"Crafty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soul had not escaped Golo, and this crafty man cringed the more to the sorrowful count, feigning to care for his welfare. A starving person accepts even the bread which a beggar-man offers, and Siegfried, supposing his steward wished to compensate ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... murdered," Ned said to himself, "before they have gone a hundred yards. The natives were crafty enough to allow them to land without hindrance, in order that no suspicion might arise ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security—for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery. But damn ye altogether; damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and ye who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They villify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference: they rob the poor under cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... sweet milk from the second and wheat and barley from the third; then he withdraweth the staff and returneth to his place which is highs the Hermitage of Diamonds. And this magical monk is a cunning inventor and artificer of all manner strange works; and he is a crafty warlock full of guiles and wiles, an arch deceiver of wondrous wickedness, who hath mastered every kind of magic and witchcraft. His name is Yaghms and to him I must needs send thee on the back of a big bird with four wings,'"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... out her memorandum-book, and took down her summary of the crafty Triplet's facts. So easy is it for us Triplets to draw the wool over the eyes ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... man—and by his own confession he was—he was certainly profoundly grieved at his death. In the Argument to the Dialogus de Morte he laments that he ever let the youth leave his house without sending him back to England, and tells how he was cozened by Daldo, the crafty tailor, out of a premium of thirty-one gold crowns, in return for which William was to be taught a trade. "But during the summer, Daldo, who had a little farm in the country, took the youth there and let him join in the village games, and by degrees ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... other savage who had been in France, told the captain that the children had been presented as a token of friendship and security, and that he Domagaia was willing to accompany us to Hochelega. On this high words arose between Taignoagny and Domagaia, by which we inferred that the former was a crafty knave, and intended to do us some treacherous act of mischief as indeed sufficiently appeared from his former conduct. The captain sent the children to our ships, whence he caused two swords and two brass basons to be brought, which he presented ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... but are at times quite ready to do a kindness, or to return one to those who aid them. Their great enemies are the Thunder-God and the wolf. The principal outwitter of the devil is generally called Crafty Hans; and several volumes of their adventures have been published in Esthonian. The Devil is often represented ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... the sale of one of which their mind is much bent. They drink plentifully of cherry-brandy on hunting days; but, as a rule, they do not often misbehave themselves. They are very careful not to be caught in marriage, and talk about women much as a crafty knowing salmon might be presumed to talk about anglers. The ladies are given to dancing, of course, and are none of them nearly so old as you might perhaps be led to imagine. They greatly eschew card-playing; but, nevertheless, now and again one of them may ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... State ever received half the worship her sons gave her. The fierce Nor'westers, the traders of Montreal, the Company of the X Y, Astor himself, had to give way. For, although they were bold or reckless or crafty or able, they had not the ideal which raises such ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... rest. The Suliotes, vanquished after years of heroic defence, migrated in a body to the Ionian Islands in 1804. Every Klepht and Armatole of the Epirote border had fought at some time either for Ali or against him; for in the extension of his violent and crafty rule Ali was a friend to-day and an enemy to-morrow alike to Greek, Turk, and Albanian. When his power was at its height, Ali's court at Janina was as much Greek as it was Mohammedan: soldiers, merchants, professors, all, as it was said, with a longer or a shorter rope round ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... such vanities as the praise and blame of men, and seek Thy praise only! And then add this, which is worth knowing. The devil will not dare to tempt one to pride or precedency who is truly humble because, being very crafty, he fears defeat. If you are truly humble, you will only grow in that grace by every temptation to pride or praise. For, immediately on the temptation, you will reflect on your whole past life and present character, and on the stupendous ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... first it was his impulse to excuse himself, as possibly Blake might be already waiting for him; but on second thoughts, remembering that Trenchard was Mr. Wilding's most intimate famulus, it occurred to him that by a little crafty questioning he might succeed in smoking Mr. Wilding's intentions in the matter of that letter—for from his sister he had failed to get satisfaction. So he permitted himself to be led indoors to a table by the window which stood vacant. There were at the time a dozen guests ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... went a good deal to cattle, and range matters, but Pettigrew, a crafty fellow, told good stories about men that everybody in and out of Sleepy Cat knew, and appealed frequently to Laramie for confirmation or a laugh. Some of the laughs he got were a little dry but they were not ill-natured, and ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... honour. If I have made you feel some of the bitterness and sorrow that have spoiled my own young days because of my cowardly enemies, it is not from a poor spirit, but because I was powerless, and knew it, to take any sort of striking vengeance for their secret insults, their crafty injuries, their underhand intrigues. It was not because my arm wanted strength, but because my head wanted a crown. I might have put an end to some of these wretched beings, the least dangerous maybe; but it would have been striking in the dark; the ringleaders ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... daily bread by his daily toil. A depreciated currency, sudden changes of prices, paper money, falling between morning and noon, and falling still lower between noon and night,—these things constitute the very harvest-time of speculators, and of the whole race of those who are at once idle and crafty; and of that other race, too, the Catilines of all times, marked, so as to be known for ever by one stroke of the historian's pen, those greedy of other men's property and prodigal of their own. Capitalists, too, may ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... in fact, that it was Philip V. who, forgetting the long and faithful services of Madame des Ursins, and wearied of a domination from which he had not the courage to free himself, gave authority to his new consort to take everything upon herself; and the latter, who, like Alberoni, her crafty adviser, belonged to the intrepid race of political gamesters, did not hesitate for a single instant to commence her regal play with the execution of such a master-stroke. Elizabeth of Parma felt herself to be too first-rate a personage to condescend ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... soon also have created a great navy. Affairs of other nations will press upon them, and they will press against the affairs of other nations. In this way statecraft will become necessary to them; and by degrees their ministers will become habile, graceful, adroit, and perhaps crafty, as are the ministers of ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... back and forth, and their mouths twisted into contemptuous half snarls. Then, as Nelson's offer was made clear, a look of cunning seemed to creep into the eyes of the leader. He asked for clarification of several points, then, being informed of the details, his thick lips parted in an evil, crafty grin. ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... Mailepakaha this guardian was not at all pleased at their having been let slip by the first guards, but so crafty was their speech that they ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... treasure for the parents, but the parents for the children. [12:15]And I most gladly will spend and will be spent for your souls, even if the more abundantly I love you the less I am loved. [12:16]Be it so, I was not burdensome to you; but being crafty I caught you with deceit. [12:17]Did I make any thing out of you by any of those I sent to you? [12:18]I requested Titus, and sent the brother with him; did Titus make any thing out of you? Did we not walk in the same ...
— The New Testament • Various
... as New York, to be deliberately careful about money is the only way to keep within one's income, whether it be vast or small. There are temptations to buy at the end of every glance of the eye. The merchants are crafty in producing new and insidious allurements, in creating new and expensive tastes. But these might be resisted were it not that the habits of all one's associates are constantly and all but irresistibly stimulating the faculty ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... kind of men in antient time were called Ventriloqui,) and so make the weaknesse of his voice seem to proceed, not from the weak impulsion of the organs of Speech, but from distance of place, is able to make very many men beleeve it is a voice from Heaven, whatsoever he please to tell them. And for a crafty man, that hath enquired into the secrets, and familiar confessions that one man ordinarily maketh to another of his actions and adventures past, to tell them him again is no hard matter; and yet there be many, that by such means as that, obtain the reputation of being Conjurers. But ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... success he ascribes it to the force of his individual temperament, and if he fails in anything he refers it to the workings of the supernatural. A man, however, who tries to gain advancement by plots and injuries is in the first place held to be crafty and crooked, malicious and vicious: (and this I know you would allow no one to say or think about you, even if you might rule the whole world by it): again, if he succeeds, he is thought to have gained an unjust advantage, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... paganistic worship, vice and immorality was to him almost unknown. He was a lover of the beautiful, and in disposition easily entreated; and, because of these very tractile elements in his character, he fell an easy prey to the machinations of his more wily and crafty ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... adorned the era of the revival of learning, and, as its patrons, furnished us with weapons by which to deprive imposition of its powers, are well entitled to our esteem; but many of them were entangled in the bridle, by whose means more crafty persons had long rode on the backs of mankind. Thus the friendship and intercourse of sir Thomas More and Erasmus were founded on their mutual zeal in behalf of those ecclesiastical frauds which for so many ages had subdued ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... same manner I did. We stood in a dark corner, at the head of the stairs, taking note of the proceedings below; when that crafty little chap, that joined us from Brush's, came wriggling like an eel out from between the legs of the crowding tories, in the passage; and, working himself up stairs unnoticed, in the same way, beckoned us to follow him, as we did, into the court-room, where, at ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... punish: Else, a man's Enemy, is still before hand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take Revenge, are Desirous the party should know, whence it cometh. This is the more Generous. For the Delight seemeth to be, not so much in doing the Hurt, as in making the Party repent: But Base and Crafty Cowards are like the Arrow that flyeth in the Dark. Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a Desperate Saying against Perfidious or Neglecting Friends, as if these wrongs were unpardonable. You shall reade (saith he) that we are commanded to forgive our Enemies: But you never read, that we are commanded, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... "Daman is crafty and the Illanuns are very bloodthirsty. Night is nothing to them. They are certainly valorous. Are they not born in the midst of fighting and are they not inspired by the evil of their hearts even before they can speak? And their chiefs would be leading ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... excellent knight from the folk of the Geatmen Had liegemen selected, likest to prove them Trustworthy warriors; with fourteen companions The vessel he looked for; a liegeman then showed them, 20 A sea-crafty man, the bounds of the country. Fast the days fleeted; the float was a-water, The craft by the cliff. Clomb to the prow then Well-equipped warriors: the wave-currents twisted The sea on the sand; soldiers then carried 25 On the breast of the vessel bright-shining ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... as they were not, they could not have perceived him from another man. Besides, there came with him so many locusts to usher him into the house of God, and they so suited the flesh and reason of the godly of that day, that with good words and fair speeches, by their crafty and cunning sleights whereby they lay in wait to deceive, they quite got him in, and set him up and made him a great one, even the chief, before they were aware. Further, he quickly got him a beast to ride on, far, ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... humble, that a sorrowful compassion repressed one's desire to smile. Had he learnt these complimentary bows from an automaton, or a dog? Is that the entreating gaze of one sick unto death, or is there lurking behind it the mockery of a crafty miser? Is that a man brought into the arena at the moment of death, like a dying gladiator, to delight the public with his convulsions? Or is it one risen from the dead, a vampire with a violin, who, if not the blood out of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... he suspects that by some cause they were either incapacitated to weigh evidence fairly, or were led wilfully to stifle the truth and publish a falsehood. Very few persons have ever been inclined to make this charge, that the apostles were either wild enthusiasts of fancy, or crafty calculators of fraud; and no one has ever been able to support the position even with moderate plausibility. Granting, in the first place, hypothetically, that the disciples were ever so great enthusiasts in their general character and conduct, still, they could not have ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... not thrown away upon Barney, who was naturally of an observant turn; and accordingly he kept a stricter eye than ever upon the motions of Harry Woodward. This accomplished gentleman, like every villain of his class, was crafty and secret in everything he did and said; that is to say, his object was always to lead those with whom he held intercourse, to draw the wrong inference from his words and actions. Even his mother, as the reader will learn, was not in his full confidence. Such ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... satisfaction, however. When he tried to tell these men of his present predicament, they began to describe ills of their own in which he could not feel interested. Each one of them had a treacherous organ of which he spoke with animation, almost with pride, as if it were a crafty business competitor whom he was constantly outwitting. Each had a doctor, too, for whom he was ardently soliciting business. They wanted either to telephone their doctor and make an appointment for Wanning, or to take ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... were needed to commend the writer to the deepest good will of the reader, it was found in the fact that this enterprise sprang from warm zeal for the commerce of Springhaven. The Leda had been ordered on Friday last to protect the peaceful little fishing fleet from a crafty design for their capture, and this she had done with good effect, having justice on her side, and fortune. The particulars of the combat were not so clear, after the captain's three fingers were gone; but if one made proper allowance for that, there was not very much to complain of. The Admiral ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... didn't bring all his forces on At once, but like a crafty old Don, Who many a heart had fought and won, Kept bidding a little higher; And every time he made his bid, And what she said, and all they did— 'Twas written down, For the good of the town, By ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... himself, Dakota's gaze sought Sheila. It was evident to Sheila that he was thinking pleasant thoughts, for several times she looked quickly at him to catch him smiling. Once she met his gaze fairly and was certain that she saw a crafty, calculating gleam in his eyes. She was puzzled, though there was nothing of fear from Dakota now; the presence of the parson in the cabin assured ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... him dispelled it utterly. At first the amazing beauty of Thoreau's wife had impinged itself upon his senses with something of a shock. But he was cool now. He was again master of his old cunning. Pitilessly and without conscience, he was marshaling the crafty forces of his brute nature for this new and more thrilling fight—the fight for ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... African monkeys, by their challenging, crafty air, reminded her unpleasantly of a band of good-for-nothings who for months had spread terror and desolation throughout the country. The chief—or the one who appeared to be the chief—the biggest and strongest, hurled ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... murder, nor adultery, nor sodomy, nor crimes against the god of generation; he has not been imperious or haughty, or violent, or wrathful, or hasty in deed, or a hypocrite, or an accepter of persons, or a blasphemer, or crafty, or avaricious, or fraudulent, or deaf to pious words, or a party to evil actions, or proud, or puffed up; he has terrified no man, he has not cheated in the market-place, and he has neither fouled the public watercourse nor laid waste ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... and dragged the dead moose to shore. He was highly pleased at our success; for the Indians consider the moose more difficult to take than any other animal. It is more vigilant than either the buffalo or the caribou, more prudent and crafty than the antelope. In the most violent storm, when the wind and the thunder and the falling timber are making the loudest and the most incessant roar, if the hunter even with his foot or his hand breaks the smallest dry twig in the forest, the moose ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... when a shimmering thing slithered up, snapped at the fly, and flashed away to the tune of singing reel and the dance of the swaying rod. The man grew suddenly cruel and crafty and full of lust; and Good Indian, watching him, was conscious of an inward shudder of repulsion. He had fished all his life—had Good Indian—and had found joy in the sport. And here was he inwardly condemning a sportsman who stood self-revealed, ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... house. And if the husband, coming from the Change or other important affair, seems to be any waies discontented, that all things lies stragling about the house, & are not set in order, presently crafty Peggy finds a fit expedient for it with complaining that her Mistris hath had such an insufferable pain in her head and in her belly, that it was beyond imagination; & also she could get no ease for her, unless she had prepared her some butter'd ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... suited the present frame of mind neither of Charles nor of Catharine. When the crafty Spaniard, cautiously feeling his way, begged the young king to be very careful of his life, "for God, he was convinced, was reserving him to execute a great work by his hands, in the punishment of the offences which were committed in that kingdom,"[371] Charles briskly responded: "Oh! ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... while the buccaneer seemed to regard him with a sort of crafty hesitancy. At length ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... devotion"—he made melancholy eyes at Alison. "No more of that. In fine, I did not suspect that a fellow who was taking wages from my hand had plotted to rob me of what was my dearest hope, or that another—another—would surrender herself a prey to his crafty greed." ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... decision. We fight for freedom, not for the hope of material profit or comfort, but because every fine instinct of manhood demands that man be free, and life beautiful and brave, and surely in such a splendid battle to have as allies mean, crafty profit-seekers would be amazing. Let us be loyal in the deep sense, and let us not be afraid of being few at first. An earnest band is more effective than a discreditable multitude. That band will increase in numbers and strength till it becomes ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... heaven, crafty Odysseus, I will speak out plainly the word which I intend to carry out in act, and which will, I believe, be accomplished. For I hate him like the gates of death who thinks one thing and says another. But I will speak that which shall ...
— Lesser Hippias • Plato
... with some discontented French princes, Louis secretly fomented an insurrection in Liege. When the blow was first struck, the crafty king was paying a visit to his cousin of Burgundy, as he called the duke, who, on hearing the news, retained his sovereign as a prisoner, threatening to kill him for his perfidy. The cunning prince tried ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... an arrangement with Constable, and by preserving his manuscripts, and he finally confessed. Bacon never confessed, and no documentary traces of his authorship survive. Scott, writing anonymously, quoted his own poems in the novels, an obvious 'blind.' Bacon, less crafty, never (as far as we are ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... with the most levelling dogmas of equality, it is the equality of the white race only that has been affirmed by the crafty demagogue. The efforts for the enfranchisement of the negro have been eagerly seized upon to widen still further the breach between the intelligent and the ignorant. The thoughtless among the masses ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... crisis, knows what to do and can accomplish it by craft and strength combined. The heroes are noteworthy for tricks, stratagems, ruses, and perfidy.[2223] In all the epic poems the princes have by their side mentors who are crafty, fertile in resource, and clever in action.[2224] In the Icelandic saga of Burnt Njal, Njal is the knowing man, peaceful and friendly. His crafty devices are chiefly due to his knowledge of the law, which was full of chicane and known to few. These clever heroes, developed out of the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... years.—Beside Henderson and Argyle there is no man of the Scottish Presbyterians of that time more worthy of mark than Warriston. He had prodigious powers of work, requiring but three hours of sleep out of the twenty-four: and he was mutually crafty and long-headed, always ready with lawyer-like expedients. Bishop Burnet, who was his nephew, adds, "He went into very high notions of lengthened devotions, in which he continued many hours a day: he would ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... himself up, and raise a smiling and invincible head toward heaven, like that of the honest and valiant friend, the strongest of the four, and yet the first dead. Strange destiny of these men of brass! The most simple of heart allied to the most crafty; strength of body guided by subtlety of mind; and in the decisive moment, when vigor alone could save mind and body, a stone, a rock, a vile and material weight, triumphed over vigor, and falling upon the body, drove out ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... this kind might have found fleeting lodgment in the colonel's brain; of Jim Ellison, who used to sit at the desk in the corner; of the son that now asked him for work. Then a crafty, suspicious light came into his eyes, and he glanced ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... morning of the 4th of July, 1648, while the missionary was performing service, there suddenly arose a cry of terror that the Iroquois were at hand. None but old men, women, and children were in the village at the time; of this the crafty enemy were aware; they had crept silently through the woods, and lain in ambush till morning gave them light for the foul massacre. Not one of the inhabitants escaped, and last of all, the good priest ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... passed away, but the bungalow is still occupied by his son, a pensioner on the English Crown, and one of the most daring pirates in all that region—successful enough to have achieved a fame for prowess, but too crafty ever to be caught. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... tell thee.' Whereupon quoth Guasparruolo, 'Gulfardo, I am satisfied; get you gone and God go with you: I will settle your account aright.' Gulfardo gone, the lady, finding herself cozened, gave her husband the dishonourable price of her baseness; and on this wise the crafty lover enjoyed his sordid mistress ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... light for me on the trackless wild As the wonders of old I trace, When the God of the whole earth went before To search me a resting place. Has he changed for me? Nay! He changes not. He will bring me by some new way, Through fire and flood and each crafty foe, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... there are the good citizens of a good town, parading, hustling, loafing—sturdy patricians, wretched plebeians, stern centurios, boastful soldiers, scheming politicians, crafty law-clerks, timid scribes, chattering barbers, bullying gladiators, haughty actors, dusty travelers, making for Albinus', the famous host at the Via della Abbondanza or, would he give preference to Sarinus, the son of Publius, who advertised so cleverly? Or, perhaps, could he afford to stop ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... scarcely even distantly conscious of the hue and cry, and general excitement at the head-station, when it was discovered that the prisoner had escaped. Harris had his own suspicions—it might be said, his certainties, but the man's crafty nature bade him keep his accusations for an opportunity when he ran less risk of being worsted. He meant to wait until McKeith's return. Meanwhile what he had not been prepared for was Willoughby Maule's departure with the mailman before he himself came back from an unsuccessful ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... into England by Lord Mansfield. An opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid associates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his mind, by the turn of his own reasoning. A judiciary law was once reported by the Attorney General to Congress, requiring each judge to deliver his opinion seriatim ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... could not forbear blaming her in my own Thoughts for walking abroad when she was so near her Time, but soon recovered myself out of my Error, when I found all the Modish Part of the Sex as far gone as her self. It is generally thought some crafty Women have thus betrayed their Companions into Hoops, that they might make them accessory to their own Concealments, and by that means escape the Censure of the World; as wary Generals have sometimes dressed two or three Dozen of their ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... in succession to a young student that he is a sly and crafty peasant, then a miser, and finally a very old man. While the subject's features and behavior generally are modified and brought into harmony with the idea of the personality suggested, we may observe also ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... "She is—but crafty. I thought that when I met her on board ship. And those eyes of hers. Phew! They seem to read right into one's soul, and discover one's secret thoughts." He stopped for an instant, then added, meditatively, "I wonder what makes ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... unintelligible, unknowable, unrevealed. When a man's conduct is entirely plain, straightforward, or accounted for, we call that an intelligible case; when we are perplexed by the tortuosities of a crafty, double-dealing person, we say it is all very mysterious. So, in nature, we consider that we understand certain phenomena: such as gravity, and all its consequences, in the fall of bodies, the flow of rivers, the motions of the planets, the tides. On the ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... they had "got to him", after all. Who? He thought of the smooth crafty mountain of a man who had detained him a moment ago. Who but Cargan and Max, of course? They had found his childish hiding-place, and the money had come home to their eager hands. No doubt they were laughing slyly at ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... entangled in this vile conspiracy, and he will run any risk in the useless attempt to save her. He is too weak to bear the journey—far too weak for the violent emotions that will follow; and, oh! how much too weak to cope with my husband—as strong and as crafty as ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... are all those who will submit to be governed by Laws which rich Men have made for their own Security, for the cowardly Whelps have not the Courage otherwise to defend what they get by their Knavery; but damn ye altogether: Damn them for a Pack of crafty Rascals, and you, who serve them, for a Parcel of hen-hearted Numskuls. They villify us, the Scoundrels do, when there is only this Difference, they rob the Poor under the Cover of Law, forsooth, and we plunder the Rich under the ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... Years does more Hurt to the Nation, that the other had Time to do them good in a long Administration. This never happens at Rome; and there is no Court in the Universe so constantly supplied with able Managers and crafty Statemen as hers: For how short soever the Lives of most Popes may be, the Sacred College never dies. Tell me now pray, what unlikely Change, what Improbability can you imagine, of which we have not Reason to fear, that, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... will all be patched up, or has been, by this time. Van Buren is a crafty but peace-loving fox! Something of an epicurean, too, in his high estate. What grim old Jackson left half healed, he will complete the cure of. Ah, Miss Harz, I had hoped to flesh my sword ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... He was a crafty Eskimo, and a thought had occurred to him. He would sham exhaustion, and, when his foes relaxed their grip, would burst away from them. He knew it was a forlorn hope, for he was well aware that, even if he should succeed in getting away, the spouters would ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... years, the younger brother would learn in what lay the secret of the elder's death. And Glooskap, being crafty, told the truth and yet lied; for his name was the Liar, yet did he never lie for evil or aught to harm. So he told his brother that the blow of a ball, or handful of the down of feathers, would take away his life; and this was true, for it would stun ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... inflicted. One ought not to imagine a man timid, or weak in his mind, nor a good man, who, whatever he has done, keeps tormenting himself, and dreads everything; but rather let us fancy one, who with great shrewdness refers everything to usefulness—an acute, crafty, wary man, able with ease to devise plans for deceiving any one secretly, without any witness, or any one being privy to it. Do you think that I am speaking of Lucius Tubulus?—who, when as praetor he ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... good cause Harpagus had to hate Astyages. But he nursed his revenge with crafty wisdom, and knowing himself powerless to act openly and alone, he tried what stratagem might do to bring about his aim, which was no less than the overthrow of Astyages by means of the tyrant's grandson, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... patriarch as he spoke. For a moment, a crafty expression passed over the old man's face, but as suddenly it disappeared. Evidently he ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... wide—that he's doo to leave everything in front of him on both sides of the road. But in them perfervid man'festations he don't reely intend nothin' either high or heenious, or more'n jest to give his se'f-respect an outing that a-way. Let the opp'sition call him down, an' the crafty old cimmaron'll ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of the 17th century; a ruffling young theologue new to the city; a beautiful and innocent girl, suspected of witchcraft; a crafty scholar and metaphysician seeking to give over the city into the hands of the Savoyards; a stern and powerful syndic whom the scholar beguiles to betray his office by promises of an elixir which shall save him from his fatal illness; a brutal soldier of fortune; these ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... separating their lot from that of Naples, in rejecting even freedom unless it was accompanied by disruption, they hastened the ruin of the Neapolitans and of themselves, and surely played into the hands of the crafty tyrant who desired nothing better than to fish in the troubled ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... than fight him, he sent C. D. Rudd, Rochfort Maguire, and F. R. ("Matabele") Thompson up to deal directly with Lobengula. They were ideal envoys for Thompson in particular knew every inch of the country and spoke the native languages. From the crafty chieftain they obtained a blanket concession for all the mineral and trading rights in Matabeleland for L1,200 a year and one thousand rifles. Rhodes now converted this concession into a commercial and colonizing achievement ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... frightfulness, terrorism. It resorts to bribery, in the shape of titles, honour and high offices. It administers opiates in the shape of Reforms. In essence then it is an autocracy double distilled in the guise of democracy. The greatest gift of a crafty cunning man are worthless so long as cunning resides in his heart. It is a Government representing a civilisation which is purely material and godless. I have given to you these qualities of this government in order not to excite your angry passions, but in order that you ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... of arrangement could not last. Sooner or later, there was bound to be a quarrel over the division of the plunder. Now Bismarck had a chance to show his crafty diplomacy. He made up his mind to crush Austria and put Prussia in her place as the leader of the German states. He first negotiated with Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, and made sure that this monarch would not interfere. Next he remembered that the provinces of Venetia, ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... heavier and far stronger than Coniston. But I found him crafty, and where I was awkward in handling my lightness, he ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... all other plans for obtaining money failed. Meanwhile, he went everywhere, was universally admired and petted, and no one who saw him in society with his bright smile and nonchalant manner, would have imagined what crafty schemes there were ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Randolph scaled the Castle rock and took Edinburgh Castle out of the hands of the English, a keep so strong, and set on a cliff so perilous, that no man might deem to win it by sudden onfall. And in like manner the good Messire James Douglas took his own castle, more than once or twice, by crafty stratagem of war, so that the English named it Castle Perilous. But in every such onfall few men fought for us, of such as could move secretly and swiftly, not with long trains of waggons that cover a league of road, and by their noise and number ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... don't," I begged, you can guess how anxiously. "She really couldn't help it, and I shall be so sorry to distress her." He was still glaring, and desperation made me crafty. "You wouldn't refuse the first thing I've asked you?" I ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Quenisset—"shedding blood, in fact!" At the wine-shop meetings the French conspirator tells us that there was "an old man, a locksmith," who would read revolutionary themes, and "electrify the souls of the young men about him!" The locksmith of the Rue de Courcelles was the crafty, sanguinary policy of the monarch of the barricades. We now come to MADAME ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... to the history of the earlier nations, we deduce from Jewish history that Abraham lived to one hundred and seventy-five; Isaac, likewise a tranquil, peaceful man, to one hundred and eighty; Jacob, who was crafty and cunning, to one hundred and forty-seven; Ishmael, a warrior, to one hundred and thirty-seven; and Joseph, to one hundred and ten. Moses, a man of extraordinary vigor, which, however, he exposed to great cares and fatigues, attained the advanced age of one hundred ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... nothing in you in our days which may justly move our indignation. Still show forth your older loyalty. It is not fitting that the Roman people should be fickle, or crafty, or full of seditions. ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... you are young girls; Sometimes there are roses in your hair. But I know you— Sitting back there in the hollow shadows of your wombs. The crafty fibers of your souls Are woven in and out With the fibers ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott
... not only distinguish the scent of one species of animal from another, but that of different animals of the same species. The fox-hound, well broken-in, will rarely challenge at the scent of the hare, nor will he be imposed upon when the crafty animal that he pursues has taken refuge in the earth, and thrusts out a ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... the narrow strait between South America and the Antarctic Continent, rushed up the American shore, as the Gulf Stream, and poured northwestward between Greenland and Labrador towards Cathay and India; of that most crafty argument of Sir Humphrey's—how Aristotle in his book "De Mundo," and Simon Gryneus in his annotations thereon, declare that the world (the Old World) is an island, compassed by that which Homer calls the river Oceanus; ergo, the New World is an island also, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... infernal regions, to restrain his enemy, or by punishment and suffering to make him rue his opposition. But the goblin he had to encounter, though not the most potent, was of all the rest the most crafty in his wiles, and the most abundant in expedients. As many times as his fellows had by the instigation of Roderic undertaken to encounter him, so often had they in the end been eluded and defeated. The contest was now given up, and the goblin was at liberty to haunt and ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... were best: yet I was ne'er so crafty But I had rather, when 'twas in my power, Receive ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... and secret." The part of the letter immediately following is illegible, but presently it goes on to say that Lanier[65] is much trusted by his brother Purbeck; that Lanier will not otherwise be able to keep his brother with him; and that, if he leaves, Sir Robert and Lady Purbeck "by their crafty insinuations will draw from him speeches ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... doubtfully in his chair, the fear—which Tavannes had shrewdly instilled into his mind—that he might be disowned if he carried out his instructions, struggling with his avarice and his self-importance. He was rather crafty than bold; and such things had been, he knew. Little by little, and while he sat gloomily debating, the notion of dealing with one or two and holding the body of the Huguenots to ransom—a notion which, in spite of everything, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... fellow, and as he saw the utter change that had come over Leyden, a tiny shiver ran rippling up his spine. All Leyden's anger and irritation had gone; the crafty, calculating man of the world peered out through glittering eyes; if Barry had entertained any foolish notions of the man's mettle before, they were dissipated now. Yes, there was no doubt of it. Leyden was laughing ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Ernie walked briskly up the nave. Mamie went to investigate the stove. Winona herself took the camera to the opposite side of the church to photograph a Jacobean tablet. Six-year-old Dorrie remained sitting on a hassock in the pew. She had a plan in her crafty young mind. She wanted to examine the helmet, and she knew Winona would be sure to say "Paws off!" or something equally offensive and objectionable. She waited till her sister was safely out of the way, then she stole from her cover, grabbed the helmet, and returned ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... inconsequential and negligible atom—typefied the masses of mankind against whom that secret agreement was directed. They, the feeble and powerless ones, with their necks ever bent under the yoke of the mighty and their feet ever stumbling into the traps of the crafty—they, too, would utter an impotent "Wicked!" if they knew. His voice had the note of gentle raillery in ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... step gently over to that knothole Pliny had spoken of and take one quick glance he could never have explained, for surely he had no particular desire to look upon the disturbed and crafty face of Archibald Graylock. ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... Livius. But it is I who understand you— utterly! To you any price is satisfactory if your own skin and perquisites are safe. You are as crafty a spy as any rat in the palace cellars. You have kept yourself informed in order to get the pickings when you see at last which side to take. Careful, very clever of you, Livius! But have you ever seen an eagle rob ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... year after Calvert's arrival in England, King Charles the Second was gathered to his fathers, and his brother, the Duke of York, a worse man, a greater hypocrite, and a more crafty despot, reigned in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... capture the city. According to the fine old legends, the gods themselves took a part in the war, some siding with the Greeks, and some with the Trojans. It was finally through Ulysses, a famous Greek warrior, brave and fierce as well as wise and crafty, that ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... undermine, introduce the thin end of the wedge; play a deep game, play tricks with; ambiguas in vulgum spargere voces [Lat.]; flatter, make things pleasant; have an ax to grind. dodge, sidestep, bob and weave. Adj. cunning, crafty, artful; skillful &c 698; subtle, feline, vulpine; cunning as a fox, cunning as a serpent; deep, deep laid; profound; designing, contriving; intriguing &c v.; strategic, diplomatic, politic, Machiavelian, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... protest, then, with a crafty look which, fleeting as it was, Wallie caught, he made out a new check ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... crafty old party and did not easily give up the pursuit of the young fellow he had come to the island to nab. The coat of fresh snow over everything made tracking the ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... arisen between Clara and her father was something with which she had nothing to do. Tom, who thought himself so shrewd and crafty, had been taken in by the city man, Alfred Buckley. A federal officer had come to town during the afternoon to arrest Buckley. The man had turned out to be a notorious swindler wanted in several ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... to the prettiest, and most useful little book you could present him with; so that if his parents had purchased a hundred books for him, one after the other, he would have readily parted with them to the first crafty boy he met with, who had any trash to spare by way of exchange. It cannot therefore be considered as a miracle, notwithstanding the extraordinary care and expense which his friends bestowed upon his education, that he always continued a blockhead, ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... the cave which ran so easily upon a pivot; while the detachment in charge of the big gun talked shudderingly of the risk they had unknowingly been running, for, given a little longer time and the right opportunity, their two crafty enemies would undoubtedly have fired their mine and blown the greater part of the kopje-top ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... part, and sent to say unto them, that when he had the town he would deal bountifully with them, for this which they had done; nevertheless he gave no heed to the warning. And Vellido, when he heard this went to the King, and said, Sir, the old Arias Gonzalo is full crafty, and hath sent to say this unto you, because he knows that by my means you would have won the town. And he called for his horse, feigning that he would depart because of what had been said. But the King took him by the hand and said, Friend ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... Horse-Guards, it had often been suspected that there was a mystery connected with commissions that could not be fathomed; as it frequently happened that the list of promotions agreed on was surreptitiously increased by the addition of new names. This was the crafty handiwork of the accomplished dame; the duke having employed her as his amanuensis, and being accustomed to sign her autograph lists ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... Jesuit had feared for a moment that he might have betrayed himself during his delirium, when he heard himself accused of dark intrigues with Rome; but, after some minutes of reflection, his common sense suggested: "If this crafty Roman knew my secret, he would take care not to tell me so. He has only suspicions, confirmed by ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... me no name to uphold," said Halbert, pacing the floor slowly; "my arm has been foremost in every strife—my voice has been heard in every council, nor have the wisest rebuked me. The crafty Lethington, the deep and dark Morton, have held secret council with me, and Grange and Lindsay have owned, that in the field I did the devoir of a gallant knight—but let the emergence be passed when they need my head and ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... know," said Crandall, as the Head slipped off his gown with a grunt in his smoking-room. "I found out just now from our substitute. He was gettin' my opinion of your performance last night in the dormitory. I didn't know then that it was you he was talkin' about. Crafty young animal. Freckled chap with eyes—-Corkran, I ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... and, if any one chooses to think that it is a crafty fabrication, I can only say that its craft would have beguiled ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... preferring himself by my Lord's favour to something, and I hope to the outing of Creed in his Secretaryship. For he tells me that he is confident my Lord do not love him nor will trust him in any secret matter, he is so cunning and crafty in all he do. So my wife and I out of doors thinking to have gone to have seen a play, but when we came to take coach, they tell us there are none this week, being the first of Lent. But, Lord! to see how impatient I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... goodwill and security, and that he was contented to goe with him to Hochelaga, vpon which talke great wordes arose betweene Taignoagny and Domagaia, by which we plainely perceiued that Taignoagny was but a crafty knaue, and that he intended but mischiefe and treason, as well by this deede as others that we by him had seene. After that our Captaine caused the said children to be put in our ships, and caused two Swords and two copper Basons, the one wrought, the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... death-dealing bombs, striving to bring about a ghastly end for them all before they might strengthen the lines of the Allies. She thought, too, of those humanity-defying U-boats, forever at their devilish work, guided to their prey by crafty, spying creatures right here in New York, more than likely by the ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... to be very crafty, and to steal great numbers of eggs. They attempt, also, together with the Chimango, to pick off the scabs from the sore backs of horses and mules. The poor animal, on the one hand, with its ears down and its back arched; ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... an hour and came back to find that, in a "dry" city which he had never seen before, the crafty Bill had obtained a quart of Bourbon, and was in a state of unsteady beatitude. He wanted, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... reconciled, before any resolution can be formed. A single town, my lords, can, by refusing its consent, put a stand to the most necessary designs, and it is easily to be imagined, that by a monarch equally crafty and rich, a single town may sometimes be bribed into measures contrary to the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... cut-throats looking to the success of the Rebellion by means of assassination. Thus, in a footnote to page 448, vol. ii., of his "Civil War in America," Lossing does not hesitate to characterize Jefferson Davis as "the crafty and malignant Chief Conspirator, who seems to have been ready at all times to entertain propositions to assassinate, by the hand of secret murder, the officers of the Government at Washington;" and, after fortifying that statement by a reference to page ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... condemns Jerome Morel to pay to Pierre Petit-Jean, merchant,[Footnote: The crafty notary incompetent to proceed in his own name, had got from the unfortunate Morel a blank acceptance, and had introduced a third party's name.] by all his goods, and even with his body, the sum of thirteen hundred francs, with lawful interest, dated from the day of the protest; and he is besides ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... the question is, whether Miriam did, as she led out the women to dance, act only as an ordinary saint. And if you evade this, you choose the tongue of the crafty, and use the words of deceit; for she managed that work as she was "Miriam the prophetess"; and in your next, pray ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... off the disgrace with which he has tried to cover me, if I give up shedding tears in silence, be assured that nothing can bend me from my purpose. I am no longer in Spain or England, at the mercy of a diplomat crafty as a tiger, who during the whole time of our emigration was reading the thoughts of my heart's inmost recesses, and with invisible spies surrounding my life as by a network of steel; turning my secrets into jailers, and keeping me prisoner in the most ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... at the end of that time the lout gave orders that my cell should be swept. He had the bed carried out into the garret, and on pretence of having the sweeping done with greater care, he lighted a candle. This let me know that the rascal was suspicious of something; but I was crafty enough to take no notice of him, and so far from giving up my plea, I only thought how I could put it on good train. Next morning I pricked my finger and covered my handkerchief with the blood, and then awaited Lawrence in bed. As soon as he came I told him that I had coughed so ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... noted for its great strength. There was that in his countenance, which bespoke a mind within to match that body, a mind of uncommon native intelligence, force of will, and capacity to dominate others. His manners were at once abrupt and crafty, his temper was imperious, his passions and impulses were those of a primitive ruler, and his heart was the heart of a lion. He was often referred to as an old man, but he was not an old man, when he died on a gallows at Charleston, S. C., July 2, 1822. No, he was by no means an old man, ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... leader who only wanted material resources to have made them an independent nation. Cautious, as became the heir of so long a strife, he spent years in acquiring military knowledge and nursing up his clan into the kernel for a nation; crafty as Bacon and Cecil, and every other man of his time, he learned war in Elizabeth's armies, and got help from her store-houses. When the discontent of the Pale, religious tyranny, and the intrigues and hostility of Spain and Rome against England gave him an opening, he put his ordered ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... first. Glomax got into it,—as he always does into brooks, and young Runce hurt his horse's shoulder at the opposite bank. Lord Rufford's horse balked it, to the Lord's disgust; but took it afterwards, not losing very much ground. Tony went in and out, the crafty old dog knowing the one bit of hard ground. Then they crossed Purbeck field, as it is still called—which twenty years since was a wide waste of land, but is now divided by new fences, very grievous to half-blown horses. Sir John Purefoy got a nasty fall over some stiff timber, and here many ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... laughed Patricia, flinging an arm about the young sage. "My word, but you're a crafty young one! I'd have raved about it till even Michael Angelo or Raphael couldn't have satisfied the expectations of the beholder. How do you come by so much wisdom, ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... this time was hanging loosely by Lem's side; but a cruel expression had gathered on the sullen face. A frown drew the crafty eyes together, bespeaking ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... prospects before them in that place were anything but hopeful. The Emperor of Burmah was an absolute monarch, and rumour gave him the credit of being unjust, tyrannical, grasping, capricious and cruel. The people were described as "indolent, inhospitable, deceitful and crafty;" and in spite of the natural wealth of the land the majority of the inhabitants were miserably poor. This was largely due to the fact that all property was held on the most uncertain tenure, everything being ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... out in our community, as elsewhere, what has always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty creator, "Christian Science." Unchristian scienceless would be a more appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its Eddyfying high priestess about 1800 years after the sublime career of Christ was ended, and its preposterous ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Westminster, and the Duke of Chandos another. There were nearly a hundred different projects, each more extravagant and deceptive than the other, To use the words of the Political State, they were "set on foot and promoted by crafty knaves, then pursued by multitudes of covetous fools, and at last appeared to be, in effect, what their vulgar appellation denoted them to be—bubbles and mere cheats." It was computed that near one million and a half sterling was won and lost by these unwarrantable practices, to the impoverishment ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Sullivan's, with those of Gates, one or two marches in the rear, freed from the crafty hand that had been leading them astray, now pressed on for the Delaware, and thus that concert of action, for which Washington had all along labored in vain, was again restored between the fragments of his army, impotent when divided, but yet ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... remote times, and under a social system so widely different from the modern, the same small causes that ruffle and interrupt the 'course of love', which operate so commonly at this day—the same inventive jealousy, the same cunning slander, the same crafty and fabricated retailings of petty gossip, which so often now suffice to break the ties of the truest love, and counteract the tenor of circumstances most apparently propitious. When the bark sails on over the smoothest wave, the fable tells us of the diminutive ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton |
