"Keen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to study those whose profession it is to describe the society of the time, and primarily, therefore, the works of dramatic writers, who are supposed to draw a faithful picture of it. So we go to the theatre, and usually derive keen pleasure therefrom. But is pleasure all that we expect to find? What we should look for above everything in a comedy or a drama is a representation, exact as possible, of the manners and characters of the dramatis persona of the play; and perhaps the conditions ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... serious nature, always warring against the tendencies of his vigorous being, and he kept within bounds his pride and the love of pleasure. He had a keen sense of humour, which, without doubt, endeared him to Erasmus. He was an enthusiast. When defending a point in theology his ardour changed the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, and a lofty spirit ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... photograph proof before the slightest attempt at finish had been made. Those keen young eyes conveyed the impression of convex mirrors. She restrained an instinctive impulse to put a hand before her face, she had an odd helpless sensation before the almost brutal, clear-visioned young thing. Again she shrank a little from her task, again her spirit reasserted ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... on the other. Up till quite recently, the sole aim of our Secondary Schools was to provide students for the Universities and to supply the needs of the learned professions. But with the economic development of the country, and as a consequence of the keen international competition between nation and nation in the economic sphere, there has arisen a demand for a higher education different in kind from that provided by the older Universities, and a need for a type of Secondary School different in aim and curriculum from that ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... oh, sad the care, Cualnge's Cow-raid brought on me: Cethern, Fintan's son, to keen. Oh that he had ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... violently from him. At the same time a door opens, and a man who enters receives the sausage forcibly against his nose. He seems to cry out; and is observed to make a dance step or two, vigorously. The newcomer is a ruddy-faced, active, keen-looking man, apparently of Irish ancestry. Next he is observed to laugh immoderately; he kicks over the stove; he claps the artist (who is vainly striving to grasp his hand) vehemently upon the back. Then he goes through a pantomime ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... pastoral Colin Clout, for he ever retained his first poetic name, was faithful to his ideal. But in the stern Proconsul, under whom he had become hardened into a keen and resolute colonist, he had come in contact with a new type of character; a governor under the sense of duty, doing the roughest of work in the roughest of ways. In Lord Grey, he had this character, not as he might ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... there were rumours afloat about a more intimate relationship between the bureau chief and his fairly good-looking housekeeper, who nominally had for her own that part of the flat which faced the courtyard, and these rumours did not escape the boy's keen ears. While their true inwardness was incomprehensible to him, they made him look wonderingly at the housekeeper whenever he met her, and when he accepted her gingersnaps and other tempting delicacies, he did so with a sense of wickedness ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... policy of this first period of the T'ang, lasting until about 690, was mainly concerned with the Turks and Turkestan. There were still two Turkish realms in the Far East, both of considerable strength but in keen rivalry with each other. The T'ang had come into power with the aid of the eastern Turks, but they admitted the leader of the western Turks to their court; he had been at Ch'ang-an in the time of the Sui. He was murdered, however, by Chinese at the instigation ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... stage. As the current of the Bushkill was always pretty strong there must be more or less of a strain on that hawser; but since it was comparatively new, the boys felt that there could not be the slightest danger of its breaking, unless some outside influence were brought to bear on it, such as a keen-edged knife blade. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... stone now undertakes to mark the spot and to name the hour where and when the flood tide of rebellion reached its highest point, and where and when it began its slow and sure ebb. Substantially that stone tells the truth. Nevertheless the immediately succeeding days brought keen, counteracting disappointment. Expectation rose that the shattered army of Lee would never cross the Potomac; and the expectation was entirely reasonable, and ought to have been fulfilled. But Meade seemed to copy McClellan ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... do ye know that it's better than a century since the fathers began their missionary labors? A hundred years of teachin' an' preachin'. The sum of it a' is next to nothin'—an' naebody knows that better than the same fathers. They're wise, keen-sighted men, too. What good they do they do in a material way. If men like ye came here wi' any certitude of lightenin' the struggle for existence—but ye canna do that; or at least ye dinna do that. Ye'll find that neither red men nor white ha' time or inclination ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Mr. Marston himself, as I have shown, was fond of hunting in his early manhood, and was the owner of an excellent muzzle-loading rifle, which was as good as when his keen eye glanced along the brown barrel and the bullet was buried in the unsuspicious deer, so far away as to be scarcely ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... nightingale singes the woods waxen green, Leaf, grass, and blossom springs in Avril I ween, And love is to my heart gone, with one spear so keen, Night and day my blood it drinks, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the King sang the same tune again. No, Peter could not marry his daughter yet, for the King had determined that the man who was to marry his daughter should first bring him a golden sword, so keen that it could cut a feather floating in the air, yet so strong that it could cut through an ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... robes of a Bishop, for which he looked much too young, there strolled up a keen-faced man with satirical eyes, whom Madame de Montausieur presented as 'Monseigneur le Coadjuteur.' This was the Archbishop of Corinth, Paul de Gondi, Coadjutor to his uncle, the Archbishop of Paris. I think he was the most amusing talker I ever heard, only there was a great spice of malice ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe, The spare, slight form, the sloping shoulders' droop, The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly stoop, The lines of thought the sharpened features wear, Carved by the edge of keen New England air. List! for he speaks! As when a king would choose The jewels for his bride, he might refuse This diamond for its flaw,—find that less bright Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less white Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... while our soul Yearns to them with keen distress. Unto them a part is given; we will strive to see the whole. Dear shall be the banquet table where their singing spirits press; Dearer be our sacred hunger, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... This was the dwelling-house. The gardens were situated on the slope between the wall and the inner stockade. Peaceful as the scene appeared, it had been the site of furious fighting not many years ago. The Downs trended to the south, where the Romany and the Zingari resided, and a keen watch was kept both from the wall and from the ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... memory, how should we ever picture to ourselves a perfect rest? But sometimes it would seem as if the more a heart was made capable of loving, the less it had to love; and poor Elsie, in passing from a mother's to a brother's guardianship, felt a change of spiritual temperature, too keen. He was not a bad man, or incapable of benevolence when touched by the sight of want in anything of which he would himself have felt the privation; but he was so coarsely made, that only the purest animal necessities affected him; and a ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... disciples all rallying round the standard of currency reform. The report of the Secretary of the Treasury is a confession of national financial sins, and a profession of faith in sound money doctrines. Every business man will watch with keen interest the progress of a plan for the reform in our currency. You all know that the straight road is the retirement of the greenback and the Treasury note, and the withdrawal of the Government from the banking business, and you will naturally distrust any makeshift measures. The ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... the students coming to his side of the University, were, as a rule, keen and anxious to learn; he could ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... have surprised her more than that command, and for a brief moment speech forsook her. Then gathering up her scattered wits, she finished her recitation with all the vim she could muster, and waited. Though possessing a keen sense of the ludicrous, Tabitha's own troubles never appealed to her in this light, and as she stood looking down at the tall form sprawling on the floor, the amusing side of the situation never occurred to her. She was too busy wondering what ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... clear and beautiful a day it was, and how charmingly gracious Dame Ocean looked in her white caps and blue ruffles! Even the combination steamboat smell of dinner, oil, and close air was obliterated by the keen sea-breeze. ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that, As Isidore says (Etym. x): "A prudent man is one who sees as it were from afar, for his sight is keen, and he foresees the event of uncertainties." Now sight belongs not to the appetitive but to the cognitive faculty. Wherefore it is manifest that prudence belongs directly to the cognitive, and not to the sensitive faculty, because by the latter ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... it is to go into! Who wants to refrain from smart, spiteful sayings when he happens to think of them, to abjure laughing at friends and ridiculing enemies, to renounce the tart rebuff, the keen riposte? Amazing that any succeed! and many do. There are some gentlemen who are entirely agreeable—"gentlemen all through," like Robert Moore in Shirley. They have order, neatness, delicacy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... Robert returned to the shop, and asked for a glass of rum. He wanted something to stifle the keen reproaches of conscience. The dram-seller knew my husband, knew of his reform, that from being a nuisance to the town, he had become an orderly and respectable citizen; and now that he had been seduced from the right way, instead of denying him the cause ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... 'your father's land.' That must mean that we shall have it." But still she had sad misgivings. She almost decided to read the inclosed letter which was unsealed; she could not have her father disappointed again; but her keen sense of ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of the others to keep him from subsiding in a heap upon the snow. He seemed to be young, heavily bearded, and, as far as his costume could be seen in the yellow glare, he wore high boots and a pea-jacket; while his companions, one of whom was a keen-faced man, with clean-shaved face and a dark moustache, the other rather French-looking from his shortly cropped beard, ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... ourselves by covenants with the other great nations to a limitation of our sea power. As one result of this, our Navy ranks larger, in comparison, than it ever did before. Removing the burden of expense and jealousy, which must always accrue from a keen rivalry, is one of the most effective methods of diminishing that unreasonable hysteria and misunderstanding which are the most potent means of fomenting war. This policy represents a new departure in the world. It is a thought, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... masked as mutual praise, Is a great social bond in these strange days. ROCHEFOUCAULD here might gather Material for new maxims keen and cold. They meet, these convives, if the truth be told, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... think, though? By three o'clock he comes back, towin' a spruce, keen eyed young chap that he introduces as Dr. McWade. He's picked him up over at Bellevue, where he found him doin' practice work in the psychopathic ward. On the strength of that I doubles my grubstake, and he no sooner gets his hands on the two sawbucks than he starts ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... his bed. His eyes dwelt on her keen, earnest young face, and the blue eyes gazing thoughtfully ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... recalled many stories from the old bible and subjected them to keen irony and ridicule. Reciting the story wherein the she bears came out of the woods and tore to pieces the forty children who mocked the prophet, he asked: If God did that, what would the devil have done under the same circumstances? Why; he said, did not God give a sure cure for leprosy, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... have long argued that the Vulture does not have an extraordinary power of smell, but, according to Mr. Davie, an excellent authority, it has been proven by the most satisfactory experiments that the Turkey Buzzard does possess a keen sense of smell by which it can distinguish the odor of ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... in some of the industries in which originally there was an opportunity for the worker to have a keen interest in his work. Mention is made of this situation as it comes about with certain stages of development of the manufacturing processes. It is unfortunate and something that the engineers and ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... still her jealous hair Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze. She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise, No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew, With hand of purest hue, Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien. Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen, So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine, That scarce can I divine How then I 'scaped from burning utterly. These are the first fair signs of love to be, That bound my heart with adamant, and these The matchless courtesies Which, dreamlike, still ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Johnny he's gotten word of that, And he's turned wondrous keen; He's put off the red scarlet, And he's put ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... the guy he is." Generalissimo JOFFRE, on the other hand, he found to be a decent most capable man, without fuss and flummery, doing a distasteful job of work singularly well. There is some particularly interesting matter about aeroplane work, and the writer betrays a keen distress lest the cavalry notions of the soldiers of the old school should make them put their trust in the horsemen rather than the airmen in the break-through. As for "tanks," he offers the alternative of organised world control or a new warfare of mammoth ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... greatest vogue. But even now, when most of these temporary advantages no longer exist, whoever was well acquainted with the manners, habits, and anecdotes of Paris at the time of the first appearance of Figaro, will always admire in it a combination of keen and pointed satire, easy wit, and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... this duel as to which should go off first. And then, at the end, it still meant death—the youngster must in his turn disappear, whilst he, the father, alone pocketed the cash, and lived joyfully to a good old age. And these frightful things shone forth so clearly from the keen, melancholy, smiling eyes of the poor condemned child, passed from son to father with such evident distinctness, that for a moment it seemed to them that they ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... He is about fifty years of age and looks like a decent City clerk who has spent his life keeping books at a desk. He has nothing to distinguish him from the ordinary respectable Londoner, with his clean-shaven face and his somewhat heavy appearance, nothing except his terribly keen, bright, ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... is one," said he, turning to the young count, who stood behind him—a fine youth, tall, strong-built, well-spoken, with blond hair and dark, keen eyes. I admit frankly I had not seen a better figure of a man. I assure you, he had the form of Hercules, the eye of Mars. It was an eye to command—women; for I had small reason to admire his courage when I knew him better. He took ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... six feet high, and very muscular,—the result of hard work. She had red hair, and it is said that she was cross-eyed, but this has been denied on good authority. It matters little. Her eyes were keen enough to pierce through all Tory disguises, and that was enough for her. It is certain that her courage and her confidence kept alive the spark of liberty in hearts that would otherwise have smothered it, and was largely responsible ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... open to their widest extent, but the place was oppressively close. There was a brooding sense of storm in the atmosphere. Suddenly, as if in some invisible fashion a set limit had been reached and passed, Richard Green lifted his head from his work. His keen eyes sent a flashing glance down ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... those of men by long solitude and fasting, distinguished the step of a man far up the height on the distant crags, and his keen sight soon detected a figure descending cautiously, but surely, towards the deep abyss where Zoroaster stood. More and more clearly he saw him, till the man was near, and stood upon an overhanging boulder within speaking distance. He was the shepherd who, from time to ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... are common in folk tales. Giants are often represented as not only big but also stupid, and as easily overcome by keen-witted human foes like "Jack the Giant-killer." It may be that traditions of pre- historic peoples have sometimes given birth to legends of giants. Another source of stories concerning them has been the discovery of huge fossil bones, such as those of the mammoth or mastodon, which were formerly ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... eyes and countenance, and sparkled in his repartee. His powers of captivation were as great as hers, but he knew that power, and even used it for an end; while in her it was spontaneous as the bubbling of a stream, as the song of the birds, or as the joy of childhood. Both had a keen perception of the ludicrous, but in her it never amounted to ill-nature: she was as severe upon herself as he was upon others; while she penetrated into their motives she judged them kindly, and was at ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... John, The Three of sweetest virtues in glory, Who arose to make the charm, Before the great gate of the City, By the right knee of God the Son, Against the keen-eyed men, Against the peering-eyed women, Against the slim, slender, fairy darts, Against the swift arrows of fairies. Two made to thee the withered eye, Man and woman in venom and envy, Three whom I will ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... Shot-gun poised abreast, his keen eyes marking down the fall of his prey, Amber stood without moving, exultation battling with a vague remorse in his bosom—as always when he killed. Quain, who had dropped back a pace after firing but one shot and scoring an unqualified miss at close range, now stood plucking ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... the dusty highway were falling in long black lines that looked like ditches on the dead level of the tawny fields; the shadows of slowly moving cattle were mingling with their own silhouettes, and becoming more and more grotesque. A keen wind rising in the hills was already creeping from the canada as from the mouth of a funnel, and sweeping the plains. Antonio had forgathered with the servants, had pinched the ears of the maids, had partaken of aguardiente, had saddled ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... little more than a name to him; a name he had never heard on Elinor's lips. But if love be blind in the teens and twenties, it is more than apt to have a keen gift of insight in the thirties and beyond. Hence, by the time Ormsby had come to the second filling of his pipe, he had pieced together bits of half-forgotten gossip about the Croydon summer, curious little reticences on Elinor's part, vague hints let ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... are great differences of natural constitution. One who is endowed with a poetical temperament, or a keen sense of beauty, or a great love of order, or very large ideality, will be pained by the want or the opposites of these qualities, where one less amply endowed would suffer no provocation whatever. What would grate most harshly on the ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... Sept. 1, 1842.—Mr. Thoreau dined with us yesterday.... He is a keen and delicate observer of nature,—a genuine observer,—which, I suspect, is almost as rare a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for his love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... the comedy floats. It is Mozart's orchestra that the modern composer uses ("the only proper orchestra for comedy," as Berlioz said), eschewing even those "epical instruments," the trombones. It would not do to push the parallel too far, though a keen listener might feel tempted also to see a point of semblance in the Teutonism which tinctures the Italian music of both men; a Teutonism which adds an ingredient more to the taste of other peoples than that of the people whose language is employed. But while the Italianism of Mozart ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... published with Latin notes. He is also to give you a few anecdotes for your Life of Thomson, who I find was private tutor to the present Earl of Hadington, Lord Hailes's cousin, a circumstance not mentioned by Dr. Murdoch. I have keen expectations of delight from your ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... through the bush his step is light, elastic, and noiseless; every track on the earth catches his keen eye; a leaf, or fragment of a stick turned, or a blade of grass recently bent by the tread of one of the lower animals, instantly arrests his attention; in fact, nothing escapes his quick and powerful sight ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the case of some, but for you it is not so. The keen susceptibilities of your excitable nature will prevent your resting contented without sharing in the more exciting pleasures of the ball-room; and your powers of adaptation will easily tempt you forward to make use of at least some of ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... flaming termites might discover them, and come swooping down. With keen eyes he scanned the horizon. ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich
... belongings to provide the means of buying bread to sustain himself and his much beloved brother Louis, who in after years behaved to him with base ingratitude. He suffered dreadful privations during the keen frosty nights, owing to the want of fire, light, and sometimes sufficient clothing. No wonder that he thought of ending his woes by plunging into ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... pair of pointed sticks, but it is more classical to use the feet. If the weight be heavy and the track smooth, the toboggan takes the bit between its teeth; and to steer a couple of full-sized friends in safety requires not only judgment but desperate exertion. On a very steep track, with a keen evening frost, you may have moments almost too appalling to be called enjoyment; the head goes, the world vanishes; your blind steed bounds below your weight; you reach the foot, with all the breath knocked out of your body, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Now I am glad I met you. I had no idea you were that, of all things. You seemed—" She checked herself. "But tell me, how did you begin? Tommy Dallas is keen on your sort. Did he ever—ever back you, I believe ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... may be pretty accurately ascertained from the following table for the last two years. We know of no epidemic, nor is a cough scarcely ever heard amongst us. The only cry of affliction, in breathing a sharp pure air, that creates a keen appetite, has been, 'Je n'ai rien pour manger,' and death has rarely taken place amongst the inhabitants, except by accident and extreme old age. It is far otherwise, however with the natives of the country, who from the hardships and ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... will have been distinguished by a keen sense of wrong, and a total lack of all sense of humour. Having been rebuked by her mother for some trifling fault, she will persuade herself that her parents detest her, and desire her death. She will spend the next few days with her breast luxuriously against ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... keen, cold winds to blow Around the summits bare; My sunny pathway to the sea Winds downward, green and fair, And bright-leaved branches toss and glow Upon the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... wait after that for long speeches in the Council. She gathered her company quickly, seven women well seasoned and not comely,—'The God of the Corn is a woman god,' she said, sharp smiling,—and seven men, keen and hard runners. The rest she appointed to meet her at Painted Rock ten ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... Charlemagne. That importance, as it seems to me, has been wholly or almost wholly misunderstood, and certainly, as I understand it, has never been explained. In this book, which is offered to the public not without a keen sense of its inadequacy, I have tried to show in as clear a manner as was at my command, what Ravenna really was in the political geography of the empire, and to explain the part that position allowed her to play in the great tragedy of the decline and fall of the Roman ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... through the hall of entrance, Paulina had noticed a man of striking and farouche appearance,—hair black and matted, eyes keen and wild, and beaming with malicious cunning, who surveyed her as she passed with a mixed look of insolence and curiosity, that involuntarily made her shrink. He had been half reclining carelessly against the wall, when she first entered, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... fought to a finish. Hanchett, hewing away in the dark, had made every double and turn that keen legal acumen and a sharp wit could suggest to gain time. But Mr. Farley was inexorable. The business must be concluded at the present sitting; otherwise the papers in the two suits, which were already prepared, would be filed before noon. Hanchett took his principal into the laboratory ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... the office, with his family. Mr. Ball, a bachelor, lived away; Lawyer Ball, West Lynne styled him. Not a young bachelor; midway, he may have been between forty and fifty. A short stout man, with a keen face and green eyes. He took up any practice that was brought to him—dirty odds and ends that Mr. Carlyle would not have touched with his toe—but, as that gentleman had remarked, he could be honest ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... against him, for he could not get near the captain the whole of that day, and there were keen eyes always fastened upon him by the convicts, who were on deck by fifty at a time, and watched each other closely for fear of treachery. Amongst each fifty there were always some who were in the plot, and if they had suspected Birt of betraying ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... Chandos, the James Brydges who afterwards became Duke of Chandos, who raised a gigantic fortune out of war taxes, to squander it in comfortless and tasteless ostentation, and who is still remembered as the Timon of Pope's keen and brilliant satire. It was remarked as extraordinary that Brydges brought forward and defended his motion merely as the assertion of an abstract truth, and avoided all mention of the Chancellor. It seemed still more extraordinary that Howe, whose whole eloquence consisted in cutting ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the keen, freezing wind carried immense snowclouds; it dragged at the trees, it howled, maddened, it tore whole snowdrifts, carrying them upward, it shifted, heaved up, and almost covered the sleighs and horses and struck the ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... that stretched away before her eyes lay a world she knew nothing of; yet since her earliest childhood her keen mind had told her that the silk with which she was clothed, the jewels that encrusted her dagger-hilt, the ships whose pillage had yielded up these things, must come from lands far distant, more desirable than the maroon country of Jamaica. More, her ears attuned to the whisper or roar of ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... extraordinary antics, the most difficult of which was that of standing on one foot, the other leg being extended stiffly behind him, while with both hands he clutched convulsively to the sides of the trapeze. Polly felt a keen sense of disappointment over Jack's performance. Somehow or other it lacked the ease and grace that the man in the circus had exhibited. She was impatient for her turn to come, that she might show them her idea of acrobatism. She was delighted when Tommy announced that "Pauline, ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and no need Have they of light: they hear and heed Thee with the mind's keen ear, although The ear of flesh be dull and slow. Their voices answer ...
— Hebrew Literature
... all this he learned much that amazed, much that amused him, but what interested him most of all had to do with the third stage of his retrospective pilgrimage. If he had not been bound for Harby eventually, what came to his ears by chance would have spurred him thither, ever keen as he was to behold the vivid, the theatrical in life. Women had always delighted him, if they had often damned him, and there was a woman's name on rumor's many tongues when rumor talked of Harby. So it came to be that he rode sooner than he had proposed, and far harder than he had proposed, ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... deep-voiced woodman stood with one boot on a low stump, fiercely trimming a branch that he had struck from the parent stem with one blow of his big, keen clasp-knife,—"self not for self,—for what he gone off and lef' ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... built the little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast day with her. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near. When Hansel and Grethel came into her neighborhood, she laughed maliciously, and said mockingly, "I have them, they shall not escape me again!" Early ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... the same of you, Finkman," Jacob Paul replied; and as his keen eyes scanned the assembled company they rested for a minute on Leon Sammet, who ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... in his swivel-chair, Mr. Troy looked at her. He had really never noticed his latest stenographer before, but now his keen eyes saw many things that showed that she came from a home where she had ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... last found his man, or, rather, his boy, here in Delafield. It was necessary to the Experiment that its subject should be a decent young fellow, not particularly keen on formal religion, but well set-up in body and mind; clean, straight, and able to use the brains ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... with a curious deliberation of tread and looked neither to the right nor to the left. The younger, following at his elbow, was possibly Dupontel's age. In him, not the clothes alone, but the face, keen lipped, quiet-eyed, not quite concealing its reserves of vitality under ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... of the novelty of his own situation, and every painful feeling connected with it, Halbert felt his curiosity interested in the female, who sate by the chimney unnoticed and unregarded. He marked with what keen and trembling solicitude she watched the broken words of Julian, and how her glance stole towards him, ready to be averted upon the slightest chance of his ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... returning voice ever speaketh, for are they not Eleusinian mysteries? But when thou meetest, O brother, sailing down the stream under gay flags and rounding sails, some Hogarth or some Sterne, who playeth rouge et noir with keen old Pharaohs, and battledore with Charlie Buff; who singeth brave Libiamos, and despiseth not the Christmas plums of Johnny Horner; who payeth graceful court to the great and learned, and warmeth the pale hearts of the shivering poor with his kind cheer and gentle words; who sitteth ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... angular protuberances on its surface. He had left the ranch with clothes and books enough to give the bag a pretty weight, and this he had unconcernedly increased by the insertion into the straining receptacle of many a "specimen" picked up by the way. For the eyes were keen and observant that looked out from under the strongly marked brows, and bits of fluorite and "fool's gold," and of rarer minerals as well, which had lain for years beside the road, noted as little ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... called, "the milkman is on the 'phone now, if you want him." Closing the door he ran back across the street. With a sense of her wrongs keen upon her, Belle, forgetting her charge in ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... eye of the police was still on the castle, because it was believed to hold the undetected murderer of Ailsie Dunbar, and that, therefore, their action upon the present event would be prompt and keen. She knew, also, that the investigation would bring much exposure and scandal to the castle and its inmates; and that it would enrage Lord Vincent and result in the final separation of herself and the viscount. But why, she asked herself, should she ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... give up hopes. He says that the climate don't agree with him, but when we was at Colchester he used to say he was obliged to take a little to keep off the colic, for the wind off the east coast was so keen; and the same when we were in Canada. That was when we were first married, and I was allowed to come on the strength of the regiment, many long years ago, my dear; and I have done the officers' washing ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... out of the depths of the Wireless, aroused by the sound of voices, although Jack had not been talking in an excited way. Herb, Jimmy and Josh were all on hand, with blankets wrapped about them; for the night air was a bit keen, and they had on only their underclothing ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... looked on and rubbed his hands with amiable satisfaction and the conventional delight in benefaction which we all know. I have witnessed the base terrors of Facanapa at an apparition, and I have beheld the keen spiritual agonies of the Emperor Nicholas on hearing of the fall of Sebastopol. Not many passages of real life have affected me as deeply as the atrocious behavior of the brutal baronial brother-in-law, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... helmet, with a few iron bars, to cover the face instead of a visor, and a lance of tremendous and uncommon length, completed his appointments. The looks of the man were as wild and rude as his attire; his keen black eyes never rested one moment fixed upon a single object, but constantly traversed all around, as if they ever sought some danger to oppose, some plunder to seize, or some insult to revenge. The latter seemed ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... stiffly, staring out at the dawn. The train was rushing through a region of bare hillocks huddled against a lifeless sky. It looked like the first day of creation. The air of the car was close, and she pushed up her window to let in the keen wind. Then she looked at her watch: it was seven o'clock, and soon the people about her would be stirring. She slipped into her clothes, smoothed her dishevelled hair and crept to the dressing-room. When she had washed her face and adjusted her dress she felt more hopeful. It was always a struggle ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... beer. I was as sharp as a needle. Always ready, accoutrements clean and shinin'—first at stables, first at roll-call, first in the saddle. An' when the bugle sounded to the assault—why, then, blood and thunder, and ride to the devil with you!! I was as keen as a pointer. Says I to myself: There's no help for it now, my boy, it's got to be done; and I set my mind to it and did it. Till at last the major said before the whole squadron: There's a hussar now that shows you what a ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... so tall and strong, so bronzed by summer sun and wind, his face so keen and intense, that swift fear caught her heart. Why was he there? Why should he take so much trouble for her? With difficulty she restrained herself from springing up and running away. Turning with the plant in his hand the Harvester saw the panic in her eyes, and it troubled his heart. ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... she lies in bed And the soft babble of their talk comes to her And the silences... I know she never sleeps Till the keen draught blowing up the empty hall Edges through her transom And she hears his foot on ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... personal habits, including cleanliness and refinement of actions, the average women of all classes set splendid examples for men of the same groups. It seems scarcely necessary to explain in detail concerning unclean personal habits and vulgar actions. It requires no keen observer to find plenty of examples. Those who have the training of boys should lose no opportunity to impress them with the importance of refinement, and especially in all phases of their home life. It is in the most intimate life of the home that refinement of personal habits ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... how is it that in these days such men become rogues? How is it that we see in such frightful instances the impotency of educated men to withstand the allurements of wealth? Men are not now more keen after the pleasures which wealth can buy than were their forefathers. One would rather say that they are less so. The rich labour now, and work with an assiduity that often puts to shame the sweat in which the poor man earns his bread. The rich rogue, or ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... see," said the keen-eyed little scamp. "Well, you keep quiet about my being here this alter-noon, and I'll put a ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... or in the pad that he did not search, peer into, and explore, or seam that he did not rip, or tuft of wool that he did not pick to pieces, lest anything should escape for want of care and pains; so keen was the covetousness excited in him by the discovery of the crowns, which amounted to near a hundred; and though he found no more booty, he held the blanket flights, balsam vomits, stake benedictions, carriers' fisticuffs, missing ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... constant warfare, and struggling for supremacy in America and the East, to a large extent lost their interest in the continent. Only on the west coast was there keen rivalry, and here the motive was securance of trade rather than territorial acquisitions. In this century the slave trade reached its highest development, the trade in gold, ivory, gum and spices ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... then at the artist. He was evidently a gentleman, and she recognized that he was possessed of a keen sense of humor. It would seem rude and ungrateful to run away and leave him just as their luncheon was announced, when he had raced all the way across the meadow to assist in the rescue ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... Machinery (1904); M.G. Ostrogorski, Democracy and Political Parties (2 vols., 1902), gives a keen and pessimistic account of American political practices in vol. II; J.A. Woodburn, Political Parties and Party Problems in the United States (1903, and later editions) gives a succinct account ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... they passed into an orchard, and followed a downward path among the whitened trunks. "This is all the land I've kept of the old farm," said Marion. "The rest is let. I let it years ago. Richard never wanted to be a farmer. It was always science he was keen on, from the time he ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... God. The adventurous modernity of the room in which he waited intensified that. One whole white wall was devoted to a small picture by Wyndham Lewis. It was like a picture of an earthquake in a city of aniline pink and grey and keen green cardboard, and he wished ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... school. The snow lay in some places as deep as ten feet"— Mr. Apricot paused—"and in others twenty. But we made our way to school in spite of it. No boys of to-day,—nor, for the matter of that, even men such as you,—would think of attempting it. But we were keen, anxious to learn. Our school was our delight. Our teacher was our friend. Our books were our companions. We gladly trudged five miles to school every morning and seven miles back at night, did chores till midnight, studied ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... a blue shirt and square-toed shoes studded thickly on the soles with hobnails worn shiny; driving a desert-scarred Ford with most of the paint gone and a front fender cocked up and flapping crazily, and tires worn down to the fabric in places. But his eyes were very keen and steady, and there was a humorous twist to his mouth. If he dreamed incongruously of big, luxurious cars gorgeous in paint and nickel trim, and of slim young women with yellow hair and blue eyes,—well, stranger dreams have been hidden away behind exteriors more unsightly than was the ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... doth nobler be, And dumbly and most wistfully His mighty prayerful arms outspreads Above men's oft-unheeding heads, And his big blessing downward sheds. I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves, Lichens on stones and moss on eaves, Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves; Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes, And briery mazes bounding lanes, And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains, And milky stems and sugary veins; For every long-armed woman-vine That round a piteous tree doth twine; For passionate odors, and divine Pistils, and petals crystalline; All purities ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... gentlemen and the ministerial devilry praise his speeches up stairs, and run down from Bellamy's when he was upon his legs. I heard Bob Milnes make his second speech; it made no impression. I like Ward—studied, but keen, and sometimes eloquent. Peel, my school and form fellow (we sat within two of each other), strange to say, I have never heard, though I often wished to do so; but, from what I remember of him at Harrow, he is, or should be, among ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... a more serious question to her, I think, than it was to me. I knew that the sons of other fathers and mothers had wrestled with that life and come out strong. There were Murphy's boys, for instance. Of course the life would be new to my boy, but the keen competition ought to drive him to his best. His present life was not doing that. As for the coarser details from which he had been so sheltered—well, a man has to learn sooner or later, and I wasn't sure but that it was better for him to learn at an age when such things ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... internal evidence, appears to have been published with the assistance or supervision of the author. Many of the descriptions are, however, so brief and indefinite in both their German and French forms that they necessarily remain so in the present translation. The princely explorer, with the keen discrimination shown in all his work, doubtless observed what has escaped many recent reporters of Indian signs, that the latter depend much more upon motion than mere position, and are generally large and free, seldom minute. ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... undercurrent, flowing from religious and social conditions, makes more comprehensible the ease with which England drifted back into the Stuart monarchy. The younger generation, with no memory of Stuart despotism, and with a keen dislike for the confusion in which no constitutional form was proof against military tyranny, gave ready credence to Prince Charles's promises of constitutional government. There seemed to be little probability that the young monarch ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... unless they be colonies, have a prehistoric time—a dark period of mist and gloom, before the keen light of history dawns upon them. This period is the favourite playground of the myth-spirits, where they disport themselves freely, or lounge heavily and listlessly, according to their different natures. The Egyptian ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... is the fate of the infirm and poor! Here, as I crav'd a morsel of their bread, A pamper'd menial drove me from the door, To seek a shelter in an humbler shed. Oh! take me to your hospitable dome; Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold: Short is my passage to the friendly tomb, For I am poor and miserably old. Should I reveal the sources of my grief, If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast, Your hands would not withhold the kind relief, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... in Washington when I paid my respects at the White House, and this was my first meeting with him after his inauguration. His unpretending cordiality was what first impressed one, but you soon saw with what sharp intelligence and keen humor he dealt with every subject which came up. He referred very pleasantly to his knowledge of me through Secretary Chase, showing the kindly instinct to find some compliment or evidence of recognition for all who ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... mechanically as she had bade me do, that Margaret, with the instinct of an old servant, which is sometimes as keen as that of an animal, had already sensed the presence of some crisis and prowled about in her soft-footed way until she had discovered the truth. She was lying at the bottom of the stairs, her face buried in her hands and ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Sun god whose oracles, delivered from the temple between the twin summits of Parnassus, did so much for the Greek nationality, aided in keeping up a lofty ideal of religion; but when the enlightened men of Greece learnt to apply their keen faculty of reasoning to the system of their inherited belief, they became quickly conscious that the conceptions of the gods corrupted the life and degraded the minds of the public. Popular morality could not be sustained by the popular religion. The moral instruction which was no longer supplied ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the bookkeeper with whom he had been talking, and turned to go out. As he passed Bob, that young man was conscious of a keen, gimlet scrutiny from the blue eyes, a scrutiny instantaneous, but which seemed to penetrate his very flesh to the soul of him. He experienced a distinct physical shock as at the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... North and in the South, and throughout Europe. Apart from the interest excited by the subjects under discussion, and viewed only as literary productions, they may be ranked among the highest intellectual efforts of their author. Their sarcasm is Junius-like,— cold, keen, unsparing. In boldness, directness, and eloquent appeal, they will bear comparison with O'Connell's celebrated 'Letters to the Reformers of Great Britain'. They are the offspring of an intellect unshorn of its primal strength, and combining the ardor of youth ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... expert, active for practical life, if also somewhat quick and rough. This announced itself even in the outward make and look of him; for he was of short stout stature and powerful make of limbs; the brow high-arched, eyes sharp and keen. Withal, his erect carriage, his firm step, his neat clothing, as well as his clear and decisive mode of speech, all testified of strict military training; which also extended itself over his whole ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... fired his revolver. He knew that he had hit his man, and that Rawdon was wounded in the body or in the upper part of a leg. Hurriedly he pursued, entering the strip of woodland towards the brook, when something fell upon him, and two keen qualms of pain shot through his breast. Then he lay insensible. Meanwhile, a lithe active form, leaving a horse tethered at the gate, had sprung to meet a second intruder, issuing from the front door ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... was too keen-edged to take warning. He kissed her lips and throat and eyes. The eyes of the watcher never wavered. They were narrowed to shining ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... idea of qualification for a seer and a reader of dark lore? What wouldst thou say could I pour into thy brain the contents of the scores of works on "occult nonsense," from Agrippa to Zadkiel, devoured with keen hunger in the days of my youth? Yes, in solemn sadness, out of the whole I have brought no powers of divination; and in it all found nothing so strange as the wondrous tongue in which we spoke. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... white caps glanced and flashed as they raced by me in the sun. It was my first real view of the ocean, and the restlessness of it and the freedom of it stirred me with a great happiness. I drank in its beauty as eagerly as I filled my lungs with the keen salt air, ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... Philip, turning pale as death, "what's that?" and even the doctor started a little, and cast a keen look ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... being of vital interest to the Greek, it was for him to take the initiative in bringing about the definitions desired. With keen appreciation of the danger of the situation he addressed himself to the task. Replying to a request presented through the ambassador resident at Adrianople, Mahommed gave him solemn assurances of his disposition to observe every existing treaty. The response seems to ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... not to be dissuaded, even when the impressional and experimental Becky tried his storage system and suffered keen discomfort before her penny was restored to her by a resourceful fellow-traveller who thumped her right lustily on the back until her crowings ceased and the coin was once ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... apartment with a sensation of such keen disappointment that it turned him ill and dizzy. He felt that the great purpose of his life was being played with and put aside. But he had not selfish resentment on his own account; he was only the more determined to persevere. He considered new arguments and framed new appeals; and ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... of pain and difficulty, was not impracticable; her sensibility, indeed, was keen, and she had suffered from it the utmost torture; but her feelings were not more powerful than her understanding was strong, and her fortitude was equal to her trials. Her calamities had saddened, but not weakened her mind, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay) |
