"Shrewd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... several minor men. Six different men received as many as fifty votes on one ballot or another, but only three factions in the party stood out clearly. The Administration group had sounded the public on a third term for Grant, and receiving scanty support had brought forward Conkling, a shrewd New York leader, and Morton, war Governor of Indiana. The out-and-out reformers were for Bristow, who had made a striking reputation as Secretary of the Treasury, over the frauds of the Whiskey Ring. Between the two groups was the largest single faction, which stood for ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... being with the tap of the nine-thirty gong, a whole new system of brain machinery began to move with the first figure called in the Pit. And from that instant until the close of the session, no floor trader, no broker's clerk nor scalper was more alert, more shrewd, or kept his head more surely than the same young fellow who confused his social engagements for the evening of the same day. The Landry Court the Dearborn girls knew was a far different young man from him who now leaned his elbows on the arms ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... was some opposition. Satan would not thus easily be dispossessed or driven out. Old conjurers and medicine men, faithful followers of the enemy, quickly began their opposition. Their selfish natures were aroused. They were shrewd enough to see that if I succeeded, as I was likely to do, they, like Demetrius, the shrine-maker of Diana, would soon be without an occupation. So at this afternoon gathering they were there to oppose. But they were in ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... sat and stood round watching them in a ring for a long time, but to a rational, common-sense, shrewd, unimaginative set of people like the Fans, just standing hour after hour gazing on a dance you do not understand, and which consists of a wriggle and a stamp, a wriggle and a stamp, in a solemn walk, or prance, round and round, to the accompaniment ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... with the most inveterate malice. John Gudyill, reinstated in his dignity, was more important than ever; and Cuddie, with rapturous delight, entered upon the cultivation of the mains of Tillietudlem, and the occupation of his original cottage. But, with the shrewd caution of his character, he was never heard to boast of having fired the lucky shot which repossessed his lady and himself in their original habitations. 'After a',' he said to Jenny, who was his only confidant, 'auld Basil Olifant was my leddy's cousin and a grand gentleman; ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and son; the older man, in fact had a stern visage at first glance, until one learned to know it as the face of a man trained to restraint and endurance. As for the boy, no one could long resist the shrewd, kind youngster, who could spend an hour with the most unlikely invalid and leave him all the better for it. I was unusually busy just then, Clelie frankly hated and feared the man upstairs, my mother had her hands full, and there were many heavy and lonesome ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... a discourse on free thought which he will read at the Senate a propos of the press law. He has been very shrewd, ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... that flowed steadily from prosperous England. He would not endow it with charters, each one more liberal than the last, or bind it to his kingdom by giving it a pre-eminence that would but arouse the jealousy of its neighbours. No: the shrewd Gaseous knew that full well, and knew when they were well off. They could often obtain an increase of liberty and an enlarged charter of rights by coquetting with the French monarch, and thus rousing the fears of the English King; but they had no wish for any real change, and lived happily and ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was by no means universally acceptable, and many Jacobites who had acquiesced in the accession of "good Queen Anne" herself (a member of the ancient royal house), now shrank from acknowledging "the Elector" as their monarch. Simon Glenlivet, a shrewd and prudent man, who had lived in London and watched the course of political events, had long ago laid aside any romantic enthusiasm for the cause of the exiled Stuarts, if he had ever possessed such a feeling; realising perhaps the truth of Sir ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... Troop, then, choosing with judgment, picked his man—picked Trooper Edward Hallisey, a Boston Irishman, square of jaw, shrewd of eye, quick of wit, strong of wind and limb. And he ordered Private Hallisey to proceed at once to Carlisle, county seat of Cumberland, and report to the District Attorney for service toward effecting the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... have a full hogshead; but not by you;' the General shot a shrewd glance at the man and bade me step outside and summon the quartermaster who waited in the corridor. 'Quartermaster,' said he, 'convey this visitor of ours to the kitchens. Give him what meat and wine he demands. Let him depart when he will and carry as much ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... coasts by rail led the federal government to adopt the practice of granting large subsidies to the builders of great transcontinental railway lines. The stimulation which the war gave to manufacturing and transportation in the North and the shrewd manipulation of the money market during the years of the national crisis made possible the accumulation and concentration of large quantities of capital funds under the control of a small ...
— Outline of the development of the internal commerce of the United States - 1789-1900 • T.W. van Mettre
... brief rest, they mounted and again took up the trail, soon leaving behind their halting-place, which the boys named Lake Christopher, much to the vain little darky's chagrin. He had a shrewd suspicion that he would not hear the last of his fright for many ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... was a simple woman though circumstances had made her a shrewd one, and she had all the elementary feminine instincts. She believed in love and in strange affinities and in hidden threads of destiny—all of which ideas fitted beautifully on to Bridget O'Hara's personality, but not at all on to that ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... plantations are famous, and a hand well over the crops raised under such shrewd, experienced management as that of Colonel Beverage is a stroke of policy. Therefore, as the bankers and jewelers have been polite, so now the cotton-merchants are civil; but the colonel is shy—an old bird and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... tyrant can imagine, namely, death in exile and in the most grievous poverty. Tiberto was a man of intelligence, who was supposed to give his answers less according to any methodical chiromancy than by means of his shrewd knowledge of mankind; and his high culture won for him the respect of those scholars who ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... his investment, he was under the hands of his barber, a shrewd intelligent Greek, Mustapha by name. Barbers are privileged persons for many reasons: running from one employer to another to obtain their livelihood, they also obtain matter for conversation, which, impertinent ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... On one of the investigating committees on which I served there was a countryman, a very able man, who, when he reached New York City, felt as certain Americans do when they go to Paris—that the moral restraints of his native place no longer applied. With all his ability, he was not shrewd enough to realize that the Police Department was having him as well as the rest of us carefully shadowed. He was caught red-handed by a plain-clothes man doing what he had no business to do; and from that time on ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... aright," said the servant to himself, and with a shrewd air; "he sleeps away from the hut one night ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... Lighter's shrewd eyes swept his new customer over; it was as though he made an estimate of how much Tisdale could pay. "Five hundred dollars," he said. "Five hundred—if it's ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... escaped from your bosom, Angelique?" asked the Intendant, who had, however, a shrewd guess of the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... from the notices ready for to-morrow's newspapers. His work was a 'Journey in Val d'Andorre,' and two reports published at the National Press, relating to the time when he was Superintendent at the Beaux-Arts. The man was a sort of shrewd attorney, creeping and cringing, with a permanent bow and an apologetic attitude, which seemed to ask your pardon for his decorations, your pardon for his insignia, your pardon for his place in the Academie—where his experience as ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... appear to me a sensible, shrewd people, with little scientific knowledge, and still less taste for literature; but they are arriving at the epoch which precedes the introduction ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... it evident that a regiment of bullies and prize-fighters is not the best stuff to compose an army. "Your men are not vindictive enough," Mr. Russell is reported to have said, as he watched the battle. It was the saying of a shrewd observer, but it expresses only an imperfect apprehension of the truth. Vindictiveness is not the spirit our men should have, but a resoluteness of determination, as much more to be relied upon than a vindictive passion as it is founded upon more stable and more enduring qualities ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the form in which we make them involve very grave fallacies, the realization of which will shortly become essential to the wise direction of this country's policy. If our policy, in other words, is to be shrewd and enlightened, we must realize just how both the views of international relationship that I ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... what I should like to know, and I mean to find her sooner or later. I know a man named Clarke, a dry fellow, in fact a man of business, but shrewd enough. You understand my meaning; not shrewd in the mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knows something about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and he was evidently impressed. He said it needed consideration, and asked me to come ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... threatened Indian invasion, and did the wisest thing he could, and resigned his commission on a plea of "sudden indisposition." The doctor walked the street as bold as a lion, but acting also with the shrewd cunning of the fox. And now, my young friends, instead of weaving a bloody romance in the style of the "Dime Novels," depicting the terrible massacre, which might have happened, with so great a wrong to provoke the hostility of the poor Indians, I am about to tell you ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... the sunless, sweltering heat, reflected on these things. Of course she did not know all the story, but most of it had come under her observation in one way or other, and being shrewd by nature, she could guess the rest, for she who was companionless had much time for reflection and for guessing. She sympathised with her father in his ideas, understanding vaguely that there was something large and noble about them, but in the main, ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... and waxed exceeding wroth: nevertheless he restrained his anger, and for the season let no word fall. But the other, being shrewd and quick of wit, perceived that the king took his word ill, and was craftily sounding him. So, on his coming home, he fell into much grief and distress in his perplexity how to conciliate the king and to escape the peril hanging over his own head. But as he lay awake all the night long, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... other ideas. Being a shrewd lad, he saw early that men seldom made a fortune and won the good things of the world through toil and the sweat of their brows. Not at all! And Shamus loved an easy life only less than he loved to play upon the harp and sing songs of the old days, the wars of kings, ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... that in his happy-go-lucky way Peter scampered right past a clump of tall weeds close beside the path without the least suspicion that cleverly hidden in it was the very thing he was looking for. With laughter in her eyes, shrewd little Mrs. Bob White, with sixteen white eggs under her, watched him pass. She had chosen that very place for her nest because she knew that it was the last place anyone would expect to find it. The very fact that it seemed the most dangerous ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... come into his life—such a change as made Adam's shrewd dark eyes twinkle whenever they glanced in his son's direction, comprehending that the days of Rufus's ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... the clever but unrelated literary efforts which he had hitherto made found here their clue and connecting link, their inspired synthesis. Long before this he had written astonishing, ingenious, philosophic, shrewd, suggestive books, but he had achieved no success on this scale. Here he seemed to have brought together all the threads of his many intellectual energies, and woven them into a single fabric fit for wear-and-tear and adornment. At the first ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... French General, Lafayette, whom he loved and trusted greatly, to prevent this. Lafayette had a small force, but he was quick and brave and shrewd, and he managed to get the British shut up in Yorktown, near the Chesapeake Bay. There he learned that a French fleet, under Comte de Grasse, would soon arrive. He sent urgent word to Washington to come ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the judgment of this shrewd man of big affairs as the new light had come into his life at its close. Happily he had gotten the readjustment of values in time for readjustment of personal relationships. But his life's strength ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... arrested on another charge, and, as Lowell had said, Talpers's most profitable line of business was certain to suffer. As Bill walked back to his store he wondered how much Lowell actually knew, and how much had been shrewd guesswork. The young agent had a certain inscrutable air about him, for all his youth, ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... the news of his son-in-law's failure fell like a thunderbolt and affected him more than it did Daisy. Shrewd, ambitious, and scheming, he had for years planned for his daughter a moneyed marriage, and now she was returned upon his hands for an indefinite time, with her naturally luxurious tastes intensified by recent indulgence, and her husband a ruined ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... trade occur there will instantly be found shrewd Chinese business men backed by a plentiful supply of native capital, and the Westerner will get but little that is ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... over in this best of all possible worlds." The Observer suggested that Chesterton would find no disciples because "his converts would never know from one week to another what they had been converted to"; while the Yorkshire Post felt that the chief disadvantage of the book was that "a shrewd reader can pretty accurately anticipate Mr. Chesterton's point of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... day she met Socrates walking in the street, and after watching him for a time made up her mind he was nothing more than a fool. Other people certainly thought him wise, but she was a shrewd old woman, and could see well enough that he merely looked wise. The next day she went to the south of the city to beg, and there she heard of Sophocles. When the people repeated his ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... novels, The Bondwoman's Son, vol. iii: In the Red Room.] "As an idealist he was to be represented by Olof; as a realist by Gustaf; and as a communist by Gert." Farther on in the same work, he continues his revelation as follows: "The King and his shadow, the shrewd Constable, represented himself [the author] as he wished to be; Gert, as he was in moments of aroused passion; and Olof, as, after years of self-scrutiny, he had come to know himself: ambitious and weak-willed; unscrupulous when something was at stake, and ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... who sold cherries and strawberries to the garrison, was used as a guide. This shrewd darkey had got the British password for the night, by claiming that his master would not let him come in during the daytime, because he was needed to hoe corn. You will be glad to know that Pompey, as a reward for this eventful night's ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... was a plodder in the West as he had been in the East. He was an honest man, and he was wise enough not to try to be a shrewd one. He tried none of the short-cuts to a fortune. Hard work suited him best, and no work was too hard for his iron strength and patient resolution. But it broke the spirit of a man in him to see his young wife's despair. Poverty frightened and quelled her. The deep-rooted security ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... shrewd observation, his quaint humour and his wide knowledge of Indian bird-life ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... fellow mark'd an opposite intent, Bearing a sword, whose glitterance and keen edge, E'en as I view'd it with the flood between, Appall'd me. Next four others I beheld, Of humble seeming: and, behind them all, One single old man, sleeping, as he came, With a shrewd visage. And these seven, each Like the first troop were habited, but wore No braid of lilies on their temples wreath'd. Rather with roses and each vermeil flower, A sight, but little distant, might have sworn, That they were all on ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... doings secret from everybody, but she had a pretty shrewd suspicion of what he had been planning, and so, to a certain extent, was able to prepare the guests for what was coming. Anticipation ran high, and the arrival of the famous mechanist ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... knock here," said the shrewd Bat, "I know the old fellow is not asleep. This is his prowling hour, and but that it is a stormy night he would be abroad hunting.—What ho, Master Owl!" he squeaked, "will you let in two storm-tossed ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... vulgar and whose antecedents were obviously so plebeian. Of Irish parentage, but American born, James Gillie was a product of the newest America, the typical gamin of New York's streets, fresh and slangy in speech, keen to the main chance, not over scrupulous, shrewd and calculating. Fair and slight in build, he was about twenty-six years old and his upper lip was adorned with a few thinly scattered hairs, which he proudly termed a moustache. Otherwise he was unintelligent and ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... always be sustained by public opinion, while they would be almost certain to be condemned by the circle in which they move. So frequently do the difficulties of this position recur, that I have often heard a shrewd friend observe that no man who was fit for the exercise of patronage would ever desire to be entrusted with it. The moral rule in ordinary cases is plain enough; it is to appoint or vote for the candidate who is most competent to fulfil ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... a shrewd hunter and a successful merchandiser of golf balls but slightly used. Newbern's better sort denounced the scandal of this, but bought of him clandestinely, for even in that far day, when golf balls ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... time the hounds thought the whole affair great fun and objected to being caught—at least Ryan's dog objected. The porter in our car caught Hal, but Ryan told him to let the dog go, that he would bring the two back together. This was shrewd in Ryan, for he reasoned that Major Carleton might wait for an officer's dog, but never for one that belonged to only an enlisted man; but really it was the other way, the enlisted men held the brakes. The dogs ran back almost a mile to the water ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... a girl of birth and breeding—is threatened by the intrusion of the girl's cousin, a queerly morbid ne'er-do-well. There is no action to speak of, so one can't speak of it. I can only say that the interest of the shrewd analysis held me, and that if my guess as to the sex of the writer be sound it is noteworthy that more pains and skill are bestowed upon the characters of the men than of the two girls, who are some thing shadowy—charming ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... (celebrated all over the Archipelago for their durability), beche-de-mer, deer-sinews, rice, &c. They come from the different ports on the islands of Celebes, &c., but principally from Macassar. They are a shrewd race, but are no match for their Chinese competitors. On the arrival of a boat, her hakoda (or commander) lands with nearly every man on board; and he may be seen walking all over the place for a few days before making any bargain. They are a troublesome set to deal with, and require the ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... or wounded several Union officers. One of Colonel Birges's sharpshooters, an old hunter, who had killed many bears and wolves, crept up towards the breastworks to try his hand upon the Rebel. They fired at each other again and again, but both were shrewd and careful. The Rebel raised his hat above the breastwork,—whi——z! The sharpshooter out in the bushes had put a bullet through it. "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Rebel, sending his own bullet into the little puff of smoke down in the ravine. The Rocky Mountain hunter ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... man smiled secretly to himself. He was a young man not without experience in ladies' moods and he had a very shrewd idea that somebody had been making remarks, but he did not permit a hint of any perception of the coolness of her manner to impair the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... that what Calamus means?—because of me or in spite of me, is that what it means? I have said no, but no does not satisfy him. [There is, however, no record from Symonds's side of any letter by Whitman to Symonds in this sense up to this date.] But read this letter—read the whole of it: it is very shrewd, very cute, in deadliest earnest: it drives me hard, almost compels me—it is urgent, persistent: he sort of stands in the road and says 'I won't move till you answer my question.' You see, this is an old ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the feats of miracle-mongers, and not a little in the way of explaining them. Chaucer was by no means the first to turn shrewd eyes upon wonder-workers and show the clay feet of these popular idols. And since his time innumerable marvels, held to be supernatural, have been exposed for the tricks they were. Yet to-day, if a mystifier lack the ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... golden opportunity. She knew Fenton by sight, and her shrewd wits must have set her on the right track had she witnessed his bewilderment. Being a pretentious person, however, and not able to afford the up-keep of a motor, she was enjoying the surprise of two well-dressed women who ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... the care of the men who were with us we entered the house. Just inside we met the doctor himself. He was a shrewd little fellow, named Anderson, generally popular and, though a personal friend of the President's, not openly identified with ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... carefully planned murder it is always safe to mistrust the obvious. Beard's outburst against Collins had seemed a genuine eruption of uncontrollable emotions, at first. But his subsequent conduct had given his words the aspect of shrewd premeditation. Now she appeared intent on fastening guilt on Collins. Her very anxiety to do so implied a hidden motive. It was necessary to ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... had shown the realization of his fears to be inevitable, and when he himself had so far bent as to study the literature he despised, the long and active public life of Cato is in complete harmony. He is the perfect type of an old Roman. Hard, shrewd, niggardly, and narrow-minded, he was honest to the core, unsparing of himself as of others, scorning every kind of luxury, and of inflexible moral rectitude. He had no respect for birth, rank, fortune, or talent; his praise was bestowed solely on personal merit. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... my soul!" cried Mr. Congreve, pausing before her, with a puzzled wonder in his shrewd eyes. "Do you honestly so little realize what Roger's nature is, or how much the boy loves you, and how he is waiting to hear what word ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... attentive listeners at Bert's trial was a tall young man with light hair and pallid complexion, upon whose thin face there played a shrewd smile. He seemed unusually interested, as was indeed the case, for he strongly suspected that he knew who was the actual purloiner of the stolen twenty-dollar bill. It is hardly necessary to say that the young man was Percy's ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... and transportation of this vast amount of fabrics would fall into the hands of England if the Confederacy should succeed, and that if it should fail, the domestic trade of the United States would absorb the whole of it. It was a shrewd appeal to a nation whose foreign policy has always been largely influenced ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... particularly to his tragedies, and to his expression of great sentiments and passions. His comedies, though over-informed with thought, reveal him to us as a singularly sharp, shrewd, and somewhat cynical observer, sparkling with worldly wisdom, and not deficient in airiness any more than wit. Hazlitt, we believe, was the first to notice that Monsieur D'Olive, in the comedy of that name, is "the undoubted prototype of that light, flippant, gay, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... mythos, but imbibed it from the earlier Egyptian civilization and formed disguised allegorical poems. Here the instructive function of the first poets is related to the enlarging of the reader's imagination, so that Ogilvie's rather shrewd defense of lyric poetry is based upon the civilizing effects ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... they make poor rhetoric for those who need them most. Men are wonderfully imitative in killing themselves. Once the practice is come in vogue, it becomes a rage, an epidemic. Atheism and Materialism form the best nidus for the contagion of suicide. It is a shrewd remark of Madame de Stael: "Though there are crimes of a darker hue than suicide, yet there is none other by which man seems so entirely to ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... gum and candy on the arm of a vacant chair beside Jack, and observed tentatively that it was fine, and that Jack must be going fishing. Jack confessed that such was his intention, and the vender of things-you-never-want made a shrewd guess at his destination. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... to obtain the degree of Bachelor. In this way his value in the educational market would be at once doubled, and he could command a better place and lighter work. He showed himself, in his letters, to be an eminently practical, shrewd, selfish, and thick-skinned young man, who would quite certainly get on in the world, and was resolved to lose no opportunities, and, with that view, he took as much work out of his tutor as he could get for the money. ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... one of the premises, of course. But the frown—I saw it plainly, alas, too plainly! I cannot dispute the evidence of my senses. For a moment I falter; and again that ghastly conclusion stares me in the face. But now I remember that a shrewd debater sometimes gains a point by denying the premise which he is expected to concede. Can it be done in this case? Certainly! Human judgment, you know, is fallible. Not that mine can be at fault now; but it may have been so heretofore. All men have erred; but no man errs. There is the point! ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Bulldog, with a shrewd glance, "is mair than ordinary modesty; we 'ill take another witness. Ernest Molyneux, what have ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... on a fresh one being handed to him, he would seldom leave the shop until he had looked it through. This taste for the supernatural seems to have grown upon him after his wife's death, and influenced him so deeply that, had he not been possessed of a deal of shrewd common sense, there might have been danger of his embracing some of the visionary doctrines in which he was so learned. But no! even Spiritualism, to which not a few of his brother novelists succumbed, whilst affording congenial material ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... start a run. More money is sunk, and the returns do not appear to be so speedy. I cannot give you even a rough estimate of the expenses of such a plan. I will only say that I have seen gentlemen who are doing it, and who are confident of success, and these men bear the reputation of being shrewd and business-like. I cannot doubt, therefore, that it is both a good and safe investment of money. My crude notion concerning it is, that it is more permanent and less remunerative. In this I may be mistaken, but I am certain it is a thing which might ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... true Temperance, yes! Moderation in all things, the word is express; 'Nothing too much'—Greek, 'Meden Agan;' So spake Cleobulus, the Seventh Wise Man; And the grand 'golden mean' was shrewd Horace's law, And Solomon's self laid it down for a saw That 'good overmuch' is a possible fault, As meat over-salted is worse for the salt; And Chilo, the Stagyrite, Peter, and Paul, Enjoin moderation in all things to all; The law to make better this trial-scene, earth, And draw out its strongest ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... were slippery with the horrid slime of them. The crew surged about in their battling, and, moreover, constantly offered themselves as a rampart before me by reason of Tob, the captain's threats. But I gave a few shrewd progues with the lance to show that I did not choose my will to be overridden, and presently was given ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... but I wern't going to tell you that, nor 'bout another fright I next had, when the darkey and I were a-smoking down in the forepeak and nearly set the ship a-fire," said Tom knowingly, with a shrewd, expressive wink to each of us respectively in turn, before he resumed his story. "But, to go on properly with my yarn from the beginning, when I found Sam's head wasn't a mop, but belonged to his real darkey self, and that he wasn't drownded after all, why, I made him as snug as I could down ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of the commercial part of the expedition, and his manner proclaimed it. Thin-lipped, cunning-eyed, but strong and self-reliant, he was absorbed in the chances of trade. He had been twenty years in the Marquesas islands. A shrewd man among kanakas, unscrupulous by his own account, he had prospered. Now, after selling his business, he was paying a last visit to his long-time home ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Bernadotte's shrewd penetration made him one of the first to see clearly into Bonaparte's designs. He was well convinced of his determination to overthrow the constitution and possess himself of power. He saw the Directory divided into two parties; ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... open air, in many cases with a mere shed to shelter them from the inclement weather. But while thus dispensing food to others, they earn it honestly for themselves. They live, and sometimes accumulate money. The shrewd managing ones have been known to become independent. Some of them begin upon a capital of a few dollars wherewith to furnish their stands, but not succeeding, they retire from the crowd and drop out of sight. Talent is necessary even for the sale of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... a shrewd thrust. Zephyr ought to have come in an ulster, and offered Aurora a warm petticoat. However, in spite of all difficulties, I brought off my recollections of the Derby of 1886 in triumph, and am now waiting for the colored portrait of Ormonde ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... of being a lady, you know; she lives in a little house in the city with one maid, and I believe she rubs her own tables. I am sure she goes about in omnibuses, though she has lots of money; and Marilda is so fond of her, and so like her, only not so clever and shrewd.' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... allied fleet came to an end with the appearance of the Persians. The shrewd plan of Themistocles had succeeded. The Greeks would have to fight with their backs to the wall, but they would fight with better chance of success than ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... opening of the territories in 1854. The noise and excitement created by the passage of the Kansas- Nebraska Act awakened the hope of frontier traders and speculators, who now greedily watched all the budding chances of gain. Under such circumstances these opportunities to the shrewd, to the bold, and especially to the unscrupulous, are many. Cheap lands, unlimited town lots, eligible trading sites, the multitude of franchises and privileges within the control of a territorial legislature, the offices to be distributed under ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... their place of birth to establish a miniature Connecticut elsewhere; their descendants will be found as far west as Oregon, and their whalers knew the paths of the Pacific as well as they did the channels of Long Island Sound. Tolerant, sturdy, pious, shrewd, prudent and brave, they formed the best known type of the characteristic New Englander, as represented by the national figure of Uncle Sam. They were sociable and inquisitive, yet they knew how to ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... is always an attractive quarry. Few things besides riches are so elusive, and the little fellows have, I am sure, a shrewd humor peculiar to themselves. I rather envied the school-girl who had ventured forth for a run in the first snow-storm of the season. I recalled Aldrich’s turn on Gautier’s lines as I ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... circumstance. I related the whole, and added that the man must have been of the greatest consequence, because the inn to which they carried him had been immediately filled by all the chiefs of the army, so far at least as I could judge. The Pope, with a shrewd instinct, sent for Messer Antonio Santacroce, the nobleman who, as I have said, was chief and commander of the gunners. He bade him order all us bombardiers to point our pieces, which were very numerous, in one mass upon the house, and to discharge ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... somewhat above the mere vulgar, and makes one think half his disadvantages rather owing to his own haughty humour, than to nature; for he seems to be a perfect tyrant at first sight, a man used to prescribe, and not to be prescribed to; and has the advantage of a shrewd penetrating look, but which seems ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the coming generations? How to help them to help themselves?' The decree has gone forth. The small farm and farmer must go. They are doomed. A great wave of land monopoly, rolled up by a large class of very shrewd, far-seeing capitalists, is even now sweeping across the continent. Seventy-five years hence only a pauperized peasantry of ignorant farm laborers, bound to the soil as hopelessly as the slave to the master, will coin their lives of ceaseless, unrequited toil to swell the rent ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... a moment; then a shrewd thought came to his mind. He actually smiled. When Mr. Dwight smiled it was worse ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... be easy for your majesty to fascinate the emperor. But my efforts with his old minister Romanzoff are likely to be utterly unavailing. I am not well versed in that art of which you are a master, and he is too old and shrewd to be fascinated by any one. He is not easily deluded, and his eyes are steadfastly fixed on Constantinople. It is his most fervent hope to be hailed in heaven by Peter the Great, after assisting Alexander in accomplishing the will ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... down, And salued them, great and small. "Do gladly, Sir Abbot!" said the Knight, "I am come to hold my day!" The first word the Abbot spake, "Hast thou brought my pay?" "Not one penny!" said the Knight, "By God that maked me!" "Thou art a shrewd debtor!" said the Abbot; "Sir Justice, drink to me! What doest thou here," said the Abbot, "But thou hadst brought thy pay?" "For God!" then said the Knight, "To pray of a longer day!" "Thy day is broke!" said the Justice; "Land gettest thou ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... perfect safety. That we, who rarely went out of London, never had such adventures, did not strike him as worth a thought or two. He never paused in his merriment to consider the strange fact that to him, alone of our household, such wayside adventures fell. With a shrewd air he would inform us that he was about to put the savings of a voyage into an advertised trap which a country parson would have stepped over without a ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... or stay until its flag was planted on the very roof-ridge, had greeted her, an old man's bride, on her first home-coming. They had, in the mysterious way of flowers, soothed some rebellion of young blood and helped to reconcile her to a lot which, for a shrewd and practical damsel, was, after all, not unenviable. She had no romance in her, and was quite unaware that the roses had helped; but she took a sensuous delight in them, and this had started her upon her hobby. A success or two in local ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... her in the care of the sick man; but in the six or seven weeks of his illness Brother Nathan and the Eldress were his devoted nurses, and by-and-by a genuine friendship grew up between them. Old Eldress Hannah's shrewd good-humor was as wholesome as a sound winter apple, and Nathan had a gayety Lewis had never suspected. The old man grew very confidential in those days of Lewis's convalescence; he showed his simple heart with a generosity that made the sick man's lip tighten once or twice and his eyes blur;—Lewis ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... he must not think of retiring, and prophesied that he would soon be "found at the head of the diplomatic corps, be the government administered by whomsoever the people may choose." He remained, therefore, at the Hague, a shrewd and close observer of the exciting events occurring around him, industriously pursuing an extensive course of study and reading, making useful acquaintances, acquiring familiarity with foreign languages, with the usages of diplomacy and the ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... the surgeon, who had now informed himself of her condition, asked her, saying, "O my lady, be pleased to acquaint me with thine estate and thy misfortunes, and as far as in me lieth I will strive to aid and succour thee." And she, observing the leech to be shrewd and trustworthy withal, made known to him her story. Quoth the surgeon, "An it be thy wish, I would gladly escort thee to thy father-in-law the King of Harran, who is indeed a wise sovereign and a just; and he will rejoice to see thee and will take vengeance on the unnatural ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... catastrophe tottering in the gloom. They kept watch upon the enemy, but they did not turn their attention in the true direction. To know where to fix one's mistrust is the secret of a great politician. The Assembly of 1851 did not possess this shrewd certainty of eyesight, their perspective was bad, each saw the future after his own fashion, and a sort of political short-sightedness blinded the Left as well as the Right; they were afraid, but not where fear was advisable; they were in the presence of a mystery, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... on his breast." Beau Nash completes the list of the ancient heroes, dying in 1761, at the age of eighty-eight—a man of singular success in his frivolous style; made for a master of the ceremonies, the model of all sovereigns of water-drinking places; absurd and ingenious, silly and shrewd, avaricious and extravagant. He created Bath; he taught decency to "bucks," civility to card-players, care to prodigals, and caution to Irishmen! Bath has never seen his like again. In English high life, birth is every thing or nothing. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... said Miss Ellison, boldly, and back they ran to the parlor, where they found Basil and the Colonel and his wife in earnest conclave. The Colonel, like a shrewd strategist, was making show of a desperation more violent than his wife's, who was thus naturally forced into the attitude ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... reduced it to despair. Appointed to offices, its members failed in the performance of their duties; the latter fell to the under men who, while the aristocracy was busy at fetes, in society, at the table, became experts in the affairs of the government—shrewd politicians and financiers. The new nobility, that of the robe, replaced that of the sword in all interests of the government except war; gradually, Parliament was made up of men who, having been elevated to the rank ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... the end of our difficulties? Not yet; for Berlioz is the most illusive of men, and no one has helped more than he to mislead people in their estimate of him. We know how much he has written about music and about his own life, and what wit and understanding he shows in his shrewd criticisms and charming Memoires.[3] ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... Pete was shrewd and in no way inclined to commit himself carelessly. Horse-trading had sharpened his wits to a razor-edge and dire necessity and hunger had kept those wits keen. Annersley was amused and at the same time wise enough in his patient, slow way to hide his amusement ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... courant" of the shrewd chronicler of Carlaverock are identical with the "three Lions passant guardant" of the Royal Shield of England I have already shown (see page 84). To the Norman Sovereigns of England, WILLIAMI., WILLIAMII., ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... although demand generally was unsatisfactory, the faith of drovers in the future was unshaken. A railroad had recently reached Abilene, stockyards had been built for the accommodation of shippers during the summer of 1861, while a firm of shrewd, far-seeing Yankees made great pretensions of having established a market and meeting-point for buyers and sellers of Texas cattle. The promoters of the scheme had a contract with the railroad, whereby they ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... shrewd March morn, Thrusts up its saffron spear; And April dots the sombre thorn With gems, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... know, have ever proposed to establish communities by force or to have the whole people embraced in them. Held together by their peculiar religious principles, they have been far more successful (especially when under some shrewd leader whom they believed to have a spiritual authority) than when actuated purely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... 88 years of age, Aunt Dora is a fine specimen of the fast disappearing type of ante-bellum Negro. Her shrewd dark eyes glowing, a brown paper sack perched saucily on her white cottony hair, and puffing contentedly on an old corn cob pipe, the old woman began her recital what ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... suffered under calamities too terrible and too depressing to admit of the frequent display of the humor or the satire of Pasquin. The siege and sack of the city by the army of the Constable de Bourbon wrought too much misery to be set in verse or to be sharpened in epigram. One shrewd jest of this time has, indeed, been preserved. Clement was for months a prisoner in the Castle of Sant' Angelo, unable to stir abroad. "Papa non potest errare" said Pasquin, or one of his friends, with a play on the double meaning of the last ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... laugh very heartily. The constable was staggered, and it was evident that he was not smart enough to deal with one so shrewd and clever as the ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... find, in that old Edinburgh house of his; a cheery social man, with faces that loved him! They go far wrong who think this Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic, shrieking fanatic. Not at all: he is one of the solidest of men. Practical, cautious-hopeful, patient; a most shrewd, observing, quietly discerning man. In fact, he has very much the type of character we assign to the Scotch at present: a certain sardonic taciturnity is in him; insight enough; and a stouter heart than he himself knows of. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Then she and I bearded the dragon in her den. After I had finished telling her that it would be better to take little Miss Taylor without further bickering, Elfreda rose to the occasion and gave her a much-needed lecture. She is very shrewd, I think. She evidently realized she had gone too far. She objected to Miss Taylor because it is her nature to object to everything. When she saw that we had taken up the cudgels in Miss Taylor's behalf, and that she was likely to get into hot water, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... people, of a character belonging—as far as I have seen—exclusively to the class of Westmoreland and Cumberland statesmen—just, independent, upright; not given to much speaking; kind-hearted, but not demonstrative; disliking change, and new ways, and new people; sensible and shrewd; each household self-contained, and its members having little curiosity as to their neighbours, with whom they rarely met for any social intercourse, save at the stated times of sheep-shearing and Christmas; ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... broke the news. Its effect upon them was different in both cases. Mr. Raven started a little; exclaimed a little: he was more wonder-struck than horrified. But Mr. Cazalette's mask-like countenance remained immobile; only, a gleam of sudden, almost pleased interest showed itself in his black, shrewd eyes. ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... job up shrewd, Kent," said I, by and by; "how did you steer in?"—for it did not often happen that the Madonna got fairly out of port with a boy unbeknown in ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... dome-like forehead, his little, dark grey eyes, and an immense white moustache, which drooped and spread below the level of his strong jaw, he had a patriarchal look, and in spite of lean cheeks and hollows at his temples, seemed master of perennial youth. He held himself extremely upright, and his shrewd, steady eyes had lost none of their clear shining. Thus he gave an impression of superiority to the doubts and dislikes of smaller men. Having had his own way for innumerable years, he had earned a prescriptive right to it. It would never have ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... practised as a barrister. Shrewd, lively, earnest, honest, he grudged help to a rogue. In a criminal case, when evidence threw unexpected light upon a client's character, Abraham Lincoln said suddenly to his junior, "Swett, the man is guilty; you defend him, I can't." In another case, when a piece of rascality in ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... noisy workshop and the guild With various melodies and rhymes, That here in Hagenau there dwelt A cobbler,—one who loved debate, And, arguing from a postulate, Would say what others only felt; A man of forecast and of thrift, And of a shrewd and careful mind In this world's business, but inclined Somewhat to let ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... According to Isidore (Etym. x), a man is said to be solicitous through being shrewd (solers) and alert (citus), in so far as a man through a certain shrewdness of mind is on the alert to do whatever has to be done. Now this belongs to prudence, whose chief act is a command about what has been already ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Don Rodrigo de Santillan. He was a shrewd reasoner and well-informed. He knew how the justice of Castile was kept on the alert by the persistent plottings of the Portuguese Pretender, Don Antonio, sometime Prior of Crato. He was intimate with ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Piccadilly peccadillo. He had come up specially for the siege, it was said by some who, had they but half his foresight, would have "specially" gone away for it. Well, Mr. Rhodes, felt safe and we, too, had felt safe until the sad event of Saturday rather neutralised the confidence inspired by the shrewd, but human, millionaire. There was a minority, indeed, who could not logically look for aught but ruin and disaster as a sequence to the shock of Saturday. "Look at the narrow escapes so many had," ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... him tender as a nun, And natural or supernatural fear, Unless it leap upon him in a dream, Touches him not. To enhance the wonder, see How arch his notices, how nice his sense 310 Of the ridiculous; not blind is he To the broad follies of the licensed world, Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd, And can read lectures upon innocence; A miracle of scientific lore, 315 Ships he can guide across the pathless sea, And tell you all their cunning; he can read The inside of the earth, and spell the stars; He knows the policies of foreign lands; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... reserved by the thoughtful leaders were, in the course of generations, seized upon as the readiest tools of a shrewd plutocracy, which entrenched itself in power. Rebellion against that plutocracy long seemed almost hopeless; but at last, in the year 1912, the fight was carried to a successful issue. In both the great political parties, the progressive spirit dominated. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... a boon companion, Charles very soon became a counsellor to the young Prince, and the poisonous advice that he gave seemed shrewd and good, even ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... now, his bearing and features were Nevil incarnate. But to the shrewd eye of Broome the last seemed subtly overlaid with the spirit of the East—a brooding stillness wrought from the clash of opposing forces within. When he laughed and talked it vanished. When he fell silent, and drifted away ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Alison, who was no kitten, might not be altogether infatuated. The shock of the afternoon, for all her heroics, might have waked in her some doubt of the charms of Mr. Boyce. The girl was shrewd enough. She had dealt with fortune-hunters before—remember the Scottish lord's son—and shown a humorous appreciation of the tribe. She was not a chit with the green sickness; she was neither so young nor so old that she must needs fall into the arms of any man who ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... woo the Muse with no control, And here my books—my life—absorb me whole. Here too I visit, or to smile, or weep, The winding theatre's majestic sweep; The grave or gay colloquial scene recruits My spirits spent in Learning's long pursuits. 30 Whether some Senior shrewd, or spendthrift heir, Wooer, or soldier, now unarm'd, be there, Or some coif'd brooder o'er a ten years' cause Thunder the Norman gibb'rish of the laws. The lacquey, there, oft dupes the wary sire, And, artful, speeds ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... at the above-bridge navy, in a large and national light, we are not inclined to go into critical details, such as are to be met with, passim, in the shrewd and amusing work of "The Passenger on board the Bachelor." There may be something in the objection, that there is no getting comfortably into one of these boats when one desires to go by it. It may be true, that a boy's neglecting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... something. I shall take Pedro with me, and perhaps Dominique. We can get another pilot here. Dominique is a shrewd fellow, and can get more out of the negroes than Pedro can. Certainly, that will be the best plan, and will avoid the necessity of spoiling the yacht's speed, which may be of vital importance to us at a ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... lines, near Millwood, there was living an old colored man, who had a permit from the Confederate commander to go into Winchester and return three times a week, for the purpose of selling vegetables to the inhabitants. The scouts had sounded this man, and, finding him both loyal and shrewd, suggested that he might be made useful to us within the enemy's lines; and the proposal struck me as feasible, provided there could be found in Winchester some reliable person who would be willing to co-operate and correspond with me. I asked ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... William Pullency, an English speculator, bought 1,500,000 acres of land in Upper Canada at one shilling an acre, and sold 700,000 acres later for an average of eight shillings an acre. Under these circumstances it was not surprising that many Americans, with their shrewd business ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... the people, had the air of cultivating, even clinging to a certain plebeian strain, never so apparent as when he spoke, or in his gestures. He was a Member of Parliament for a Labour constituency, a shrewd and valuable exponent of the gospel of the working man. What he lacked in the higher qualities of oratory he made up in sturdy common sense. The will-o'-the-wisp Socialism of the moment, with its many attendant "isms" and theories, received ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
