"Keen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... irritant, of which they shall never be rid. But a bank director undergoes no similar training and hardening. His functions at the Bank fill a very small part of his time; all the rest of his life (unless he be in Parliament) is spent in retired and mercantile industry. He is not subjected to keen and public criticism, and is not taught to bear it. Especially when once in his life he becomes, by rotation, governor, he is most anxious that the two years of office shall 'go off well.' He is apt to be irritated even by objections to principles on which he acts, and cannot bear ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... made a tremendous sacrifice, that was evident; and a whole sacrifice without any blemish is very rarely offered up nowadays, however it may have been in olden times. I could not look at her dejected face and gloomy expression without a keen sense of self-reproach. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... analysis, he was deeply convinced and foiled. His last method of success had turned out illusive, yet he had not reproached, nor domineered, nor dictated, nor appealed. He had expressed a little of his keen sorrow, but insidiously this attitude had tainted ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... 'Anwendung der Darwinschen Lehre auf Bienen,' Verh. d. n. V. Jahrg. xxix.), who has particularly attended to the habits of bees, attributes these differences in colour in chief part to sexual selection. That bees have a keen perception of colour is certain. He says that the males search eagerly and fight for the possession of the females; and he accounts through such contests for the mandibles of the males being in certain species ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... found him in a well-furnished room, sitting at a table, in council with half a dozen men in the old-time garb of the Communists. If their clothes were relics of other times, however, their shrewd, keen faces were wide awake and alive to the present. Knowles's alone was lowering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... he came into the open of the Arab. Ned had his gun ready, and, as the animal drew near, steadying his weapon against the trunk of a tree, he fired. The bullet struck the creature, but still it advanced, trumpeting loudly, its rage increased, with its keen eyes fixed on Sayd. The Arab saw it coming, and knowing that, if its progress was not stopped, his destruction was certain, fired at its head, and then, his courage giving way, turned round to fly. Ned gave up his friend for ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... the river to Glenora in a fine canoe owned and manned by Kitty, a stout, intelligent-looking Indian woman, who charged her passengers a dollar for the fifteen-mile trip. Her crew was four Indian paddlers. In the rapids she also plied the paddle, with stout, telling strokes, and a keen-eyed old man, probably her husband, sat high in the stern and steered. All seemed exhilarated as we shot down through the narrow gorge on the rushing, roaring, throttled river, paddling all the more vigorously the faster the speed of ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... group, Charley dismounted, and petting and soothing his trembling horse, ran his keen eyes over the animal's legs and flanks. From the little pony's left foreleg trickled a tiny stream ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... at home too passionately to care for foreign travel. Besides, there was always a great deal to do in England at every season of the year, and it had been difficult to find a time convenient for getting away. Town engagements began early in the spring, and lasted till after Cowes, when he was keen for Scotland. Being a gregarious as well as an idle young man, he was pleased with his own popularity, and the number of his invitations for country-house visits. He could never accept more than half, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to Earth and Heaven! Then, after many orisons performed, The army ventured on the frozen ford: Yet only those who crossed before the sun Shed its warm rays, won to the farther side. For soon the fervour of the glowing orb Did with its keen rays pierce the ice-bound stream, And men sank through and thrust each other down— Best was his lot whose breath was stifled first! But all who struggled through and gained the bank, Toilfully wending through ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... a just and compassionate spirit, strongly domestic habits, good sense, and a warm heart. In her books you perceive these qualities, do you not? and notice, too, the vigor of her fancy, the flowing humor that makes her stories now droll and now pathetic, a keen eye for character, and the most cheerful tone of mind. From the hard experiences of life she has drawn lessons of patience and love, and now with her, as the apostle says, "abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... axe out of the hand of one of the paralysed seamen near him and, exerting all his strength, had brought it down upon the writhing, straining thing where it crossed the stout timber rail of the poop, with the result that the keen blade had completely severed the thing, and the boatswain, with some eight or nine feet of the creature still clinging to his body, and the three men who had seized him in response to his terrified cries, went ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... satiety and disgust which she herself has created. With a boy there is no vanity in the matter, no jealousy, and therefore none of the tempting, not a tenth part of the coarseness; and consequently desire is always fresh and keen. Oh, Frank, believe me, you don't know what ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... and slid; reaching, at last, the north Side of Tharp's corn-field.—There we struck what seemed To be a coon-track—so we all agreed: And father, who was not a hunter, to Our glad surprise, proposed we follow it. The snow was quite five inches deep; and we, Keen on the trail, were soon far in the woods. Our old dog, "Ring," ran nosing the fresh track With whimpering delight, far on ahead. After following the trail more than a mile To northward, through the thickest winter woods We boys had ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... usual, keen competition among the members of the Den as to who should achieve the "showiest rig" on the occasion. For some days the owner of Heathcote's steel chain was mentioned as the favourite, until rumour got abroad that young Aspinall was ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... Chaoukeun in his bosom, and his mandarin garments raised up under each arm, the miscreant Suchong Pollyhong Ka-te-tow reached the presence of the Great Khan. "O khan of Tartary," said he, "may thy sword be ever keen, thy lance unerring, and thy courser swift. I am thy slave. O thou who commandest an hundred thousand warriors—hath thy ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... powers in alliance with him were of course led to engage, at least on the defensive, and thus I for one was excluded from the enjoyment of 'A Feast of Reason,' such as Mr. Cumberland has described, with a keen, yet just and delicate pen, in his Observer[224]. These minute inconveniencies gave not the least disturbance to Johnson. He nobly said, when I talked to him of the feeble, though shrill outcry which had been raised, 'Sir, I considered myself as entrusted with a certain portion ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... station when they gave the order to have their cars dropped off there," answered Teddy, avoiding the keen gaze of his companion ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... speak of this again. Are you made of stone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts of the man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform, bound, the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle of the bolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; I ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... these stories, which may take a high rank in our native fiction that depicts the various phases of the national life. Their humor is equally genuine and keen, and their pathos is delicate and searching."—Boston ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... when he had to go, he took with him the memory of her that had become crystallised, set for him in his own frequent words to her, standing at her side, looking down at her with his keen, restless eyes—such words as: "It puzzles me how on earth you ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the time when the Earles should become famous, when their name should be one of weight in council. In early life his ambitious desires seemed about to be realized. He was but twenty when he succeeded his father, and was an only child, clever, keen and ambitious. In his twenty-first year he married Lady Helena Brooklyn, the daughter of one of the proudest peers in Britain. There lay before him a fair and useful life. His wife was an elegant, accomplished woman, who knew the world and its ways—who ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Frank was cheering on Sam, and then helping a dismounted man to a seat on a baggage camel, that the officer rode up, meeting Harry, who turned to him at once, to address him in the keen, commanding tones of the British officer, as he pointed towards the ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... her knees with a bitter smile on her lips. "I mak na doubt 'at thou wouldn't be ower keen to try the same agen," she said, going off. "Go thy ways to Doomsdale, my lass, and ax yer next batch of questions there. I've just coom't frae it ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... stage-boxes Helen and Lady Gower watched the successful progress of the play with an anxiety almost as keen as that of the author. To Helen it seemed as though the giving of these lines to the public—these lines which he had so often read to her, and altered to her liking—was a desecration. It seemed as though she were losing him indeed—as ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... as he shook hands with his client, was conscious of a little thrill of expectation. Wingate was a man who brought with him almost a conscious sense of power. Carefully, but not overcarefully dressed, muscular, with a frame like steel, eyes keen and bright, carrying himself like a man who knows himself and his value, John Wingate would have appeared a formidable adversary in any game in which he chose to take a hand. Whatever his present intentions were, however, he seemed in no hurry to declare himself. The two men spoke for a few minutes ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... large of frame, says Azurara, strong of limb as any. His complexion was fair by nature, but by his constant toil and exposure of himself it had become quite dark. His face was stern and when angry, very terrible. Brave as he was in heart and keen in mind, he had a passion for the doing of great things. Luxury and avarice never found lodgment within him. For from a youth, he quite left off the use of wine, and more than this, as it was commonly reported, he passed all his days in unbroken chastity. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... ready, and directly after lunch a procession of girls might have been seen wending their way from the house, dragging toboggans in their wake, and chattering merrily together. The wind blew sharp and keen, and many of the number looked quite Arctic, waddling along in snow shoes, reefer coats, and furry caps with warm straps tied over the ears. It was de rigueur to address such personages as "Nansen"; but Rhoda gained for herself the more picturesque title of "Hail ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... in relation to travellers, is wont to quote the famous parallel of the copper wire, 'which grows the narrower by going further.' A confirmed stay-at-home, he has mingled much in society of all sorts, and exercised a keen but quite unsympathetic observation. His very reserve in company (though, when he catches you alone, he is a button-holder of great tenacity) encourages free speech in others; they have no more reticence in his presence than if he were the butler. He has belonged to no cliques, ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... have not found themselves, at least once in their lives, in regard to some incontestable fact, faced down by precise, keen, searching inquiry,—one of those questions pitilessly put by their husbands, the very idea of which gives a slight chill, and the first word of which enters the heart like a stroke of a dagger. Hence comes the maxim, Every woman lies—obliging lies—venial lies—sublime lies—horrible ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... shall be. The quiet passage of the Confiscation Act was an immense step of governmental progress. Perhaps it was all that the nation as a whole and the government were ready for. It may answer as a keen wedge. But we trust that, in December, Congress will make clean work by the full emancipation of all slaves in the rebel States, and by provision in some way for the speedy and certain extinction of slavery in the loyal States. To accomplish the latter event, ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various
... hot for this time of the year, but the scenery is pretty. I had no idea what a jolly little river the Dart is; and Dartmouth is rather quaint. For those who are keen on old things, I suppose the Butter Market would be interesting; but I can't really see why, because things happened in certain places hundreds of years ago, one should stand and stare at walls or windows, or fireplaces. The things must have happened somewhere! Although ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... grasped Helen's broken spirit—the unbalance that was reason for this marvelous and glorious act—he did not take other meaning of the embrace to himself. He just stood there, transported, charged like a tree struck by lightning, making sure with all his keen senses, so that he could feel forever, how she was clinging round his neck, her face over his bursting heart, her quivering form close ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... characteristics of the old coaching days was the close association of coaches and coachmen with, and keen interest taken in them by, the inhabitants of the towns through which the principal coach routes passed. Royston had its full share of such associations, the institution coloured all our local life, from the pauper or cripple ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... I had seen him throw one ball to his catcher I grew as keen as a fox on a scent. What speed he had! I got round closer to him and watched him with sharp, eager eyes. He was a giant. To be sure, he was lean, rawboned as a horse, but powerful. What won me at once was his natural, ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... reverie by the passing of a powerfully built man who had been following him since he had first approached the Bivens palace. The keen eyes searched has face with piercing gaze and the lawyer smiled as he recognized in the stranger one of the private guards of which the modern masters of the world have felt the need. In the Middle ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... reading. The author knows what he is talking about and has a keen eye for the picturesque."—G. ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... wistfully His mighty prayerful arms outspreads Above men's oft-unheeding heads, And his big blessing downward sheds. I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves, Lichens on stones and moss on eaves, Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves; Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes, And briery mazes bounding lanes, And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains, And milky stems and sugary veins; For every long-armed woman-vine That round a piteous tree doth twine; For passionate odors, and divine Pistils, and petals ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... rhetorician's arts I plied and with deceitful pleadings sinned: Anon a wanton life and dalliance gross (Alas! the recollection stings to shame!) Fouled and polluted manhood's opening bloom: And then the forum's strife my restless wits Enthralled, and the keen lust of victory Drove me to many a bitterness and fall. Twice held I in fair cities of renown The reins of office, and administered To good men justice and to guilty doom. At length the Emperor's will beneficent Exalted me to ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... Baronet. 'It does not take a very deep lead-line to come to the bottom of your stoical philosophy, friend Micah. For all your cold-blooded stolidity you are keen enough where pride or honour is concerned. Shall we then ride onwards, and chance it? I'll lay an even crown that we never as much as see a ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... twisted his fingers together and the palms of his hands gave out dry, rasping sounds. His attitude seemed inconsistent with the immobility of his face, but Dick surmised that he was trying to regain control of his emotions. He had a keen desire to know more of the particulars of the tragedy, but sensed from the storekeeper's appearance that he was scarcely able to give a coherent account of it. His words had already told his sorrow. Bill's voice ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... into this matter a little, we shall discover certain sinister motives back of this work of the detective agencies. It is well enough understood by them that violence creates a state of reaction. One very keen observer has pointed out that "the anarchist tactics are so serviceable to the reactionaries that, whenever a draconic, reactionary law is required, they themselves manufacture an anarchist plot or attempted crime."[43] ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... report which caused Fenton such unpleasant sensations was read that same morning by Mrs. Amanda Welsh Sampson with keen satisfaction of a sort seldom known to the truly virtuous. Mrs. Sampson was engaged in financial transactions of which the very magnitude caused her naive satisfaction, while the possible results made ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... the ground The hot air trembles. In pale glittering haze Wavers the sky. Along the horizon's rim, Breaking its mist, are peaks of coppery clouds. Keen darts of light are shot from every leaf, And the whole landscape droops in sultriness. With languid tread, I drag myself along Across the wilting fields. Around my steps Spring myriad grasshoppers, their cheerful notes Loud in my ear. The ground bird whirs away, Then drops ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Presbyterianism which asserted any sort of spiritual independence. More complex impulses told on the course of Lord Falkland. Falkland was a man learned and accomplished, the centre of a circle which embraced the most liberal thinkers of his day. He was a keen reasoner and an able speaker. But he was the centre of that Latitudinarian party which was slowly growing up in the reaction from the dogmatism of the time, and his most passionate longing was for liberty of religious thought. Such a liberty ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... imported; very different results may possibly be realised from "home-grown" bulbs. It is also probable that there may be varieties of this species, as not only have I noticed a great difference in the bulbs, but also in the flowers and the habit of plant. This I have mentioned to a keen observer, and he is of the same opinion; be that as it may, we have in this new plant a lovely companion to the later snowdrops, and though it much resembles the squills, it is not only sufficiently distinct from them, but an early bloomer, which we gladly welcome to our gardens. It seems ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... into my sleeping-bag, with a keen consciousness of its nature, and carefully pulled the flap in place, which ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... diamonds and rubies, each stone being the memorial of a past success in shooting-matches. The watch impressed her; to her practised eye it meant a very large sum of money, and she knew the power of money; but the cool, unconcerned manner of this tall, keen-eyed Englishman impressed her still more. As she looked at him he ceased writing, got out a check, and ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... allowed, I do not see how we can elicit fire and fagot from this adventure; for I think there is no inseparable connexion between tythes and persecution but in the ideas of a Quaker.—And so much for King Melchisedec. But the learned Professor, who has been hardily brought up in the keen atmosphere of WHOLESOME SEVERITIES and early taught to distinguish between de facto and de jure, thought it 'needless to enquire into facts, when he was ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... was in the green forest Among the leaves green, Wherein men hunt east and west With bows and arrows keen; ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... lived with him long, and who knew him best and last. After breakfast she took us to her house, where Voltaire had lived, and where we saw his chair and his writing desk turning on a pivot on the arm of the chair: his statue smiling, keen-eyed, and emaciated, said to be a perfect resemblance. In one of the hands hung the brown and withered crown of bays, placed on his head when he appeared the last time at the Theatre Francais. Madame de Villette showed us some of his letters—one to his steward, about sheep, etc., ending with, "Let ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... covering my face with both hands, struggled hard to free the tears that weighed down my heart. It seemed that some wrong had been done me,—that the whole Harrington family was in league to break up my life before it had really commenced. But I could not shed a tear, a keen sense of shame kept me from the relief of weeping. Shame that I, a young girl, should suffer thus from a knowledge of another's happiness. Yes, I was bitterly ashamed, and shut my face out from the mirror before me, afraid to look upon my own humiliation. Did they know it? Had that aristocratic ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... be thy Requiescat dumb Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb. For talents mourn, untimely lost, When best employ'd, and wanted most; Mourn genius high, and lore profound, And wit that loved to play, not wound; And all the reasoning powers divine To penetrate, resolve, combine; And feelings keen, and fancy's glow— They sleep with him who sleeps below: And, if thou mourn'st they could not save From error him who owns this grave, Be every harsher thought suppress'd, And sacred be the last long rest. Here, where the end of earthly things Lays heroes, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... to an anchor at Gravesend, where several passengers joined her. Among them was a gentleman with very broad shoulders, a broad forehead, and light curling hair covered by a very broad-brimmed white hat. His eyes were blue and remarkably keen; he had a nose somewhat turned up; and a firm mouth, with a pleasing smile, showing a set of strong white teeth. He brought with him a number of cases and boxes; among them gun-cases, and fishing-rods, and cases which looked as if they enclosed instruments, with numerous ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... dwindled to a walk, and a slow one at that. Nothing else could be done. They all saw the impossibility of more rapid progress, in the darkness, over such a path. Of them all, Claude was the most impatient, as was natural. His sense of danger was most keen. The terror of the night had not yet passed away. Already, more than once, he had gone from despair to hope, and back once more to despair; and it seemed to him as though his soul must still vibrate between these two extremes. The hope which ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... been done long before near the Landing. The lights of Powerton Landing were twinkling ahead of them as the two friends swept on up the long lake. The wind was in their faces, such wind as there was, and the air was keen ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... of this paragraph seems to have been a keen sportsman; he regrets the not meeting with a single rebel, as he would the not meeting with a single hare or partridge; and he justly considers the human biped as fair game, to be hunted down by all who are properly qualified and licensed by government. To the English, perhaps, it may seem ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... legends was to invest their descriptions of the times with a local color. Even Moses of Chorene, who by royal command collected many of these legends, and in his sympathetic treatment of them evinces poetic genius and keen literary appreciation, fails to realize the importance of his task. After speaking of the old Armenian kings with enthusiasm, and even condoning their paganism for the sake of their virility, he leaves his collection in the utmost disorder ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... weather is this for the caravan. The people do not like to move, and show a decided tendency to hibernation. Some camels are also lost—escaped from the numbed fingers of their drivers. I, too, feel it cold; and yet there is so much of home in this weather—this keen, bracing air—that I ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... well! who is this?" he said briskly, as he turned his keen eyes and powerful glasses on the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... was my reply; "somebody coming to hunt with 'the Heavy-top.' Let's stand in this gateway and see them pass." We took up a position accordingly; and if I felt keen about the commencement of the season previously, how much more so did I become to watch the string of gallant well-bred horses now jogging quietly towards us with all the paraphernalia and ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... its constituent parts. It discerns in lines and colours, or in tones, what is beautiful and what is not. It gives them a meaning, and invests them with an idea. It gathers up a succession of notes into the expression of a whole, and calls it a melody; it has a keen sensibility towards angles and curves, lights and shadows, tints and contours. It distinguishes between rule and exception, between accident and design. It assigns phenomena to a general law, qualities to a subject, acts to a principle, and effects to a cause. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... a sober period of burnt wood and a period of burnt leather, during which excited neighbors with a keen sense of smell called the fire department three times and the board of health once. And now Indian heads broke out all over town and the walls looked as if a shoemaker's apron had been ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... the river, near the fording point, there was a little island which lay like a feathery tree-top upon the tinted water; and as Dan went by, he felt the brush of willows on his face and heard the soft lapping of the small waves upon the shore. The keen smell of the sycamores drifted to him from the bank that he had left, and straight up stream he saw a single peaked blue hill upon which a white cloud rested. For a moment he lingered, breathing in the ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... things? I proved to you just now that I know more about the origin of Scarabei than you do. I have killed many an animal, not only to study its organism, but also to investigate how it has built up its form. But precisely in this work my organ for beauty has become blunt rather than keen. I tell you that the beginning of things is not more attractive to contemplate than their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... big piano house of Pomeroy and Parke. He had all the good traits of his race, and some of the traits that, without being wholly admirable, help a man toward success. No slur at himself or his religion was keen enough to pierce Mark's smiling armour of philosophy, no hours were too hard for him, no work too menial for him to do cheerfully, nor too important for him to undertake confidently. A wisdom far older than his years was his. Poverty ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... reading the following sentence from Walter Pater, note the manifold variations in your own utterance of it at different times and imagine how it would be read by a person of dull sensibilities, by one of keen poetic feeling, and finally by one who recalled its context and on that account could enjoy its fullest richness: "It is the landscape, not of dreams or of fancy, but of places far withdrawn, and hours selected from a thousand ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... laugh as though it were a jest they played for their mutual amusement, but to Gloria it was never quite a jest. It was, at first, a keen disappointment; later, it was one of the times ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... behind the green roof of a large building, the dim, cold dawn was beginning to blush red. The keen frost of the spring morning which had stiffened the pools and mud and made them crackle under my feet now nipped my face and hands also. Not a cab was to be seen, though I had counted upon one to make the ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... of good shooting, nothing so insures a keen, true arrow flight as an effort of supreme tension during the release. The chest is held rigid in a position of moderate inspiration, the back muscles are set and every tendon is drawn into elastic strain; in fact, to be successful, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... at the hunt; The brilliant cavalcade of knights and dames, On palfreys and on chargers trapped in gold And silver and red purple, ride in mirth Along the winding way, by hill and tarn And violet-sprinkled dell. Impatient hounds Sniff the keen morning air, and startled birds Rustle the foliage redolent ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... has any feeling of his business there is a keen and whimsical joy in divining and revealing a side of an actor's genius overlooked before, and unsuspected even by the actor himself. When I snatched Mr Louis Calvert from Shakespeare, and made ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... him, as well they might, for he never spared them when they were wrong. In the early part of his career, his admiring countrymen loved to call him, "the counsellor," and it was their highest delight to hear him cross-examine a witness. Anecdotes of his wit, humour, and keen penetration whilst so engaged, are very numerous, very amusing, and full of character. As a cross-examiner he had no rival at all; lawyers of his time there were, who might dispute the palm with him for profound knowledge ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... he had disarranged, the physician stood up and fixed a keen gaze upon the face of Henry Leroux. The latter swallowed ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... country. And Frank's enthusiasm did not depend entirely on his success. It was a standing joke among his school-fellows that Frank would walk six miles any day for the chance of a nibble from the ghost of a minnow. Indeed he was often taunted by his ruder comrades with being such a keen fisher that he was quite content if he only hooked a drowned cat during a day's excursion. But Frank was good-natured; he smiled at their jests, and held on the even tenor of his way, whipping the ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... the theatre, about the parts in which Clara had appeared, about her triumphs.... Anna answered in detail, but with the same mournful, though keen fervour. She even showed Aratov a photograph, in which Clara had been taken in the costume of one of her parts. In the photograph she was looking away, as though turning from the spectators; her ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... Adelaide, who proposed a dozen hands of piquet, to which he agreed. As he played he observed in Madame de Rouville an excitement over her game which surprised him. Never before had the old Baroness manifested so ardent a desire to win, or so keen a joy in fingering the old gentleman's gold pieces. During the evening evil suspicions troubled Hippolyte's happiness, and filled him with distrust. Could it be that Madame de Rouville lived by gambling? Was she playing at this moment to pay off some debt, or under the ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... his brow knitting. His disappointment had been a keen one, his pride was smitten to the quick. Never had he left England, never thrown in his lot with the new colony, had he known how he was to be made to suffer from jealousy, intrigue and neglect. As he stood gazing across into the deeper tangle on the opposite shore his thoughts ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... gonfalon, showing the arms of the king. Hiresgas spied his foe. He turned his horse, and pushing through the press, drew near, and smote Bocus full on the helm. The baron was a mighty man; the stroke was fierce, and his blade was keen and strong. He struck well and craftily. The blow sheared through helmet and coif. It divided the head to the shoulders, so that the soul of King Bocus sped away to the Adversary. Hiresgas stretched out his arm, seizing ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... with a sudden keen disappointment, that he had changed his coat on returning home to dinner, and the means of alleviation which he ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... lessons of success and failure, his perfectly powerful claws and execution methods; and, living in the same jungle, and with him as one of the conditions of life, are small deer, alert, swift, light of build, inconspicuous of colour, sharp of hearing, keen-eyed, keen-scented— because any downward variation from these attributes means swift and certain death. To capture the deer is a condition, of the tiger's life, to escape the tiger a condition of the deer's; and they play a great contest ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... presents with him. But it was not because he disliked the society that he did not come, it was because they did not hang stockings up. The stocking must be hung or he will not go—that is the rule. He is wonderfully keen in scent; he will go straight to a stocking even if it be hidden in the darkest corner. He cares nothing about time or place either. He can be where he chooses at any moment. So, just as the twelfth stroke of Trinity sounded, Santa Klaus was in Fountain Court. The Indian was scurrying ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... trader raised his head in surprise. "No. Captain Carr spoke to me about your arrest, and then said you wanted to see me first about something private." The post trader fixed Ranson with his keen, unwavering eyes. "What might ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... presented itself to Jethro Juggens, though a hard one, was by no means impossible. His keen-edged knife soon fashioned excavations in the soft planking at the sides, through which he passed some of the pieces of rope and fastened one of the poles in an upright position, or nearly so, for he was wise enough to place it so that it leaned backward like the masts of ordinary sailing vessels. ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... plenty of squirrels and pigeons on the trees which overhung the river, and we shot and picked up as many as we thought we could use for food. When we fired our guns the echoes rolled up and down the river for miles making the feeling of loneliness still more keen, as the sound died faintly away. We floated along generally very quietly. We could see the fish dart under our boat from their feeding places along the bank, and now and then some tall crane would spread his broad wings to get ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... Jews emerge into history, not a nation of keen spiritual aspirations and altruistic ethics, but that pagan people, worshipping rocks, sheep and cattle, and spirits of caves and wells, of whom the Old Testament, tending towards its higher ideal, gives fragmentary but ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... probe could be passed, alone represents the external meatus." In the dried museum specimen this slit is wholly invisible, and even in the live or freshly killed animal it is by no means readily apparent. Keen observer of natural objects, as savage and barbaric man certainly is, it is going too far to suppose him capable of representing an earless animal—earless at least so far as the purposes of sculpture are concerned—with prominent ears. If, then, it can be assumed ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... keen sense of humour, and the idea of a "'clear skin' steer" would have amused her at any other time. ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... and reached his hand up to her, and she saw that his keen eyes were of that intense clear blue seen in so many strong, notable men, but that they looked at her in a cold, aloof manner which made her feel rather small and childish. "Surely," she thought, "he is not genuinely angry just because I did not ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... a run, if she were in a hurry, and occasionally was stilled into perfect repose, as she stood listening to, or watching any of the wild creatures who sang in the leafy courts, or glanced out with their keen bright eyes from the low brushwood or tangled furze. It was a trial to come down from such motion or such stillness, only guided by her own sweet will, to the even and decorous pace necessary in streets. But she could have laughed ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sense enough to keep him there. Yet his getting out of prison was as nothing compared to his getting into the House of Commons. How he did it I know not; but the thing certainly happened, somehow. That he made pregnant utterances as a legislator may be taken as proved by the keen philosophy of the travels and tales he has since tossed to us; but the House, strong in stupidity, did not understand him until in an inspired moment he voiced a universal impulse by bluntly damning its hypocrisy. Of all the eloquence of that silly parliament, there remains only one ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... with hydrogen. Foxy! The whole ship's like that. And not a man in the fleet, except the Prince and one or two others, over eleven stone. Couldn't sweat the Prince, you know. We'll go all over the thing to-morrow. I'm frightfully keen on it." ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Hearth, Charles Reade tells of the temptation and triumph of Clement the hermit. 'And one keen frosty night, as he sang the praises of God to his tuneful psaltery, and his hollow cave rang with his holy melody, he heard a clear whine, not unmelodious. It became louder. He peeped through the chinks of his rude door, and ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... braid of hair was coiled tightly and attractively around her head, and as it was lifted quite high at the back, her neck showed—sunburnt and gracefully erect. Elisaveta's face had a keen, almost exaggerated, expression of the mastery of will and intellect over the emotions. The long and peculiarly straight parting of her lips was very exquisite. Her blue eyes were cheerful—even when her lips did not smile. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... child, and they wisely determined that things should be different with her. The girl was intelligent, and soon snapped up what many other children of her own age were a long time in acquiring. She was bright and attractive-looking, with keen eyes and dark flowing hair, and won the affection of her teachers and companions by her open- heartedness and ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... unpleasantly reflecting, the arras that overhung the chapel door was raised, and a tall priest in his robes came forth, and, giving a long, keen stare at Denis, said something in an undertone ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... thy words, Ottilia, blame my falsehood? Oh! in each feature of thy beauteous face I blush to read reproaches far more keen. Those glittering eyes, though now with lightnings armed, Which erst were used to pour on blest Caesario Kind looks, and fondest smiles, and tears of rapture; That voice, by wrath untuned, once only breathing Sounds like ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... possesses at home. Our career is as yet too brief, our land too full of the sounds of enterprise and excitement; our interest lies too largely and exclusively in the present and the future. The dawning light and the keen air of morning (soevus equis oriens anhelis) are not, as represented by the poets, more uncongenial to the spectral shapes of night, than the recent origin and energetic action of our rising country to the dim ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... intended for the Church, received an education fitting him for an ecclesiastical career. In his youth Henry VIII. displayed considerable literary talent, posed as a patron of scholars, and smiled benignly on such geniuses as Erasmus, More, Linacre, and Grocyn; but in after years he was more keen to destroy other peoples' libraries than to build up his own. The accounts of his Privy Purse Expenses contain few entries of disbursements for books, and to take one short period as a specimen, we find that the whole sum spent on his library between 1530 and 1532, including ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... is such a sting in itself, so it is heightened, sharpened, made more keen and sharp, by those circumstances that attend it in every act; for there is not a sin at any time committed by man, but there is some circumstance or other attends it that makes it, when charged home by God's law, bigger and sharper and more venomous and poisonous ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... ever entered a ring, only wanting strength to be, I won't say what. He appears to walk before me now, as he did that evening, with his white hat, white greatcoat, thin genteel figure, springy step, and keen, determined eye. Crosses him, what a contrast! grim, savage Shelton, who has a civil word for nobody, and a hard blow for anybody—hard! one blow, given with the proper play of his athletic arm, will unsense a giant. Yonder ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Glennard's intercourse with Miss Trent that he always went to see her the day after he had resolved to give her up. There was a special charm about the moments thus snatched from the jaws of renunciation; and his sense of their significance was on this occasion so keen that he hardly noticed the added gravity of ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... a woman of remarkable gifts and keen sensibilities, prostrated by grief, died soon after, carried off suddenly by a disease called, "Karni ferola," "Absorption of the vitality," [1] which at that time baffled the skill of the physicians, who indeed had seldom suspected its presence till ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... the extremes of fashion. Behind an expression of the sweetest candor and wistfulness, as behind a safe bulwark, she preserved an effrontery which balked at no defiance of conventions in public, though essentially she was quite sufficiently discreet for self-preservation. Also she had a keen little brain, a reckless but good-humored heart and a memory retentive ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... below zero, he started, accompanied by Johnson and Bell; the plains of ice were level; the snow, which covered the ground thickly, solidified by the frost, made the ground good for walking; a dry and keen cold lightened the atmosphere; the moon shone in all her splendour, and threw an astonishing light on all the asperities of the field; their footsteps left marks on the snow, and the moon lighted up their edges, so that they looked like a luminous ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... crack shot and did the hunting for the party. The evening before the train reached Whoop-Up, he walked out from camp to try for an antelope, since they were short of fresh meat. He climbed a small butte overlooking the stream. His keen eyes swept the panorama and came to rest on a sight he had never before seen and ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... what you have done," said the Angel. "I know very well. How keen you were! How clever! You made a test of Chance, to ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... much to the astonishment of the little company, looking in at the parlour-door. He is a sharp-eyed man—a quick keen man—and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once, individually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... for Liberty!" he cried; Their keen points met from side to side; He bowed amongst them like a tree, And ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... on what followed; Bathurst is a keen detective; he vindicated my brother, Clifford, and placed the guilt where it belonged. It was Herbert who had ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Russian victories of 1812, the Emperor Alexander had made no secret of his intention to restore a Polish Kingdom and a Polish nationality. [213] Like many other designs of this prince, the project combined a keen desire for personal glorification with a real generosity of feeling. Alexander was thoroughly sincere in his wish not only to make the Poles again a people, but to give them a Parliament and a free Constitution. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... walking briskly for some three miles, and it was with keen expectation that I now mounted the ridge and saw the farm for which I was looking, lying there in the valley before me. It was altogether a wild and beautiful bit of country—stunted cedars on the knolls of the rolling hills, a brook trailing its way among alders and willows down a long ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... their uncouth and imperfect ways. Their extraordinarily complex method of governing themselves, and their intricate political machinery would be very distressing to us, and are calculated to make one think that a keen pleasure in governing or in being overgoverned—not a special aptitude or genius for governing—must have been very common among them. From the alarming blunders made in directing public affairs, and from the manner in ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... done, he again passed his eyes very attentively over me, without saying a word, all the while opening his chest, from which he took several flasks, sponges, a little silver vase with a long curved tube, and also several instruments, one of which seemed very keen. I watched my master closely, feeling an inexplicable numbness gradually creeping over me. My heavy eye-lids fell once or twice in spite of myself. I had been seated on my bed of straw, to which I was still chained; but now I ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... Common, and uttering soliloquies in language that lacked delicacy. He had rushed forth, in his haste, without an overcoat, and the weather was blusterously inclement. But he did not feel the cold; he only felt the keen wind of circumstance. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... his tenor voice, and presently he began to feel that he was having the time of his life. They were all singing with him, and stopping at intervals to pass the candy and tell funny stories. He was a good mimic and had a keen sense of humor, and he was elated with the consciousness that he had an appreciative audience. In spite of her certainty that the evening would be a bore, Mary found herself really enjoying it, until she realized that Pink was having such a good time that he didn't want to leave. Later she concluded ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... perfectly smoothly along without jolts or jerks, and sometimes on the contrary, the plateau would reel and roll like a ship in a storm, coasting past abysses in which fragments of the mountain were falling, tearing up trees by the roots, and leveling, as if with the keen edge of an immense scythe, every projection ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... upon her with eyes of favor. He saw that her eyes were bright and keen. He was used to judging faces. He saw that she was as yet unspoiled, with a face of refinement far beyond the general run of the girls who applied to him for positions. And he was not beyond a friendly flirtation with a pretty new girl himself; so ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... related what took place, and the song that Bumpkin sang. The statement of the head witness that he was all right, and that he was up to Mr. Sergeant, to a great extent reassured Mr. Bumpkin: although he felt, keen man that he was, that that soldier was there for the purpose of "ketchin what young men he could to make sogers on 'em; he had 'eerd o' sich things afore:" such were his thoughts as Mr. O'Rapley ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... what I imagine people mean when they say a bullet-head, that is, a round, hard head, with keen gray eyes, sandy mustache, and a scar or something on his right temple. Are you cold?" and she turned quickly to her brother, who had shuddered involuntarily at her description, for well he knew now who ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... and picture-galleries, as assiduously as a tourist. For half an hour he stood gazing with delight on the Maison Carree, at Nismes. For sculpture and painting he had a strong taste, and the Venus of Milo "was a joy to him." He had a keen eye for beauty, shapeliness and comeliness everywhere, in porcelain, in furniture, in dress, in a well built yacht, in a well appointed regiment of horse. Society, too, he liked, in spite of his simplicity of habits; loved to gather his friends ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... of the one who is approaching us are uncovered," volunteered our guide, whose keen sense of hearing was vastly superior to our own, and its accuracy was again proved fully, for, pushing aside the undergrowth which hindered his path, there stepped out upon the level track before us a singularly well-formed being, whose whole ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... her with his keen ferret eyes—"why, don't you know what a weak-minded, timorsome creature he was, ever since ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... was one never to be forgotten. Aside from its luxury and splendor, there was so much that was ridiculously laughable connected with it, one naturally looks back upon it in keen amusement. The tables having been instantly filled up, all the spaces between the large glass cases containing the office property were soon crowded to their utmost capacity. Many a fair creature dropped upon the benches with exclamations ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... fallen in the night. The sun was master in the clear autumn sky. She rose, and opened the window. The fresh morning air, keen and fragrant, filled the room. Far and near, the same bright stillness possessed the view. She stood at the window looking out. Her mind was clear again—she could think, she could feel; she could face the one last question which the merciless ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... open, and a portly figure entered quickly. For so large a man Prince Kaid was light and subtle in his movements. His face was mobile, his eye keen and human. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he held a heavy walking cane. I knew the handle to be leaded, and I could judge of the force with which he wielded it by the fact that it cut the air with a keen swishing sound. It descended upon the back of the mulatto's skull with a sickening thud, and the great brown body dropped inert upon the padded bed—in which not Smith, but his grip, reposed. There was ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... soon "wangled" permission to become attached to the Bedouin Squadron, and a more dare-devil spirit and lovable comrade than Mid did not exist among the Bedouins. He was always as keen for work as he was "full out" for a party, and he was always the life of a celebration. I remember one night when the C.O. read out at dinner a telegram which concisely stated that His Majesty the King had awarded to one of the Bedouins a very great honor, Mid broke loose. "Say, kids," ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... cause then of any fall of price is an actual condition of over-supply at earlier prices. A very small quantity of over-supply will bring down prices in a business, or in a whole market, provided the competition between the businesses is keen. Where such a fall of prices quickly stimulates demand so that the over-supply is carried off and the rate of demand is equated to the rate of supply at the lower price level, the condition is commonly described as a "tendency to over-supply." But it is important to ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... about the navigation to the East and West Indies, and were very litigious about the claim of Spain to put up railings around the Ocean as her private lake, but they were less keen than were their more polished contemporaries for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... naturalists, and more naturalists than artists, observe these and other animals in their natural surroundings. But, nowadays, at least photographers and cinematographers are going into the wilds to portray them. And perhaps naturalist-artists will arise who, every bit as keen as sportsmen now are to get to close quarters with game animals, will want to get into positions from which they will be able carefully to observe animals of all kinds and take note of every characteristic. These artists will have to be fully as alert ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... increased the gaiety of the nation, has once more been warning the Autocrat, and in a vein that proves that "our filthy contemporary," The Eatanswill Gazette, was no exaggerated picture. This is how The Eagle, in a late issue, speaks of the Russian occupation of Port Arthur:—"And once again that keen, fierce glance is cast in the direction of the grasping Muscovite; again, one of the foulest, one of the vilest dynasties that has impiously trampled on the laws of God, and has violated every progressive aspiration the ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... that of Cato belonged to one of the most powerful and highly born patricians of Rome, Valerius Flaccus, a man who had a keen eye for rising merit, and generously fostered it until it received public recognition. This man heard accounts of Cato's life from his servants, how he would proceed to the court early in the morning, and plead the causes of all who required his services, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... His keen eyes searched her face earnestly, much more earnestly than their wont, as he asked her this pointed question. Anna, upon her part, knew that he had juggled cleverly with the admitted facts of the case and yet her interest in his confession waxed stronger every moment. What an odd ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... be occupied in contemplating other men's faults; whence arises the proverb, "The unhappy are comforted by finding fellow-sufferers." Contrariwise, he will be the more pained in proportion as he thinks himself inferior to others; hence none are so prone to envy as the dejected, they are specially keen in observing men's actions, with a view to fault-finding rather than correction, in order to reserve their praises for dejection, and to glory therein, though all the time with a dejected air. These effects follow as necessarily from the ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... purity of marble, in the artist who works in that noble material; but, after all, he handles club, and, judging by the specimens I have seen here, is apt to be clay, not of the finest, himself. Mr. ——— is sensible, shrewd, keen, clever; an ingenious workman, no doubt; with tact enough, and not destitute of taste; very agreeable and lively in his conversation, talking as fast and as naturally as a brook runs, without the slightest affectation. His ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... investigations into Wilmet's sentiments; and it was to Geraldine that Captain Harewood's attentions were chiefly paid. Knowing Alda's resolute monopoly of her Cacique, Cherry at first held back, and restrained her keen enjoyment of real conversation; but she found Wilmet thankful to have the talk done for her, and content to sit at work, listening almost in silence, but proud that her Captain should be interested in her sister, and pleased ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fellowship with understanding people, and his appreciation of real kindness was as touching as it was keen. Mr. Carson made inquiry concerning the boy, learned the unfortunate circumstances of his starved life, and became his fast friend. So the two girls were allowed to play together unrestricted, each helping the other unconsciously in the building ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... had found out—that she was a fair picture in the artist's eyes; that the perception keen to discover and test and analyze all harmonies of form and tint,—holding a hallowed, mysterious kinship in this power to the Power that had made and spoken by them,—turned its search upon her, and found her lovely in the study. ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... went by, the keen eyes of the old lay-sister noted that her hands were clenched against her breast, that she stumbled at the topmost step, and caught her breath with ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... papers with keen interest. He became satisfied that Andy was right, and determined to ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... And I can understand why he is necessary to father. I am fond of him, and I am almost ready to declare that at times he is almost necessary to me. No, I won't make it as strong as that, but I must say that at times it is a keen pleasure to ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... itself up to her on that side where its pride ran the greatest risk. For us this passion has a peculiar interest, as the rush of one soul towards its ideal against every social harrier, against the unjust decree of fate. To the Witch, on her side, it holds out the deep, keen delight of humbling the lady's pride, and revenging perhaps her own wrongs; the delight of serving the lord as he served his vassals, of levying upon him, through the boldness of a mere child, the firstfruits of his outrageous wedding-rights. Undoubtedly, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... occasion my captain, who was a keen sportsman, took me with him out shooting. We had a famous day's sport, filled our game bags with partridges, ducks, and snipe, and were returning home on horseback when a solitary horseman, a nasty-looking ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... wanders lone and wearily Through desert tracts of Silence and of Night, Pining for Lovers keen utterance and for light, And chasing shadowy forms that mock and flee, My soul was wandering through Eternity, Seeking, within the depth and on the height Of Being, one with whom it might unite In life ...
— Sonnets • Nizam-ud-din-Ahmad, (Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur)
... rubies; but of the melodies that there bewilder them, no returning voice ever speaketh, for are they not Eleusinian mysteries? But when thou meetest, O brother, sailing down the stream under gay flags and rounding sails, some Hogarth or some Sterne, who playeth rouge et noir with keen old Pharaohs, and battledore with Charlie Buff; who singeth brave Libiamos, and despiseth not the Christmas plums of Johnny Horner; who payeth graceful court to the great and learned, and warmeth the pale hearts ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... emigrants in the United States, and I never yet found one at all respectable, who did not confess to me that he repented of emigration. One great cause of this is honourable to them; they feel that in common plain-dealing they are no match for the keen-witted, and I must add unprincipled, portion of the population with which they are thrown in contact. They must either sacrifice their ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... not enjoy life, exult in freedom and pursue as he will the path of blessedness? If not, why was he so created and endowed? Why the mysterious, awful attribute of will? To be a source, profound as the depths of hell, of exquisite misery, of keen anguish, of insufferable torment! Was man formed "according to the image of Jehovah," to be crossed, thwarted, counteracted; to be forced in upon himself; to be the sport of endless contradictions; to be driven back and forth forever between ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the child back, washed and comforted, to help her with her food, Peterson had forgotten the interruption entirely. Taking advantage of Sylvia's absence (as if she had been an interfering factor in the meeting, but scarcely a third person), he turned keen eyes upon Harboro. "Old Harboro!" he said affectionately and musingly. Then he seemed to be swelling up, as if he were a mobile vessel filled with water that had begun to boil. He became as red as a victim of apoplexy. His eyes filled with an unholy mirth, ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... devouring thick slices of bread and butter. He wore a long blue overcoat over his uniform, and high boots. But the dominant note was given to his appearance by the thick white beard which seemed to be touched with a light silver frost. Under the great thatch of eyebrow the keen little eyes twinkled. He made John think of a ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... involuntarily followed the movement, and as he saw her approach his heart contracted sharply: it was Mary Blake. He turned away quickly, and as the collar of his ulster was about his face, for the air of the January day was very keen, he thought that she had not recognized him. A moment later he went aft around the deck-house, and going forward to the smoking-room, seated himself therein, and took the passenger list out of his pocket. He had already scanned it rather cursorily, having but the smallest ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... when she passed through it. But at the moment she did not loathe the thought of him at all, nor did she loathe him. She who so loved the sunshine and joy of life could not but like one who took so keen and boyish a pleasure in its pleasantness, and, boylike also, turned so uncompromising a back on all that was unpleasant ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... essential point. If she were not married, her parents could make her come back, she thought ... keep her with them ... gee! It gave her cold shivers down the back! Once married, she was protected by law; Pa and Ma had nothing to say; and so she was very keen upon marriage. ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... success on either side. The block-houses were immediately manned by the garrison, who by this means could command every point of compass; and whenever an Indian came in sight, he was at once made the target for three or four keen riflemen, who rarely missed their mark. In consequence of this, the wily savage rarely showed himself in an open manner; but would creep stealthily among the tall weeds, or among the tall standing corn, that covered about an hundred ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... on a big magazine's table of contents represent many varieties of the vicissitudes of fortune, but the prevailing type is not a lucky genius, one for whom Opporchunity is working as a night watchman. The type is a firm-jawed plugger. His nose is keen for "good stories," his eye equally alert to dodge the ax or to ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... rushing into Margaret MacLean's face, flooding it with wistfulness. "It's a little hard to believe—this belonging to anybody. Yesterday I seemed to be the only person who wanted me at all, and I wasn't dreadfully keen about it myself." Then she clapped her hands with the suddenness of an idea. "After all, it's the children who are really most concerned. Why shouldn't we ask them? Of course I know it is very much out of the accustomed order ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... without a prompter." There followed a long and leisurely call at Mount Vernon, and Bernard, in his volume of travels which did not see the light for nearly a century, has given a most graphic and winning picture of Washington in his every-day aspect and familiar conversation. To the actor's keen eye, acquainted with the best society of his time, the near approach showed no derogation from the greatness which the story of his deeds conveyed. "Whether you surveyed his face, open yet well defined, dignified but not arrogant, thoughtful but ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... his face was fearfully worn, and that it looked the whiter for the white wig above it and the black gown beneath. His large eyes flamed as with fire. "The sword too keen for ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine |
