"Clever" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had not much time to wait, before, by a clever manoeuvre, the frigate had been brought with her starboard broadside to bear directly on the stern of the French ship at less than pistol-shot distance. At the same moment the order to fire was passed along the decks and rapidly obeyed. Every shot went crashing into the French ...
— The Two Shipmates • William H. G. Kingston
... and the entrance to the Bishop's Chapel adjoining, by an ascent of two steps; this Chapel being named from the Tomb of Bishop Andrews, formerly standing in the centre of it. We recommend the reader to a clever paper in the Gentleman's Megazine for the present month, in which the writer proves that Our Lady's Chapel, so far from being an excrescence, as has been idly stated, "bears the same relation to the church an the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... bystanders wondered whether he were guilty and seeking a clever explanation to save himself, or whether he were really innocent. At last he said: "Then if we have met often, you should be very certain of my voice and body. Look at ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... they're dirty, but they're clever. They can shape the leather like no other man's that ever came into the shop. Who taught you, ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... or grouping figures, the parents should neither check, nor praise it. They may laugh with it frankly, or show pleasure in what it has done, just as they show pleasure in seeing it well, or cheerful; but they must not praise it for being clever, any more than they would praise it for being stout. They should praise it only for what costs it self-denial, namely attention and hard work; otherwise they will make it work for vanity's sake, and always badly. The best books to put ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... Miss Jasmine—I always knew you were clever, miss, and I suppose it is because I'm so worried in my business days that I've got that stupid that I can't see no meaning at all in ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... four. That was why they called him Midget. Andy learned later that he was ten years old. He had an act with the circus, going around the ring perched on the shoulders of a bare-back rider. He also sometimes had a part with "the Tom Thumb acrobats," doing some clever hoop-jumping with ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... began to settle down again to its own affairs, condoling greatly with the poor gentleman, such a favorite! who, so young, and after such a brief experience of marriage, had lost, in such a sad way, a wife so handsome, so amiable, so clever. But some said a doctor ought to have known better than marry such a person, however handsome, and they hoped it would be a lesson to him. On the whole, so sorry for him was Glaston, that, if the doctor could then have gone about it invisible, he would have found he had more friends ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... bore a high character, and was a good and clever officer, but that went for nothing against the old man's whim. He made a very good husband, too; but even this did not move his father-in-law, who had never held any intercourse with him or his wife since the day of their marriage, and who had never seen his own grandchildren. ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... palliate a greater error. That word proper is a prudent term, and expresses all one could wish. I had not thought you so intelligent and shrewd a man, Master Carnaby: clever in the way of business, I always knew you to be; but so apt in reason, and so matured in principle, is what I will confess I had not expected. Can you form no conjecture of the business ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... indeed thirsting for fight they rush about; like combatants eager for glory they have striven in battles. All beings are afraid of the Maruts; they are men terrible to behold, like kings. When the clever Tvashtar had turned the well-made, golden, thousand-edged thunderbolt, Indra takes it to perform his manly deeds; he slew Vritra, he forced out the stream of water. By their power they pushed the ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... is a girl in a thousand," said Mr. Tristram; "so matter-of-fact and amiable and agreeable. See how she is talking to your husband at this very moment! I never saw a nicer or more modest young creature, but she is so exceedingly clever that she will push her own way anywhere. She has bowled over my two young urchins already, although she has been only a few hours at the rectory. What could Lady Lysle have to say ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... Matilda was meek and undecided to a fault. I have heard Fanny turn her round twenty times in a morning about dinner, just as the little hussy chose; and I sometimes fancied she worked on Miss Matilda's weakness in order to bewilder her, and to make her feel more in the power of her clever servant. I determined that I would not leave her till I had seen what sort of a person Martha was; and, if I found her trustworthy, I would tell her not to trouble her mistress with ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of all the water sous'd aloft, Soap, plain and mottled, hard and soft, Soda and pearlash, huckaback and sand, Brooms, brushes, palm of hand, And scourers in the office strong and clever, In spite of all the tubbing, rubbing, scrubbing, The routing and the grubbing, The blacks, confound them! were ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... sedition, and embroiling the colony with the English government, he would have to seek freedom for that sort of conscience outside of their jurisdiction; and they put him out accordingly, to the great advantage of both parties and without loss of mutual respect and love. A little later, a clever woman, Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, with a vast conceit of her superior holiness and with the ugly censoriousness which is a usual accompaniment of that grace, demonstrated her genius for mixing a theological controversy ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... justified. It had been a resurrection. The clever young doctor, brimful of new methods, who had brought her round, had arrived just in time to stop the process of physical deterioration before it had gone too far; and the recovery of power both on the paralysed side and in general ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was out to hurt. A mere youngster had presumed to argue and be cheeky with him: and discipline must be maintained. To this end there must be punishment; and punishment, to be effective, must hurt. So he adopted a new line, and with his clever strategy strove to enlist my support by deigning to couple ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... he was my child, George, he was my child and all my children, my silly child, and life has knocked him about for me, and I've never had a say in the matter; never a say; it's puffed him up and smashed him—like an old bag—under my eyes. I was clever enough to see it, and not clever enough to prevent it, and all I could do was to jeer. I've had to make what I could of it. Like most people. Like most of us.... But it wasn't fair, George. It wasn't fair. Life and Death—great serious things—why ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... was for the most part silent. Hawker was superhumanly amiable. Somehow he gained the impression that they all quite fancied him, and it followed that being clever was very easy. Hollanden listened, and approved him with ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... much purity and dignity to try, as some clever women would have done, to govern the count by putting calculation into her conduct,—a sort of prostitution by which noble souls feel degraded. Silently she turned away, to console ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... expresses God, if only that He is a God who can make men who can thus express their souls. Machinery is an act of worship in the least sense if not in the greatest. If a man who can make machines like this is not clever enough with all his powers to find a God, and to worship a God, he can worship himself. It is because the poetry of machinery is the kind of poetry that does immeasurable things instead of immeasurably singing about them that it has been quite generally taken for granted that it is not poetry at ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... can be taught. Perhaps you have seen Sea-lions performing surprising tricks, showing clearly how intelligent these fish-like creatures really are. The Sea-lions at the London "Zoo" are not specially trained. But they are clever enough to teach themselves, especially when rewarded by a few extra fish. They know well the voice of their keeper, and clap with their flippers to let him know that feeding—time is near; and in many other amusing ways they ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... moment of separation the new convert sometimes discovers the most valuable qualities in the wives he is obliged to abandon. One understands gardening perfectly; another knows how to prepare chiza, an intoxicating beverage extracted from the root of cassava; all appear to him alike clever and useful. Sometimes the desire of preserving his wives overcomes in the Indian his inclination to christianity; but most frequently, in his perplexity, the husband prefers submitting to the choice of the missionary, as to ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... was not very remarkable for learning. In truth, he was a good deal behind the times, and his few scholars, if at all clever, soon got beyond him, and left him. When his wife was well, she did more than her part toward their support, and when she was ill, they fared very ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... thought her clever with a play of wit which made for fascination, but he had believed her processes of thought transparent to his own scrutiny. Of late he had discovered in her something baffling and subtle. This was not the same Marian but a Marian of ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... The clever assistance of a young detective saves the boys from the clutches of Chinese smugglers, of whose nefarious trade they know too much. How the Professor's invention relieves a critical situation is also an exciting ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... sparkled. He was always proud of his chum's clever reasoning powers, and believed Tom could hold his own with any one with regard to mapping out ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... bird, cannot fly, and is always on the ground, signifies those who fight for God's cause, and at the same time are taken up with worldly business. The owl, which sees clearly at night, but cannot see in the daytime, denotes those who are clever in temporal affairs, but dull in spiritual matters. The gull, which both flies in the air and swims in the water, signifies those who are partial both to Circumcision and to Baptism: or else it denotes those who would fly by contemplation, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... mortifications. Of course, such a benign mood had been helped by the sun, the fresh river breeze, the sweet exhalations of the grasses and the water, the joyous sensation of the strength and alertness of one's body while bathing and rowing, and the restraining influence of the clever, kind, pure and handsome girls from families they were acquainted with. But, almost without the knowledge of their consciousness, their sensuousness—not imagination, but the simple, healthy, instinctive sensuousness of young playful males—kindled from chance encounters of their hands with feminine ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... studied Di more closely than ever, after that day, and soon I understood what she was driving at. She wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. And she got it. Any girl can manage this, if she is clever enough; and Di, though she isn't bookish or intellectual, is very, very clever in the way women have been clever since they emerged from ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... removes so much that is puzzling, and establishes so remarkable a harmony between works whose outward aspect is so dissimilar. It seems like the inspiration of genius to discern so clearly the like in the unlike, and one inclines at first to believe that what is so clever cannot but be true. But a rigorous examination of the evidence leads to an opposite conclusion, and if it does not absolutely disprove Mr. Fergusson's theory, at any rate shows it to be in the highest degree doubtful. Such walls as he describes, with their antae and their many ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... married, you two?" asked the Columbine, slily. "Oh, you need not blush! She puts us all in the shade. You are in love with her, at least? Well, she scorns us and is not clever at concealing it: but I will not revenge myself by trying to steal you away. I am magnanimous, for my part; and, moreover, all ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... tops, but Pekan can catch Spite, and often does. He isn't afraid of leaping to the ground from high up in a tree, and often when coming down a tree he comes down headfirst. He is very fond of hunting the cousins of Jumper the Hare and is so tireless that he can run them down. He is very clever and, like his cousin, Glutton the Wolverine, makes no end of trouble for trappers by stealing the ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... yellow curs seems to be a pretty clever one," he murmured; "they've simply cut off all railway connections. I can't help admiring the fellows—they've learned a lot since 1904." He threw himself into his comfortable Morris chair, and after having carefully studied the Stock ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... the fray. The artful Lacy, he who had played such a clever game as shortstop in the baseball tournament the preceding season, snapped the ball to Snodgrass, who plunged straight for the middle of the Columbia line backed up by a solid wedge that seemed capable of carrying the heavy ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... now of the part to be played by a clever woman quick to think and feel, mated with a husband of this kind, and can you not see a vision of lives full of sorrow and self-sacrifice? Nothing upon earth can repay such hearts so full of love and tender tact. Put a strong-willed woman ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... marry, I may reckon on one year of happiness, though hardly any one who knew Bertie would expect him to be constant even for that time. But by then I should have got immense influence, for, though I am not clever and attractive like him, I have far more will, and, in the long run, it is character more than talent that shapes our life. If Bluebell ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... "Dupes," both in character and in plot, has not appeared for some time. The "dupes" are society people, who, like the Athenians, "spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." Apart from its charm as a love story, the book makes some clever hits at certain "new things." While this is Mrs. Mumford's first book, she is well known as a ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... were sure of each other in their first weeks together—they had said many words about it and some of them clever enough. But their surety now had no need of any words at all—it had been too well tempered by desolation to find any obligation for speech or the calling of ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... went on, Doris, for all her sturdy self-reliance, began to feel a little nervous inwardly. She had been quite well-educated, first at a good High School, and then in the class-rooms of a provincial University; and, as the clever daughter of a clever doctor in large practice, she had always been in touch with the intellectual world, especially on its scientific side. And for nearly two years before her marriage she had been ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... peculiar force. Sound moral and knowledge of the world are occasionally introduced with great tact, for the author is no stranger to the inmost workings and recesses of the human heart; and he adapts these lessons, and dovetails them with the narrative, in a clever and agreeable style. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... and clever electrician across the way came over, bringing an electric bell, with which we tested the dry cells, finding them in good condition. We then examined the connections and ran the trouble back to the coil. There was plenty of current and plenty of voltage, but only a little blue spark, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... very clever and cunning plan, for Blacky is a very clever and cunning rascal, but of course it didn't deserve success because nothing that means needless worry and trouble for others ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... a wonderful statue!" was the literal answer. "There's no other like it in the world. Doctor Athelstone found it near Thebes, and took a good deal of pride in arranging this shrine. The device is clever; the parting of the veil you see, makes the light shine down on the statue, and it dies out when I close it—so"; and, as she pulled a cord, the veil fell before the statue and the ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... palaeolithic hunger. But my own work brought me into contact with an unprivileged class, whose degree of freedom was the special product of modern industrial civilisation, and on whose use of their freedom the future of civilisation may depend. A clever young mechanic, at the age when the Wanderjahre of the medieval craftsman used to begin, would come home after tending a 'speeded up' machine from 8 A.M., with an hour's interval, till 5 P.M. At 6 P.M. he had finished his tea in the crowded ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... indeed, since he had NOT handed his winnings over to me, I did hope he would at any rate give me some glimpses into that "great character" of his. Full though his life had been, he seemed but like a rather clever schoolboy out on a holiday. I wanted to ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... O'Shea was too clever a man to make an effort to hold what he knew to be lost; he let go her rein, and she rode up the path that led to the island road. When she was gone O'Shea turned upon Caius with a look of mingled scorn ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... than we thought," I remarked, after a moment. "I've known him for a good many years. He's clever. He's sowing seeds of discontent, starting trouble that will be very serious unless it ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... another case where the wife was considered the sweetest thing in the world. She had nice ways about her, but she disliked her husband and made his life a hell. With genuine chivalry he bore everything, believing that it was a man's duty to bear his cross. She was unfaithful to him, but she was so clever and cunning that neither he nor anybody else suspected it. The fact became painfully patent to him, when on one of the rare occasions that they came together she infected him with a venereal disease, which incapacitated ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... when the young squire, whose interest in the destination of the pretty maid the old song recounts, meets his proper deserts through the clever pencil of ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... clever sale," said the hat man, "but you have, you know, as much trouble sometimes holding an old customer in line as you do in selling a new one. For my own part, whenever a customer gets clear off the hook, I let him swim. You have a great deal better luck casting your fly for new fish ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... up our foreign business a little," said he. "I must get Novikoff's Note answered. It is clever, but the fallacies are obvious. I wish, too, we could clear up the Afghan frontier. This illness is most exasperating. There is so much to be done, but my brain is clouded. Sometimes I think it is the gout, and sometimes I put ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... yes, an' what was in it. An' the way he went about that there thing ... nobody as is well could ha' done it more clever. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... am poor, I grant you. But is fame nothing? The Hon. Bellamy Foodle of Arkansas says that my new statue of America, is a clever piece of sculpture, and he is satisfied that my name will ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... A clever woman and thoroughly coached, thought I. Well, Zikali was never one to suffer fools, and doubtless she is another of the pawns whom he uses on his board of policy. Oh! she, or rather he was right; my heart was in Zululand, though not in the way he thought, and I longed ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... another sort of concern. "Perfectly rotten carelessness. But I've sent to town for a corking man who handles these things; he's coming out to-morrow with his staff. After all, it's merely a question of understanding period, and American restoration is diabolically clever." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the hardy miners. All honour, then, to that Christian man, whose noble heart thought so much of them and of the risks they encounter in the deep mines; his mighty genius studied to avert the dangers to which they are exposed, and by his clever invention many thousand lives have been saved. Statues are raised to soldiers and statesmen, and their deeds are chronicled all over the world, yet the simple-hearted Cornish chemist has done more for England's glory than all her greatest ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... fine plain of Marathon, all damp with dew, and you, the francolin with speckled wings; you too, the halcyons, who flit over the swelling waves of the sea, come hither to hear the tidings; let all the tribes of long-necked birds assemble here; know that a clever old man has come to us, bringing an entirely new idea and proposing great reforms. Let all come to the debate here, here, here, ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... very ungenerously and artfully endeavored to retain for himself the honor of writing a clever little essay, really the work of his brother, and actually obtained a prize from his ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... guard, master. You are clever, you are as brave as any one; but, believe me, you will never make a lamb out of the old wolf that will be ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Dr. Wardrope. Raeburn. This is one of the artist's finest productions: it is clever, manly, and vigorous—painting to the life, without the flattering unction of varnished canvass. The fine, broad, bold features of the sitter were excellently adapted to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... since tired of him, then had endeavoured to push him on one side, for Chauvelin was keen and clever, and, moreover, he possessed all those qualities of selfless patriotism which were so conspicuously ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... ingenious machinists have pondered long over the problem, and several clever contrivances have been invented with a view to its solution. It may scarcely be necessary to say that the best manufacturers of sewing machines have conducted experiments with the same object in view, and the result ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... has a king who can look so far beyond the narrow horizon of his own time that he perceives what the spirit of the age demands, without trying to urge the masses to embrace that higher view of life for which they will not be ready for many centuries to come!" Wasn't that pretty clever? ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... fashionable. But he did not do this, probably concluding that with my awkward appearance I would not be a success with such people. When you are successful it is original to be a peasant—people find you clever; but before success comes to you it is a disgrace. He furnished me an apartment in a very respectable house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand. When I went into it I had debts to the amount of ten thousand francs behind me, the interest on this sum, the rent of two thousand four hundred francs, not ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... Goldsmith had undergone a material change since the publication of The Traveler. Before that event he was but partially known as the author of some clever anonymous writings, and had been a tolerated member of the club and the Johnson circle, without much being expected from him. Now he had suddenly risen to literary fame, and become one of the lions of the day. The highest regions of intellectual society were now open to him; but he was ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... London, and fix on Mr. Luker. What follows? Mr. Luker feels alarmed for the safety of 'a valuable of great price,' which he has got in the house. He lodges it privately (under a general description) in his bankers' strong-room. Wonderfully clever of him: but the Indians are just as clever on their side. They have their suspicions that the 'valuable of great price' is being shifted from one place to another; and they hit on a singularly bold and complete ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... death. To tell the truth, its demise had really been quite painful so far as most of the boys were concerned, for all of them had rather liked the idea of being able to enjoy "the World's Mightiest, Most Magnificent Combination of Clever Animals and Human Skill and Daring," etc., which was booked to show in St. Cloud City ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... are massive, seeming to have been hewn out of single pieces of rock—base, pillar, and capital all in one, each column in its entirety a single piece of quarried stone. But learn that this is not so, for these monoliths are in reality artificially made, having been fashioned by clever workers from the Coromandel country, who brought with them here supplies of a certain hard white stone, which they first roasted to a great heat, and then ground to the fineness of flour, finally compounding this material with other things, and constructing therefrom the columns ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... my place he would be happy; at first, he would make great changes, create everything anew, as it were. In a short time he would be as tired of the rank of King as he now is of his own; he is only fit to live 'en philosophe', with clever people about him." The King added, "He loves what is right; he is truly virtuous, and does not ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... The sculptor may dress his goddesses after the fashion of graver days and the laws of his art, but mortal women—if he is wise—after the fashion of the day. However, I am heartily sorry for that clever, genial young fellow. He has offended Caesar and was turned out of the palace, and now he is nowhere ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that way if you like," said Stonor, grinning. "The police are thick sometimes in dealing with clever ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... was engaged in the preliminary labours for his immortal work, "The Origin of Species", Darwin expresses himself very forcibly against the views of Lamarck, speaking of Lamarckian "nonsense," ("Life and Letters", Vol. II. page 23.), and of Lamarck's "absurd, though clever work" (Loc. cit. page 39.) and expressly declaring, "I attribute very little to the direct action of climate, etc." (Loc. cit. (1856), page 82.) yet in later life he became more and more convinced of the influence of external conditions. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... the island of Bohio was larger than Juana, which they call Cuba, and that it is not surrounded by water. They seem to imply that there is mainland behind Espanola, and they call it Caritaba, and say it is of vast extent. They have reason in saying that the inhabitants are a clever race, for all the people of these islands are in great fear of those of Caniba. So the Admiral repeats, what he has said before, that Caniba is nothing else but the Gran Can, who ought now to be ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... or a jest well enough, though he had strange serious rules about it too: and very angry was he if anybody offered to be merry when he was disposed to be grave. "You have an ill-founded notion," said he, "that it is clever to turn matters off with a joke (as the phrase is); whereas nothing produces enmity so certain as one persons showing a disposition to be merry when another is inclined to ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... "You was clever enough to see that I meant to be the master in my own house and that I had the strength to make ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... realised Sir John Meredith's idea of what an English gentleman should be, and the old aristocrat's standard was uncompromisingly high. Public school, University, and two years on the Continent had produced a finished man, educated to the finger-tips, deeply read, clever, bright, and occasionally witty; but Jack Meredith was at this time nothing more than a brilliant conglomerate of possibilities. He had obeyed his father to the letter with a conscientiousness bred of admiration. He had always felt that his father knew best. And now he seemed to be waiting—possibly ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... army is not nearly so well drilled as the Turkish, nor so well officered. The Turks have in Edhem Pasha a splendid leader, while the Greeks have no great general to lead them, and at present no general who seems even particularly clever. But that need not worry the friends of Greece. The history of the world has taught us that every great occasion has brought with it a great man capable of dealing with it. The French Revolution brought forth Napoleon, the War of Independence gave us Washington. We can therefore trust that ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 26, May 6, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... die to-morrow? If under the fostering care and protection of a higher organism it can eat better, drink more easily, live more merrily, and die, perhaps, not till the day after, why should it not do so? Is parasitism, after all, not a somewhat clever ruse? Is it not an ingenious way of securing the benefits of life while evading its responsibilities? And although this mode of livelihood is selfish, and possibly undignified, can it be said ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... as a very clever fellow by the Arabs, and he so managed the matter that Ibraim purchased him as well as the two young Englishmen, and they immediately set forward on their journey northward. The whole party rode on horseback. Their steeds ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... confusing to read, but it is easy to follow when the pieces are in one's hand. The result of this rather clever arrangement is that the six arms of Fig. 375 are all exactly the same length, width, and thickness. They are also arranged so that in each arm may be clasped one piece each of Figs. 370, 371, and 372. ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... merely a piece of clever argumentation, it would have crumbled rapidly under an appreciation of the American case; but it represented actually a conviction inherited by all the British people, and not that of Canning only. Whether the foundation of the alleged ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... and certainly it was a clever negro trick. It is difficult to know whom to pity or condemn in this iniquitous affair. We may be certain, however, that the poor women and children, the principal sufferers by the razzias, are guiltless in these transactions; and we may, without fear, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... woman—she was not an ordinarily clever woman. She did not belong to any type with which he was acquainted. She must for ever occupy a place of her own in his thoughts and in his estimation. It was a place very well defined, he told himself, and by ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... too clever a man to get lost or to starve in the wilds," I said proudly. "The savages have made him a prisoner, and I'm going to find him ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... sighed, "you are very clever, of course, and I suppose I'll eat him; but I wish he were alive again, down there in those cool, ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... and Greek, so Jeff decided she must be clever. She did not wear pretty clothes or soft laces like his mother. Her dresses were very plain, of some harsh coarse stuff and dull ugly colours; her manner was always a little abrupt, and she seemed to have no patience to listen to anything that children said. Jeff supposed that she was so wise ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... like, to fill up the place of the little angel who was gone from us. Bless your heart, sir, there weren't nothing out of the way in that, nothing at all, and we have never had cause to regret it. The boy's a good boy, and a clever boy, and he is a comfort and a help to us; a better boy never lived. But we have always grieved sorely over ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... Kew, so the message was delivered to Prince George(53) himself. The child, with great good sense, desired the Bishop to give his duty and thanks, and to assure the King that he should always obey him; but that, as his father was out of town, he could send no other answer. Was not it clever? The design of not giving one riband to the Prince's children had made great noise; there was a Remembrancer(54) on that subject ready for the press. This is the Craftsman of the present age, and is generally levelled at the Duke,(55) and filled with very circumstantial cases of his arbitrary ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... educated, Is by the wisest tolerated. Yes, he deserves your favor thoroughly,— The clever scholar of ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... "Thet thar's right clever of ye," he declared. "Fer one thing, ye kin tell me who air ther big, jobial-seeming body thet gives ther name of Peanuts Causey. I ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... "You are clever, senor," said the governor, recovering his composure. "I am exceedingly sorry, but I will have to deal with you in a way you will not like—the adobe wall." Quiroz bowed. "I bid you adios." He turned to his soldiers. "Take him to the calabozo!" ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... the crowd had gone its way and the girls had invited him to their tent, he told them in the few words of English he had learned since seeing them, and with many clever drawings, ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... conversation? The greatest charm of conversation is the mimetic part of it,—the character that is manifested, be it never so little. Take the best of men; how little he can say of what goes on within him, since it is only conceptions that are communicable; and yet a conversation with a clever man is one of the greatest ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... distributed by Fischer's classification between Bactrinium and Bactrillum, according to which state was observed. In Migula's scheme the attempt is made to avoid some of these difficulties, but others are introduced by his otherwise clever devices for dealing with these ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... never liked John Farnaby," the clerk began. "An active young fellow and a clever young fellow, I grant you. But a bad servant for all that. False, Mr. Ronald—false to the marrow ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... young man, he wondered awfully, he wondered (it was unmistakable) quite nervously, he wondered, to John's ardent and acute imagination, quite beautifully, if the author of "The Heart of Gold" would mind just looking at a book by a friend of his, a great friend, which he himself believed rather clever, and had in fact found very charming, but as to which—if it really wouldn't bore Mr. Berridge—he should so like the verdict of some one who knew. His friend was awfully ambitious, and he thought there was something in it—with all ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... call a clever scheme," Frank declared. "They would have no kick coming, because, you see, no Spanish American could ever complain of getting his wages without ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... dark, keen, and deep-set; his face was pale, and with a drawn, haggard expression. He looked about thirty-nine years of age. His hair was dark and thick, and waved back from his forehead, where it was slightly grey. It was a most interesting and clever face, and one that would always, I should think, attract attention. He was dressed in a long black gown like a cassock, only with a short cape, barely reaching ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... studio without abusing modern art, or meets a doctor without sneering at the medical profession, or loses an opportunity of telling Elizabeth, who loves truth for its own sake, that he enjoys trickery and falsehood, and thinks it clever to tell lies." ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... him to-day. I went into the orchard as usual, and found the house was inhabited, and I saw him and he asked me in to tea. He is a very old gentleman with a long white beard, and very, very clever. His room is full of Greek books and we had a long talk, and he was very kind and said he would teach me to ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... ever got a word from Aaron Latta about how he spent those ten days, and Tommy and Elspeth, whom he brought back with him, also tried to be reticent, but some of the women were too clever for them. Jean and Aaron did not meet again. Her first intimation that he had come she got from Shovel, who said that a little high-shouldered man in black had been inquiring if she was dead, and was now walking ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... leaders. The merchants on the Tory side, among whom were two of Hutchinson's sons, persisted in importing goods; and he writes, with a good deal of pride, as though it were meritorious, that since the agreement was formed these two sons had imported two hundred chests of tea, which they had been so clever as to sell. But such was the public indignation at this course, that they, too, were compelled to give in to the non-importation agreement; and Hutchinson's letters are now severer than ever on the Patriots. He characterizes "the confederacy of merchants" as a very high ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... Moorish blood in his veins. He is bold and enterprising. He does not like me, and I am certain that he will oppose me. If he should become ambitious he will venture anything. Besides, this fellow is not to be seduced. He is disinterested and clever. But, after all, we have ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... political writings. It endeavours to justify the outrages of the house of commons, in the case of the Middlesex election, and to vindicate the harsh measures then in agitation against America: it can only, therefore, be admired as a clever, sophistical composition.—Eb. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... a loud laugh; but the old man heard it with great agony and consternation; for though a bow drawn at a venture—a chance expression merely, intended as a clever hit at the women's expense, who had followed in the train of the rebels—Grimes construed the passage literally; and from that time it ran continually in his head, that his daughter's absence would be found to have some connection ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... clever girl, but always in troubles with the collar-maker and thatcher; she is always eating gooseberries and snails. The man at the chandler's shop says she has a consumption: but the grocer says she's ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... Corker finally drew his toga around him and hurried out, Jim Cotton gathered together his own books and lounged heavily into the street, sick of school, books, Corker, and hating Gus with a mighty sullen hate. For Jim had remarked Gus's sprightliness in the Greek ordeal, but was not clever enough to see that Gus's performance had been only for old friendship's sake. Jim, however, put down Todd's device as mere "side," "show-off," "toadyism," and other choice things, all trotted out specially ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... of the Anti-Slavery bill! But, even if slaves had been allowed in the colony, the horror of colour is as great among the native-born Canadians as it is in the United States. So much did this otherwise clever man know of the colony to which ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... in Germany," answered Cleveland; "and Ernest cannot well unlearn what he knows already. My dear Maltravers, the boy is not like most clever young men. He must either go through action, and adventure, and excitement in his own way, or he will be an idle dreamer, or an impracticable enthusiast all his life. Let him alone.—So Cuthbert is ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... corporations, honest business men of wealth, as to bring to justice those individuals and corporations representing dishonest methods. Most certainly there will be no relaxation by the Government authorities in the effort to get at any great railroad wrecker—any man who by clever swindling devices robs investors, oppresses wage-workers, and does injustice to the general public. But any such move as this is in the interest of honest railway operators, of honest corporations, and of those who, when ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Spain, Famous for always talking, and ne'er fighting, For calling names, and taking them again; For blustering, bungling, trimming, wrangling, writing, Groping all paths to power, and all in vain— Losing elections, character, and temper, A foolish, clever, fellow—Idem semper! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... wits; we owe to it partly that kind of practical philosophy which, reducing Egotism to a system, looks upon society as a war of cunning; success the rule of right and wrong, honesty as an affair of taste or decency: and the world as the patrimony of clever scoundrels.)) ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... too clever a dog to be disposed of in so disgusting a manner. He had privately resolved in his own mind that he would escape, but the hopelessness of his ever carrying that resolution into effect would have been apparent to any one who could ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... always the way; when you clever men can't explain a thing, you simply dismiss the question by calling it childish," Viola exclaimed, as though quite angry. "And, pray, why should n't the bird know? The whole week it scarcely sang a note: to-day it warbles and warbles so that it makes my head ache. And what's the ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... during her first song, during the second glanced cautiously at the green apparition before him. He was vexed with her for having retained a debutante figure. He comfortably classed all singers—especially operatic singers—as "fat Dutchwomen" or "shifty Sadies," and Kitty would not fit into his clever generalization. She displayed, under his nose, the only kind of figure he considered worth looking at—that of a very young girl, supple and sinuous and quicksilverish; thin, eager shoulders, polished white arms that were nowhere too fat and nowhere too thin. McKann ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... either the result of long meditation or were the inspiration of some clever strategist. The fact is that everything leads one to believe that it was a plan which had been formed with great care, for the rapidity with which all the approaches to the fortress were lined with a double row of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to speak to Count Anteoni about some absurdity of Batouch, forcing her mind into a light and frivolous mood, and he echoed her tone with a clever obedience for which secretly she blessed him. In a moment they were laughing together with apparent merriment, and Father Roubier smiled innocently at their light-heartedness, believing in it sincerely. But Androvsky suddenly turned around with ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... certificate has been granted to that clever English authoress, the Countess ARNIM. We congratulate Elizabeth on escaping from "her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... captain years ago. When he was a boy, too poor to pay for schooling, he used to go to the captain at night for help in his Greek or mathematics. Swendon had always preferred the companionship of younger men than himself, and was never without a "following" of clever, unruly schoolboys, whom he was as ready to help when they were lazy, as to tip with silver half-dollars—when he had them. Some of them had brought young Neckart to the captain, knowing nothing about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... lot, us doctors! We've got to be clever.... Let's see, now—where are we? Mrs. Prichard has a son who is called by your brother-in-law's name, but who is not your sister's son. Because if he were, Mrs. Prichard would be your sister. Which is impossible. But Mrs. Prichard has got muddled about her own identity, and thinks she ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... clever in work of this kind. An English nobleman was at one time exhibiting his kennel to an American friend, and passing by many of his showiest bloods, they came upon one that seemed nearly used up. 'This,' said the nobleman, 'is the most valuable animal in the pack, although he is old, lame, blind, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... Clare was not long in finding out how clever Tom was, and soon trusted him as thoroughly ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... failed to settle. At all events, a similar composition went to another of Pope's flames, the brilliant Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, now absent from England with her husband, who was ambassador at Constantinople. Clever Lady Mary, however, entirely declined to be subjugated by the pathetic fallacy, and sent back a matter-of-fact epitaph for John Hewet and Sarah Drew, which, though it wound up with a compliment to her correspondent, can hardly have gratified him. But there ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... of intellectual keenness. The mistake is as obvious as it is unfortunate. Smartness can be learned with perhaps the least expenditure of intellect that is demanded by any literary exercise of the present day. It is a temptation which a certain kind of clever man always has to face, and it only assumes a serious aspect when it leads the unthinking to mistake it for a new and formidable element of opposition to things which ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... Irwine paused, Arthur jumped up and, filling his glass, said, "A bumper to Adam Bede, and may he live to have sons as faithful and clever as himself!" ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... dinner and the wine, not from Russian merchants, but imported direct from abroad, was extremely dignified, simple, and enjoyable. The party—some twenty—had been selected by Sviazhsky from among the more active new liberals, all of the same way of thinking, who were at the same time clever and well bred. They drank, also half in jest, to the health of the new marshal of the province, of the governor, of the bank director, and of "our ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... comprising such as prisoners who perpetrate the crime cunningly and in secret, in the firm belief that they will escape detection; the other class are the highwaymen and garotters, who go daringly and violently to work, pretty sure in their own minds that they will be clever enough ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... inaction, he sat down and wrote a letter. Ever since his fall he had been successfully practising the art of throwing a morsel straight into one or other of the throats of the triple-headed Cerberus, his conscience—which was more clever in catching such sops, than they were in choking the said howler; and one of them, the letter mentioned, was the sole wretched result of his talk with the soutar. Addressed to a late divinity-classmate, he asked in it incidentally whether his old friend had ever heard anything of the little ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... confidential whisper, 'there are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk; and we always use the serious for professional people (except actors sometimes), and the smirk for private ladies and gentlemen who don't care so much about looking clever.' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Chaucer's chanticleer. Henry Esmond gave his hand in a stately minuet to Diana of the Crossways. He evidently did not understand her nineteenth century wit; for he did not laugh. Perhaps he had lost his taste for clever women. Anon Dante and Swedenborg came together conversing earnestly about things remote and mystical. Swedenborg said it was very warm. Dante replied that it might ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... by I 'eard them coming along to the gate and patting 'im on the back and saying he ought to be in a pantermime instead o' wasting 'is time night-watching. He left 'em at the gate, and then 'e came into the office smiling as if he'd done something clever. ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs |
