Her infernal Devices throw a glamour o'er your senses: But did you know her shallow, false pretences, Of her great excellence you'd scorn the notion, Nor waste on her your noble heart's devotion. For all she sets up as a learned Sphinx, She's nothing but a sly, conceited minx. ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... was not ready for this. The judge had gained a new lease of life in the last half-hour and he felt no fear of this sullen bill-poster for all his sly innuendoes. He, therefore, hindered the lawyer from his purpose, by a quick gesture of so much dignity and resolve that even the lout himself was impressed and dropped some of his ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... announce—but cheerful, exulting, of course."— Here was a sly glance at Emma. "He had been so fortunate as to—I forget the precise words—one has no business to remember them. The information was, as you state, that he was going to be married to a Miss Hawkins. By his style, I ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... hear his own impatient reply: "I have nothing whatever, sir, to do with your business! Approach Mr. Anderson yourself if you have any claim to make." Whereupon a half-sly, half-threatening hint from the old fellow that he might be disagreeable unless well handled; that perhaps "the lady" would listen to him and plead ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have been fun on her part, but it was solemn earnest on his, for he went it strong I assure you. I'd no idea the old fellow was so sly, for he appeared smashed with you, you know, and there he was finishing up with this unknown lady. I wish you could have heard him go on, ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... worlds, God's World and Corot's World." He was regarded as a harmless lunatic, who saw things differently from others, and so they indulged him, and at the Salon hung his pictures in the "Catacombs" with many a sly joke at his expense. The expression, "Corot Nature," is with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... of his reception. "He received me," says Augustin, "like a father, and as a bishop he was pleased enough at my coming:"—peregrinationem meam satis episcopaliter dilexit. This satis episcopaliter looks very like a sly banter at the expense of the saint. It is infinitely probable that St. Ambrose received Augustin, not exactly as a man of no account, but still, as a sheep of his flock, and not as a gifted orator, and that, in short, he shewed him the same ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... is too thin. It worked all right up to ten o'clock, for Mackay and Fair both came down and spent a good quarter of an hour in the end of the drift and kept tapping around with their hammers. I was mean enough to watch them on the sly and saw them both taking samples. If you keep awake, you will see John Mackay down here again by six o'clock in the morning, and you may make up your mind not to see any more daylight for three days or a week to come; that is, if ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... out, "Now shall I right myself,— I, Adeb the Despised,—for God is just!" There he who wronged my father dwelt in peace,— My warlike father, who, when gray hairs crept Around his forehead, as on Lebanon The whitening snows of winter, was betrayed To the sly Imam, and his tented wealth Swept from him, 'twixt the roosting of the cock And his first crowing,—in a single night: And I, poor Adeb, sole of all my race, Smeared with my father's and my kinsmen's blood, Fled through the Desert, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... wasn't fool enough to let them see the hamper. All they saw was the two bags of corn as I rode out of the gate with. I had filled the hamper on the sly, and hid it in the bushes by the road, until I went by ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... common centre of Piran Round. Then, imagine the assembling in the amphitheatre; the running round the outer circle of the embankment to get at the entrances; the tumbling and rushing up the steps inside; the racing of hot-headed youngsters to get to the top places; the sly deliberation of the elders in selecting the lower and safer positions; the quarrelling when a tall man chanced to stand before a short one; the giggling and blushing of buxom peasant wenches when the gallant young bachelors of the ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... 'bout'n it, boy. Yer stepdad wouldn't let the beastis stay thar a minute ef he knowed it, 'kase—waal—'kase me an' him hev hed words. Slip the beastis in on the sly. Pearce Tallam don't feed an' tend ter his critters nohow. I hev hearn ez his boys do that job, so he ain't like ter find it out. ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... with a favor that no one had ventured to forecast. It did not touch the public's fad-nerve; it was too close to the soil for that. It was so simple, with an art so sly, with a humor that, like an essence, so quietly stole the senses, that the reviewers did not arise in resentment against it. They had expected nothing and were surprised to find much. Worn out with heavy volumes from the pens of the learned and ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... the door from yard and enters. He is elderly, and with a pessimistic expression of face, relieved somewhat by the sly humour that is in his eyes. He walks slowly to the centre of the kitchen, looks at KATE, and then turns his eyes, with a disgusted shake of the head, towards the dresser as ...
— The Drone - A Play in Three Acts • Rutherford Mayne
... your Grace's horse, Sans-pareil?' asked Sir Chetwode Chetwode of Chetwode of the Duke of St. James, shooting at the same time a sly glance at his opposite neighbour, Sir Tichborne ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... equal impatience to his master when he spoke of his 'bonnes fortunes' or of his verses, made, however, a grimace which he meant to be very sly and insinuating, but which was simply ugly and awkward; he fancied that the expression of his mouth, twisted about like a monkey's, conveyed, "Ah! who can resist your Eminence?" But his Eminence only read there, "I am a clown who knows nothing of the great world"; and, without ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was extraordinary. Very few parents ever really get acquainted with their offspring. Parents who fail to keep their promises with their children, and who prevaricate to them, have children that are secretive and sly. But often no one person is to blame, for children do not necessarily have any spiritual or mental relationship to their parents: their minds are not attuned to the same key—they are not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... he's seventh of his family in succession to serve in India. She has seeped into him and pickled his heritage. He's a believer in Kismet crossed on to Opportunity. Not sure he doesn't pray to Allah on the sly! ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... darling swan from the flock of her dear ones, from father, from mother, from kinsfolk, and from friends. We didn't realize what was happening. What things happen in this world of ours! Nowadays people are double-faced and sly, crafty, and cunning. He fairly befogged Gordey Karpych with this and that in his old age, and he began to hanker after his wealth. They have engaged our lovely beauty to a disgusting old man. Now she is sitting there, my darling, broken-hearted! Oh, I'm ready to die! After ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... returned Muir in his sly Scotch way; "it would be far safer to promise to influence him to his injury. Mankind, pretty Mabel, have their peculiarities; and to influence a fellow-being to his own good is one of the most difficult tasks of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... man, and he supposed that it would excite suspicion if the boy, who is well known in the neighborhood, should disappear at just the time when he should be away. He is right, perhaps, and at any rate the thing is unavoidable. The sly chore-boy has noticed nothing, I hope, and we shall reach our goal without any hindrance. You are going ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... mind loves a sensation, and Lena and Hitchcock had told their story so vividly the day before that Mary's account seemed tame and dull beside it; and some of the hands preferred to think that "Mame Denison was a sly one, and warn't goin' to let on, fear some one'd git ahead ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... quarterdeck at this dismissal, but as he put one leg over the gangway to get down to his boat, he said in a hoarse voice, and with a sly leer ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... proper modesty, it could very well pass for that. Mrs. Hawthorne seldom expressed herself quite seriously. As she seldom looked serious either, one could hardly hear her say it was the loveliest party she ever was to without suspecting her of a humorous intention. By the sly gleam of her eye one should know she was doing it to amuse you, imitating a child, a country-woman, a shop-girl, for the sake of promoting an easy pleasantness. With her bearing of entire dignity, her honest handsomeness, her air of secure and generous ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... devoted to the subject, it might seem as if the mass of material should have revealed very clearly what is the ideal illustration for children. But "children" is a collective term, ranging from the tastes of the baby to the precocious youngsters who dip into Mudie books on the sly, and hold conversations thereon which astonish their elders when by chance they get wind of the fact. Perhaps the belief that children can be educated by the eye is more plausible than well supported. In any case, it is good that the illustration ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... 'Well, Tom is a sly fellow, and he had a knack of turning up whenever one wanted to do a civil thing by that poor girl. Where is ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seeing how fascinated I was with Mamma, and once even cautioned me to watch myself or all would be found out and I should be sent to a boarding school. She herself was very careful of me, and on the sly gave me a second glass of wine at luncheon, besides helping me to the most recuperative ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... Gerard said anything, wished anything or threatened anything, that imported always a fear-exciting event, and he was finally sly enough to seize and use this halo to the limit. That a man like Gerard has been able through all these years to win and keep such a position and such an influence over German affairs ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... as Ferd Bolten, Linton, Indiana, who sent five good Persian walnuts and one excellent black walnut. Edward Smith, of Rochester, Indiana, and Henry Buit, of Lafayette, also have found some wonderful walnut seedlings. Donald Sly, Rockport, Indiana, has produced the best seedling filberts, about eight in number, and contributed a wonderful display of the McCallister hican. Mr. J. F. Wilkinson, Proprietor of the Indiana Nut ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... business seems to be confined to out-of-doors work, he only came once or twice into the room where we were upon some trifling excuse or other; but, in reality, I've no doubt to have a peep at your humble servant, whom the rogue instantly recognised; and when no one was looking, he tipped me a sly wink of the eye, at the same time pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, and directing his eyes towards the ceiling, thereby indicating, as I thought, that those I wished the most to see had already betaken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... that the Bible, and not the Act of the Constitution, was to be given to the King, as the rule of his government. Was not a sly mental reservation perhaps intended by this? If the Constitution should not have exactly the effect intended, and the Tahaitians, emboldened by it, should seek to withdraw themselves from their leading-strings, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... a sly move with his staff, so that the other suddenly tripped and fell headlong; whereupon he said gravely: "Lo, I believe so too, for behold, already it has come true that 'I see your body ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... creek to its source in the evening and found the hills to be granite, and discovered one deep pool in the solid rock under a steep step in the creek bed. Along the banks herbage and green stuff were growing in profusion. Our beasts were content to feed amicably together, and with the exception of a sly bite no longer showed signs of ill-feeling. We were thankful indeed to see them "off season." Here we gave them a good drink and filled our casks and neckbags, carrying in all sixty-two gallons. We had been so well ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... to the Duke of Northumberland suggesting this, sending him a list of Plates, and submitting an estimate of expense L120. On Sept. 19th I received the Duke's assent. I applied to Prof. Challis (at the Cambridge Observatory) requesting him to receive the draughtsman, Sly, in his house, which he kindly ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... said. "Goosie and I have got beautiful seats, and Mamma is quite close to the piano where she will hear excellently. Has she promised to sing Siegfried? Is Mr Georgie going to play for her? It's the most delicious surprise; how could you be so sly and clever as ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... now," and Henley winked almost imperceptibly to any one not familiar with the tricks of his face. He bent his head and smiled behind his broad hand. "I'll tell you, sir," he went on to the salesman, after another sly wink at Cahews, "none of us here happen to want anything in your line, but there is a rich old codger across the way—Mr. Silas Welborne—who will trade if you'll stick to him long enough. He's got dead kin with ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... y'ell not make me believe that. Ah, Richard," said he, "ye're a sly dog. You and I have been as thick these twa months as men can well live, and never a word out of you of the most sublime creature that walks. I have seen women in many countries, lad, beauties to set thoughts afire and swords a-play,—and 'tis not her beauty ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... me so much entertaining society. My hut, with its curious thatched roof, excited vast interest; and it was amusing to see the two boys, aged respectively about twelve and fourteen, following their parents about, jabbering incessantly, and giving me sly, half-terrified glances as they examined my implements and utensils. The woman was the first to get over her fear of me, and she soon grew to trust me implicitly; whereas her husband never ceased to view me with inexplicable ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... Hadn't he, one night on coming home unexpectedly, found him treating Mathilde, the herbalist woman, to a pot of jam? No, he would never forgive him for treating himself in that dirty fashion to delicacies on the sly, while he, Mahoudeau, was half starving, and eating dry bread. The deuce! one ought to ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... The double meaning in a Hawaiian mele will not always be evident to one whose acquaintance with the language is not intimate. To one who comes to it from excursions in Anglo-Saxon poetry, wandering through its "meadows trim with daisies pied," the sly intent of the Hawaiian, even when pointed out, will, no doubt, seem an inconsequential thing and the demonstration of it an impertinence, if not a fiction to the imagination. Its euphemisms in reality have no baser ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... been great. Wise librarians have, with a smile, regretted the paucity of proper material; literary men have predicted rather a thin volume; in short, the general opinion of men is condensed in the sly question of a peddler who comes to our door, summer and winter, his stock varying with the season: sage-cheese and home-made socks, suspenders and cheap note-paper, early-rose potatoes and the solid pearmain. This shrewd old fellow remarked roguishly "You're gittin' up a book, I ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... attempted little more than to argue his dusky associates out of their innate fear of spooks and to urge upon them patience in submitting to Perkins's rule a little longer. "I des tells you," he declared, "dey ain' no spooks fer us! Dere's spooks on'y fer dem w'at kills folks on de sly-like. If ole Perkins come rarin' en tarin' wid his gun en dawg, I des kill 'im ez I wud a rattler en he kyant bodder me no mo'; but ef I steal on 'im now en kill 'im in he sleep he ghos pester me ter daith. Dat de conslomeration ob de hull business. I doan ax you ter do any ting but he'p ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... exertions of the police, has not been discovered. Several hundred persons have been arrested for copying or repeating it; but its original source remains unknown." It consists of nine verses, in the vulgar and mutilated French of the Paris halles. A couple of them will give a notion of the sly wit of the whole. They refer, of course, to the Emperor and to his future bride, Maria ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... groaning trees; but the unique excellence of the piece consists in its variety, and a perfectly original combination of the terrible and the ludicrous. Like Goethe's Walpurgis Nacht, brought into closer contact with real life, it stretches from the drunken humours of Christopher Sly to a world of fantasies almost as brilliant as those of the Midsummer Night's Dream, half solemnized by the severer atmosphere of a sterner clime. The contrast between the lines "Kings may be blest," &c., and those which follow, beginning "But pleasures are like poppies ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... and downward sun, ever the air and the ceaseless tides, Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real, Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn'd thumb, that breath of itches and thirsts, Ever the vexer's hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides and bring him forth, Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life, Ever the bandage under the chin, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... whisker. That was my opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... in human form, that bears a heart, A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth, That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth! Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... the foregoing you will see that I am capable of sharing your literary glory on the sly, and without compunction. Indeed, the false role created in me a perverse mood. And I entered into a literary discussion with M—— that outraged his pedantic soul. It was my way of perjuring his judgment, in return for his unwitting approval of my reviews. Besides, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... be found in this free country. What think you, gentle reader, of Solomon Sly, Reynard Fox, and Hiram Dolittle and Prudence Fidget; all veritable names, and belonging to substantial yeomen? After Ammon and Ichabod, I should not be at all surprised to meet with Judas Iscariot, Pilate, and Herod. And then the female appellations! ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... from the table, in the fashion of a jealous dog with a bone. He wore a blue cap with a polished black visor, tilted back on his head, giving him a rakish, devil-may-care aspect. His long and lean face, cut with wrinkles, was twisted into a sly grin, as if he thought he had the ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... big stupoes I ever met and thats called a solicitor only for I hate having a long wrangle in bed or else if its not that its some little bitch or other he got in with somewhere or picked up on the sly if they only knew him as well as I do yes because the day before yesterday he was scribbling something a letter when I came into the front room to show him Dignams death in the paper as if something told me and he covered it up with the blottingpaper pretending to be thinking about business ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... have cursed her for that change, which he believed was a sly attempt to win him over and make him forget anything he may have read on those pages. He would not think of it then; time enough when he was away and need not pretend or set a guard over his features and his tongue. The ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... affirmed of what is mentioned above as high-class Chinese literature, which is pure enough to satisfy the most strait-laced. Chinese poetry, of which there is in existence a huge mass, will be searched in vain for suggestions of impropriety, for sly innuendo, and for the other tricks of the unclean. This extraordinary purity of language is all the more remarkable from the fact that, until recent years, the education of women has not been at all general, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... a fellow Clad oft in yellow,[10] The canker-worm of the mind, A privy mischief, And such a sly thief No man knows which ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... Bunyan's contemporary biographer, Charles Doe. He was not, however, a mere tramp or vagrant, as travelling tinkers were and usually are still, much less a disreputable sot, a counterpart of Shakespeare's Christopher Sly, but a man with a recognized calling, having a settled home and an acknowledged position in the village community of Elstow. The family was of long standing there, but had for some generations been going down in the world. Bunyan's grandfather, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... the King's little eyes, made sure that he was sent for—as had often been the case—to turn into Latin some jest the King had made. His gown fell about his kneeling shins, his cap was at his side, his lean, brown, and sly face, with the long nose and crafty ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... mobility, and in consequence were even less statuesque. They were lighted up beautifully by five dimples: two on one cheek, one on the other, another very small one near the left side of her roguish lips, and the last—and a very big one—in the cleft of her rounded chin. Add to these charms her sly or roguish glances, her pretty pouts, and the various attitudes of her head, with which she emphasized her talk, and you will have some idea of that face full of vivacity and beauty, and always radiant ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... no; you are poor, and may soon want the money; but if you can take me one conveniently on the sly, you know—I think you may, for, as it is a good book, I suppose there can be ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... simplicity and dulness entirely into the shade. Had not Griffin and his associates been implicated in the affair, it is probable the vice-governatore and the podesta would have been still more obnoxious to censure; but as things were, the sly looks, open jests, and oblique innuendoes of all they met in the ship, had determined the honest magistrates to retire to their proper pursuits on terra firma, at the earliest occasion. In the mean time, to escape persecution, and to obtain a modicum of the glory that was now to be earned, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... yes, he surely mentioned the same," assented M. Roussillon, his face assuming an expression of confused memory; "it was something sly and humorous, I mind; but it just escapes my recollection. A right jolly old boy is Father Sebastien; ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... know, we're a-goin' to have a beauty in this 'ere house?' inquired Christopher one evening of his sister, with a look of sly search, as if to see ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... has a strong sense of humor and he invents his own slang. He expresses himself with the picturesqueness of diction inevitable to the West and with much of its sly, dry humor. But there is a joyous quality to the San Francisco blague which sets it apart, even in the West. You find its counterpart only in Paris. Perhaps it is that, being reenforced by wit, it explodes more quickly than the ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... who talked a great deal less, I observed to have understanding. The lady who is reckoned such a companion among her acquaintance, has only, with a very brisk air, a knack of saying the commonest things: the other, with a sly serious one, says home things enough. The first (Mistress Giddy) is very quick; but the second (Mrs. Slim) fell into Giddy's own style, and was as good company as she. Giddy happens to drop her glove; Slim reaches it to her: 'Madam,' says Giddy, 'I hope you'll have a better office.' Upon which ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... punctuality as the meal was placed on the table. He acquired the habit, afterwards, of rambling about the street near our house, and one day he was stolen, so we gave him up for lost. But two days afterwards he stepped through the open doorway at dinner hour, with his old gait, and sly magpie-like expression, having escaped from the house where he had been guarded by the person who had stolen him, and which was situated at the further ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... with surpassing ability. The cross-examination of a foreign artist, employed by the Duke to repaint some portraits of the Cornaro family by Titian, is said to have been one of the finest things on record. The sly and pungent humour, and the banter with which the counsel derided and laughed down this witness, were inimitable. The printer won his case; but he eventually consented to remove his steam presses from the neighbourhood, on the Duke paying him a certain sum to be determined ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... little girl you've taken a deal of notice of?—more notice than was wanted, if I am any judge. If she does go and marry this fellow from Australia, and he's willing to take the whole bundle back to where they came from, it is the best thing that could happen, in my opinion. Sly young dog, that doctor, though, I must say—don't you think so? Well, that's how it appears to me. Let's see; there was Bessie——; hum! perhaps it's as well, in present circumstances, to name no names. There was her, in the first instance, you know; and the way he got ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... fatherland makes its children sharp and fickle, a cold one slow and sly; it is only a temperate climate which composes the characters of men by its own moderation. Hence was it that the ancients pronounced Athens to be the seat of sages, because, enriched with an air of the greatest purity, it prepared with glad liberality ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... tomb lies cold, forlorn, but even death Her gentle spirit's memory cannot save From the sly voice of slander whispering on, Withering the flowers ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Still, as the Injins were there just now, it may be that if they're gone, they've left a spy behind them. We'll soon know how matters stand, for it won't do to remain here all night. Cass," addressing the man in the boat who was seated low in the stern, only occasionally taking a sly peep, and immediately withdrawing his head, "place your cap on the rudder, and lie flat in the bottom. If they are there, and mean to fire at all, they will try ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... secretary was married and wrote poetry on the sly. He had four children. He would make an ideal helpmate, worshipping his employer with that rare quality of being interested in his ideas and aims beyond the mere earning of a salary; seeing, too, in that employer ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... oriental allegory of human life. The adoption of this slightly pedagogic tone was justified by the prevalent ignorance and frivolity of the age. But the lighter portions of the Spectator are those which have worn the best. Their style is at once correct and easy, and it is as a humorist, a sly observer of manners, and above all, a delightful talker, that Addison is best known to posterity. In the personal sketches of the members of the Spectator Club, of Will Honeycomb, Captain Sentry, Sir Andrew ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... man, or Sunday promenader, frequently takes his way through bye streets and short cuts, through courts and alleys, as it were between retirement and a desire to see what is going on in the scenes of his former splendour, to take a sly peep at that world from which he ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... them. Fir-twister stayed at home the first, and Hans and Rock-splitter went out hunting. When Fir-twister was busy cooking, a little shrivelled-up old mannikin came to him in the castle, and asked for some meat. "Be off, sly hypocrite," he answered, "thou needest no meat." But how astonished Fir-twister was when the little insignificant dwarf sprang up at him, and belaboured him so with his fists that he could not defend himself, but fell on the ground and gasped for breath! The dwarf ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... child; then, taking it up, he places it in the arms of his wife,—perhaps not long to be so,—who stands trembling and sobbing at his side. Behold how picturesque is the fruit of democracy! Three small children, clinging round the skirts of a mother's garment, casting sly peeps at purchasers as if they had an instinctive knowledge of their fate. They must be sold for the satisfaction of sundry debts held by sundry democratic creditors. How we affect to scorn the tyranny of Russia, because of her serfdom! Would to God ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... was the Count within that tow'r to die, Him Pisa's vengeful bishop did oppose; With covert speech and false aspersions sly He stirr'd the people, till they madly rose, And shut him in this prison strong and high; His former slaves are now his fiercest foes. Coarse was their food, and scantily supplied, A prelude to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... being a Divine institution, and what not, started the Rebellion, and keep it up. Spirits are contraband of war, just as Ben Butler says niggers are, and we'll confiscate it'—here the Captain gave me a sly look—'in the name and by the authority of the President of the United States. Major, ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... Sholto, Captain Morstan, and Lieutenant Bromley Brown, who were in command of the native troops, and there was the surgeon himself, and two or three prison-officials, crafty old hands who played a nice sly safe game. A very snug little party they ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... should at all resemble the humourist at his desk, or, indeed, that he should be in any way an impressive or commanding figure. The great desire of the world was to know what he did resemble in this new and incongruous position. Men wished to see what the queer, sly face looked like over a velvet cushion, in the assurance that the sight would be a strange and interesting one, at any rate. Five years afterwards, however, the case was different. The public then had already had one set of sermons, and had discovered that the humorous ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Daniel begins, he stops short and his eye Through the lost look of dotage is cunning and sly. 'Tis a look which at this time is hardly his own, But tells a plain tale of the ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... had it not been for the endless fund of humorous anecdotes at his disposal. One by one the visitors left, each assuring me of his personal regard: the Colonel closed the door, softly, turning the key in the lock; there was a sly look in his black eyes as he took a chair ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... didn't want much leading I should think, sly thing! I know those quiet ones. They're generally pretty deep. No! I've no consideration whatever for a girl who gets herself into trouble. She's nearly always to blame somewhere. You just take notice of that," she added, turning to her daughters ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... George's reply: "I suppose we shall have to go, as I imagine the Professor wants to have some sport," and he laughed at the sly dig which he ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... go so much with Sallie Morton—though her mother does say that Sallie puts crazy notions into our Celia's head. But I reckon all gals is kinder crazy, ain't they?" pursued the farmer, with one of his sly glances and chuckles. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... Catching sight of the ugly monster within, Maui let out a deafening yell, poised his magic spear, and with one sweep of his mighty arm hurled it into the depths of Kuna's hiding-place. But the dragon was sly and agile, notwithstanding his huge bulk, and slipped out in ...
— Legends of Wailuku • Charlotte Hapai
... be more learned in the ways of the world. Master Ludwig's, especially, were like beauty, only skin deep; they were the most knowing bones you ever heard of. Just put before him ever so quietly a grammar book with a long lessons marked in it, and immediately the sly bone over his eyes would set up such an aching! Request him to go to the garret for your foot stove, instantly the bones would remind him that he was "too tired." Ask him to go to the confectioner's, a mile away, and PRESTO! not ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... on de crick whar de gemmens wuz waitin', an' shoot dat young Mister Green in de lung? 'Deed we did," he chuckled again, scratching his head as though the reminiscence were ticklesome—then looked up with a sly smile: "Whilst we wuz a-drivin' home dat day, ole Miss she say: 'You wuz late, son,' she say; an' I heah him say: 'Yes mam, a gemmen sont word he'd lak to see me,' he say. Den ole Miss ax: 'Did you find 'im, son?' 'Yes mam,' Marse John say, 'I foun' ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... all," said Mrs. Dimmidge, with a sly glance at her spouse, "for I found out from that 'Personal' you showed me that this particular old fool ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... house which held her repelled him as if it had been a nunnery; nor could he get a word or even a note from her. The truth is that Clara, fearing lest Coronado should tell more stories about her million to Thurstane, had taken the women of the family into her confidence and easily got them to lay a sly embargo on callers ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... with an eagle's feather, which he ordinarily wore and had not even now dispensed with, added to a blue capote or hunting frock, produced a tout ensemble, which cannot be more happily rendered than by a comparison with one of his puritanical sly-eyed namesakes of the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... me in this sly way, sir? Don't you see I am engaged? I will have you knock at my room door before you enter. Take yourself off again, if ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... fields, intending to skirt the woods at the back of Uncle Alec's farm and find a lane that cut through Uncle Roger's woods; but before we came to it we stumbled on a sly, winding little path quite by accident—if, indeed, there can be such a thing as accident in the woods, where I am tempted to think we are led by the Good People along such of their fairy ways as they have a mind for us ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Sometimes he blowed a bugle that'd wake up the nation. Ever'body worked from sunup 'till sundown. If we didn't git up when we was s'posed to we got a beatin'. Marster'd make 'em beat the part that couldn't be bought." Melvin chuckled at his own sly way of saying that the slaves ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... keeps that Jap store where you were looking in the window," said Ikey, edging out of the room, "and the other is in Japan. He sent the stuff over to be sold in the regular way, but that sly ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... were devoted to evade the detection of other people's eyes, it happened again that, while least expected, several sly lads discovered the real state of affairs, with the result that the whole school stealthily frowned their eyebrows at them, winked their eyes at them, or coughed at them, or raised their voices at them; and these proceedings were, in fact, not restricted ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... But the boys they stood by, And they brought him the stuff For a house, on the sly; And the old woman,—well, she did washing, and took on when ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... sudden smile, half sly, half sweet, leapt to Will's eyes and brightened all his grave face, as the sun gladdens a ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... manner changed instantly. With a look of sly cunning he studied John's face. "There is nothing about the process, son," he said, steadily. "You know all there is ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... of her sisters, mill-hands in West Adams still, or married to mill-hands, men who got drunk on the sly and didn't work regular, and wanted a full half of all they made for themselves. 'Gene and his mother were always scolding about the money they could have had if they'd kept that wood-land on the mountain. They'd ought to ha' been really ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... on the table, and the Intendant do the same, and they both look at the time. The watch of the Intendant is all jewels. 'Will you not add the watches to the stake?' say M'sieu' Doltaire. The Intendant look, and shrug a shoulder, and shake his head for no, and M'sieu' Doltaire smile in a sly way, so that the Intendant's teeth show at his lips and his eyes almost close, he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... brother; is not that old vein of bitterness yet exhausted?" But be it known to you that that last sarcasm was especially for my own behoof. She is a sly jade,—conscience; like many other folks, she has a trick of expressing her rebukes in general language; as thus: "What a contemptible set of creatures the race of men are!"—hoping that some folks will practically take it to heart. Sometimes I do; and sometimes, I suppose, like ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... after a glance at Miss Julie and her young Frenchman—that were already deep in talk together—cut Susannah short with a sly wink. He was a lad of great presence of mind, and rose in later life to ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... nothing but talk about you, Grace," said Mrs. Maynard, with a sly look at the other. "He's awfully afraid of you, and he kept asking ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "You are so sly, so soft in your cunning, Velvet, that I'll be on the safe side," said Billy with a smile, as he felt over ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... he, winking and looking very sly, "they would put me to a trade. I know a trick worth ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but Jackie Bow Wow made a nice home run, and Jimmie Wibblewobble almost did, only he got put out at the home plate, and then Johnnie Bushytail, he got put out, trying to steal to second base, which means getting there on the sly, you know; and then it came the turn of Buddy and his friends to bat the ball all ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... really what is in a man till he is pinched by Love. Love may stun him with a blow or run a dagger into him without bringing his worst qualities to light whilst a sly pinch will raise devils—all the miserable devils that march under the ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... abroad, Your house is papacy, the monk your brother. Name you my successor! The treacherous snare! That in my life you might seduce my people; And, like a sly Armida, in your net Entangle all our noble English youth; That all might turn to the new rising sun, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of your administration of the most sacred trust that can be confided to man, you remain unconvinced of your fall and unpenetrated by your shame. Fortified by the sympathy of your fellow-sinners, you imagine your audacious bluster and your sly evasions before the Investigating Committee of the State of New York represented shrewd generalship and able strategy, forgetting that the enemy against whom your manoeuvres were directed was the American people and that, in this inquisition, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... you slipped into this city on the sly and into these realms of air-land that don't belong ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... the twinkling shine Of fawn-eyes that forget their glances sly, Lost to the friendly aid of rouge and wine— Yet the eyelids quiver when thou drawest nigh As water-lilies do ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... will be marked off in personal appearance 'cause she rouges and uses a lipstick?" asked Gyp, with a sly glance toward Isobel, who turned fiery red. "I know she does, 'cause Molly Hastings went up and deliberately kissed her cheek and she said she ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... girl, nor need you be. I'll tell him my real name is Dick Demorest, as I ought to have told you before, and that I want to marry you, fairly and squarely, and let him make the conditions. I'm not a vagabond nor a thief, Lulu, if I have met you on the sly. Come, dear, let us end ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... history? What reader suspends his curiosity, or calls off his attention from the principal narrative, to examine references, to search into the foundation, or to weigh the reason, propriety, and force of every transient sarcasm and sly allusion, by which the Christian testimony is depreciated and traduced; and by which, nevertheless, he may find his persuasion afterwards ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... it's the first time in five years I've been knocked out—and it was done scientific. Say, Hartigan, ye can put me down for a member of your club; or yer church or whatever the dom thing is an' I'll see ye get whatever ye need in the way of protection; an' if ye want to sell any liquor on the sly, that'll be all right. You count ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... time. At home he was his old self, chaffing Isaiah about the housekeeping, taking a mischievous delight in shocking his friend and partner by irreverent remarks concerning Jonah or some other Old Testament personage, and occasionally, although not often, throwing out a sly hint to Mary about the frequency of letters from the West. Mary had told her uncles of Crawford's leaving Boston and returning to Nevada because of his father's ill health. The only item of importance she had omitted to tell was that of the proposal of marriage. She could ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... mouse a sleek, well-fed, sly, 'white' mouse, and the country mouse with its rough, weather-worn face and grey hairs; the town mouse displaying its delicate little rolls and pyramids of glistening strawberries, the country mouse exulting ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... current, and though I saved it by a mad and desperate clutch, yet it felt like a feather in my hands, and I saw my captain (who had witnessed my peremptory usurpation of the paddle) trying to suppress a sly smile, while my mortified ears caught the sound of derisive snickers behind me, and Yorke, the impudent black, grinned openly ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... herself, always wore her pretty fresh colours, and still showed the gold sheen in her yellow hair. Her hair was put up now, pulled smoothly back over her temples; she spoke in a low, sober, measured voice, and to La Testolina's sly suggestions responded with a little blush, a little shake of the head, and a very little sigh. "Ser Baldassare is good to me," she would say; "would you have me do him a wrong? Last Friday he gave me a silver piece ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... were at work, that the Russians had advanced close to us, that the English had deep and secret policies, that confusion among the native chiefs had come to a head. But our newly-acquired friend said with a sly smile: "There happen more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are reported in your newspapers." As we had never stirred out of our homes before, the demeanour of the man struck us dumb with wonder. Be the ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... bit like me, got along equally as well with the reigning power. She was a smart, black-eyed maiden, full of life, and had herself some of the managing blood in her veins. In fact, so bright and so sly was my dear little sister, that she often succeeded in managing the Grand Panjandra herself. I speak thus particularly of Fanny, because, if it had not been for her, I might now have no story to tell. I never, from childhood to manhood, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... her conduct now," was my friend's natural conclusion. Then one forenoon Scrymgeour travelled to town in the same compartment as the old gentleman, who was exceedingly frank, and made sly remarks about romantic young people who met by stealth when there was no reason why they should not meet openly. "What does he mean?" Scrymgeour asked himself, uneasily. He saw terribly elaborate explanations gathering and ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... of the district, Whitaker, "little charnel-houses for the bones of game." Formerly, also, on some inaccessible point built the rock-eagle, and reared its brood from year to year. The gaunt wolf had once ravaged the glens, and the sly fox and fierce cat-a-mountain still harboured within them. Nor were those the only objects of dread. The superstitious declared the gorge was haunted by a frightful, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth |
