"Witted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in discontent. Put 20,000 Northerners in Cork, and in twenty years the Southern port could knock Liverpool out of time." Addressing himself to the Home Rule Bill, he declared that the practical, keen-witted merchants of Belfast dismissed the whole concoction as unworthy of sober consideration, and declared that an awful responsibility rested on Mr. Gladstone. Said ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... there was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was declared to be half-witted. Be that as it may, at the orphan's death the aunt inherited her ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... by the issue of treasury-notes, an expedient which was not adopted in England till five years afterwards. Charles Montagu, the alleged inventor of exchequer bills doubtless owed his idea to the sharp-witted Bostonians. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Hunsdrich the porter, and a tight-made lad altogether; no enemy with the girls, I warrant me;' or thus, 'Well, for a good-hearted, good-looking, stout-drinking, virtuous, honourable, handsome, generous, sharp-witted knave, commend me to Hunsdrich the porter;' but not a word more, my friends, not a word more, no flattery—Now, sir, I beg ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... caught within the American lines, and was condemned to death. He was an almost half-witted creature, with queer cunning ways, and the Indians looked upon him as a sort of Medicine Man, and feared him accordingly. Knowing this, Arnold thought that he might be useful to him, and promised to spare his life if he would go to the British camp and spread a report among their Indian allies ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... stayed on from a perception that the young minister had best have some one to talk to as far into the morning as he would go on talking. They were talking in a business-like way of Zion; and Theophil was smoking cigarette after cigarette. He was terribly clear-headed and bright-witted, and Mr. Moggridge looked at him sometimes with a sort ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... which Julian applied, could not discover if Bridgenorth spoke seriously or ironically to the above purpose. He was, however, quick-witted beyond his experience, and was internally determined to endeavour to discover something of the character and the temper of him with whom he spoke. For that purpose, regulating his reply in the same tone with Bridgenorth's observation, he said, that not ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Labe Keeler's been talkin' to ME, and when you come down here and began proposin' the same scheme that I was just about headin' up to your room with to propose to you, then—well, then the average whole-witted person wouldn't need more'n one guess. It couldn't be Labe, 'cause he'd been whisperin' in MY ear, so it must have been the other partner in the firm. That's all the ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... eye as Butler entered, and instantly withdrew it, as from an object which gave him at once surprise and sudden pain. He had assumed such high ground with this carnal-witted scholar, as he had in his pride termed Butler, that to meet him, of all men, under feelings of humiliation, aggravated his misfortune, and was a consummation like that of the dying chief in the old ballad—"Earl Percy ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sheep-masters. They are a slow, quiet, well-meaning hospitable people, extremely conservative in their opinions as well as their habits, very sparing, because they have little ready money, very suspicious, because afraid of being out-witted by the English traders, and many of them so old-fashioned in their theory of the universe as to object to legislation against sheep scab, because they regard it as a visitation of Providence, to be combated only by repentance and not by ordinary human means. The women are usually ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... fool; he was, on the contrary, a shrewd, clever, quick-witted man of the world and it was impossible to shut his eyes to the trouble. He thought of Bella as she was when he had first married her; he recalled their courtship, her pretty half shy, half tender ways—the girlish prettiness which time had ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... the scholar, who had already reached daylight through the first three books of Euclid, and took a walk every Saturday morning with his father and Herodotus, even Gav, the scholar, was as thick-witted as Corp. ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... thank you, my dear Ishmael! I knew you would. You will be of great assistance. Of course we must oppose this rascally viscount's petition, and do our best to unmask his villainy. But how to do it? I was never very quick-witted, Ishmael; and now my faculties are blunted with age. But I have much to hope from your aid in this case. I know that you cannot appear publicly for Lady Vincent; but at the same time you may be of inestimable value as a private counselor. Your genius, acumen, and wonderful insight ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... had seen him. Perhaps they had fought. Her mind refused to go further. But little subtle undercurrents pressed in on her. Tobey hated and feared his father. And Mart was always enraged at the sight of his half-witted son. What had happened? And yet no matter what had occurred, Tobey had not been on the hill. His shoes bore mute testimony to that. And the scream had been ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... curl of the laughing lips, and the fall of the heavy moustache only half concealed a curious over-sensitiveness in the lines of the too mobile mouth. It was not the face of a great thinker nor of a great saint, but of a humorous, quick-witted, impatient man, of wide intelligence, and very ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... very old and deaf, and we can get no information from her. The shock has made her half-witted, but I understand that she was never very bright. There is one very important circumstance, however. Look ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... turned out. However dull Mrs. Crull might be as a scholar, she was quick-witted as a friend, and was constantly bestowing unexpected kindnesses upon Miss Pillbody. Scarcely a day passed that the young teacher did not receive from her pupil some little present—at times rising to the value of a bonnet or a shawl. Mrs. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... favorite, knew every hole and corner, collected all the nails and pieces of packthread, folded all the packing-paper, fed Pluto the watch-dog, and did sundry other odd jobs. Up to every thing, invariably good-humored and ready-witted, the porters fondly called him "our Karl;" and his father often glanced aside from his work to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... demanded a compliance with this contract. The Company could not refuse him, and the stock was issued to him. With it he met his contracts promptly. The result was fearful to his enemies. This sudden and unexpected issue of new stock brought "Erie" down with a rush, and the sharp witted operators who had bought either at par or at a premium, solely to ruin their great rival, were ruined themselves, almost to ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... about going to Paradise, and so could best help to decide whether it was reasonable to suppose that she was still there. Rachel was steadier and more dependable, but Katherine was resourceful and quick-witted. Besides, she was not a bit afraid of ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... would make some excuse and come," said the quick-witted Mary, as eager and thoughtless an observer of one love-affair as of another, and quite forgetting that, not many weeks ago, she had fancied an ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... urgently needed. She pawned the diamonds before she left the capital of Austria, and the chances are she did not intend anyone to know they were missing; but on the eve of the ball her husband insisted that she should wear her diamonds, and therefore, being a quick-witted woman, she announced they had been stolen. After having made such a statement, she, of course, had to stick to it; and now, failing to get the money from America, she is exceedingly anxious that no real detective ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... natural feature of the landscape. And in like manner, when game refuges shall be established in the various forest reservations all over the western country, this superb species will increase and do well. Alert, quick-witted, strong, fleet and active, it is one of the most beautiful and most imposing of North American animals. Equally at home on the frozen snowbanks of the mountain top, or in the parched deserts of the ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... familiar Sunfish which is Sahwah's symbol. There was no doubt about the note being genuine. Besides, it could only be quick-witted Sahwah who would think of leaving a blaze in the road on the slender chance that we would be coming along that way. How it smoothed everything out! Not knowing that we were so close behind her, Sahwah had had a chance to go on to Chicago, and would simply go to our hotel and ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... forgotten. Of course! How stupid of me!" For a moment Malipieri knew that he should like to box her ears, woman though she was; then he felt a sort of pity for her, such as one feels for half-witted creatures that cannot help ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... mother tell you that? Well, she's pretty shrewd. It's quite likely, Betty, quite likely. It seems to me you are not so quick witted as you used ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... the region of illusion and that of sane intelligence. To be the victim of an illusion is, in the popular judgment, to be excluded from the category of rational men. The term at once calls up images of stunted figures with ill-developed brains, half-witted creatures, hardly distinguishable from the admittedly insane. And this way of thinking of illusion and its subjects is strengthened by one of the characteristic sentiments of our age. The nineteenth century intelligence plumes itself on having got at the bottom of mediaeval visions and church miracles, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... reciters[FN5] that among women are those who are doughtier than the doughtiest men and prower of prowess, and that among them are some who will engage in fight singular with the sword and others who beguile the quickest-witted of Walis and baffle them and bring down on them all manner of miseries; wherefore said the Soldan, "I would lief hear this of their legerdemain from one of those who have had to do with it, so I may hearken unto him and cause him discourse." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... for the moderate height of the ceilings. In a room with three windows on one side, looking out on the private grounds, the Queen was born. It was thinking of it and its occupants that the warm-hearted, quick-witted Duchess-mother, in Coburg, wrote: "I cannot express how happy I am to know you, dearest, dearest Vickel, safe in your bed, with a little one.... Again a Charlotte—destined, perhaps, to play a great part one day, if a brother ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... press was injurious; they added more strength to the monarchy, than my criticisms on incidental questions and situations could abstract from the Cabinet. But my free language disturbed the blind partisans of absolute power in the Church and State, and the Abbe Frayssinous, short-witted and weak though honest, obeyed with inquietude rather than reluctance the influences whose extreme violence he ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... My quick-witted attendant fully appreciated the compliment I was paying to the costume of his race, and began more sedulously to arrange the folds of the one only garment which remained to me. Whilst he was doing this, I caught sight of a knot of young ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... it happened, wrote William Connor Sydney, in "England and the English in the Eighteenth Century," that a bricklayer (who chanced to be the seventh son of his father), or a sharp-witted cobbler, picked up an antiquated collection of medieval recipes, and perused it in his leisure hours! Then, dispensing with his trowel or awl, he devoted himself to the sale of pellets, lotions and gargles, ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... his teeth together. His dull-witted companion had evidently walked them both into the trap! Nevertheless, his resolve was quickly made. He could already see through the thinning fringe of timber the figures of the ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Edinburgh, but not here! The world of beauty and light and growth on which he looked would have none of the dark devil's world of which he had been dreaming: the dark devil's world which the sophists and churchmen and the weak-witted of twoscore ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... together. We have some misgivings about Beatrice—some apprehensions that poor Benedick will not escape the "predestinated scratched face," which he had foretold to him who should win and wear this quick-witted and pleasant-spirited lady; yet when we recollect that to the wit and imperious temper of Beatrice is united a magnanimity of spirit which would naturally place her far above all selfishness, and all paltry struggles for power—when we perceive, in the midst of her sarcastic ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... But the quick-witted Bartley took the alarm, and literally collared him. "My good friend," said he, "you don't know the provocation. It is the affront to her that has made me forget myself. Affronts to myself from the same quarter I have borne with patience. But now this insolent ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... from a constant habit of napping, did his utmost, in paying the school-bills of his niece Catherine. In the course of a few years, Uncle Josie's protege became an assistant in the school where he had been educated; Kate Hubbard, Uncle Dozie's favourite, married a quick-witted, but poor, young lawyer, already introduced to the reader, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... called upon her ladyship in order to impart to her the good news. Yet, instead of welcoming him, she only treated him with resentment and scorn. He knew the quick flash of those eyes, he had seen it before on other occasions. This was not the first time they had quarrelled, yet he, keen-witted and cunning, had always held her powerless to elude him, had always compelled her to give him the sums he so constantly demanded. That morning, however, she was distinctly ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... cups of strong tea of my brewing. I gave him a cigar, one of a lot I had got from a Dutch farmer who was experimenting with their manufacture—and all the while I babbled of myself and my opinions. He must have thought me half-witted, and indeed before long I began to be of the same opinion myself. I told him that I meant to sleep the night here, and go back in the morning to Blaauwildebeestefontein, and then to Pietersdorp for stores. By-and-by I could see that he had ceased to pay any attention to what I said. I was ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... race of forebears, and inherited from his mother a refined, retiring disposition and a love for books. He went to school at Sturminster Newton, where he was considered the clever boy of the school; and when a solicitor named Dashwood applied to the master for a quick-witted boy to join him as pupil, Barnes was selected for the post. He worked with the village parson in his spare hours at classics and studied music under the organist. In 1818 he left Sturminster for the office of one Coombs at Dorchester, where he continued his evening education with another ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... careless and good-natured don't git trod on, nor the strong make slaves of the weaker. The feeble are protected, temptations are kept out of the way of the feeble wills; the honest, industrious ones hain't allowed to perish for want of work they would gladly do, and the strong, keen-witted ones hain't allowed to steal from the onfaculized ones. Why, how it would look for that pa to let some of his children heap up more money than they could use, whilst some of the children wuz starvin'? It would make talk and ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... to Germany when, on February 6th, the only attack ever made on his person occurred in Bremen. He had been at a banquet in the town hall, and was being driven through the illuminated streets to the railway station to return to Berlin, when a half-witted locksmith's apprentice of nineteen, Dietrich Weiland by name, flung a piece of railway iron at him with such good aim that it struck him on the face immediately under the right eye, inflicting a deep and nasty, but not dangerous wound. The Emperor proceeded with his journey, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... encamped in the neighborhood of Georgetown, ordered captain Withers to take sergeant Macdonald, with four volunteers, and go on the enemy's lines to see what they were doing. On approaching the town, they met an old tory; one of your half-witted fellows, whom neither side regarded any more than a Jew does a pig, and therefore suffered him to stroll when and where he pleased. The old man knew captain Withers very well; and as soon as he had got near enough to recollect him, he bawled out, "God's ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... is called a good-tempered person,—never cried, when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and from the cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted; in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... some years afterward perpetrated the same witticism on the occasion of Edmund Burke's leaving the House of Commons in a rage, because he was interrupted in one of his great speeches by a thick-witted country member. ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... a prospect of no allurement. I stepped into place in the long trail of refugees and started, however. It needed no more than two hours of stumbling over sleepers and crunching on the rough stone ballast of the track to make of me as tired and dull-witted a hobo as the rest. We all walked in single file, keeping as far as possible to a strip of soft mud at the side of the line where the going was easier, and one's whole mind had become before long entirely concentrated on nothing more than the increasing soreness of two tired feet and the gradual ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... of men. Their thoughts, especially at this season, are directed away from the dull, mechanic force which labors against its bonds across Europe, and dwell in the homes it has threatened. The war is revealed as a thing gross and dull-witted, a crime even against the ancient, chivalrous ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... loyal hitherto to the traditions of Umbrian art, to its heavy weight of hieratic tradition, dealing still somewhat conventionally with a limited, non-natural matter—for Raphael to come from Siena, Perugia, Urbino, to sharp-witted, practical, masterful Florence was in immediate effect a transition from reverie to [50] realities—to a world of facts. Those masters of the ideal were for him, in the first instance, masters also of realism, as we say. Henceforth, to the end, he will be the analyst, the faithful ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Archismati was his fourth daughter, she was so named from her great refulgence. And his fifth daughter was called Havishmati, so named from her accepting havis or oblations. The sixth daughter of Angiras was called Mahismati the pious. O keen-witted being, the seventh daughter of Angiras is known by the name of Mahamati, who is always present at sacrifices of great splendour, and that worshipful daughter of Angiras, whom they call unrivalled and without portion, and about whom people utter the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the grounds of that refusal we can, in some measure, judge by Bacon's answer, which is still extant. It seems that the old Lord, whose temper, age and gout had by no means altered for the better, and who loved to mark his dislike of the showy, quick-witted young men of the rising generation, took this opportunity to read Francis a very sharp lecture on his vanity and want of respect for his betters. Francis returned a most submissive reply, thanked the Treasurer for the admonition, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... element of horizon, a foothold to cling to, whence his thoughts will rise with surer and more human strength. There is not an existence about us but at first seems colourless, dreary, lethargic: what can our soul have in common with that of an elderly spinster, a slow-witted ploughman, a miser who worships his gold? Can any connection exist between such as these and a deep-rooted feeling, a boundless love for humanity, an interest time cannot stale? But let a Balzac step forward and stand in the midst of them, with his eyes and ears on ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Indeed, that is as essential and refreshing, after a day's walk, as washing one's face. I sit me down, therefore, under the pomegranate, take off my shoes and stockings, and the little girl, a winsome, dark-eyed, quick-witted lass, pours to me from the pitcher. I try to take it from her; but she would not, she said, be deprived of the pleasure of serving the stranger. Having done, I put on my stockings, and, leaving my shoes and basket ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Latin genius for organization on the small scale has met the German genius for organization on the large scale. The industrial transformation has been facilitated by the system of conscription over which the English have wrangled so long and so futilely to the mystery of their keener-witted allies. To the Frenchman conscription means merely the most effective method of applying patriotism, of cooeperation for the common cause. France has mobilized not only her men, but her women and children, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... the committee spoke up, agreeing with this. Said Rusick, the Slav, slow-witted and slow-spoken, "Them fellers get mighty damn sore if they lose their job and don't got no strike." And Zammakis, the Greek, quick and nervous, "We say strike; we got to ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... side, and however much her acquaintances scolded about her, they found it impossible to resist the fascination of her conversation, and few declined to share in the banquet of gossip which she was always ready to spread. She was quick witted, and possessed of many resources and much cleverness of a certain sort; but it must be confessed that she had done mischief in her day, having been the murderer of more than one neighbor's peace of mind and the assailant of many a reputation. But if she were a dangerous ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... over her enjoyment, and when she had satisfied her hunger, applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learned tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... I observe to have been formerly much desired by some experienced Teachers, and I my self had some years since (whilst my own Child lived) begun the like, having found it most agreeable to the best witted Children, who are most taken up with Pictures from their Infancy, because by them the knowledge of things which they seem to represent (and whereof Children are as yet ignorant) are most easily conveyed to the Understanding. But for as much as the work is now done, ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius
... I'd come, didn't I?" asked old Johnny. "It's been a gregus long time and I'm only half-muscled as well as half-witted now. But I'll come. I'd help you build a cabin in hell if you wanted me to. Honest, ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... began to strike at the dragon-flies, which were on the foreheads of their companions. The dragon-flies were very quick, and were not hurt at all: but the monkeys were all killed. Thus the light, quick-witted dragon-flies won the victory over the ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... current, but the delay thus caused mattered little as the surprise was complete. When the bridges of rafts had been swung and anchored, blankets and carpets were laid upon them to deaden the fall of marching feet, and during that silent tramp across the rolling bridges many a keen-witted Scot found it difficult to restrain a laugh as he trod on carpets richer by far than any that had lain in his best parlour at home. He could not see the patterns, but rightly guessed that they were ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... so much; to them the two dominant features of this war—death and boredom—appeal with far less force. For both depend so utterly on imagination in their effect on the individual. Death is only awful in anticipation; boredom only an affliction to the keen-witted. So to the ninety, perhaps, the "Why?" does not sound insistently. It is as well, for if the answer is not forthcoming there is danger, as I have said. And one wonders sometimes which class produces the best results for the business in ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... aunt assured her that everything which had been done already, and which was now doing, was quite in rule, the quick-eyed and quick-witted Rose noted these unusual proceedings, and had an opinion of her own on the subject. Spike had gone forward, and posted himself on the weather-side of the forecastle, where he could get the clearest look ahead, and there ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... disposition, and though their real shape is that of a fish's body with a human head, they can take on the form of men in order to seduce women. They also cause epidemics and earthquakes; yet the people shew them no respect, for they believe them to be dull-witted as well as lecherous. At most, if a fearful epidemic is raging, they will offer the gods a lean little pig or a mangy cur; and should an earthquake last longer than usual they will rap on the ground, saying, "Hullo, you down there! ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... There seemed nothing else to do. She remembered him perfectly now, and she realized that the nimble-witted clerk had meant to send ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to the moral of my discourse. Don't despair, if you are a duffer, for you may cure yourself of it, if you will only think and take your time. If we are not quick-witted, it does not follow we have no wits, and if we only use them carefully, we shall be no greater duffers than ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Nella gave a discontented little snort, for she did not like to have her conclusions questioned. "Am I half-witted? Am I in my dotage? Am I an imbecile? The gown is ordered, and that is the truth. Do you think the master has ordered a wedding gown embroidered with gold and pearls ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... the rate of one dollar a week. He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least among the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers. Copying law-papers ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... Marathon, Pharsalia, Poitiers, and Agincourt. He teacheth virtue by certain abstract considerations, but I only bid you follow the footing of them that have gone before you. Old-aged experience goeth beyond the fine- witted philosopher, but I give the experience of many ages. Lastly, if he make the songbook, I put the learner's hand to the lute; and if he be the guide, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... twentieth, in full day, a wise man should be born. Such an one is very sound-witted. The tenth is favourable for a male to be born; but, for a girl, the fourth day of the mid-month. On that day tame sheep and shambling, horned oxen, and the sharp-fanged dog and hardy mules to the touch of ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... she stood, the ideal of the English outdoor girl, merry, quick-witted, and athletic. And yet, after the stress of war, she had sacrificed all that she held most dear in order to become the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... land where even the natives go mad from sheer despondency of life, it is no wonder that men and women of culture and refinement are driven to suicide from the constant dread of insanity. Idiocy, however, is more frequent amongst the natives, and in one povarnia we found a poor half-witted wretch who had taken up his quarters there driven away from the nearest stancia by the cruelty of its inmates. This poor imbecile had laid in a store of putrid fish and seemed quite resigned to his surroundings, but we persuaded him to return to his home with us. This was an exceptional ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... not return to modern philanthropists the glory and the advantages of a crusade against the empty nutshells of the penitentiary and negrophobia; consequently, the interloping profits of these bankers of merchandise will continue to weigh heavily both on producers and consumers. In France—keen-witted land!—it is thought that to simplify is to destroy. The Revolution of 1789 is still ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... with the Baroness in the other direction toward the ponds. This ready-witted lady, who liked to be in the secret about everything, soon observed, in a few conversational feelers which she threw out, that Edward was very fluent and free-spoken in praise of Ottilie. She contrived in the most natural ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... old-fashioned Georgian seals which he had acquired in the way of business, and he had had the keys gilt, turned to a dull gold colour, to match the seals. It was possible, just possible, that they might escape the notice of these thick-witted men ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... to be for a few moments utterly incapable of speech. The girl divined that something serious was to be told. To her questioning look, the old mammy nodded, glancing meantime at Zany as much as to say, "We should be alone." This quick-witted negress, consumed with curiosity about Chunk, and some deeper interest, resolved not ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... the animals of the cold regions, and had not learned to make clothing, their homes must have been in the warm parts of the earth. While they were without weapons to defend themselves against the lion and tiger, yet they were sharp witted and very quick in their movements and thus were usually able to escape ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... enter per buletini for a note of distinction from ordinary comedians. Towards the end of the play the sheriffs (who by chance had heard of it) came in (as they say) and carried some six or seven of them to perform the last act at Bridewell. The rest are fled. Now it is strange to hear how sharp-witted the city is, for they will needs have Sir John Swinerton, the Lord Mayor, be meant by the Hog, and the late Lord Treasurer ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... more endurable to ducks than to human bipeds. Martin Poyser had some faint conception of the flavour such men must find in hot roast beef and fresh-drawn ale. He held his head on one side and screwed up his mouth, as he nudged Bartle Massey, and watched half-witted Tom Tholer, otherwise known as "Tom Saft," receiving his second plateful of beef. A grin of delight broke over Tom's face as the plate was set down before him, between his knife and fork, which he held erect, as if they had been sacred tapers. But the delight was too strong to continue smouldering ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... neighbors, and was believed to get his living through "writin' or book-larnin'," but he was so quiet and gentle that they never upbraided him, and would sometimes, after making a call, wander into his garden and casually weed it for him for an hour or so. The girl, Stella, was a well-schooled, quick-witted, rosy-cheeked lass, whom all the shaggy, big-jointed farmer lads of the neighborhood regarded with hopeless admiration. A year or two after the settlement of the family it began to be noticed that she was losing color and had an anxious look, and when a friendly old farmer saw her talking ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... genius is an extreme fertility in making mental associations. A central object comes into mind, and immediately the mind of the genius, by contrast, comparison, analogy, inference, and imagination, weaves around it a wealth of possibility: the dull-witted man sees the same, but his mind travels no farther than the actual vision. The quick mind supplies the apt repartee, while the dullard thinks of the appropriate reply next morning—if at all. The disadvantage of the latter mind is that it does not work easily, the danger of the former ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... secure the possession of this important port at the mouth of the Western Scheldt. Herpt persuaded the burghers that it was too late to draw back now. They had done enough to draw the vengeance of the Spaniards upon them; their only hope now was to resist to the last. A half witted man in the crowd offered, if any one would give him a pot of beer, to ascend the ramparts and fire two pieces of artillery at ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... unusual circumstances, with a power adequate to meet great 'emergencies, and to make use of great opportunities. If we trample sluggishness and indifference under our feet, if we do with a will whatever we undertake, determining to do it as well as we possibly can, we shall become quick-witted in small works, and full of ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... towards the corner of the room occupied by Lewis Flagg's bed and other belongings, and Seabrooke caught the look. Quick-sighted and quick-witted, he drew his own inferences and attacked ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... quick-witted that her mother often suspected she knew the secret which concerned herself. Sometimes she talked too much of M. de Camors; sometimes she talked too little, and assumed a mysterious air when others ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... sent to take Fort Schuyler, thence to ravage the Mohawk Valley and join Burgoyne's army at Albany. General Arnold being dispatched to relieve that fort, accomplished it by a stratagem. A half-witted tory boy who had been taken prisoner, was promised his freedom, if he would spread the report among St. Leger's troops that a large body of Americans was close at hand. The boy, having cut holes in his clothes, ran breathless into the camp of the besiegers, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... he never cut after the unfortunate lady's foul murder. The legend went on further to state that the white wraith of the innocent victim might be seen, on a certain night in the year, rising out of the misty spray of the waterfall: but as nobody except one very weak-witted female Jocelyn had ever seen the vision, the inhabitants of the house upon the crag had taken so little heed of the legend that the date of the anniversary had come at last to ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of the world isn't for the beautiful people. It's for beef-witted squires and blear-eyed people like yourselves—brutish, callous. Your God stinks like carrion, ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... such circumstances abuse and badinage is continually being bandied across the intervening spaces between the trenches, and the quick-witted Frenchmen generally get the better of it in ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... enough to tell the world of the Church of Rome's ferocity in primitive terms, he must have been particularly desirous of being roasted alive: had he even so represented it as to render himself comprehensible by the most quick-witted, he must still have had the martyr's liking for instruments of torture and the blazing faggot: Bracciolini, whom nature had not gifted with the taste of Huss and Jerome of Prague, was so conscious of the perilous position in which ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... alert, quick-witted and tactful, but Zizi was even more so. She made friends with the Cranes at once, and they all admired the odd, fascinating girl. Small of stature, dark of coloring, Zizi was not unlike a gypsy, and the mention of this brought about the tale of the ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... voices are there: one is of the deep— It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody, Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep; And one is of an old, half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That glass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep; And, Wordsworth, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... sense for once, Farlane," replied Bostil, with relief. "I wasn't thinkin' so much of danger for Lucy.... But she lets thet half-witted Creech go with her." ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... ago I knew thee, Knowles, and then Esteemed you a perfect specimen Of those fine spirits warm-soul'd Ireland sends, To teach us colder English how a friend's Quick pulse should beat. I knew you brave, and plain, Strong-sensed, rough-witted, above fear or gain; But nothing further had the gift to espy. Sudden you reappear. With wonder I Hear my old friend (turn'd Shakspeare) read a scene Only to his inferior in the clean Passes of pathos: with such fence-like art— Ere we can see the steel, 'tis ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... to, Robert Brown, alias Thomas Jones, stands second to none, with regard to deeds of bold daring. This hero escaped from Martinsburg, Va., in 1856. He was a man of medium size, mulatto, about thirty-eight years of age, could read and write, and was naturally sharp-witted. He had formerly been owned by Col. John F. Franie, whom Robert charged with various offences ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... lip in eating—an ugly sound enough—so much so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether any marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might be picked, the simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery hanging round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they would ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... New York, Wilford would take another route, and one directly out of his way; while, what was stranger than all, he did not know when he should be home; it would depend upon circumstances, he said, evincing so much annoyance at being questioned with regard to his movements, that the quick-witted Juno readily divined that there was some girl in the matter, teasing him unmercifully to tell her who she was, and what ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... their disappointment so much to particular liking of me, as to their own self-admiration. They looked upon me as a connoisseur in beauty. They would have been proud of engaging my attention, as such: but so affected, so flimsy-witted, mere skin-deep beauties!—They had looked no farther into themselves than what their glasses were flattering-glasses too; for I thought them passive-faced, and spiritless; with eyes, however, upon the hunt for conquests, and bespeaking the attention of others, in order to countenance their own. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... secretary, Cornelius van Tienhoven. Of this man very much could be said, and more than we are able, but we shall select here and there a little for the sake of brevity. He is cautious, subtle, intelligent and sharp-witted—good gifts when they are well used. He is one of those who have been longest in the country, and every circumstance is well known to him, in regard both to the Christians and the Indians. With the Indians, moreover, he has run about the same as an Indian, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... her mother took in two orphans to foster and rear. Thus in the work of caring for the outcast and the forlorn Annie Macpherson was "to the manner born." Inheriting her father's enthusiasm and her mother's sympathetic nature, the quick-witted, warm-hearted girl would not fail to note the equal footing enjoyed by the stranger children, and would know the reason why: the much tact employed to keep the new and difficult relations sweet would engage her attention; ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... quick-witted, but at once he jumped to the conclusion that his wife had just had in a furniture dealer, and that this ten pounds represented all their nice furniture upstairs. If that were so, then it was the beginning of the ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... miserable, egotistical, lying, slanderous fellow his father is. Bunny's father hates the country he lives in, and would set everybody to tearing down the government. That's the kind of a brainless anarchist Hepburn is, and you can't expect his dull-witted son to know any more than the father does. But you keep on, Jud, always respecting the soldier and his uniform, and the Flag that both ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... dates from 1811, and was applied first to frame-breakers, and then to the disaffected in general. It was derived from a half-witted lad named Ned Lud, who entered a house in a fit of passion, and destroyed a couple of stocking-frames. The song was an impromptu, enclosed in a letter to Moore of December 24, 1816. "I have written it principally," he says, "to shock your neighbour ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... bird-witted and short of memory replied, "Mrs. Penhallow she gave me a dollar to pay pole-tax if I vote for—I guess it was Buchanan. I ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... how to punish sixty girls, but she was quick-witted, and bidding them resume their seats, she gave them another lecture, and then said: "Since you are all guilty, you shall ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... was petted and taken about by his stepfather, and as soon as he was old enough, or sooner, went to the theatre while rehearsals were going on. "The Cossack," as Geyer called him, grew up a lively, quick-witted child, active and full of mischief, "leaving a trousers-seat per day on the hedge" and sliding down banisters—much indeed like many other children who afterwards for want of leisure neglected to compose a Ring or a Tristan. The theatrical life, I feel sure, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... increased by two additional regiments. The rioters assumed the name of Luddites, and their leader was known as General Lud. The name is said to have originated in 1779, in a Leicestershire village, where a half-witted lad, named Ned Lud, broke a stocking-frame in a fit of passion; hence the common saying, when machinery was broken, that "Ned Lud" did it. A Bill was introduced in the House of Commons (February 14) increasing the severity of punishments for frame-breaking. On the second ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... financial issue was kept in the background, the tariff was fought out again somewhat as it had been in 1888. The New York Sun shed some asperity over the contest by calling the friends of Cleveland "the adorers of fat witted mediocrity," and the nominee himself as the "perpetual candidate" and the "stuffed prophet"; and then added a ray of humor by advocating the election of Cleveland. The adoption of the Australian ballot, before the election, in thirty-four states and territories ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... prolificness; they are wise and tenacious of life, and we shall find it by and by no small matter to keep them in check. Our native birds are much different, less prolific, less shrewd, less aggressive and persistent, less quick-witted and able to read the note of danger or hostility,—in short, less sophisticated. Most of our birds are yet essentially wild, that is, little changed by civilization. In winter, especially, they sweep by me and around me in ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... tousled head of hair and those clean-cut features, now swollen and red with an unreasonable choler. The policeman was the first to get his shocked and jostled senses back, and the first to speak. He proved himself a quick-witted person that night, this policeman did; and perhaps this helps to explain why his superior, the head of the St. Louis police department, on the very next day promoted him to be ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... sale of his Sunday school prize-books, which he disposed of at the Baptist Mission shop, receiving several rupees in return. Having once possessed himself of what was wealth to him, and having lost most of it in the gentlemanly vice of gambling, he began to need more, but being slow-witted he could think of no way better than robbing Mhtoon Pah, which suggestion the Chinaman's assistant looked upon as both dangerous and weak, regarded in the light of a ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... nonentity. Because he loved the wild and preferred it to village and range life, they had classed him as not one of them. Some believed him lazy; others believed him shiftless; others thought him an Indian in mind and habits; and there were many who called him slow-witted. Then there was another side to their regard for him, which always afforded him good-natured amusement. Two of this group asked him to bring in some turkey or venison; another wanted to hunt with him. Lem Harden came out of the store ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... dreaded more the rending of their pontifical sleeves than the rending of the Church? Who shall now sneer at Puritanism, with the Defence of Unlicensed Printing before him? Who scoff at Quakerism over the Journal of George Fox? Who shall join with debauched lordlings and fat-witted prelates in ridicule of Anabaptist levellers and dippers, after rising from the perusal of Pilgrim's Progress? "There were giants in those days." And foremost amidst that band of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... have been an impossibility, because he had just left her behind him at the house; and she could not have swum round in a great half-circle, through the drowsy air, to confront him at a distant point where he did not expect to see her. But the heat made one stupid and slow-witted. This man and woman were farmer Creech's people, and they had come sauntering along the edge of uncut grass to make lazy love to each other. Dale turned aside to avoid ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... This worthy was an attorney from London, who had officiated as clerk of the court at the assizes at Lancaster, where his quickness had so much pleased Roger Nowell, that he sent for him to Read to manage this particular business. A sharp-witted fellow was Potts, and versed in all the quirks and tricks of a very subtle profession—not over-scrupulous, provided a client would pay well; prepared to resort to any expedient to gain his object, and quite conversant enough with both practice ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... And the half-witted creature gave a touching glance at Rudy, folded his hands and said piously and solemnly: "Jesus Christ! Saperli wishes to send him a letter, praying him to let Saperli lie dead and not the ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned upon her and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other's perverted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... of this outburst was electric. Jerome sat as one stupefied, and for a bare instant Basil gazed as stonily as he; but he recovered in time to prevent the young man's departure. The yellow-faced fanatic was as quick-handed as he was quick-witted. Windybank had lifted the latch, and his fingers were on the door pulling it open. Basil drew his dagger, held it, poised, by the blade for a moment, then cast it with great force and precision. Master Andrew felt a hot pain in his hand, tried to pluck it back to his body, and failed; it was pinned ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... the alarmed Rector answered only by a groan—a groan so expressive that his quick-witted mother heard it ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Phil?" she said, turning with brightening countenance to Miss Fleming. "We intend to have Phil educated. He is such a keen-witted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... "Some soft-witted fools may like to throw away three hundred pounds on a bit of paintwork; can't say as I envy them their taste. I'd rather have the real thing than ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... boatswain crawled away to find somewhere a flying end of a rope; and Wamibo, held back by shouts:—"Don't jump!... Don't come in here, muddle-head!"—remained glaring above us—all shining eyes, gleaming fangs, tumbled hair; resembling an amazed and half-witted fiend gloating over the extraordinary agitation of the damned. The boatswain adjured us to "bear a hand," and a rope descended. We made things fast to it and they went up spinning, never to be seen by man again. A rage to fling things overboard possessed ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... known about the author of "The Politician Out-witted,"[1] a play which I have selected as representative of the efforts of the American drama, as early as 1789, to reflect the political spirit of the time. Assiduous search on the part of the present editor has failed to bring to ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... grew older. Love began to gain the day, and peace began—slowly at first—to descend on the parsonage; but the desire for mischief—which the boy named "fun"—had not been quite dislodged at the time we write of. As Harry had reached the age of fifteen, feared nothing, and was quick-witted and ingenious, his occasional devices not only got him into frequent hot water, but were the source of some amusement to his people—and he still pretty well ruled his easy-going father and the house generally with a ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... as to feel his way more surely and gradually to its ultimate aim; but he had no intention of burning his shining talents in a grazing district, however tall its grass might grow. His business was not with these stiff-jointed, slow-witted graziers, but with the supple, dangerous, far-seeing men who sit scheming by the gas-light in the great cities, after all the lamps and candles are out from the Merrimac to the Housatonic. Every strong and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... ten, and by eleven; and thus the heathen warriors they arrived toward this land, to the court of this king, so that this land was so full of foreign people, that there was no man so wise, nor so quick-witted, that might separate the Christians and the heathens, for the heathens were so rife, ...
— Brut • Layamon
... changed an iota; she never will be anything more than a beautiful, merry child, and is a mere pretty pet, not a companion in the true sense of the word. She is not quick-witted, or she would discern a melancholy truth that might overshadow all her life. Unless Gordon learns more self-control, he will ere long betray himself. I expostulated with him before his marriage, but for once he threw my warning to the winds. I am an old man, and have seen many phases of human nature, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... good-looking chap of thirty or thereabouts, an American to the core,—bright-eyed, keen-witted, smooth-faced, virile. From boyhood's earliest days he had spent a portion of his summers in Europe. Two or three years of his life had been employed in the Beaux Arts,—fruitful years, for Brock had not wasted his ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... which he acquired the reputation of being a "connoisseur of art." Neither knowledge nor appreciation were required; with the expenditure of a few hundred thousand dollars he instantaneously transformed himself from a heavy-witted, uncultured money hoarder into the character of a surpassing "judge and patron of art." And his pretensions were seriously accepted by the uninformed, absorbing their opinions ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... with an important air of helplessness, or a helpless air of importance,—whichever the reader may please to term it, evincing at once gratified vanity, and profound trouble of mind. The sharp-witted Primate of Saint Andrews had foreseen the deficiencies of the Abbot of St. Mary's, and endeavoured to provide for them by getting admitted into his Monastery as Sub-Prior a brother Cistercian, a man of parts ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... young widow rents out their cabin to fat Reuben. Reuben is a Baptist preacher now, but I fear as lazy as ever, though his cabin has three rooms; and little Ella has grown into a bouncing woman, and is ploughing corn on the hot hillside. There are babies a plenty, and one half-witted girl. Across the valley is a house I did not know before, and there I found, rocking one baby and expecting another, one of my schoolgirls, a daughter of Uncle Bird Dowell. She looked somewhat worried with her new duties, but soon bristled into pride over ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... understood: he had studied men in many countries, men of all ages, men of every grade of social and intellectual status, and inwardly he understood what Marguerite had left unsaid. Granted that Percy Blakeney was dull-witted, but in his slow-going mind, there would still be room for that ineradicable pride of a descendant of a long line of English gentlemen. A Blakeney had died on Bosworth field, another had sacrified life and fortune for the sake of a treacherous Stuart: and that same pride—foolish ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... reached the bottom, she observed an unusual light streaming out of the window of Old Mountain Moggy's hovel. Believing that the hut must be on fire, she hurried up towards it, though she feared that she should be too late to render any effectual assistance to its half-witted inmate. So indeed she would, had not another person most providentially arrived before her. On looking in at the window as she passed she saw a young gentleman—a tourist, she supposed—kneeling down by the side of the ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... cry with the cold and they were having a sorry time of it. They met an Irish servant girl going home from church. They repeated the words to her and the quick witted girl soon led them back a few steps and showed them the great brick block with its gilded sign ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... laid waste their houses, and fled deeper away into their mountain. They harbour ill-will toward men, and withhold from them their help. That herdsman which had betrayed the Dwarfs turned sickly and half-witted, and so continued until ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... Now just such short-witted shepherds are we, the people of these free American States, invited by numbers of citizens to become. Just such, do I say? A thousand times more silly than such. Our national wolf meets us with jaws that drip blood and eyes that glare hunger for more. Instead of professing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... out. The parson's wife was quick-witted, and she thought of the bead bag. Old Mrs. Jennings was polite, and said it did not matter; but when she and Ann Lizy went home they had the bead bag, with the patchwork and the ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... Fanchon misled by patriotism, when he said the pleasant people who inhabit that district are fit for all the labours of the intellect. They are a very mixed race, and, like most mixed races, quick-witted, and handsome also. There is probably much Roman blood among them, especially in the towns; for Languedoc, or Gallia Narbonnensis, as it was called of old, was said to be more Roman than Rome itself. The Roman remains are more perfect and more interesting—so the late ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... he told her not the condition in which he had come upon his brother Kasim. Then he went with the other ass, to wit, the beast whereon was laid the corpse to the widow's house and knocked gently at the door. Now Kasim had a slave-girl shrewd and sharp witted, Morgiana[FN296] highs. She as softly undid the bolt and admitted Ali Baba and the ass into the courtyard of the house, when he let down the body from the beast's back and said, "O Morgiana, haste thee ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... common standard of good manners. This is a region of influence of momentous importance, and for which the most honored and beloved women have a pre-eminent adaptation by their beauty, grace, docility, and sympathetic ease of self-sacrifice. To associate with a quick-witted woman is an education. The last words of Madame Pompadour, addressed to her withdrawing confessor, just before her final breath, were, "Wait a moment, father; and we will go out together." In a democratic age and country like ours, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... make such a bargain the same proposition had been made to Mr. Adams, who was found less scrupulous and had promptly formed the "unholy coalition." This wretched publication, made a few days before the election in the House, was traced to a dull-witted Pennsylvania Representative by the name of Kremer, who had (p. 171) obviously been used as a tool by cleverer men. It met, however, the fate which seems happily always to attend such ignoble devices, and failed utterly of any more important effect than the utter annihilation ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... something had occurred, was quick-witted enough to reply jestingly in French, as they moved away, but he asked, as soon as they were out of ear-shot, "What ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner |
