"Keenness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... convict just discharged from prison after a ten years' term—that she took on a stiffness of deportment quite in keeping with the idea that she was a female Rip Van Winkle not yet quite awake. But Jennie had the keenness to see that if Mrs. Irwin could have had an up-to-date costume she would have become a rather ordinary and not bad-looking old lady. What Jennie failed to divine was that if Jim could have invested a hundred dollars in the services of tailors, haberdashers, barbers ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... your gentlemanly white hands, if that's what's worrying you," grinned Carmachel, reading his thoughts with disconcerting keenness. ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... thought I exaggerated that foreign English of hers; but, as I said, I was new to it and noticed it. He admitted the greater keenness of attention ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that his intended action is such as would be ordered by the commander, were the latter present and in possession of the facts, has enough encouragement to go ahead confidently. He must possess the loyalty to carry out the plans of his superior and the keenness to recognize and to seize opportunities to further the general ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... quickness of wit and change, appeals to them more than any other. They make clever actors, barristers, and a certain class of public speakers, also diplomatists, stock brokers, company promoters, or inventors of new methods in business. In all careers that require keenness of brain, they can attain success, provided they have developed a sufficient amount of will power and continuity of purpose to stick long enough ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... placed, and feeling themselves helpless, isolated by the fog, and entirely at these men's mercy, might have lost their firmness. But he did not; nor did Bale, though the servant's face betrayed the keenness of his anxiety. They weighed indeed, certainly the former, the chances of escape: such chances as a headlong rush into the fog might afford to unarmed men, uncertain where they were. But the Colonel reflected that it was ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... manhood which you have lost in your insane pursuit of wretched book fancies. The treatment requires only three weeks' time. You take one of these boluses just before each meal and one before going to bed. In about three days you become aware that your olfactories are losing that keenness of function which has enabled you to nose out old books and to determine the age thereof merely by sniffing at the binding. In a week distaste for book-hunting is exhibited, and this increases until at the end of ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... theme of my discourse, which, under the symbol of the hotel room, was merely that we should perhaps appreciate more if we were offered less to appreciate. Apropos of this, I have long been struck by the case of a dear Italian friend of mine, whose keenness of perception and grip of judgment and unexpectedness of fancy is almost in inverse proportion to her knowledge of books or opportunity of travel. An invalid, cut off from much reading, and limited to monotonous ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... be aroused in the mind of Robert Audley, first as to the real identity of Lady Audley; and second, as to the fate of his friend. He brought into play all the keenness of his intellect, and abandoned his lazy habits. He went to Southampton, saw Captain Maldon, who told him that George Talboys had arrived the morning before at one o'clock to have a look at his boy before sailing for Australia. On inquiry at Liverpool, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... a lovely autumn day, the sun glorious as ever in the memory of Abraham, or the author of Job, or the builder of the scaled pyramid at Sakkara. But there was a keenness in the air notwithstanding, which made Letty feel a little sad without knowing why, as she seated herself to the task Cousin Godfrey had set her. She, as well as his mother, heartily wished he were home. She was ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... a long drive to the meet. Sitting in an open boat at 4 A.M. on a dark winter's morning, with perhaps a head wind and four miles of a choppy sea to battle against, required a considerable amount of endurance and keenness, but we did it all right. It used to strike me as an odd circumstance in those days that the Tommies who manned the boat were so pleasant over the job. They were not going to hunt. They were not out ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... them. Think of Helen Keller as a famous example of this joy in work under the most adverse circumstances. What could be greater than her handicap? Shut away from the world by deaf ears and blind eyes and, for a while, by inability to speak, she has nevertheless shown a keenness of pleasure and intellectual acquisition that shames us who have all our senses in their fullness. Think of her patient, unremitting delving, of the digging up, up, up to get to the light which most human beings are privileged to enjoy with no effort at all! The mind that accepts this wealth with ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... simple keenness which is a rarity in Venice. He rejoices in his church and in your pleasure in it. He displays first the Bellini—a Madonna with the strong protective Bellini hands about the child, above them bodiless cherubim flying, and on the right a delectable city ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... steamer Speedwell made her appearance round the promontory by Knollsea Bay, to take in passengers for the transit to Cherbourg. Breezes the freshest that could blow without verging on keenness flew over the quivering deeps and shallows; and the sunbeams pierced every detail of barrow, path and rabbit-run upon the lofty convexity of down and waste which shut in Knollsea from the world to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... seemed to him to threaten a change in the relations of Canada to the empire. But these explanations do not alter the fact that his attitude caused the Liberal party to lose touch with a movement characterized by intellectual keenness and generosity of sentiment, representing a real though ill-defined national impulse, and destined to leave its mark upon ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... still hear and see and smell with all the keenness of a young animal or a savage. And that must have made his sense of being alive very much more vivid than is ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... assume that your design was in some way to compare what remained of the two apples—although I do not presume to fathom the depths of your detective system. Still, I have heard of many of your cases, and profoundly admire the keenness you exhibit. I am thought to be a keen man myself, but, although I was able, to some extent, to hold my own to-night, I admit that your acumen in this case ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... existence. As to the Captain, I was struck on closer view by the perfect correctness of his personality. Clothes, slight figure, clear-cut, thin, sun-tanned face, pose, all this was so good that it was saved from the danger of banality only by the mobile black eyes of a keenness that one doesn't meet every day in the south of France and still less in Italy. Another thing was that, viewed as an officer in mufti, he did not look sufficiently professional. That imperfection was ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... Keenness, the very life and soul of all Cavalry action, can only grow where the troops believe themselves fully equal to all eventualities. The idea, therefore, that Cavalry, even when dismounted, is not equal to any Infantry, must never be allowed to show its head; rather, the men must be ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... so familiar an attitude toward him—this was the judge's "ministerial" friend! Yet, had there not been mention of "ritualistic work" and "Early Christians" in his conversation? And this woman of whom he spoke,—it took no great keenness of perception to see that the "strawberry blonde" must be the "child of six or eight years" whom he had called "Daisy," and sometimes "Strawberry!" Here was confirmation of Alvord's suspicion, if his allusion to the violation of an "obligation" expressed ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... no thorns to prod, Nor boulders lurking 'neath the clod To turn the keenness of the share, For flight is ever free and rare; But heroes they the soil who 've ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... laugh and song of class-mates had so oft resounded to vex with mirth the drowsy ear of night—and tutors. I thought then, as I have often thought since, that our student-life must be 'the golden prime' compared with which all coming time would be as silver, brass, or iron. Here youth with its keenness of enjoyment and generous heartiness; freedom from care, smooth-browed and mirthful; liberal studies refining and elevating withal; the Numbers, whose ready sympathy had divided sorrow and multiplied joy, were associated as they never could be again; and so I doubt not many a one has felt as he stood ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... launching of this primitive spear that he easily brought down birds and small game. When he reached his twelfth year, his father bought him a rifle; and he soon became a crack shot. A year later we find him setting off on the autumn hunt—after driving the cattle in for the winter-with all the keenness and courage of a man twice his thirteen years. His rifle enabled him to return with meat for the family and skins to be traded in Philadelphia. When he was fourteen his brother Sam married Sarah Day, an intelligent young Quakeress who took a special interest in her ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... and sweet tempered. One girl in a family of six brothers, she had learned a freemasonry of living, and had not the sensitiveness and introspection that troubles so many young girls. Her mother was dead, yet she and her father had been such intimate friends that she had not felt the keenness of her loss as she must have under ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... upon Ellington's ear in his blank mood, it sounded friendly and pleasant to a strange degree. He wanted to hear the voice again. He rested for a brief space—not long enough to make the interval seem awkward—and glanced swiftly at the girl whom he had aided. His faculties did not rise readily into keenness after his recent hour of lethargy, but he saw in an indefinite way that she was tall, and the elastic pose of her figure as she prepared to pass by him gave him somehow an impression of power. After an instant of hesitation he met the clear look of a pair of brown eyes, and he felt ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... of "Natural Selection," such are the more remarkable facts which it is potent to explain, and such is the reception it has met with in the world. A few words now as to the reasons for the very widespread interest it has awakened, and the keenness with which the theory has ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... answer revealed a keenness which, in the course of a few days, engendered in Mr. Cluyme as lusty a respect as he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... period after Wellington's death, the nation once more found itself drawn into a European war, there were many whose regret for his removal was quickened into greater keenness. "Had we but the Duke to lead our armies!" was the common cry; but even his military genius might have found itself disastrously fettered, had he occupied the position which his ancient subordinate and comrade, Lord Raglan, was made to assume. It ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... was pleasant to go over his remarkable adventures, but it could not have been half as pleasant as it was to hear them, told as they were with a keenness of description and brilliancy of humorous comment that made them gems ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... was over, and felt a sudden assurance in the success of his enterprise. For at first it had been a reckless determination to achieve something at any cost, and now it resolved itself into an adventure worthy of all his reason and cunning, and keenness of eye and ear. ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... powerful but regular movement. All about him had become alive. Vitality, like the vitality of youth upon mountain tops, pulsed and whirled about them, pouring into them the currents of a rushing glorious life, undiluted, straight from the source. In his little person he felt both the keenness of sharp steel and the vast momentum of a whole ocean. Thus he describes it. And the more clearly he uttered in his thoughts the sound given to him by his leader, the greater seemed the influx of strength and glory into ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... again and again and he concluded that he must rely upon his superior keenness of ear. He could hear Haskell, but Haskell could not hear him, and there was Providence once more taking him into favor. Summer clouds began to drift before the moon, and many of the stars were veiled. ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... admitted the predominance of Gaston, but with a professional keenness of eye began to point out minor points in which the baby "favoured" ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... Oceanus, and thus of immortal parentage, are bound to possess organs of more than mortal keenness; but, as you say, the song was not so bad—erudite, as well as prettily conceived—and, saving for a certain rustical simplicity and monosyllabic baldness, smacks rather of the forests of Castaly than those ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... but as he looked them up and down the sick man's eyes took on a new keenness and a low, throaty laugh that was half a ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... in love with her host; but she could hardly make this declaration—even in the strictest confidence—to Acton himself. It gave her, nevertheless, a pleasure that had some of the charm of unwontedness to feel, with that admirable keenness with which she was capable of feeling things, that he had a disposition without any edges; that even his humorous irony always expanded toward the point. One's impression of his honesty was almost like carrying a bunch ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... on the most interesting subjects of the time, religious, or political; in which the titles of the books or pamphlets prefixed furnish only the name and occasion of the disquisition. I do not arraign the keenness, or asperity of its damnatory style, in and for itself, as long as the author is addressed or treated as the mere impersonation of the work then under trial. I have no quarrel with them on this account, as long as no personal allusions are admitted, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... no cause to fear her keenness or her coldness admired her beauty; nor could the famous Parisian model whom Clive said she resembled be more perfect in form than this young lady. Her hair and eyebrows were jet black, but her complexion was dazzlingly fair and her cheeks as red as those belonging ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... turned, took from the hand of a horseman a long, curved blade of razor-keenness and with a heavy back. The Master glanced significantly at Brodeur, who knelt by the switchboard with one steady hand on a brass lever, the other on the control ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... had an inordinate vanity, and, like most of his sort, he possessed an almost startling keenness of intelligence in some respects, as contrasted with his foolishness in others. Moreover, he had been disciplined by poverty, and had always lived among working people and, for a long time, about the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... sharpened to painful keenness, Ellen sought in Alice's face for the tokens of what she wished and what she feared. It had once or twice lately flitted through her mind that Alice was very thin, and seemed to want her old strength, whether in riding, or walking, or any other exertion; ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... ourselves to be delighted by the keenness of Clarendon's observations, and by the sober majesty of his style, till we forget the oppressor and the bigot in the historian."—Macaulay, Essays, vol. ii. ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... treat of recent events. In such a case, the historian whose mind is not so warped by sympathies and antipathies as to make him utterly incompetent to his task must possess a rare impartiality of judgment and extraordinary keenness of insight, all assisted by candid and painful research. To what extent these qualities are united in Mr. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... consciousness that his ideas for her had failed. That hour before his funeral, when she sat beside him alone, stood out as among the very vivid moments of her life. The tragedy of his life seemed that he had failed in impressing himself. His keenness of mind had not made for bigness. Life had left an aggressiveness, a certain sullenness in the lines of his face. His mind and his soul had never found one another—was it because his heart had closed ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... and endeavoured to shew the necessity of such characters being introduced in order to be exposed, and laughed at. To all their defences Mr. Collier replied, and managed the point with so much learning, wit, and keenness, that in the opinion of many, he had the better of his antagonists, especially Mr. Congrove, whose comedies it must be owned, though they are admirably written, and the characters strongly marked, are so loose, that they have given great offence: and surely we pay too dear for ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... small, pestilent, lagoon sharks were swimming about and played havoc with our lines. These torments are from two to four feet in length, and their mouths, which are quite out of proportion to their insignificant size, are set with rows of teeth of razor-like keenness. The moment a baited hook was seen one of these little wretches would dart at it like lightning, and generally bit the line through just above the hook. So quick were they, that one could seldom even feel a tug unless the hook got fast ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... his friend were not insensible to the picture. They were remarking upon it when the old man came into their midst. There was something more of keenness and brightness in his mien than was common to him; some influence, either of the healing summer or of inward joy, seemed to have made the avenues ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... pleasure point of view) enjoy it as much as if your life consisted of duties, and your pleasures came by the way. But there is a deeper reason why a life of amusement fails to amuse. It is not only that we are so made that nearly all our sensations of pleasure depend on novelty, the keenness wearing off if a ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... the green lanes, along which they had passed the day before, Archie looked right and left, recalling the incidents of that earlier drive. Already he was better, possessing his sorrow with greater keenness and fulness than at first, but not so miserably possessed by it. Hardly a word was spoken till they stood on the platform and a far-off puff of white showed the coming train. Then he said, "I shall never forget your kindness, Mr. Hardwicke. If ever there's anything ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... culpable to have inspired a passion in a young girl whom he would have been a fool, almost a criminal, to marry? Did he comprehend that through his age which was so apparent, it was his youth which this child loved? Did he remember, with a keenness that was all too sad, that other, who had never given him a kiss like that at a time when he might have returned it? I only know that he left the same day, determined never again to see one whom he could no longer love as he had loved the other, with ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... which the spears were thrown was not less remarkable than the dexterity which with they were avoided. In nearly every case the person thrown at would, apparently, have been struck had he stood still, but, his keenness of sight enabled him to escape by springing aside as required, variously inclining the body, or sometimes merely lifting up a leg to allow the spear to pass by, and had two been thrown at one person at the same moment he could scarcely ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... ascetic face, dark hair, and astonishingly quick glittering black eyes. He stood just within the office door, to which he must have come without a sound, looking at me with a mechanical smile of inquiry, while his eyes searched me with a portentous keenness. ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... Alexander Stevens, long known and long respected; a man universally acknowledged of infinite wit and most excellent fancy; one who gave peculiar grace to the jest, and could set the table in a roar with flashes of merriment: but wit and humour were not his only excellencies; he possessed a keenness of satire, that made Folly hide her head in the highest places, and Vice tremble in the bosoms of the great: but now, blessed with that affluence which genius and prudence are sure to acquire in England, the liberal ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... which he found on arriving, this place was once christened by a well-known cricketer Bourton-on-the-Bog. Indeed, it is often a case of Bourton-under-the-Water; but, in spite of a soft pitch, there is great keenness and plenty of good-tempered rivalry about these matches. Bourton is a truly delightful village. The Windrush, like the Coln at Bibury, runs for some distance ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... mournful consolation, for in every thought and act of the whole work, the memory of Marian was so intimately woven, that her loss was felt with double keenness. Every effort was doubly difficult; every obstacle was doubly great; every discouragement doubly hopeless, because she was not there with her very presence inspiring hope and energy—and every success was robbed of its joy, because ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... struggled a wild look. Her gaze became fixed upon his face, so strangely altered. In her present high-wrought state all her senses were excited to their intensest keenness. ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... pleasant library, a neighbourhood not too dull, the peasants reasonably honest; and to prevent you from growing callous in the midst of such unbroken satisfaction, your companion, suffering and smiling, full of life and keenness, poor thing, in her arm-chair, delighted to listen, when you came in from a ride and read her a good sonnet, genuine poetry, fresh from nature, which you had pencilled on your saddle, or lying flat ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... only plays in this way which have attained any great reputation. George Barnwell is remarkable from having been praised by Diderot and Lessing, as a model for imitation. This error could only have escaped from Lessing in the keenness of his hostility to the French conventional tone. For in truth it is necessary to keep Lillo's honest views constantly in mind, to prevent us from finding George Barnwell as laughable as it is certainly trivial. Whoever possesses so little, or rather, no knowledge ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... whether or no the angels came down to her in glittering armour, she struck her as the only person she had yet encountered who had exactly the same tenderness, the same pity, for women that she herself had. Miss Birdseye had something of it, but Miss Birdseye wanted passion, wanted keenness, was capable of the weakest concessions. Mrs. Farrinder was not weak, of course, and she brought a great intellect to the matter; but she was not personal enough—she was too abstract. Verena was not abstract; she ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... spite of himself, some hint of keenness was betrayed in the voice he was so studious to keep indifferent, for this time Flora gave question for question, suspiciously: "Why does all ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a great need for Gibbies. Evil language and coarse behaviour alike passed over him, without leaving the smallest stain upon heart or conscience, desire or will. No one could doubt it who considered the clarity of his face and eyes, in which the occasional but not frequent expression of keenness and promptitude scarcely even ruffled the prevailing look of ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... outfit and the everyday dress of a stevedore, while my hair appeared as if recently dressed with a currant bush. Captain Paul was equally unpresentable in fastidious parlors, but whatever our apparel it did not diminish the keenness of our appetites. The dinner was good, and the diners were hungry and happy. Fashion is wholly rejected on the Siberian road, and each one makes his toilet without regard ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... to mass, which as we have said was before daylight, her parents attended at church and talked with their daughter in presence of her husband, who made them such liberal gifts as mitigated the keenness of their compassion for the secluded life led by their daughter. Carrizales used to get up in the morning and watch for the arrival of the purveyor, who was always made aware of what was wanted for the day by means of a note placed over-night in the turning box. After the purveyor had come ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... his spare frame full length on the fodder where he had slept. With his elbow on the bed of corn stalks he lifted his head on his hand and gazed at Harry King, not dreamily as when he first saw him, but with covert keenness. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... Abreik, crossed a bridge, which was at a great height over the river Kishon[26], and, turning to the right off the road, dismounted and watered from it with buckets. It was here that, owing to over-keenness on the part of two horses in the Squadron, they broke away, and, trying to drink from the river, fell in! Fortunately both were rescued, but not without great difficulty. Meanwhile, shelling was going on; luckily the shells all fell short of us, although ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... is interesting as an attack from a churchman of extraordinary keenness and insight into the progress of the new philosophy. In the Systme de la Nature he recognized the hand of the author of La Contagion sacre and the Essai sur les prjugs and dealt with it as he did the ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... roses and Hebe-like contour caught his eye in a moment, of which Cecil felt an instinctive conviction; but though, with a woman's keenness, underrating no point of attraction in her friend, she considered her wanting in style, which deficiency she dwelt on now with secret satisfaction. For though not in the least anxious to monopolize general admiration, that of Bertie Du Meresq ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... route. They were determined to find out Elsie for themselves, and to take her by surprise in the midst of her ordinary work. It was one of those glorious spring days that might have belonged to June, were it not for a keenness in the air that surprised you when the sun was for a few seconds over-clouded. There was, too, a clearness in the atmosphere that warm summer days cannot claim, with a suspicion of frost, as you looked towards the sea. And often did the two ladies look in that direction during their ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... grandfather and that proud day for Clump, the keenness with which he had felt our rudeness, and the excitement of recital were, all together, too much for our good old castellan. The erectness of his figure gave way as he concluded, the enthusiasm in his features faded ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... perennial. He feared that these Judaising teachers, who dogged his heels all his life long, and whose one aim seemed to be to build upon his foundation and to overthrow his building, should find their way into this church and wreck it. The keenness of the polemic, in this and in the contextual chapters, shows how real and imminent the danger was. Now what they did was to tell people that Jesus Christ had a partner in His saving work. They said that obedience ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... General. We have Aberdeen, deficient in mental clearness and propelling force, by his horror of war bringing war to pass; Gladstone, of too subtle intellect and too lively conscience, "a good man in the worst sense of the term"; Palmerston, above both in keenness of instinct and in strength of will, meaning war from the first, and biding his time to insure it; Newcastle, sanguine to the verge of rashness, loyally adherent to Lord Raglan while governed by his own judgment, distrustful under stress of ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... angry to speak; but Miss Crawford, looking for a moment with astonished eyes at Mrs. Norris, and then at Fanny, whose tears were beginning to shew themselves, immediately said, with some keenness, "I do not like my situation: this place is too hot for me," and moved away her chair to the opposite side of the table, close to Fanny, saying to her, in a kind, low whisper, as she placed herself, "Never mind, my dear Miss ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... what one would call a man of the world: he had always felt a terrible responsibility for other people's actions, and this particular action was, to put it mildly, certainly rather unusual. But I had under-estimated both Tip's keenness and the effect of Roger's big, quiet personality. For Tip stared hard at his pipe a moment, then at Roger, then back at the pipe, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... one of the holiday seasons rarely granted to people of importance. Their debts to the worlds of business or society or literature held in abeyance, they were lightly devoting their days to fishing and hunting, sailing and riding, while the keenness of their intellectual interests—they belonged to a very different set from Quadratilla's—was restfully tempered and the sincerity of them deepened ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... his advance to Delhi, was unopposed. Whatever the sepoys may have been in British pay, in revolt they were energetic and persevering, and, as long as they entertained any hope of success, fought with keenness; as a loyal native in Delhi described them, "they were willing to take life, and willing to give their lives away." It had been arranged, before General Anson's death, that a brigade should advance from Umballah, under ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... operator was swift of the swiftest; he despatched with a lightning lilt, and the keenness of his ears, for which he was famous on more than one ocean, made it possible for him to receive signals with rarely the necessity for ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... to watch the show. He found many new points of interest and much that was instructive, as he studied each act attentively and with the keenness of one who had been in the show business all ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... thanks to the marvelous elasticity of the French soldier and the warlike qualities of the race, the training was completed. At the beginning of the month of September the reserve divisions fought with the same skill, the same keenness, and the same swing as ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... arrived when it became necessary for Leslie to come to some definite conclusion as to how far he would take these two men into his confidence. He had watched them both with the utmost keenness from the first moment of his connection with them, and everything that he had seen in their speech and behaviour had led him to the conviction that they were absolutely honest, loyal, and trustworthy. On the other hand, he had heard of cases wherein men ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... two races are totally different. The Asiatic has some noble qualities. The Creator has not altogether effaced his own image in any region of human habitancy. He has fancy, keenness of conception, desperate but unwilling bravery, scientific faculties, and a quiet delight in the richness of his own lovely islands and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... family, Buonaparte found occasional relief from the gloom of his existence. The future Madame Junot has described him as at this time untidy, unkempt, sickly, remarkable for his extreme thinness and the almost yellow tint of his visage, which was, however, lit up by "two eyes sparkling with keenness and will-power"—evidently a Corsican falcon, pining for action, and fretting its soaring spirit in that vapid town life. Action Buonaparte might have had, but only of a kind that he loathed. He might have commanded the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... the power of the Moor had really been broken by the conquests of Ferdinand I, Alphonso VI, Alphonso VII and Alphonso VIII of Castile and alphonso I, the Battler, of Aragon. The menace was no longer felt with the keenness of an hundred years before. until the end of the tenth century the Moors had dominated the Peninsula. The growth of the Christian states from the heroic nucleus in northern Asturias was confined to the territory bordering ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... you—as a fellow-member of the same family, I may say—and with the highest ideals and the honor of that family always in view. [CURT makes no comment. SHEFFIELD unconsciously begins to adopt the alert keenness of the cross-examiner.] First, let me ask you, is it your intention to take ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... of miscellaneous flirtations, or more or less innocent dalliance, had ever weakened the witchery of woman's charms to him, or dulled the keenness of his sensibility to the heaven she can bestow. For an hour he wandered about the dark and silent village street, waiting for the tumult of his emotions to subside sufficiently to leave him in some degree master of himself. ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... between him and satirists like Thackeray, who equal him in keenness of observation, are not behind him in verity of report, while surpassing him often in pictorial effect,—but who bring to the picture out of themselves only a noble indignation against baseness. They contemn; he uses. They cry, "Fie!" upon unclean substances; he ploughs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... the keenness of his ecclesiastical training, guessed the intensity of the evil produced by Luna. But for the moment his egoism was stronger than his reflection. Let them talk—what did it matter? It was only a little ebullition of pride in ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... seemed a very short time indeed till the door, usually left ajar, was pulled open and Dr. Winchester emerged, taking off his respirator as he came. His act, when he had it off, was demonstrative of his keenness. He turned up the outside of the ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... keenness of the sarcasm, and her eyes filled with hot tears. 'You don't understand, Uncle Abel, you never can understand, and there is no use trying to make you,' she said curiously. 'I think I had better call Miss Peck to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... draught? He turned away as he dropped this interrogative sigh, and in doing so perceived that in another part of the pier two ladies and a little boy were gathered with something of the same wistfulness. The little boy indeed happened to look round for a moment, upon which, with the keenness of the predatory age, he recognised in our young man a source of pleasures from which he lately had been weaned. He bounded forward with irrepressible cries of "Geegee!" and Peter lifted him aloft for an embrace. On putting him down the pilgrim from Jersey Villas stood confronted with ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... satire may be various: it may be genial and pleasant; it may be earnest and just; or it may be personal, unjust, and malicious. Any species of satire may exhibit keenness of wit, but satire reaches its highest excellence only when it springs from upright motives and confines itself to truth. If there is exaggeration or caricature, as is generally the case, there still must be a substantial ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... stream; where, turning their horses loose to graze till morning, they would build a cheerful fire of the dry brushwood close at hand, and prepare their evening meal, which they would eat with a keenness of appetite known only to the tired and hungry hunter. Each man was his own cook; their food consisting chiefly of venison and wild turkey their rifles procured them, and fish drawn from the neighboring brook, which they would broil on the glowing coals, fastened to a forked stick instead of ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... I was in Bermuda, a German Training Squadron arrived, with a number of naval cadets on board, and announced their intention of remaining ten days. The German officers at once exhibited a most un-Teutonic keenness about sea-fishing. The Governor, fully alive to the advantage a possibly hostile power might reap from an independent survey and charting of the tortuous and difficult ship-channel between St. George's ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... the meal Dale brought forth his "toy." But Adam Kraus, instead of showing the boredom which Beryl expected, studied it with absorbed keenness, quickly grasping what Dale ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... however, do the Genoese the justice to observe that Paoli told me, that even one of them had suffered death in Corsica, rather than consent to become hangman. When I, with a keenness natural enough in a Briton born with an abhorrence at tyranny, talked with violence against the Genoese, Paoli said with a moderation and candour which ought to do him honour even with the republick, "It is true the Genoese are our enemies; but let us not forget that they are the descendants ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... me with the keenness of a Venetian. He accosted me and congratulated me on my luck, but I gave him no answer, and seeing that I wished to remain ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and Pedro Alvarez were walking up and down, but not together, on the sunny side of the court-yard. It was the only spot, they declared, in the whole island where they could be sheltered from the biting keenness of the wind, and feel any of the warmth to which they were accustomed in their own country. Both were anxious to hear whether a son or daughter was born to the lady of the mansion. Pedro Alvarez was certainly the ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... of blue and silver next morning; the sunlight seemed to come from the sea with a cold, hard glitter; there was a keenness in the air, a sharp tang of sea-salt with an underlying suggestion of something that was pleasantly reminiscent of Dr. Angus's surgery. The sailors were sluicing the deck with great hoses, and sprinkling it with little watering-cans of disinfectant. Up on the fo'c'sle her deck-chair ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... Moddridge. To such former readers the tale is familiar of how the Motor Boat Club boys aided materially in frustrating a great conspiracy in finance, aimed against their employer. Saved from ruin by the grit, keenness and loyalty of these three members of the Motor Boat Club, Messrs. Delavan and Moddridge had handsomely rewarded the boys for ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... for their coming and listen for the faint thud of their fall, while the other three drove from the tee. Then the three came forward while the watcher went back to drive, and I am sorry to say that our keenness in those days led us to disregard certain principles of the sportsman's code of honour which we appreciated better as we grew up. What I mean is that the watcher was often handicapped in a way that he little suspected, for when he went back to the tee, and ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... anything striking, or bespeaking character or genius. Almost the whole consisted of inquiries what to do, whither to go, and how to proceed; which, though natural and sensible for a new man, were undistinguished by any humour, or keenness ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... expression somewhat aggressive—eyes shrewdly observant and lips consciously impregnable. But the connoisseur delayed his verdict. It was a face that invited, that compelled, study. Self-confidence, intellectual keenness, a bright humour, frank courage, were traits legible enough; and when the lips parted to show their warmth, their fullness, when the eyelids drooped a little in meditation, one became aware of a suggestiveness directed not solely to the intellect, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... in speech and personal habit, truly majestic and generous, such was the shy woodland companion with whom Diane chose willfully to spend her idle hours, finding the girl's unconstrained intervals of silence, her flashes of Indian keenness, her inborn reticence and naive parade of the wealth of knowledge Mic-co had taught her, a most bewildering book in which there was daily ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... different times during a century. There was, he said, the individuality of an age, but not of a country. Morritt, a zealous worshipper of the old bard, was incensed at a system which would turn him into a polytheist, gave battle with keenness, and was joined by Sotheby, our host. Mr. Coleridge behaved with the utmost complaisance and temper, but relaxed not from his exertions. "Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words." Morritt's impatience; must have cost him an extra ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... servant staggered under the blow. Her poor worn face, nunlike under its white cap and with its look of renunciation, grew white in the keenness of her anguish. Without a word, she turned and fled for refuge to her kitchen, where, leaning her elbows on her chopping-table, and burying her face in her clasped hands, she burst into a ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... Hudson,—the scenes of Germantown and Monmouth,—the reduction of the forts at Verplanck's Ferry, and the forays led against New Bedford and the Vineyard,—all these familiarized him with the bloody fruits of civil strife. But they never blunted for one moment the keenness of his humanity, or warped those sentiments of refinement and liberality that always distinguished him. Within the limited range of his narrow sphere, he was constantly found the friend and reliever of the wounded or captive Americans, and the protector and benefactor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... looked into the depths of his, passive and confiding, till they failed before the keenness of his gaze, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... be!' And the poor soul struggles and wrestles in the grasp of the mighty demon which has hold of it, and whose every touch is torment. 'Oh, atrocious!' it shrieks, in agony, and in anger too, as if the very keenness of the infliction were a proof of its injustice. 'A second! and a third! I can bear no more! Stop, horrible fiend! give over: I am a man, and not such as thou! I am not food for thee, or sport for thee! I have been ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... as we have seen, by the end of the seventeenth century, and throughout the eighteenth there was a gradual progress toward religious liberalism. The population steadily increased, and New England's unremitting struggle with a not too friendly soil, her hardihood upon the seas, and her keenness in trade, became proverbial throughout the country. Her seaport towns were wealthy. The general standards of living remained frugal, but extreme poverty was rare. Her people still made, as in the earliest ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... was shown from the parsonage, except that Arthur was not at home when the wedding took place; and that Lysken, whom Lucrece graciously requested to be one of her bridesmaids, declined, with a quiet keenness of manner which any one but Lucrece ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... first meeting at court, becomes stronger and truer amid scenes of delicate comedy and merry laughter. Once in Arden, Orlando ceases to brood morosely over the wrongs done him; Rosalind's wit becomes sweeter while losing none of its keenness; and Touchstone feels himself no longer a plaything, but a man. So we are not surprised when Oliver, the wicked brother, lost in the forest and rescued from mortal danger by the lad he has always sought to injure, awakens to his better self; nor when the usurping Duke, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... imbued with the gloomy supernaturalism of the Old Testament on which they fed, were especially men to whom anything resembling an apparition had a prophetic significance. And Cecil Grey, though liberal beyond most New England clergymen, was liable by the keenness of his susceptibilities and the extreme sensitiveness of his organization to be influenced by such delusions,—if delusions they be. So he stood awed and trembling, questioning within himself, like some seer to whom a dark and uncertain revelation ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... place certainly, but no fitting time. Romance would hardly mitigate the keenness of the air, or diminish the probability of taking cold, were you to stand here listening to Indian legends. Besides, the tale is in manuscript, and I should not be able, relying on ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Monthly Review. His conversational powers are of the highest order: he is the only person I remember to have known with first rate powers of satire, and even of sarcasm, whose kindness of nature and of manner remained perfectly uninjured. In some of his critical notices there is a strength and keenness second to nothing of the kind I have ever read. He is a warm patriot, and so true-hearted an American, that we could not always be of the same opinion on all the subjects we discussed; but whether it were the force ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... characteristic manner. There is not a particle of temper, not the slightest assumption of superiority, in the article. It is not "scathing" or "crushing,"—as we have seen it described. It has all the keenness, merely because it has all the simplicity, of truth. The playful but searching satire which the author has ever at command just touches the declamation of his opponent, and it falls like a house of cards. He sums up with a judgment as fair and as calm as if he had been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... influence of the conversion, and of the life in The Retreat, had already changed him. His customary keenness and excitability of look had subsided, and had left nothing in their place but an expression of suave and meditative repose. All his troubles were now in the hands of his priest. There was a passive regularity in his bodily movements and a beatific ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... of an ardent race, even though the nobler instincts had been long sleeping in the breasts of these men. They hated and distrusted their old lord with a hatred he had well merited; and degraded as they had become in his service, they had not yet sunk so low but that they could feel with the keenness of instinct, rather than by any reasoning powers they possessed, that this young knight was a man to be trusted and be loved — that if they became his vassals they would receive vastly different treatment from any they had received from the ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the use of tobacco is often through its use retarded in his career by mental languor or weakening will power, and by mental incapacity. The keenness of mental perception is dulled, and the ability to seize and hold an abstract thought is impaired. True, these effects are not sharply obvious, as it would be impossible to contrast the present condition ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... the half-breed or the Indian is of marvellous keenness; it. can detect the presence of any strange object long before that object will strike the vision of the civilized man; but on this occasion the eyes of my men were at fault, and the glint of something strange upon the lake first caught my sight. There ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... the idea of seeking employment in the Rue de Jerusalem. A noble hobby, truly, for a man of his age, a good quiet citizen of Paris, rich, and esteemed by all! And to think that he had been proud of his exploits, that he had boasted of his cunning, that he had plumed himself on his keenness of scent, that he had been flattered by that ridiculous sobriquet, "Tirauclair." Old fool! What could he hope to gain from that bloodhound calling? All sorts of annoyance, the contempt of the world, without counting the danger of contributing ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... end to our progress. Here we decreed to rest and dine on the provision which we had brought from the ship, of which we had sufficient for very few meals; our boat being so overloaded with people that we had very little room for luggage of any kind. Our repast was salt pork broiled, which the keenness of hunger made so delicious to my companions that they fed very heartily upon it. As for myself, the fatigue of my body and the vexation of my mind had so thoroughly weakened me, that I was almost entirely deprived of appetite; and the utmost ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... school examination acquires a political significance, but it was so in this case. There were more than 1,000 Maori spectators present—men who had fought on opposite sides in the recent battle of Kororareka. The orderliness of the proceedings, and the delightful atmosphere of keenness and pleasure which pervaded the scene, drew all parties together and served to weld the bond ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... somewhat thin and thoughtful, its complexion being naturally pale, though darkened by exposure to a warmer sun than ours. His features were somewhat striking; his moustache and hair raven black; and his eyes, denied the attributes of military keenness by reason of the largeness and darkness of their aspect, acquired thereby a softness of expression that was in part womanly. His mouth as far as it could be seen reproduced this characteristic, which might have been called ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Jacopo often wrote for his wife, but after a time this too ceased. Then the praises of him by degrees grew spasmodic. There were often two or three letters in which his name found no place. The brothers with the keenness of love noted this fact, though each of them pondered it long in his mind before one evening Patrick spoke of his fear, and then the others brought theirs ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... era seems to have passed—that heart-breaking era of the Great War. And now the Native Son has entered into and emerged from a new and terrible game. He has needed—and I doubt not displayed—all that he has of strength, natural and developed; of keenness and coolness; of bravery and fortitude; of capacity to endure ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... and it was evident that he was bringing to bear upon the matter in hand that intelligence and keenness of perception which had made him a person of some prominence in other scenes where Nature has ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... and watched them. They had grown careless of the light world that clattered about them; they were become so engrossed in their personal drama that the language of their eyes was almost as obvious as gestures. And Stimson, through his keenness, his wonderful, infallible penetration, suddenly came into possession of these obvious facts. "Well, of all the nerves," he said, regarding with a new interest the young ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... shrinking, was possessed by a sense of anti-climax. Life had a brassy ring. She had come home with at least something of her mother's military keenness for the "campaign" of vindication, but within a day or two she was thinking, rather cynically and cheaply, that the game was not worth the candle. What difference did it all make, in her actual life? People might whisper and nudge behind ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... little zauberfest of Christmas-eve was over. Christmas morning came. I remember that morning well—a gray, neutral kind of day, whose monotony outside emphasized the keenness of emotion within. ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... enough I felt as if I had returned home. I walked up to the water-cask as if it had been an old friend, with delight, and took a draught of water. It was cool and refreshing, and revived me greatly. I felt hungry; I had hoped never again to eat another rat, but the keenness of my appetite overcame my scruples, and I took one out of the bag. I even thought of placing the bag ready to catch some more. I, however, only ate one of the creatures, though not without difficulty, in spite of my hunger. I then bathed my face and washed my hands, to look a little more respectable ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... There are many people in our congregations of average intellect, and perhaps with mental powers decidedly below the average, who are nevertheless full of profound spiritual wisdom because love to Christ has given them keenness of ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas
... was now so thoroughly aroused, both as to how the President knew me and what his communications might be, that it began to efface the keenness of my mortification. In the midst of my wondering surmises, Mr. Lewis appeared and greeted me most affably; and when I had presented Captain Clarke's letter of introduction, he was, if possible, more affable still. He was an older-looking ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... real hunting of an iceberg. When we landed, we were thoroughly chilled. Our man was waiting with his wagon, and so was a little supper in a house near by, which we enjoyed with an appetite that assumed several phases of keenness as we proceeded. There was a tower of cold roast beef, flanked by bread and butter and bowls of hot tea. The whole was carried silently, without remark, at the point of knife and fork. We were a forlorn-hope of two, and fell to, winning the victory in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... show what's in his hand," said "Peachy," when the moment for prayer arrived. "Peachy" was not unfamiliar with religious services, and had, with unusual keenness of observation, noted that when a man undertook to pray he must, if he be true, ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... means ended. Felgate, to all appearance docile and penitent, nursed his wrath within him, and kept his eye open, with all the keenness of a sportsman, to the slightest opening for a revenge. In a quiet way he continued to do a great deal in the house to thwart the spirit of enterprise which was at present knitting all factions together. He sneered in a superior way at the enthusiasm all ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... shook the offered hand. He was tall and lean, and brown-faced as a soldier back from the war. He had a boyish air, younger than his thirty-one or thirty-two years: but under that look was the same sort of hardness and keenness which was the first thing ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson |
