"Keen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... divine what she was about to do, the Indian girl had sprung toward Running Bear and plunged a long, keen knife into ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... oracles, delivered from the temple between the twin summits of Parnassus, did so much for the Greek nationality, aided in keeping up a lofty ideal of religion; but when the enlightened men of Greece learnt to apply their keen faculty of reasoning to the system of their inherited belief, they became quickly conscious that the conceptions of the gods corrupted the life and degraded the minds of the public. Popular morality could not be ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... of electing a Lord Rector with the accompaniment of much undergraduate "ragging" of the choicest kind. The candidates usually each represent a political party but personal popularity has much to say in their success. At the Scottish universities the contests are particularly spirited, and his keen sense of fun made Gilbert ready to accept frequent invitations to stand. At Glasgow in 1925 Austen Chamberlain got 1242, votes, Chesterton 968 and Sidney Webb 285. "What swamped you," wrote Jack Phillimore, always critical of the gentler sex, "was the women, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... with fiery face, bull-neck, bowed legs, keen, rough, obstinate, passionate, left England greater and freer, and yet with more of a personal despotism than he had found her. The trouble with such triumphs is that they presuppose the wisdom and ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... into two very simple categories:—people whom he likes {91} and people whom he doesn't. The boy of ten has increased these two classes to six or eight. The young man of twenty finds a few more, and begins to suspect that men who act alike may not have the same motives and emotions. But as the keen-eyed observer nears middle age, he begins to realize that no two souls are exact duplicates of each other; and that behind every human eye there lies an undiscovered country, as mysterious, as fascinating, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... unembarrassed by jealousies of any moment; and it may be said that under a commander who, we believed, had the energy and skill necessary to direct us to success, a national confidence in our invincibility made us all keen for a test of strength with the Confederates. We had not ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the Three C's. Rufe Craig proposes to steal the Noda as he has stolen the Tomah. He has been making his brags of what he'll do to me. He won't do it, even if I have to make a special trip to hell and hire a crew of devils. Now let me test out this crowd." He was searching faces with a keen gaze. "All proper men to the front ranks! ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... in silence after our visitors had left. Holmes smoked hard, with his browns drawn down over his keen eyes, and his head thrust forward in the eager way ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... progress. The Russian winter, under this new form, attacked them on all sides: it penetrated through their light garments and their torn shoes and boots. Their wet clothes froze upon their bodies; an icy envelope encased them and stiffened all their limbs. A keen and violent wind interrupted respiration: it seized their breath at the moment when they exhaled it, and converted it into icicles, which hung from their beards all ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... slipped away through the tall weeds and clumps of alder, like the larger edition of the thing that had hung upon its shoulder. The overseer strode off down the field, sending keen glances to right and left. He was a conscientious man, and earned ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... weapon we are almost sure to find constantly used by the gossip; and whether it be shown in the coarse ridicule of the vulgar, or the keen satire of the refined, it springs ever from the same source, and is directed to the same end; as surely as the clumsy war-club of savage lands was invented from the same impulse and wrought with the same intent as the graceful ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... the servants, one and all, passed my door on their way up to their own beds. I now knew, or thought I knew, what was in their minds; but the comfort brought by this understanding was scarcely sufficient to act as antidote to the keen strain to which my faculties had been brought. Yet nothing happened, and when a clock somewhere in the house had assured me by its own clear stroke that the dreaded midnight hour had passed I rose and stole again to the window. This time both moonlight and face were gone. Contentment came with ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... like many other sensible Englishmen, was a bluff, hearty sort of man, with a keen eye for the practical side of life and an equally keen enjoyment of every other, and it was not five minutes before he had located in his round head the precise standing and qualifications of ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the long nerves unite their silver train, And young SENSATION permeates the brain; 270 Through each new sense the keen emotions dart, Flush the young cheek, and swell the throbbing heart. From pain and pleasure quick VOLITIONS rise, Lift the strong arm, or point the inquiring eyes; With Reason's light bewilder'd Man direct, And right and wrong with balance nice detect. Last in thick ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... which now served him as his best support. In the gathering gloom, with his stooping thin figure, he looked more like a faded leaf fluttering in the gale than a man, and he was beginning now to realise with keen disappointment that his strength was not equal to the strain he had been putting upon it. The weight of his seventy years was pressing him down,—and a sudden thrill of nervous terror ran through him lest his whim for wandering should ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... that this produced in me any keen sense of sorrow at the time, for though I missed our horse-herds and the charm of the open spaces, I turned to tamer sports with the resilient adaptability of youth. If I could not ride I could at least play baseball, and the swimming hole in the Little Cedar remained untouched. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... of Koeniggraetz the Prussian hosts were in line on the historic Marchfeld whence the spires of Vienna could be dimly seen through the heat-haze. The soldiers were eager for the storm of the famous lines of Florisdorf and King Wilhelm was keen to enter the Austrian capital. But now the practical wisdom of Bismarck stepped in and his arguments for moderation prevailed. The peace which ended the Seven Weeks' War revolutionised the face of Germany. Austria accepted her utter exile from Germany, recognised the dissolution of ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... what seemed a grassy mound, was in reality perched upon a part of the antique heap; his keen eye saw a little bit of yellow protruding through the moss, and he was amusing himself clipping it with his tomahawk, cutting away the moss and chipping the stone, which made the latter glitter more ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... of Justine's personal life, of the ties she might have formed outside the Lynbrook circle. After all, he had seen her chiefly not among her own friends but among his wife's. Was it reasonable to suppose that a creature of her keen individuality would be content to subsist on the fringe of other existences? Somewhere, of course, she must have a centre of her own, must be subject to influences of which he was wholly ignorant. And since her departure from Lynbrook he had known even less of her life. She had spent the previous ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... of which we are now speaking there was, perhaps, no one in the world who could have been to the poet such a companion as his sister became. She had not, of course, his grasp of mind or his poetic power; but her sensitiveness to nature was quite as keen as his, and her disposition resembled his ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... and keen satirical description of such legal iniquities can scarcely be imagined, than that contained in this passage. The statutes and precedents adduced, with a humourous reference to the style in which charges are commonly given to juries, show what patterns persecutors choose to copy, and whose ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... away in peaceful happiness, A little space by yonder river's side, But now arose the wail of keen distress, Gaunt Famine, with his murderous eye, they spied, Stalk round the walls of those who wept and sighed, And when their venturous chieftain wandered forth, Ill hap betrayed him to the savage pride, The death-club rose, his ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... Procope, a keen-witted merchant, made his appeal to a higher class of patrons than did Pascal and those who first followed him. He established his cafe directly opposite the newly opened Comedie Francaise, in the street then known as the rue des Fosses-St.-Germain, but now the rue de l'Ancienne Comedie. A writer ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... citizens stands in greater need of the humane and thoughtful consideration of all sections of our country than do the colored people, nor does any class exceed us in the measure of grateful regard for acts of kindly interest in our behalf. It is, therefore, to us, a matter of keen regret that a Christian organization, so large and influential as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, should refuse to give its sympathy and support to our oppressed people who ask no further favor than the promotion ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... her eagerness to catch every word, and as the minister proceeded her expression changed from perplexity and doubt to one of deep respect. There were others who followed the thought of the sermon with keen interest. Elder Fox was present, for the first time in weeks. Occasionally, he would write something on a pad, and then lean back to ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... habit, Alvina joined the plumber and her father in the scullery. Arthur Witham saluted her with some respect. She liked his blue eyes and tight figure. He was keen and sly in business, very watchful, and slow to commit himself. Now he poked and peered and crept under the sink. Alvina watched him half disappear—she handed him a candle—and she laughed to herself seeing his tight, well-shaped hind-quarters protruding ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... the net thrown over her by the skilful retiaria. She stood stock-still in mute surprise, with averted eye and deeply blushing cheek, fighting desperately with the confusion she feared to let Angelique detect. But that keen-sighted girl saw too clearly—she had caught her fast as a bird ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... not please him to-night. There was no sunshine on it to-night, and he said to himself that it always needed sunshine. The grey clouds had gathered again, and lay in piled-up masses veiling the west, and the November wind came sweeping over the hills cold and keen. Mr Inglis shivered, and wrapped his coat closely about him, and David touched Don impatiently. The drive had been rather a failure, he thought, and they might as well be getting home. But he had time for a good many troubled thoughts before ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... of what he saw and how he felt is not only a credit to his keen powers of observation, but also a proof of the fact that, in many ways, there was little difference between the Argonaut of 1898 and the most up-to-date submarine of to-day. In ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... to see how things were going—he came as his own spy, that's all. He's a keen and dangerous man. Don't you remember telling me how he called on you yesterday, though you hardly knew him by sight, merely to ask you to persuade Mason to take a holiday? It struck me as a little odd at the time. He was ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... will at another table, whither Mr. Fountain removed him and parchments on pretense of inspecting the leases, listened with hearing preternaturally keen—listened and writhed. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... continuous lay, Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes! Ah! as I listened with a heart forlorn, The pulses of my being beat anew: And even as life returns upon the drowned, Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains— Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart; And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope; And hope that scarce would know itself from fear; Sense of past youth, and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... twenty-third birthday was bright and sunshiny; she had slept well, but awoke with the oppressive consciousness that a terrible hard duty lay before her. When she came down there was a serious look in her eyes which did not escape Raeburn's keen observation. He was down before her, and had been out already, for he had managed somehow to procure a lovely handful of red and white roses ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... of a century he was a sharer in this dramatic movement, working in London as actor, manager, and playwright. While no playwright was more desirous than he to find in the stage full opportunity for his genius, he was as keen as any in gauging the immediate theatrical demand and in meeting the varying conditions of a highly competitive profession. As we have already noted, he began by imitating those who had won success, and to the end he was adroit in taking advantage of a new dramatic fashion ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... Homeric Nestor. Since the conquest of Messenia by the Spartans, the town had remained in ruins, and the country for some distance round was a desert. The natural advantages of the adjacent coast had already caught the keen eye of Demosthenes, and he had formed the plan of raising a fortified outpost on the spot, to be held by a picked troop of the banished Messenians, and thus planting a thorn in the ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... the ravine again, his keen sense having detected the sound of voices inaudible to his companions. Then carefully gathering up the egg shells, so as to leave no traces, he took the bag with the rest of the eggs, and led the way onward at a ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... abandoning his allies at the instigation of the Maid of Orleans. His "betrayal" was followed by riots in London, during which some Flemish and Walloon merchants lost their lives. Considered, however, from the point of view of the period, when diplomacy and politics were not inspired by a particularly keen sense of justice and morality, the duke's decision is easy to explain. Drawn into the English alliance by the traditional policy of Flanders, which always sought support in this country against France, and by the ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... acquisitions Numa now divided amongst the indigent commonalty, wishing to do away with that extreme want which is a compulsion to dishonesty, and, by turning the people to husbandry, to bring them, as well as their lands, into better order. For there is no employment that gives so keen and quick a relish for peace as husbandry and a country life, which leave in men all that kind of courage that makes them ready to fight in defense of their own, while it destroys the license that breaks out into acts of injustice and rapacity. Numa, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... interesting enough simply as a story, but the telling of it is inimitable. One can see before him the devoted, kindly man, somewhat clumsy of speech, as indicated by the rough rhymes, and characteristically drawing his illustrations from the calling he follows. Keen in his critical observation of the Duke and other members of the household, he, nevertheless, has a tender appreciation of the difficulties of the young Duchess in this ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... wits, and once more stretch the line, Philander's keen blade of Damascus steel is pressed against the rope, and as it ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... in, a freshly pulled proof. It depicts with skill the intense expression upon his handsome face, the expression of an artist absolutely absorbed in his work. That is the real Rops. His master quality was intensity. It traversed like a fine keen flame his entire production from seemingly insignificant tail-pieces to his agonised designs, in which luxury ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... was quite alive to the practical. She remarked everything with keen eyes, and determined now to be at the bottom of the business. She should either go in and win triumphantly, or take a sudden tack and sail away with flying colours, as if she had never entertained the most distant intention of coming to close quarters, and thus give the impression that ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... to listen, his senses as keen as a savage's under his strain. One who has not approached danger and uncertainty, listening and straining in the night, cannot conceive the exquisite pitch to which human nerves can be attuned. The body then becomes a tower set with the filaments of wireless telegraphy, each of the ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... good fortune to be a boy long after he reached the years of manhood. This fact is the key to his character and the explanation of his career. His boyishness was not lack of manhood; it was a lingering youthfulness of spirit, a keen susceptibility of impression, an elasticity of mind, a hearty enjoyment of his strong life, a tenderness and freshness of heart, an openness to friend and foe, something of deference to others, and of diffidence, not without understanding of and confidence in his own powers. He was youthful ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... grew Christian, that a prowling wolf should dare so near. He drew his knife and pressed on, more hastily, more keen-eyed. Oh ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... demonstrations which grew every day among a certain set in my class-room, it was easy to see that a trial of strength must soon come, and it seemed to me best to force the fighting. Looking over these obstreperous youths I noticed one tall, black-bearded man with a keen twinkle in his eye, who was evidently the leader. There was nothing in him especially demonstrative. He would occasionally nod in this direction, or wink in that, or smile in the other; but he was solemn when others were hilarious, unconcerned when others applauded. It was soon clear to me that ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... had studied the Bible quite carefully, and could argue against it in the most plausible manner. Courteous and kind to all, few could be offended at his frank avowal of infidel principles, or resent his keen, half-jovial sarcasms upon the peculiarities of some weak-minded, though sincere members of ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... the keen eye of Lord Oldborough had discerned some displeasure lurking in the mind of the Duke of Greenwich—a man of considerable political consequence from his rank and connexions, and from the number of voices he could command or influence. Lord Oldborough ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... her intense love of the country and keen anticipation of the joy to be found at Burnham Beeches, and when the train stopped at Slough the compartment mentioned to her that this was where she ought to alight. Gertie, interposing, said that they were, in reality, going further. On Miss ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... weather. There sat next me in the banquette a young Savoyard, who travelled with us as far as Chamberry, in the heart of the Alps; and on the other side of the Savoyard sat the conducteur. This last was a Piedmontese, a young, clever, obliging fellow, with a voluble tongue, and a keen dark eye in his head. Scarce had we extricated ourselves from the environs of Lyons, or had got beyond the reach of the guns that look so angrily down upon it from the heights, till these two broke into a conversation on politics. The conversation soon warmed into an energetic and vehement ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... and breastplate were of the commonest and plainest description. He seemed to glance with something like contempt at the elegantly fluted and embossed armour the boy was wearing, and, above all, at the gay sash Lady Royland's loving hands had fastened across his breast. But his attention was keen as he scanned the soldierly bearing of Ben and the corporal, and a feeling of envy filled his breast as he compared them with his own rough following. Perhaps he would not have thought so much if he had seen the rest of the garrison, but they ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... for herself. It was from mingled shyness and pride that Ninitta had waited for a summons from the sculptor after she had reached Boston; but when she had at last gone to his studio it was with keen emotion. She had not considered that both herself and her old-time lover had changed in the seven years of separation. She had not reflected that believing her false he could not but have endeavored to forget her. ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... new it looks in his pages! Emerson loves facts, things, objects, as the workman his tools. He makes everything serve. The stress of expression is so great that he bends the most obdurate element to his purpose; as the bird, under her keen necessity, weaves the most contrary and diverse materials into her nest. He seems to like best material that is a little refractory; it makes his page more piquant and stimulating. Within certain limits he loves roughness, but not at the expense of harmony. He has wonderful hardiness and push. Where ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Titanic bloom, The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core, Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or, Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom, And stamened with keen flamelets that illume The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore, A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea— For these alone ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... that she spoke as if she had no realisation of the lives of lesser persons who might possibly wed because they were "mated" as well—not for political reasons or ambition of family. Her keen senses ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... might not be snapped up as so many mouthfuls by the dragon. But as Jason was hastening down the palace steps, the Princess Medea called after him and beckoned him to return. Her black eyes shone upon him with such a keen intelligence that he felt as if there were a serpent peeping out of them, and although she had done him so much service only the night before, he was by no means very certain that she would not do him an equally great mischief before ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... them lying down, but, if in walking along, we'd broken a twig, or made the slightest noise, they'd think it was one of their mortal enemies, a bear creeping on them, and they'd be up and away. Their sense of hearing is very keen, but they're not so quick to see. A fox is like that, too. His eyes ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... drinking are their two delights. The noblest leader is he who builds a great hall, throws it open for his people to carouse in, and liberally deals out beer, and bracelets, and money at the feast. The joy of battle is keen in their breasts. The sea and the storm are welcome to them. They are fearless and greedy pirates, not ashamed of living by the ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... is the author of many poems original in conception and execution. Thomas Bailey Aldrich has written much dainty and musical verse and several successful novels. Will Carleton, the author of "Farm Ballads," displays a keen sympathy for the harder phases of common life. Charles G. Leland, in prose and humorous poetry, is widely read, and known also by his efforts to introduce industrial art into schools. Henry Howard Brownell is the author of "War Lyrics," among the best of their ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... was blackness. I possessed some slight volition of life that contracted in the cold. I was not in any keen suffering; I seemed too low and numbed to sense to the full the unpleasantness of my condition.... Presently there came a dawning light which gradually grew stronger. I did not seem to have eyes, but was conscious ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... in the east now and the lake was stepping into view. Big Jack searched its misty expanse with his keen little eyes. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... there was a gulf, and that an ever-widening one, between them was a fact to which the keen-sighted doctor could not blind himself. He was seeing much of the Brentons, during these winter weeks. Kathryn telephoned to him, almost daily, to consult him about her many ills, real or imaginary, about every ill, in short, to ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... to his horse and rode on, still looking for the bag. His search was thorough and, being a keen-eyed young man, he discovered the place where Lorraine had crouched down by a rock. She must have stayed there all night, for the scuffed soil was dry where her body had rested, and her purse, caught in the juniper bush close by, was sodden ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... side of Mrs. Wolfstein and Lady Holme on the other, between her and Mrs. Trent. Miss Schley was exactly opposite. She kept her eyes eternally cast down like a nun at Benediction. All the quite young men who could see her were looking at her with keen interest, and two or three of them—probably up from Sandhurst—had already assumed expressions calculated to alarm modesty. Others looked mournfully fatuous, as if suddenly a prey to lasting and romantic grief. The older men were more impartial ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... truth dawned upon it. But it was a hollow laugh, ill-concealing prevalent feeling of vexation and shame-facedness. Turned with affectation of keen interest to question raised by MUNDELLA of iniquities of Education Department in connection with School Supply of York and Salisbury. But could not keep the thing up. Even rousing eloquence of HART DYKE, on his defence, fell flat. Ever rose before ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... believes that the white man should rule not so long as he is white but so long as he can prove his superiority. "The black man," says he, "will only respect the rule of the white man as long as the latter can prove his superiority, and consequently, reasonableness." The natives have such a keen sense of justice that they are not blinded by hypocrisy. The writer believes that neither the white man nor his religion must rule because they are white and not black. The administrators, too, must not rule for themselves but ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... desert hardening; he must have felt more remote from and above the children than he did to their parents, his contemporaries who had come with him from Egypt, and so his disappointment must have been proportionately keen, when the first difficulty that rose revealed the old spirit in undiminished force. For forty years he had been patient, and ready to swallow mortifications and ignore rebellion against himself, and to offer himself for his people; but now, when men whom he had seen ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... proper self. It is to be no subject of humiliation to us, or of grief, that when the prospect of acute suffering is before us; or, still more, when called to endure it, we give many tokens of a keen sensibility; so it be that at the same time we remain unshaken in our principles, and ready to ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... had a most beautiful wife, and amorous withal, her name Monna Tessa. Daughter she was of Mannuccio dalla Cuculla, and not a little knowing and keen-witted; and being enamoured of Federigo di Neri Pegolotti, a handsome and lusty gallant, as he also of her, she, knowing her husband's simplicity, took counsel with her maid, and arranged that Federigo should come to chat with her at a right goodly ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... a keen and extreme Ultramontanist, born at Chambery, of a noble French family; accompanied the king of Sardinia in his retreat while the French occupied Savoy in 1792; was ambassador at St. Petersburg from ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... a very keen odour, such as we should expect to give an unmistakable warning to the senses of the consumer? By no means. To our own sense of smell it is a neutral sort of object, with no appreciable scent whatever. A little pebble taken from the soil would ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... small, keen, determined, ugly artist, swift and sudden as lightning, struck through all the hesitations, the consultations, the maunderings, the doubts, and the delays of the two authorities who had the matter in hand, the Signoria and the Operai, as who should say the working committee, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... at Lonely Farm showed a hardened disregard of her state. She persisted and grew sturdy and lovely in defiance of tradition and conditions. She was as keen-witted and original as she was independent and charming. Still Theodora took long before she capitulated, and Nathaniel never succumbed. Indeed, as years passed he grew to fear and dislike his young daughter. The little creature, ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... resemblance to much of Montaigne's writings than any other portion of the plays of the great dramatist which we at present remember, though it would doubtless be easy to trace many apparent transferences from the Frenchman into the Englishman's works, as both were keen and many-sided observers in the same age and neighbouring countries. But Hamlet was in those days no popular type of character; nor were Montaigne's views and tone familiar to men till he himself ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... a keen sense of wickedness as we mounted the steps in the yellow flare of the flaming arc-light on the Broadway corner not far below us. A heavy, grated door swung open at the practised signal of my friend, and an obsequious negro servant stood ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... own way; for when he found that I remained silent he took up the talk himself again, and went on to show in detail the profits of a single venture with a live cargo—and his figures were certainly big enough to fire the fancy of any man who was keen for money-getting and who was willing to get his money by rotten ways. And then, when he had finished with this part of the matter, he came out plumply with the offer to give me a mate's rating on board the brig if I would cast in my fortunes with his. Of the theory ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... times, had proved this beyond all cavil. With almost any other people than the Americans civil war would have come already. With all the vast future interests that were involved in these quarrels looming up before their keen, sagacious minds, it was a wonder that they had been kept from coming to blows. Such self-restraint had been greatly to their credit. It was the blessed fruit of more than a century of government by free discussion, while yet these states were colonies, peopled by the very cream of ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... Left-handed concealed under his garments a keen dagger, and joined himself to the Benjamite deputies who were to carry their dues to the Moabite sovereign. The money having been paid, the deputies turned homewards, but when they reached the cromlech of Gilgal,* and were safe beyond the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... was fine with a faint Aurora Borealis. Next day the wind was so keen that the men proposed conveying me in a sledge that I might be the less exposed, to which after some hesitation I consented. Accordingly a reindeer skin and a blanket were laid along the sledge and in these ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... bacon on to fry, and pieces of the fish, cut thin with a keen hunting-knife. The coffee, poured from the bottle into a tin dipper, they set near the blaze, on some brands. They they gazed out upon the drizzle, as the ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... dovecote—the illusion of the vertiginously "balanced" eagle's nest. The air, in truth, all the rest of that splendid day, must have been the key to the promptly-produced intensity of one's relation to every aspect of the charming episode; the light, cool, keen air of those delightful high places, in Italy, that tonically correct the ardours of July, and which at our actual altitude could but affect me as the very breath of the grand local legend. I might have "had" the little house, our particular eagle's nest, for the summer, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... cougars, and made the forest ring with their whoops.... The slaughter became terrible. Men fell like wheat before the scythe. At one time the Indians ceased firing; ... they seemed to be holding a 'pow-wow'; but the keen and fearless Wyman crept up among the bushes, shot the chief conjurer, and broke up the meeting. About the middle of the afternoon young Fry received a mortal wound. Unable to fight longer, he lay in his blood, praying ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... its victim, its withdrawal is impossible, on account of the reflexed barb. Any sharp steel shaft will answer the purpose of the harpoon; it should be eight or ten inches in length, and filed to a keen point. We will now construct the trap. The first requisite is a straight section of the branch of some tree. This should be about four inches in diameter, and four feet in length. Into one end of this beam the harpoon should be firmly ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... then returned to its usual course, though every one would remain for a long time yet under the effects of such a keen ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... of tense excitement, for the fate of all hung in the balance. Since the tenure of their homes was at the mercy of the new Laird, his ideas and disposition were of vital importance in their lives, and they were keen to see him and find out for themselves what manner of person he might be. Mr. Crumpet was looking very glum. He took a morose view of life at best, and the ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... And before the host marched, the Captains came to the Wanderer, according to the command of Pharaoh, and placing their hands in his, swore to do his bidding on the march and in the battle. They brought him the great black bow of Eurytus, and his keen sword of bronze, Euryalus' gift, and many a sheaf of arrows, and his heart rejoiced when he saw the goodly weapon. He took the bow and tried it, and as he drew the string, once again and for the last time it sang shrilly of death to be. The Captains heard the Song of the Bow, though what it said ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... exceedingly keen," said I, "and though only a coward will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the right to rely on them—even in ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... range, and looking on it, Owen knew it for the gorge of his dream. Night and day the mouth of it was guarded by a company of armed soldiers, whose huts were built high on outlook places in the mountains, whence their keen eyes could scan the vast expanses of plain. A full day before it reached them, they had seen the white-capped waggon crawling across the veldt, and swift runners had reported its advent to the ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... Ware drew up, after the mountain custom, to exchange greetings. As the others drew nearer, Bob recognized in one the slanting eyeglasses, the close-lipped, gray moustache and the keen, cold features of Oldham. Ware nodded at the other man, who ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... is great excitement in the neighbourhood about poachers. The men are going out to-night to see if they can see anything of them. Mackenzie asked me to join them, but I'm getting too old for that sort of thing. Mackenzie isn't going himself, but I could see he was pretty keen about it. Of course these fellows are a nuisance, and perhaps if I preserved I should feel differently, but I must confess to a sneaking sympathy with them as it is. Don't you tell Forester or Morison, Miss Marjory." And the ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... strange and discordant colors. The steeps were rent into deep chasms and gulfs, from which issued white sulphurous smoke, that rose and hung in fantastic wreaths about the horrid crags; thence springing over the edge of the crater, seemed to dissipate in the clear keen air. I was somewhat surprised to perceive several sheets of snow lying at the very bottom of the crater, a proof that the internal fires were in a deep slumber. The edge of the crater was a mere ridge of scoriae and ashes, varying in height; and it required some care, in places, to avoid falling ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... afterwards I took it out, from curiosity, and then I discovered that the moisture between the two glasses had been quite dried up, and that I could see very clearly through it, and after a little practice I could use it as well as anybody else. Still I seldom did use it, as my eyesight was particularly keen, and I did not require it; and as for any vessel coming off the island, I had gradually given up all thoughts of it. It was one evening when the weather was very rough and the sea much agitated, that I thought I saw something unusual on the water, about four miles distant. I supposed at first ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... never before exercised on these subjects, were singularly keen. Neither of the young men had spoken a word of love to her, yet she intuitively knew that they were both under her spell. The young girl so stupid at her books, who could never learn arithmetic and found history a bore, had a deeper intelligence in the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... looking at nothing very long; and when Rhoda (one of the neophytes), full of sympathy at the appearance of the wild, forlorn, unkempt trio, sat herself down on a sofa and gathered them about a wonderful picture-book, Mistress Mary's keen eyes saw that Lisa's gaze wandered in a few minutes. Presently she crept over the floor towards a table, and, taking a string from it, began to blow it to and fro as it hung from her fingers. Rhoda's glance followed Mary's; but it was only a ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fastest runner, started on a keen run for the Adams Express Office and reported to me that the Maroney family were under way for New York. Bangs was in New York, so I telegraphed to him, informing him of their departure for that city. He immediately found Mr. Seward and had everything ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... within a reasonable time to agree to the alternative which has been offered you, never shall you emerge from the darkness and the silence again. Nor shall you know at what minute the hand will reach out through the darkness and the silence with the keen dagger that shall rob you of your last chance to win again the warmth and the freedom and joyousness of the ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wallowing in the mud of Paris, the "great musicians" making night hideous in German concert-halls, the "great painters" of various countries mixing their colors with as much filth as the police will allow. His keen thrusts at these incarnations of folly and obscenity in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and especially at those who seek to hide the poverty of their ideas in the obscurity of their phrases, encourage ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... spread: 10 The royal game of goose was there in view, And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew; The seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place, And brave prince William show'd his lamp-black face: The morn was cold, he views with keen desire 15 The rusty grate unconscious of a fire; With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scor'd, And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board; A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, A cap by night—a stocking ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the post, Lieutenant Baldwin, who had fallen back a little, called to us, "Put your horses to their best pace—a sand storm is coming!" Then we knew there was a possibility of much danger, for Lieutenant Baldwin is known to be a keen observer, and our confidence in his judgment was great, so, without once looking back to see what was coming after us, Lieutenant Alden and I started our horses on ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... just to thank you for your kindness towards me, and to assure you that my head will not be turned by what I well know was a mainly accidental success. Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... with an enormous leek, and a countenance keen and lofty as his native mountains, establishes the chronology, and fixes the day to be the first of March; which being sacred to the titular saint of ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the perfume you use," went on the baronet relentlessly. "I have a remarkably keen sense of smell, and, as scent is a most powerful aid to memory, I speedily recollected that you used this especial perfume. You told me a few moments ago that no one else used it, and so you have proved ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... she studied the drawings more closely. She was something of an artist herself, and had a cultivated taste; and a keen interest in the orphan girl who had a talent like this, and could not be allowed to draw, ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... whispered, and started at the strangeness of her voice. She opened the window softly and looked out. The night was cold and, calm again, and the keen stars twinkled. She ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... act of this drama. He began with really masterly moves, speedily placing his wary adversary at the saddest disadvantage. But, having attained this height, his power seemed to pass away as from an over-tasked mind. With twice the weight of arm, and as keen a blade, he appeared quite unable to parry a single lunge of Lee's, quite unable to thrust himself. He allowed his corps commanders to be beaten in detail, with no apparent effort to aid them from his abundant resources, the while his opponent was demanding from every man in his ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... day. At least, the Blue Juniata warriors of our time, from Little Crow, Red Iron, Standing Buffalo, Hole-in-the-Day and Sitting Bull, to Victoria, Colorow, Douglas, Persume, Captain Jack and Shavano, seem to do better as lobbyists than they do as orators. They may be keen, logical and shrewd, but they are not eloquent. In some minds, Black Hawk will ever appear as the Patrick Henry of his people; but I prefer to honor his unknown, unhonored and unsung amanuensis. Think what a godsend such a man would ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... But they also disclose themselves simultaneously in places and people where there has been no point of contact. Even before Synge published his proofs of the keen poetry in everyday life, Kipling was illuminating, in a totally different manner, the wealth of poetic material in things hitherto regarded as too commonplace for poetry. Before literary England had quite recovered from its surfeit of ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... grasp of military strategy, and his keen understanding of the specific problems confronting the Army of the Potomac in the critical autumn of 1862, are well indicated in the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... William Chesney & Company was Duncan Fraser, a Scotsman, whose whole life had been spent in England, the bulk of it with Chesney. An upright, honorable, keen man of business, Duncan Fraser was a tower of strength in the firm. Force of character was stamped on him; he was unyielding when he felt he was in the right, and many tussles William Chesney had with him about fresh moves connected with new departments in the company's procedure. ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... Feeling a thrill of keen curiosity, she followed the man through a prettily-decorated vestibule, and so into a large room, overlooking the lake, where already a crowd of people were gathered round the green ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... you noticed suthin' the first day you looked over the school with Martin. 'Dad,' sez Cress to me, 'that new teacher's very peart; and he's that keen about noticin' me and Seth that I reckon you'd better giv out that we're engaged.' 'But are you?' sez I. 'It'll come to that in the end,' sez Cress, 'and if that yer teacher hez come here with Northern ideas o' society, it's just ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... has been tested on a commercial basis and apparently should be considered as one of the most efficient ways to produce nut trees quickly and cheaply in large quantities. Greenhouse and storage facilities are required and keen expert attention must be given the newly-made grafts ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... his travels in this and in other countries brought him in contact with men of every rank; and it is safe to say that the more competent those who knew him were to judge, the more highly was he valued by them. A close observer, with a keen sense of humor and unfailing tact, fond of personal anecdote, and with a mind stored with recollections from association with every grade of society, he was a most engaging companion. The charm of his manner was not conventional, nor due to intercourse with refined ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... flashes between the gloom of the jungle. Once I had seen him, I could follow with ease his sinuous path among the tangled bamboos, a waving line of beauty in perpetual motion. The Maharajah followed him too, with his keen eyes, and pointed his rifle hastily. But, quick as he was, Lord Southminster was before him. I had half expected to find the pea-green young man turn coward at the last moment; but in that I was mistaken: I will do him the justice to say, whatever else he was, he was a born sportsman. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... but by the most practised vision. And as a delicate ear rejoices in the slighter and more modulated passages of sound which to a blunt ear are utterly monotonous in their quietness, or unintelligible in their complication, so, when the eye is exquisitely keen and clear, it is fain to rest on grey films of shade, and wandering rays of light, and intricacies of tender form, passing over hastily, as unworthy or commonplace, what to a less educated sense appears the whole of the ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... that they would let us eat our dinner with comfort. My lord, I hoped, would come in with a keen appetite, and Nelthorpe should get a supper for him that ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... crossing a pretty drawing-room, now running upstairs to her room, now dressing, possibly in white muslin, which, if Trenholme had the choosing of it, would be powdered with tiny fleurs de lys, now arranging her hair with keen eye for effect, and now tripping down again in obedience to a gong summoning the household ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... orifice, a line in diameter, into which a probe could be passed, alone represents the external meatus." In the dried museum specimen this slit is wholly invisible, and even in the live or freshly killed animal it is by no means readily apparent. Keen observer of natural objects, as savage and barbaric man certainly is, it is going too far to suppose him capable of representing an earless animal—earless at least so far as the purposes of sculpture are concerned—with prominent ears. If, then, it can be assumed that these sculptures ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... with Spanish beef as we are now provided with French flour. Meat is at present dear, and is likely to continue so for some time; but still it is evident that, sooner or later, the British feeders will come into keen competition with the foreign producer of meat, and that the price of their commodity will consequently fall. The mere probability of such a state of things, were there no other reason, should induce the feeder to devote increased attention to the improvement of his stock, and ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... the scene of a crime to record his first impressions immediately, taking careful note of every fact and detail in the picture that seemed to have the slightest bearing on the case. These he would dictate rapidly to his secretary, walking back and forth, searching everywhere with keen eyes and trained intelligence, especially for signs of violence, a broken window, an overturned table, a weapon, and noting all suspicious stains—mud stains, blood stains, the print of a foot, the smear of a hand and, of course, describing carefully the appearance of a victim's ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... must be sensitised to these differences. No one can tell stories well who has not a keen and just feeling of ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... marry again. He had a vague thought at first of retrenching his expenditure, and making young Randal Leslie his heir. But when he first saw the clever Eton boy, his feelings did not warm to him, though his intellect appreciated Randal's quick, keen talents. He contented himself with resolving to push the boy,—to do what was merely just to the distant kinsman of his late wife. Always careless and lavish in money matters, generous and princely, not from the delight of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dined one day with a lady, who the whole time she employ'd her knife and fork with incredible swiftness in dispatching a load of turkey and chine she had heap'd upon her plate, still kept a keen regard on what she had left behind, greedily devouring with her eyes all that remain'd in the dish, and throwing a look of envy on every one who put in for the smallest share.—My advice to such a one is, that she would have ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... he lay there he was hers. It was passing sweet to her woman's nature to place her hand upon him and see him sleep, for this desire to watch the sleep of a beloved object is one of the highest and strangest manifestations of passion. Truly, and with a keen insight into the human heart, has the poet said that there is no joy like the joy of a woman watching what she loves asleep. As Jess sat and gazed those beautiful and tender lines came floating to her mind, and she thought how ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... she broke the sapling she held in her hand, and flung it into the road Margaret of Anjou, bestowing on her triumphant foes her keen-edged malediction, could not have turned from them with a gesture more proudly contemptuous. The Laird was clearing his voice to speak, and thrusting his hand in his pocket to find a half-crown; the gipsy waited neither for his ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... degree of clearness and precision second only to the facial expression of man himself. In fact, the face of an intelligent chimpanzee or orang-utan is a fairly constant index of the state of mind of the individual. In their turn, those enormously expansive lips and keen brown eyes express contentment, doubt, fear and terror; affection, disapproval, jealousy, anger, rage; hunger and satiety; ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... an invitation for lunch or dinner after which you are going to a game, or any sort of performance, you must not be late! Nothing is more unfair to others who are keen about whatever it is you are going to see, than to make them miss the beginning of a performance through your ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... John waited and allowed it to settle until the hooks were flat on the bottom on the farther side of the pool. He looked down on the water and saw the silvery mass divided in two sections, as though the line had cut it. The keen eyes of the fish, heedless as they usually are in the spring run, had now grown more suspicious, and they settled apart as the line came across them, visible against the sky as ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... tossing their white plumes on high, came marching majestically in, to trip, topple and fall, one after the other, in roaring, hissing Niagaras upon the shore. Over their raveled crests the gulls dipped and soared. The air was clear, the breeze keen and refreshing and the salty smell of the torn seaweed rose to the nostrils ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of philosophers had hardly begun their meetings at Gresham College when they found themselves objects of a general interest. Science suddenly became the fashion of the day. Charles the Second was himself a fair chymist, and took a keen interest in the problems of navigation. The Duke of Buckingham varied his freaks of rhyming, drinking, and fiddling by fits of devotion to his laboratory. Poets like Dryden and Cowley, courtiers like Sir Robert Murray and ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... preaching, and organising of the converts and the hearers. But how shall we divide them? The best plan seems to be to put each man into that category in which he spends most of his time, and in cases of doubt to use fractions, e.g. a doctor may be as keen an evangelist and may preach and strive to convert his patients as eagerly as his colleague who is called an evangelistic missionary. An evangelistic missionary is perhaps a doctor by training or experience, and heals the sick as eagerly as his colleague who is called a ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... by them, of more through their authority. By how much the more welcome then the heart of Victorinus was esteemed, which the devil had held as an impregnable possession, the tongue of Victorinus, with which mighty and keen weapon he had slain many; so much the more abundantly ought Thy sons to rejoice, for that our King hath bound the strong man, and they saw his vessels taken from him and cleansed, and made meet for Thy honour; and become serviceable for the Lord, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine |
