"Astuteness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... smile which had helped to land more men behind the bars than the astuteness of many of his seniors—and said: "I'm a clerk in the Brooklyn & Queens Bank, Mr. Pennold, and we have a box of securities there evidently belonging to one Jimmy Brunell. No one knows anything about it and no note came with it except a line which read: 'Hold ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... "that grand impostor Mr. William Lilly" in an express publication.[2]—Is it in a spirit of mischief that Baxter names THE VANISTS, or disciples of Sir Henry Vane the younger, as one of the recognised sects of this time? That great Republican leader, it was known, with all his deep practical astuteness and the perfect clearness and shrewdness of his speeches and business-letters, carried in his head a mystic Metaphysics of his own which he found it hard to express. It was a something unique, including ideas from the Antinomians, the Anabaptists, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... 1754 (vide p. 50). Their intermarriage with the Igorrote tribe has generated a caste of people quite unique in their character. Their habits are much the same as those of the pure Igorrotes, but with their fierce nature is blended the cunning and astuteness of the Mongol; and although their intelligence may be often misapplied, yet it is superior to that of the pure Igorrote. In the Province of Pangasinan there are numbers of natives of Chinese descent included in the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... envelope Alban had added these words: "But of course, before showing the enclosed, you will prepare Darrell's mind to weigh its contents." And probably it was in that curt and simple injunction that the subtle man of the world evinced the astuteness of which not a trace was apparent in the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... empty, and would generously give that day to a less observant adversary. He knew how to blind the eyes of members to the truth. Those on the opposite side of the House would find themselves checkmated by his astuteness,—when, with all their pieces on the board, there should be none which they could move. And this to him was Government! It was to these purposes that he conceived that a great Statesman should devote himself! Parliamentary management! That, in his ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... said Myrna, with the frightful astuteness of twelve. "And old Madam Bartlett won't let him come to the house, and Nell has to see him ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... said. "It requires working out. I think he is deeply impressed with his own astuteness. If he were simpler he ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... a very successful announcement, and Robert presided at table with extreme satisfaction on account of his own Machiavellian astuteness. Oh! those ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... which demand a certain astuteness and decided mental struggle for their dictation. One paragraph begins thus: Suov imrap enger. The other: Arevele suov neib. It is necessary to spell these two phrases backward, commencing at the end. Here the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... ourselves; how we were first caught in the snares of Love, and of what tribulations we were long the victims, giving suitable names to the places and persons connected with the story! Certainly, I frequently laughed at it all, being made merry by the simplicity of the bystanders, as well as by his astuteness and sagacity. Yet betimes I dreaded that in the flush of his excitement he might thoughtlessly let his tongue wander in directions wherein it was not befitting it should venture. But he, being ever far wiser than I imagined, ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... an ambitious man, full of courage and astuteness, familiar with the sword and with poison, which he used alternately, according to the occasion, without feeling any repugnance or any predilection for either of them; but quite decided to be his nephew's heir whether he died ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... himself, a man or affairs, and of undisputed probity. In this case the precise site of the dubious relics is given, by a man of honour, at first hand. I confess that my knowledge of human nature does not enable me to contest Mr. Bruce's written attestation, while I marvel at the astuteness of the forger. As a finder, on this occasion, Mr. Bruce was in precisely the same position as Dr. Munro at Elie when, as he says, "as the second piece of pottery was disinterred by myself, I was able to locate its precise position at ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... at a height mine host could drop on any part of the bed. Rodriguez as he watched him saw him scrutinise closely and continue to sway on his rope. He feared that mine host was ill satisfied with the look of the mandolin and that he would climb away again, well warned of his guest's astuteness, into the heights of the ceiling to devise some fearfuller scheme; but he was only looking for the shoulder. And then mine host dropped; poniard first, he went down with all his weight behind it and drove it through ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... only to a limited extent under the will of his father, he is not generally reputed to be wealthy, but he is always extravagant. Yet he manages to steer clear of the painful consequences of writs with some astuteness. In middle-age he becomes obese, and cannot go the pace as formerly. His friends therefore abandon him, and he dies before he is fifty, in reduced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... the successful, popular young general. Nero sends Sylla into exile from mistaking his dullness for dissimulation. Arruntius kills himself because he is intolerant of iniquity. The stupidity of Claudius is discovered to be astuteness, the bestialities of Nero elegance. Nothing is easy, nothing natural; ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... association of the Brahman priest and the barber with marriages and other ceremonies has led to the saying, "As there are always reeds in a river so there is always a barber with a Brahman." The barber's astuteness is alluded to in the saying, 'Nine barbers are equal to seventy-two tailors.' The fact that it is the barber's duty to carry the lights in marriage processions has led to the proverb, "At the barber's wedding all are gentlemen and it is awkward to have to ask somebody to carry the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... hands a set of formidable looking boxing-gloves did not frighten me. Heaven knows, if it would give him any pleasure to slam me about with a pair of gloves, I am not without manliness and pluck enough to endure physical pain and mental humiliation. It was diplomacy, cunning, astuteness,—whatever you may choose to call it,—that stood between me and a friendly encounter with him. Two minutes' time would serve to convince him that he was my master, and then where would I be? Where would be the prestige I had gained? ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... times, during 1866 and later, one of the most remarkable men connected with the organisation. He was known as "Beecher," and was a man of singular astuteness, as he required to be, particularly at the time when, unknown to his colleagues, Corydon was giving information to the police. If at any time Beecher had fallen into their hands, they might have made a splendid haul, which would have paralysed the movement on this side of ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... An unsuspected astuteness in the character of Thomas Singleton Bingle reveals itself in the declaration, now to be made for the first time in this present history of the man: he never allowed his wards to look upon themselves as ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... spoken of the three leading spirits of the junto as from personal knowledge; but of the three, Bucks, Hendricks and Meigs, the attorney-general was the least known to him. Prior to his nomination on the State ticket Meigs had been best known as the most astute criminal lawyer in the State, his astuteness lying not so much in his ability as a pleader as in a certain oratorical gift by which he was able to convince not only a jury but the public of the entire innocence ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... and when the evening having come, a flash of lightning and a distant peal of thunder, followed by a few spatters of rain, heralded what was to come, we wise virgins (pardon the simile) huddled in our booby hutches (unfortunately without lamps) and congratulated ourselves on our astuteness. Soon it came, the lightning flashing, the thunder crashing, the rain pouring, and lastly the wind blowing a perfect tornado. The various jerry-built domiciles stood it well for some time, then the hutch behind us was blown down, and we in ours roared ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... of an artist led him to conceal the profits he was beginning to lay by from his mother and Madame Descoings, aware that each had her road to ruin,—the one in Philippe, the other in the lottery. This astuteness is seldom wanting among painters; busy for days together in the solitude of their studios, engaged in work which, up to a certain point, leaves the mind free, they are in some respects like women,—their thoughts turn about the little events of life, and they contrive ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... sure of that," said the old man, with an astuteness of manner which Colville thought authorised by ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... put Flamel in possession of the two points most damaging to his case: the fact that he had been a friend of Margaret Aubyn's, and that he had concealed from Alexa his share in the publication of the letters. To a man of less than Flamel's astuteness it must now be clear to whom the letters were addressed; and the possibility once suggested, nothing could be easier than to confirm it by discreet research. An impulse of self-accusal drove Glennard ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... Astuteness was not the least marked of Miss Lee's many charming characteristics, and although her guardian gave no outward sign of his belligerent intentions, she felt an inward conviction that a decisive trial of strength between them was at hand. Five or six ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... principles, and, in the ranks of their former opponents, reaped a harvest of political distinction. Prominent among these was John Forsyth. He had delivered a Fourth of July oration at Augusta, distinguished for great ability and high Federal doctrines. Abraham Baldwin, who, with the astuteness of the Yankee—which he was—had renounced Federalism, and was now a prominent leader of the Republican party, spoke of this effort of Forsyth as transcendently great, and always, when doing so, would add: "What a pity such abilities should be lost to ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the viceroy was not a man to be daunted. Indeed, he seems to have acted throughout with a rare union of astuteness, coolness, and energy. To avoid the evil consequences of the threatened excommunication, he placed a guard round the palace of the archbishop, judging that the latter would not be so foolish as to launch out an anathema which would cause the city to be starved, and himself in it. The market-people ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Carlingford; but it would come natural to be with a friend of the family. There aint a servant in the house, sir, as will stay when the ladies go, and I think as Miss Wodehouse would speak for me," said John, with natural astuteness. This address made Mr Proctor a little uneasy. It recalled to him the unpleasant side of the important transaction in which he was about to engage. He was not rich, and did not see his way now to any near prospect of requiring the services of "a ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... down. It's not been used for years." He thought of the pole in the corner and quailed in his belly, but the utter despair of the two men dulled their astuteness. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... order to liberate all the literate class among his Chinese prisoners, and they had formed the nucleus of the civil service Kublai attached to his interests and utilized as his empire expanded. In his relations with Buddhism Kublai showed not less astuteness, and in realizing that to attain durable success he must appeal to the religious side of human character, he showed that he had the true instincts ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... and the Ameer was informed that a necessity might occur for marching a force from Cabul to Candahar. His reply was that the tribes might be hostile, but that if no long halts were made by the way he would have no objections to such a march. In this he showed his astuteness, since the defeat of Ayoub Khan by a British army would obviously save him a contest. So willing to be of service on this matter was he that when the march was decided on he sent influential persons of ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... exhausted when I saw them," said Cleggett, "all three of them. But if you will permit me to say so, the astuteness with which you are reconstructing ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... replied the stranger, with a smile. "What I said was intended to be jocular, and to put Brokedale at his ease. The Americans present, with their usual astuteness, would term it bluff. It was. I merely rattled on. I simply did not wish to offend the gentleman by letting him know that I had penetrated his disguise. Imagine my surprise, however, when his eye brightened as I spoke, and ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... more he reflected upon the interview on the Mercuriusberg, the more strongly he felt it to be his intellectual duty to persuade himself that the whole affair was an illusion, not a reality. He would have been glad, even at the sacrifice of his confidence in his own astuteness, to believe that the Swiss doctor had been amusing himself at the expense of his credulity. But the remembrance of the scene in the Baron's bedroom at the Badischer Hof was too vivid to leave the slightest ground for this theory. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... an ordeal which made even her devoutest adherents tremble; for we knew the astuteness of the churchmen, and how that they would seek to win admissions which they would pervert to their own uses afterwards. Yet we need not have feared; for the Maid's simplicity and perfectly fearless faith in her mission carried her triumphant through all; or perhaps, ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Isabella to the throne of Spain; was for his services made Duke of Vittoria, and in 1841 elected regent; compelled to abdicate, he fled to England, but afterwards returned for a time to the head of affairs; an able man, but wanting in the requisite astuteness and tact ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... He adored his wife, and regarded her as an angel of purity. She was something quite different, but far shrewder men than poor Bluebeard might have been deceived as he was, for she was a person of great cunning and astuteness, and allowed herself submissively to be ruled by her mother, who was the cleverest jade in the whole kingdom of France. She established herself at Guillettes with her eldest daughter Anne, her two sons, Pierre ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... considerable weight in important matters, some of which vitally affect large communities. My astuteness has put millions into totally unexpected pockets and defeated the faultily expressed intentions of many a testator. I can go to the White House and get an immediate hearing, and I can do more than that with judges of the Supreme Court in ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... singing, and then you like to have me listening because I understand," said Gilian, smiling with pleasure at his own astuteness. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... of fair but very faulty actresses; being the prospective correspondent of this almost pious newspaper, I consoled the landlord with a promise to write numerous puffs of his house. My point is carried, and if they like not my articles, as the critics say, they will at least give me credit for astuteness, for the man who succeeds is the man ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... not eradicate the talent for duplicity for which the female sex has long been noted, and which illustrates a happy faculty of getting out of a disagreeable situation. It also illustrates a singular mingling of unsophistication and astuteness, which may be a result ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... to have made as little impression on him as its speech. He appeared to have no artistic or intellectual curiosities, to remain untouched by the complex appeal of Paris, while preserving, perhaps the more strikingly from his very detachment, that odd American astuteness which seems the fruit of innocence rather than of experience. His nationality revealed itself again in a mild interest in the political problems of his adopted country, though they appeared to preoccupy him only as illustrating the boundless perversity of mankind. The exhibition ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... count on an emotion she did not feel to obtain any information from her. The prefect had her brought in a carriage to his house on August 23d, and interrogated her for two days. With the experience and astuteness of an old offender, the Marquise assumed complete frankness; but she only confessed to things she could not deny with success. Licquet asked several questions; she did not reply until she had caused them to be repeated several times, under pretence that she did not understand ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... unequalled. It was in vain for an opponent to feel that the suggested distinction was without a difference—he could not prove it to be so—he could not demonstrate the fallacy which had been imposed on even a strong court by that exquisite astuteness which, however sinister, was carried off by a charming air of frankness and confidence in the validity of the distinction. On such an occasion, directly the cause was over he would turn round and say, laughingly, to his discomfited opponent, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... who happens to be trying the case against the defendant. An illustration of one of these occurred during the prosecution of a bartender for selling "spirituous liquors" without a proper license. He was defended by an old war-horse of the criminal bar famous for his astuteness and ability to laugh a case out of court. The assistant district attorney who appeared against him was a young man recently appointed to office, and who was almost overcome at the idea of trying a case against so well known a practitioner. ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... in order to make him express his opinion on the people he had seen, the houses where he had dined, in short, the lightest expression of his mind. As soon as she fancied she detected the influence of some other person, she combated it with prodigious astuteness and innumerable resources. ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... this day of scientific research and astuteness, it must not be supposed that everything about the mechanics of avicular flight is understood. We may readily comprehend how a bird, without fluttering its wings, can poise in the air; but how can ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... his death. His respect for his fellows was measured by their power of withstanding him, and the man he had the greatest affection for, perhaps, was a soldier, now incapacitated, who had once in a melee succeeded in knocking him from his saddle. At the same time he believed in his own astuteness, not without some reason be it said, and in the back of his mind there was always a certain admiration for the man who could get the better of him. It is more than possible that if he ever married he would thoroughly respect his wife on account of her cleverness in having hoodwinked ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... naught but to stand face to face and eye to eye with him and tear him limb from limb before they died! The challenge, therefore, was one-sided and unfair; but for that very reason it shook him. The astuteness of the man who, taken by surprise, had conceived this snare filled him with dread. He dared not accept, and he scarcely dared to refuse the offer. And meantime the eyes of the courtiers, who grinned in their beards, were on him. At length he spoke, but it was in a ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... diabolical drama was conceived with astuteness, and enacted with a precision which must do credit to the head of Captain Roblado, if not to his heart. He was the principal actor ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... Marcia, with the requisite astuteness, and it does not need much, the state of affairs and her own position at home. She would be ready enough to change it, that he sees. With a touch of secret elation he knows he could make this woman worship him like a bond slave ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... knew the duchess knew also that a single word would be all-sufficient. Her reputation for worldly astuteness surpassed that of any other old woman in Europe, though it was, perhaps, not altogether deserved. Forty years before, she had been a healthy and happy girl, whose experience of the world had been confined to the family estate near Gemuenden. And the estate was ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... hold their own; indeed, it is certain he had done so, for on p. 326 he writes, 'It is not convenient to leave them (the Indians) entire liberty,*2* for it would be in the extreme fatal and prejudicial to their interests, because the astuteness and sagacity of the Spaniards would triumph easily over their rusticity.' 'Sagacity' is an ingenious euphuism, and might well be used with good effect in the like circumstances, when occasion serves, to-day. But as ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... the Indians above—anything to indicate their presence in the shaft—would ensure their destruction. The fumigation would be continued till the savages were certain of its having had a fatal effect. If they could hold out long enough, even Indian astuteness might be baffled. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... I think that you will come to just the opposite conclusion. I think that I have hit upon a scheme which is really neat—neat in its simplicity." He rubbed his hands together, and showed his long yellow fangs in his enjoyment of his own astuteness. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... strict sense of the word, with nave uprightness - that he could not be any more than any other faithful member of the herd, with some astuteness. But he was at least capable of giving everyone the impression that he always desired to be honest. He forgave himself the necessary distortion demanded by the group union, as the humane physician does not charge himself with the lies he tells for the good of his patients. He also ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... night the screamers in the Piazza Navona were crying the arrest of Rossi. The telegrams from the frontier gave an ugly account of his capture. He was in disguise, and he made an effort to deny himself, but thanks to the astuteness of the Carabineer charged with the warrant the device was defeated, and he was now lodged in the prison at Milan, where it was probable that ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... interested was Samuel Shuckleford. But as he was that morning riding blithely in the train to Liverpool, reading the Law Times, and flattering himself he would soon make the public "sit up" to a recognition of his astuteness, he saw nothing ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... laughed, struck again by his astuteness. "It was your hoodoo—Dr. Vivian! And, oh, now that I think of it, he gave me that other ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... took a seat. Mr. Allen looked up with an expression of surprise and annoyance on his face. He instinctively disliked Mr. Fox, as a lion might be irritated by a cat, and the instinctive enmity was all the stronger because of a certain family likeness. But Mr. Allen's astuteness had nothing mean or cringing in it, while Mr. Fox heretofore had been a sort of Uriah Heep to him. Therefore his surprise and annoyance at his new role ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... kicks and cuffs for his reward, and the acquaintance of an astute Greek, who, at least in his dream of life, imposed upon him by the art of magic, exploits the talents of his friend Pietro, and gains the prize of his astuteness, having learnt to rule men by the potent spell of "cleverness uncurbed by conscience." The cynicism is only inverted morality, and implies that the writer is the reverse of cynical; but it lacks the attractive sub-acid flavour of ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... had been to Powells on the business of one of his clients, a historian of the Middle Ages, and in the absence of Sir George had had a little talk with Henry. And Henry had learnt for the first time what a literary agent was, and, struck by the man's astuteness and geniality, had mentioned the matter of Love in Babylon. Mr. Snyder had kindly promised to look into the matter of Love in Babylon himself if Henry could call on him instantly with the manuscript. The reason ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... regard my appearance as something in the nature of a miracle. Yet, M. le Vicomte at least should be guessing by this time that it is the simplest, most natural affair in the world. I engaged my word, sir, to have you watched. Will it be set down to more than ordinary astuteness that, finding you in negotiations for the exchange of the prisoner Clausel, we kept an eye upon him also?—that we followed him to Dover, and though unfortunate in missing the boat, reached Paris ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... person, who is the owner of a big shop, pointed out to me three of them among his salesmen," Coombe said. "He plumed himself on his astuteness in employing them. Said they worked for low wages and cared for very little else but finding out how things were done in England. It wasn't only business knowledge they were after, he said; they went about everywhere—into factories and dock yards, and public ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... ahead in every department under high pressure, for the campaign, which had been more than usually heated, was now drawing to a close. Indeed, it would have taken no great astuteness, even without one's being told, to deduce merely from the surroundings that the people here were engaged in the annual struggle of seeking the votes of their fellow-citizens for reform and were nearly worn ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... The same astuteness that had enabled this wise progenitor to acquire the estate enabled his descendants to stick tightly to it, and though, like other families, they had at times met with reverses, they never lost their grip of the Abbey property. During the ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... up his mind. He was a man with many successes to his record, achieved as a result of undoubted astuteness in connection with the grosser crimes, such as train-murders, post-office hold-ups and burglaries. He was incapable, however, of realising that there existed a subtler form of law-breaking, arising from something more intimately associated with the psychic than ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... of the work of a field spy which, although in a way it may be cunning and deceitful, at the same time demands the greatest personal courage and astuteness. It is something greater than the ordinary bravery of a soldier in action, who is carried on by the enthusiasm of those around him under the leadership of an officer, and with the competition and admiration ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... deadly emphasis, 'I know everything now. You have foiled me, blindfolded me and all others, these three years past. You have intrigued against the captains of intrigue, you have matched yourself against practised astuteness. On one side, I resent being made a fool and tool of; on the other, I am lost in admiration of your talent. But henceforth there is no such thing as quarter between us. Your lover shall die, and I will come again. This whim of the Grande Marquise will last but ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... constituents of the hay furnished by Count Maubec to the Penguin cavalry. In this way Pyrot mentioned his crimes in a language that he believed would always remain indecipherable. One is confounded by so much astuteness and so great a ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... Heine. Heine has given us a vivid pen-picture of Lassalle, as he saw him in those student days. "My friend, Mr. Lassalle ... is a most highly gifted young man, uniting the widest knowledge with the greatest astuteness. I have been astounded at his energy of will, vigor of intellect, and promptness of action.... Lassalle is a true child of modern times, wishing to know nothing of the humility and renunciation which have characterized our own lives. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... A slight strangeness sprang up between them which he was too distrait to notice. Finally, as he tumbled into bed that night, an idea so brilliant came to him that he sat bolt upright in sheer delight at his own astuteness. ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... these words, and prompted to suspicion, and ever disposed to impute to others the deep astuteness peculiar to himself, was convinced they had been uttered ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... Trenton falls, threw his head on one shoulder and, after inspecting us for a few moments with a "remarkably knowing air," said, "There is no such place around here." Then brushing the ashes from his cigar and with a nod of satisfaction at his own astuteness, he replied, "I have been in Utica many years and never ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... example of German duplicity and astuteness in throwing our protector off the track provoked Ruhleben to hilarious merriment, despite the seriousness of our position. Leastways, although the Teutons may have regarded the movement as one of ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... shrugging his shoulders with an expression of utter impotence, "I have as good reasons for wishing to find out all that as even you can have. Your secret is my secret; but with all my pains and astuteness I have been unable to discover it. The natives are reticent, very reticent indeed, about all these matters. They fear taboo; and they fear Tu-Kila-Kila. The women, to be sure, in a moment of expansion, might possibly tell one; but, then, the women, unfortunately, are not admitted to ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... Mr. Darling's knees as he tilted back in a revolving-chair, Thor learned the location of certain bits of landed property which his grandfather, twenty or thirty years before, had considered good investments. The astuteness of this ancestral foresight was illustrated by the fact that Thor was a richer man than he had supposed. While he would possess no enormous wealth, according to the newer standards of the day, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... a materially useful passion. It allows us to see in the deeds of Henry VIII's Parliament not the blind working of political development, the impersonal and inevitable action of economic laws, but the hot greed of a king and the astuteness ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... pulled down were it not for the remonstrances which the old uncle made to the representatives of the "Pickaxe company." To increase the old man's wrath, a distant relative (one of those cousins of small means and much astuteness about whom shrewd provincials are wont to remark, "No lawsuits for me with him!") had, as it were by accident, come to visit Monsieur de Bourbonne, and incidentally informed him of his nephew's ruin. Monsieur Octave de Camps, ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... this night's adventure was never allowed to get into the papers," added the man in the corner with his mild smile. "Had the plan been successful, we should have heard all about it, with a long eulogistic article as to the astuteness of our police; but as it was—well, the tramp sauntered up the mews—and—there he remained for aught Mr. Francis Howard or the other constables could ever explain. The earth or the shadows swallowed him up. No one saw him climb one of the garden walls, no one heard him break open a door; ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... brilliant epoch of his life. By steps which it is needless to trace, he fought and wormed his way into the favour of the Court. A good deal of his worldly success may well have been due, as his enemies assert, to an incredible mixture of cringing, astuteness, and impudence. It stands to reason, however, that a man of this type must have possessed sterling qualities of his own to be found occupying—all this was years and years ago—a suite of apartments in the Palace, where he lived in splendour, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... was not so occult as to justify a doubt upon that subject; and moreover, Salome, lack of astuteness is far from being your greatest defect. My motive should eloquently plead pardon for my candor, if I venture to tell you that your frequent affectation of unconsciousness of the presence of others, 'is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance,' and may ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... purple," and a powerful minister, it presented another and a more extraordinary aspect. Stolid and resolute as were alike the mother and the son, they were totally unable to cope with the superior talent and astuteness of the man whom they had themselves raised to power; and before the termination of the interview Richelieu had convinced both that his counsels and services were essential to ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... at least the most persistent traditions of the Roman Curia. He was a master of various arts which the practice of ages has brought to perfection under the friendly shadow of the triple tiara. He could mingle together astuteness and holiness without any difficulty; he could make innuendoes as naturally as an ordinary man makes statements of fact; he could apply flattery with so unsparing a hand that even Princes of the Church found it sufficient; and, on occasion, he could ring the changes of torture on ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... community. Ruling society, influenced solely by money standards, saluted him as a successful man who had his millions, and made no fastidious inquiries as to how he got them. He was a potent man; his villainies passed as great astuteness, his devious ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... monarchical, an advocate for the centralisation of power; but he would have the monarch enlightened, constitutional, and pacific. He values solid gains more than showy magnificence; and knowing the use of astuteness, he knows also the importance of good faith. He has a sense of the balance of European power, and anticipates Montesquieu in his theory of the influence of climates on peoples. There is something of pity, something of irony, in the view ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... Powers were determined that the decisions of the Berlin Congress should be carried into effect, were more or less satisfactorily got over. In his attitude towards Arabi, the would-be saviour of Egypt, Abd-ul-Hamid showed less than his usual astuteness, and the resulting consolidation of England's hold over the country contributed still further to his estrangement from Turkey's old ally. The union in 1885 of Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia, the severance of which had been the great triumph of the Berlin Congress, was another blow. Few ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... provincial, in rivalry with father Fray Esteban Carrillo [9]—one of the most eloquent preachers in the islands; and the best loved by all, both great and small, who has ever been known. Finally the astuteness, or rather, the diligence of certain ones prevailed, and father Fray Lorenzo de Leon became provincial pro secunda vice [i.e., ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... liar she is!" muttered old Bugbee, but he smiled at himself in the mirror, as if approving his superior astuteness. ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... agreed that there were many mysteries in connection with life and things which it was high time to unravel, and that an opportunity was now afforded us which might not readily occur again. All we had to do was to be true to ourselves and equal to the occasion. We laid our plans with great astuteness. We would be fast asleep when the lady came up to bed, but our heads should be turned in the direction of her bed, and covered with clothes, all but a single peep-hole. My brother, as the eldest, had clearly a right to be nearest the lady, but I could see sufficiently, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... achievements. Like an Athena he leaped forth from the Revolution, fully armed for every kind of contest. His mental superiority impressed diplomats as his strategy baffled the Imperialist generals; and now he was to give further proofs of his astuteness by intervening in the internal affairs ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... call for much astuteness. I don't suppose there's a married woman in the world in full command of her wits. You've noticed how foolish most of them are. That's why. It isn't that they were born foolish. They've simply been addled by enforced adaptation to mates of lower intelligence. Oh, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... arranging the hair. Where you find one or more of these indications, you find the easiest road to favorable attention through the appetite of the individual for praise. If he is of the intellectual type, praise him for his smartness. If he is a fat man, praise him for his popularity, his political astuteness, his financial acumen, his artistic ordering of a dinner, for his impartiality. If he is of the bony and muscular type, praise him for his mechanical ability, for his strength, skill and agility, for his love of freedom and independence. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... daughter with Paul de Manerville, in order that she might follow the young couple to Paris where she dreamed of appearing in grand style and of a further exercise of her power. For that matter she displayed much astuteness in arranging the details of this marriage, at which time Maitre Solonet, her notary, was much taken with her, desiring to wed her, and defending her warmly against Maitre Mathias the lawyer for the Manervilles. Beneath the exterior of an excellent woman she knew, like Catherine de Medicis, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... a little on the caprice; but you flatter yourself with too much security; you are known to one more besides my father, myself, and the honest man whom you have robbed of all his astuteness, which I believe ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... a string of stories to show how the Minook miners admired her astuteness, and helped her unblushingly to get the better ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... even exclude the invention of the cithara. To myself it seems that the poet chiefly revels in a very familiar subject of savage humour (notably among the Zulus), the extraordinary feats and tricks of a tiny and apparently feeble and helpless person or animal, such as Brer Rabbit. The triumph of astuteness over strength (a triumph here assigned to the infancy of a God) is the theme. Hermes is here a rustic doublure of Apollo, as he was, in fact, mainly a rural deity, though he became the Messenger of the Gods, and the Guide of Souls outworn. In these respects ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... 'human,' and she felt it was true, in the sense that he was a 'primitive,' or an 'elementary being,' as some people would say. The fact that he had all the profound astuteness of the true Oriental did not conflict with this in the least. The astuteness of the Asiatic, and of the Greek of Asia, is an instinct like that of the wild animal; talent alone is 'human' in any true sense, but instinct is animal, even in men, whether ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... might participate in the belief which he knew to be only too common. There was, no doubt, an idea prevalent that the squire and the captain were in league together to cheat the creditors, and that the squire, who in these days received much undeserved credit for Machiavellian astuteness, knew more than any one else respecting his eldest son's affairs. But, in truth, he at first knew nothing, and in making these assurances to his younger son was altogether wasting his breath, for his younger son ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... head where any thing came from or went to. Bridget, having been for some years under the training and surveillance of Grace Seymour, was more than usually competent as cook and provider; but Bridget had abundance of the Irish astuteness, which led her to feel the genius of circumstances, and ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... here you hit the nail on the head just with a chance thought. That shows what it means to be a brave young buckaroo, with heaps and piles of brains!" She laughed at him, but behind her bantering was a new respect for Ward's astuteness. "Go on. Tell me why you don't like Charlie Fox, or why you refuse to admit how nice and ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... needn't be," responded Miss Standish, with an asperity born of impatience at her own lack of astuteness. "For my part, I have no doubt she has enjoyed the situation thoroughly from beginning to end. No, don't talk to me. I know those hysterical people. All they care about is making a sensation and being the ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... Valliere, legitimised, ennobled and enriched. Pierre de Beaujeu, husband of the great Anne of France, was also buried here. Anne it was who, on the death of Louis XI., governed France with all her father's astuteness, but without his cruelty, and pleasant and comforting it is to find that Duke Pierre, her husband, seconded her in every way, himself remaining in the background, acting to perfection the difficult role of Prince Consort. The ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Whether Bedford had or had not caused these letters to be sent the Duke is not known, but the Regent had both in the Church and the University of Paris the men he wanted—instruments by whom his vengeance could be worked on Joan of Arc; and he had the astuteness to see that in calling in the aid of the Church, and treating Joan of Arc as a heretic and witch, the rules of war could be laid aside. What no civilised body of men could do, namely, kill a prisoner of war, that thing could be done in the name and by the authority of the Church and its holy office; ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... by Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who was born in 1861 and was the son of the gifted Princess Clementine of Bourbon-Orleans, daughter of Louis-Philippe. This young man combined great ambition and tenacity of purpose with extreme prudence, astuteness, and patience; he was a consummate diplomat. The election of this prince was viewed with great disfavour by Russia, and for fear of offending the Emperor Alexander III none of the European powers ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... by her astuteness," he said. "She's cleverer than I thought. Oh," suddenly remembering that it was not Mrs. Cable's letter they were discussing, "you always see the dreary side ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... lawyers and your manager talk. They coolly and without a qualm get him arrested, this young boy who has never in all his life shown any sign of criminal tendency. These horrid lawyers display their dreadful astuteness and ability in catching a lad who never tries to run away, and your manager pleads the rules of the Bank. The rules! Fancy rules against a young ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... my father took him home with him, and my mother afterward united with him in requesting Eugenio to consider their house as his own. My father also introduced him to his mercantile connections and initiated him into mercantile affairs, when by his astuteness and perseverance he was enabled to lay the foundations of an excellent position. Indeed, but few years had elapsed (during which time he had frequently resided with us) ere he had acquired considerable wealth and we a clearer insight into his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... gone—for so I still choose to call him for some reasons, although I give my reader credit for still more astuteness than I possessed myself, and believe that he has long ago recognized, through this cloud of mystery and travesty thrown about him, an old acquaintance—the child Ernie rose from the bed on which he had lain tremulous and observant, with his small hands ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... to tell her which army was to gain the victory. "The army upon which my eyes shall first rest when I awake at the dawning," said Odin, full well knowing that his couch was so placed that he could not fail to see the Vandals when he woke. Well pleased with his own astuteness, he then retired to rest, and soon sleep lay heavy on his eyelids. But, while he slept, Freya gently moved the couch upon which he lay, so that he must open his eyes not on the army who had won his favour, but on the army that owned hers. To ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... Descartes—even Bacon, Newton, and a long list of names illustrious in the annals of English literature. Frederick declared: 'If I wanted to ruin one of my provinces I would make over its government to the philosopher.' With due deference to Buckle's superior learning and astuteness, I confess my study of Mill's philosophy assures me that, if society should be turned over to the government of his theory of Liberty and Suffrage, it would go to ruin more rapidly than Frederick's province. Under his teachings ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... see you here sometimes,—walk with you here,—I would be contented if it were only once or twice in a month. That could injure no one's happiness, and it would sweeten my life. Besides," Philip went on, with all the inventive astuteness of love at one-and-twenty, "if there is any enmity between those who belong to us, we ought all the more to try and quench it by our friendship; I mean, that by our influence on both sides we might bring about a healing of the wounds that have been made in the past, if ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... thrilled the Cubans, who knew no more about the Great Khan than they did about Columbus. The interpreter then swam ashore and was well received; so well, that in the evening some sixteen canoes came off to the ships bringing cotton yarn and spears for traffic. Columbus, with great astuteness, forbade any trading in cotton or indeed in anything at all except gold, hoping by this means to make the natives produce their treasures; and he would no doubt have been successful if the natives had possessed ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... his floating palace, the senator could refuse him even the prize, legation of Europe, there was no value in modest merit. As yet, Livingstone had not hinted at his ambition. There was no need. To a statesman of Hanley's astuteness, the largeness of Livingstone's contribution to the campaign ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... regular and formal jurisdiction of Prize Courts. Strike the Prize Court out of modern maritime law and the whole system falls, and capture on the sea becomes pure barbarism,—distinguished from piracy only by the astuteness of a legal technicality. The Southern Confederacy could give no guaranty. Just as it undertook to naturalize foreign seamen upon the quarter-deck of its roving cruisers, so it undertook to administer a system of maritime law which precluded the most ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... world talked of the wondrous and splendid Churchill, who, having fought brilliantly for the Stuarts and been made by them first Lord Churchill of Eyemouth, and next Baron Churchill of Sandridge, having, after receiving these advancements, the cold astuteness to see the royal fortunes waver perilously, deserted James the Second with stately readiness and transferred his services to William of Orange. He was rewarded with an earldom and such favour as made ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... for the security of the Republic; and it was for certain a magnanimous thought on the part of our legislators to set up a court to try our enemies. I appreciate its generosity, but I doubt its wisdom. It would have shown greater astuteness, it seems to me, if they had struck down in the dark the more irreconcilable of their adversaries and won over the rest by gifts and promises. A tribunal strikes slowly and effects more harm than it inspires fear; its first duty is to ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... which might be expected where bodies of men with inflated ideas of glory and no experience attack men fighting desperately for their homes, and officers and veterans who had seen such service as the Napoleonic wars. The British, with an astuteness which is oftener the character credited to their opponents, managed to get earliest word of the Declaration sent to their own forts on the Lakes, and promptly captured the American fort Michilimackinac. They then followed with the daring ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... his cups that night he had thought in some dim way to precipitate matters by affronting Mr. Wilding, secure, as I have shown, in his belief that Wilding would perish sooner than raise a finger against Ruth's brother. And his drunken astuteness, it seemed, had been to his mind as a piece of bottle glass to the sight, distorting the ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... came and went, acted, wrote, conceived, directed, planned, and executed, what time M. Binet took his ease at last in comparative affluence, drank Burgundy every night, ate white bread and other delicacies, and began to congratulate himself upon his astuteness in having made this industrious, tireless fellow his partner. Having discovered how idle had been his fears of performing at Redon, he now began to dismiss the terrors with which the notion of ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... disregard of conventions, she was no fool; the instinct of wisdom was strong within her, so strong that in many ways it ruled her conscious efforts. Had any one told her that her preparations for this interview were made deliberately with some of the astuteness that dominated the Devil when he took Jesus to the top of a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth at His feet, she would have, and with truth, denied it with indignation. Nevertheless it was a fact that she had, in all unconsciousness, chosen for the meeting a ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... are largely employed as village accountants (patwaris), clerks in Government offices, and agents to landowners, that is, in very much the same capacity as the Kayasths. As land-agents they show much astuteness, and are reputed to have enriched themselves in many cases at the expense of their masters. Hence they are unpopular with the cultivators just as the Kayasths are, and very uncomplimentary proverbs ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... at her keenly, until she sat silent under his scrutiny. He was not deceived. Nevertheless he humored her for the moment, knowing that she was no match for his astuteness when the time ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... are unlikely to be so easily frightened as Farwell was. The game is much more complex than it used to be, principally because the reformers have learned to play it more intelligently, and those who fail to give them credit for astuteness know little about the rules; the politicians themselves have ceased to make the mistake ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... groomed to take over smoothly if anything should happen to the President. Senator Cannon, however, is, as far as we know, the first President-elect who has begun this grooming before the Inauguration. This, in our opinion, shows both wisdom and political astuteness." ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett
... astuteness the Master had the wireless put in shape, at once, and sent out three messages at random, on two successive days. These messages stated that Nissr had been sighted in flames and falling, in North latitude 19 deg., 35'; longitude 28 deg., 16', or about two hundred and fifty miles ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... occupied by the Museum of Marvels was rented from a Chinese greengrocer, who carried on a business next door. The place had originally been one shop, but Kit See, with the frugality of his race, had partitioned it roughly, and with Oriental astuteness let the half for nearly as much as ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Houghton, who seemed to have lost his volubility, and waited for her to speak again, she thought: "If this young fellow was infatuated with Caroline I'd warn him quick enough." With the astuteness of a matron she merely remarked: "You seem greatly pleased with my little friend, Miss Bodine. You must not trifle with her, if she is poor, for she comes of one of the ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... angel as YOU I am sure would," Mr. Dobbin said, with atrocious astuteness. "And no man can pardon himself for giving a woman pain. What would you feel, if a ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... triumphed over her natural astuteness. The man had employed spies to watch her! He had lost his head. It was an awkward matter, this, but it was to be arranged. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and when he permits his genuine emotion to carry him away, can utter an appeal to conscience with anything like so compelling a simplicity. His failure lies in a growing tendency to discard an instinctive emotionalism for a calculated astuteness which too often attempts to hide its cunning under the garb of honest sentiment. His intuitions are unrivalled: his ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... claims on their regard, as a true Christian worships the slough on which, by chance, the divine light falls. I came to be the instrument of a beneficent purpose;—still, if I had found you utterly reprobate, armed with effrontery and astuteness, corrupt to the marrow, deaf to the voice of repentance, I should have abandoned ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... whether there is anything religious in it, as there was when we were boys. The Anti-Semitic hatred is the hatred of money-making, more particularly of that kind of money-making which requires no hard work, but only a large capital to begin with, and boldness and astuteness in speculating, that is in buying and selling at the right moment. The sinews of war for that kind of financial warfare were mostly supplied by the fathers and grandfathers of the present generation. Sometimes, no doubt, the capital was lost, and ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... conventional scheme. The lawyer is exclusively occupied with the details of predatory fraud, either in achieving or in checkmating chicanery, and success in the profession is therefore accepted as marking a large endowment of that barbarian astuteness which has always commanded men's respect and fear. Mercantile pursuits are only half-way reputable, unless they involve a large element of ownership and a small element of usefulness. They grade high or low somewhat in proportion as they serve the higher or the lower needs; so that ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... themselves with honour, and acquired a credit for noble and public-spirited conduct, which, as it is, the Duke of Wellington has alone obtained, and which none of them share with him. Nor do I believe if Peel had exerted his dexterity and astuteness in another way that he would have failed to acquire the same moral superiority over the Ministers by pacific and moderate behaviour, that he has acquired by hostile motions and taunting language. But his tail was in a state of furious agitation, and so angry and dejected at the Duke's forbearance, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... and after due haggling received back one, according to the mystic Irish custom of "luck-penny". On the sofa two farmers carried on a transaction in which the swap of a colt, boot money, and luck-penny were blended into one trackless maze of astuteness and arithmetic. On the wall above them a print in which Ananias and Sapphira were the central figures gave a simple and suitable finish ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross |
