"Keen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... refreshing to escape from kings and converts for half a day. We three went by ourselves in Meon's smallest boat, and we got on the whiting near an old wreck, a mile or so off shore. Meon knew the marks to a yard, and the fish were keen. Yes—yess! A perfect morning's fishing! If a Bishop can't be a fisherman, who can?' He twiddled his ring again. 'We stayed there a little too long, and while we were getting up our stone, down came the fog. After some discussion, we decided to row ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... for our present study is the predicted growth of monopoly out of competition, and the manner in which that prediction has been realized. Concerning the manner and extent of the fulfillment of this prediction, there have been many keen controversies, both within and without the ranks of the followers of Marx. While Marx and Engels are properly regarded as the first scientific Socialists, having been the first to postulate Socialism ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... new Spring is drawing near There always rises in my blood A keen desire to see the year Fresh opening ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... inclined to dash out thine own brains with vexation at letting thy prey so slip out of thy grasp, thou art not the man I took thee for," and Edward fixed his eyes on his startled companion with a glance at once keen and malicious. ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... ground for "signs," but, although his eyes were unusually keen, he was not an expert in such matters, and he discovered nothing that could serve as ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... use; the comedian had determined they should all laugh, and they were made to laugh. Then she rose, and showed them how to drink healths a la Francaise; and keen were her little admirers to touch her glass with theirs. And the pure wine she had brought did Mrs. Triplet much good, too; though not so much as the music and sunshine of her face and voice. Then, when their stomachs were full of good food, and the soul of ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... was a stir and turbulence of life. A keen thirst for knowledge, a passionate poetry of devotion, gathered thousands round the poorest scholar and welcomed the barefoot friar. Edmund Rich— Archbishop of Canterbury and saint in later days—came about the time we ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... boasted fewer years, there was not so much ceremony in his banquet, neither was there so much state; nor was the friendship less keen or the intimacy less enjoyable in Leigh's humbler days of "off-n-off." A wonderful company—a brilliant company; with flashing wit and dazzling sallies, with many "a skirmish of wit between them." From more, the quieter flow of genial humour. And among the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... OUT OF A VESSEL. Applies to very keen seamanship, by which the vessel, from a close study of her capabilities, steals to windward of her opponent. This to be done effectually demands very peculiar trim to carry ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... with smoke, yet the keen glance of the police officer showed that his friend, the detective, ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... his way to the church, his companion hastened in search of Diurbanu. The little man had sharp eyes and keen wits. He conjectured that the fallen rider, with his broken leg, would avoid the dry harvest-fields, over which the fire was rapidly spreading, and would be found in the moist ditch beside the road. Nor was he wrong in this ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... lordship was to have held a high command. In a moment of intoxication, the earl confided this secret to some false friend, who published the communication and its author. Upon this, the unhappy nobleman, under too keen a sense of wounded honor, and perhaps with an exaggerated notion of the evils attached to his indiscretion, destroyed himself. Months had passed since that calamity when we met his widow; but time ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... leaning upon his elbow among a litter of dead guardsmen. He had a great blue coat muffled round him, and the hat with the high red plume was lying on the ground beside him. He was very pale, and had dark blotches under his eyes, but otherwise he was as he had ever been, with the keen, hungry nose, the wiry moustache, and the close-cropped head thinning away to baldness upon the top. His eyelids had always drooped, but now one could hardly see the glint of his eyes from ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Stael. That overestimated woman had gained the halo of martyrdom by the so-called persecution of the Emperor. But the persecution was, in the opinion of keen observers, more on her part than his. The Committee of Public Safety had found her an intriguer, and had called upon her husband to remove her from Paris; the Directory kept her under watch at Coppet, and ordered ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Sebastian savagely, for he was no weakling. There was nerve and determination in him, as well as a keen sense of ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... enveloped in a long loosely-fitting overcoat, his hat in one hand and a large damp umbrella in the other. He had an abnormally large head, and a soft, flabby, uninteresting face, which, however, was redeemed from vacancy by the gleam and glitter of his remarkably keen and piercing black eyes. His hair was grey, and a straggling beard, grey also, adorned his heavy chin. Gladys was conscious of a strong sense of repulsion as she looked at him, but she tried not to show it, and feebly smiled as she ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... when all the deep unsounded skies Shuddered with silent stars, she clomb, And as with optic glasses her keen eyes Pierced through the mystic dome, Regions of lucid matter taking forms, Brushes of fire, hazy gleams, Clusters and beds of worlds and beelike swarms Of suns, and starry streams: She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars, That marvellous round of milky ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... encircled by woods!" thy tranquil, cloistered town peeps forth from among thy moss-covered trees; the keen bright eyes of youth gaze from the academy, over the lake, to the busy highway, where the locomotive's dragon snorts, while it is flying through the wood. Soroe, thou poet's pearl, that hast in thy custody the honoured dust of Holberg! like a majestic white swan by the deep lake ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... ventured. His defeat of a Greek fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean, and his employment of Phoenicians in the Persian Gulf, show an enterprise and versatility which we observe in few Orientals. His selection of Tarsus for the site of a great city indicates a keen appreciation of the merits of a locality, if he was proud, haughty, and self-confident, beyond all former Assyrian kings, it would seem to have been because he felt that he had resources within himself—that he possessed a firm will, a bold ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... as yet given Little Dorrit no opportunity of conversing with Mrs Gowan, there was a silent understanding between them, which did as well. She looked at Mrs Gowan with keen and unabated interest; the sound of her voice was thrilling to her; nothing that was near her, or about her, or at all concerned her, escaped Little Dorrit. She was quicker to perceive the slightest matter here, than in any other ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... we fondly trace Love and the Muses, deck'd with Attick grace. Amid these names can BOSWELL be forgot, Scarce by North Britons now esteem'd a Scot[659]? Who to the sage devoted from his youth, Imbib'd from him the sacred love of truth; The keen research, the exercise of mind, And that best art, the art to know mankind.— Nor was his energy confin'd alone To friends around his philosophick throne; Its influence wide improv'd our letter'd isle. And lucid vigour marked the general style: As Nile's proud waves, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... with gratitude, gracious Princess," the little man said, in a soft voice, and they could all see that tear-drops were standing in his keen old eyes. It meant a good deal to him to secure a ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... been killed in a brawl under very disgraceful circumstances. He only lived twenty-nine years, and yet he, along with Kyd, changed the literature of England. Lyly's Pastorals had been the favourite reading of the people until these men came, keen and audacious, to lead and sing their "brief, fiery, tempestuous lives." When they wrote their plays and created their villains, they were not creating so much as remembering. Marlowe's plays were four, and they were all influential. His Edward ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... on the walk leading from the pupils' entrance executing a double shuffle, to keep his feet warm, for the air was growing keen. ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... the mortar, were the women. They were carrying great pails of it. They were hauling bricks up one ladder and down. They wore short, full skirts with a musical-comedy-chorus effect. Some of them looked seventy and some seventeen. It was fearful work for a woman. A keen wind was blowing across the ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... with the part which was afterwards assigned him in the system of obscurantismus supposed to be adopted by the united sovereigns of Europe,—whoever considers all this, cannot but be struck with the small portion of discernment and discrimination which is manifested in the world. A sober and keen-sighted observer might have seen even in the beginning, glorious as it was, that not all is gold that glitters. All that was done, was accompanied with a noise and boasting which strangely imposed upon foreigners. Universities, on the plan of the ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... everywhere, with his keen weak face, his sly look and his skilful fingers. Scipio and Paulus Emilius had brought him, and he stayed in Rome till the Goth came, and afterwards. Greek poetry, Greek philosophy, Greek sculpture, Greek painting, Greek music everywhere—to succeed at all in such society, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... wing, and angels to the view, A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro', Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight— Seraphs in all but "Knowledge," the keen light That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds afar, O death! from eye of God upon that star; Sweet was that error—sweeter still that death— Sweet was that error—ev'n with us the breath Of Science dims the mirror ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... to-night. There was no sunshine on it to-night, and he said to himself that it always needed sunshine. The grey clouds had gathered again, and lay in piled-up masses veiling the west, and the November wind came sweeping over the hills cold and keen. Mr Inglis shivered, and wrapped his coat closely about him, and David touched Don impatiently. The drive had been rather a failure, he thought, and they might as well be getting home. But he had time for a good many troubled thoughts ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... produced in 1919, compared with thirty-nine million tons in 1916. People have forgotten the gospel of service. The producing power per man has fallen off from fifteen to twenty per cent. We have all been keen on developing consumption. We have devoted nine-tenths of our thought, energy and effort to developing consumption. This message is to beg of every reader to give more thought to developing production, to the reviving of ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... that he is driving; Which a ravenous wolf resembles; Or a raven, keen for quarry, Or a lark, with fluttering pinions. Six there are of golden song-birds, On his shafts all sweetly singing, And of blue birds, seven are singing Sitting on ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... his time to play, for which he showed a decided aptitude. It was play of the best sort, in the woods and fields, where he learned to love nature and natural objects, to wonder at floods, to watch the habits of fish and birds, and to acquire a keen taste for field sports. His companion was an old British sailor, who carried the child on his back, rowed with him on the river, taught him the angler's art, and, best of all, poured into his delighted ear endless stories of an adventurous life, of Admiral Byng and Lord George Germaine, ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Christian, that a prowling wolf should dare so near. He drew his knife and pressed on, more hastily, more keen-eyed. Oh that ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... has nine aims. To see clearly; to understand what he hears; to be warm in manner, dignified in bearing, faithful of speech, keen at work; to ask when in doubt; in anger to think of difficulties; and in sight of gain to think ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... losing its head and other less vital parts. When the Irish tourist was confronted by this battered figure in the museum, and his guide had explained that this was the famous statue of victory, he surveyed the marble form with keen interest. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... succeeded in borrowing for the occasion Hampstead's best horse. Even Vivian, who was not given to much outward enthusiasm, had had consultations with his groom as to which of two he had better ride first. Sometimes there does come a day on which rivalry seems to be especially keen, when a sense of striving to excel and going ahead of others seems to instigate minds which are not always ambitious. Watson and Walker were on this occasion very much exercised, and had in the sweet ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... some of the oil was spilled on the floor. This terrified Mell, for that kitchen-floor was the idol of Mrs. Davis's heart. It was scrubbed every day, and kept as white as snow. Mell knew that her step-mother's eyes would be keen as Blue Beard's to detect a spot; and, with all the energy of despair, she rubbed and scoured with soap and hot water. It was all in vain. The spot would not ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... overbear the man's cool sarcasm with their vehement assertion of knowledge that God spake to Moses, but by the admission that even their knowledge did not reach to the determination of the question of the origin of Jesus' mission, lay themselves open to the sudden thrust of keen-eyed, honest humility's sharp rapier-like retort. 'Herein is a marvellous thing,' that you Know-alls, whose business it is to know where a professed miracle-worker comes from, 'know not from whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes.' 'Now we ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... next transports. Do they think that the service is stinted for want of liberal supplies? Indeed they complain without reason. The table of the House of Commons will glut them, let their appetite for expense be never so keen. And I assure them further, that those who think with them in the House of Commons are full as easy in the control as they are liberal in the vote of these expenses. If this be not supply or confidence sufficient, let them open their own private purse-strings, and give, from what is left to them, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Grace is never otherwise than beauty of form animated into movement by free will; and the movements which belong only to physical nature could not merit the name. It is true that an intellectual man, if he be keen, ends by rendering himself master of almost all the movements of the body; but when the chain which links a fine lineament to a moral sentiment lengthens much, this lineament becomes the property of the structure, and can no longer be counted as ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... A keen remembrance begins not much before the age of eight, nor can I recall a time when I did not love him. My mother's time was took up in making her court to my Lady Giffard, sister to our benefactor, Sir William Temple; ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... Turkish force; but though he fought like a lion, the clan were defeated, and he was forced to fly. For many years Sokol lived in the Albanian mountains, half robber and wholly patriot; but the pursuit became too keen, and he came to Podgorica, where he entered the service of Prince Nicolas. His new Prince he serves loyally, and is highly esteemed in Montenegro, where he will doubtless ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... should use them. If you have a good mind, as I believe you have, learn to employ it for the betterment of your sex, for the time of our emancipation is at hand." Having delivered this little lecture, the lady continued to stare at her with keen eyes. "You look very much like someone I used to love when I was younger. What ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... herself, and if she fails, the land is abundantly worth the mortgage with nothing but weeds on it," the doctor explained. "She is a charming girl. She seems to have inherited all of her mother's sweetness and artistic gifts, without her mother's submissiveness to others; and from her father, she has keen business qualities, but fails to inherit his love of gain and traits of trickery. Her executive mind with her uncle's good heart make a winning team. By the way, my affection for Jim Shirley is leading me ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... committed 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 ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... in that same moment the affair was over. There stood Ristofalo, gentle, self-contained, with just a perceptible smile turned upon the crowd, no knife in his hand, and beside him the slender, sinewy, form, and keen gray eye of ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... paragraph ends. It came in an ordinary society paper. It bore no marks of ill-will. It came in the midst of a column of the usual silly adulation of everybody and everything; how it got there is of no importance. There it stood and the keen eye of Capricorn noted it and ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... little or nothing about them save a portrait of the high priest in his vestments. What come vividly back on my mind are remembrances of my delight in the histories of Joseph and of David; and of my keen appreciation of the chivalrous kindness of Abraham in his dealing with Lot. Like a sudden flash there returns back upon me, my utter scorn of the pettifogging meanness of Jacob, and my sympathetic ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... that of the great scholar, but of the logician of keen, accurate perceptions. He was not an encyclopedia, but a compact volume of naked logic. He was capable of the very nicest discriminations; and he had the faculty of pointing out a fallacy with marvelous clearness, and of turning ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... walk with you, sir, if you don't mind," the reporter said. "It is a very serious matter indeed, this! My people are as keen as possible to make use of it. If they do, and it turns out a true story, you, of course, will never sit for Leeds. And if on the other hand it is false, I shall get ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said Miss Fennimore. 'With so strong a relish for society, such keen satire, and reasoning power so much developed, I believe nothing but the devotional principle could subdue her enough to make her a well-balanced woman. How is that to be infused?—that is ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will find, perhaps not till you open the door. But you start back from one room, and hold your breath in another, hastening to get away; not because you have studied chemistry and can analyze the air, but because your keen physical sense is smitten. Keep your moral sense as fresh, as keen; and the moment you find foul air in a book, throw the book in the fire. Do not leave it about to poison some one else. And if you find no wholesome stir, no real refreshment, but only a feverish thirst ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... of the Church: and if so, the manner in which Rome can put herself more in harmony with the spirit of recent discoveries, without putting herself in an illogical position, is not likely to escape eyes so keen as those of the Catholic hierarchy. No sensible man will hesitate to admit that many an interpretation which was natural to and suitable for one age is unnatural to and unsuitable for another; as circumstances are always changing, so men's moods and the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... It's always the way with these swells; when they want anything, they want it all in a minute. Something like ham and eggs! Rather different to the measly rasher and the antediluvian eggs from the grocer's opposite. But you don't seem to be very keen?" he added, as Nell pushed her plate away and absently took a slice of toast. "Miss the good old London air, Nell, or the appetizing smells ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... his education has been neglected, how vitiated the Revolution made him, and that but lately his principal associates were, like himself, from among the vilest and most vulgar of the rabble. It is not necessary to be a keen observer to remark in Napoleon the upstart soldier, and in Joseph the former low member of the law; but I defy the most refined courtier to see in Lucien anything indicating a ci-devant sans-culotte. He has, besides, other qualities (and those ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... if I knew where Olivia was, and could communicate with her when I chose. I was merely anticipating the time when Tardif felt sure of hearing from her. Foster lay still, watching me with his cold, keen eyes. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... picture, even more than a faithful transcript, was gathering ground. The "Procession of the Relic" was still in Gentile's studio, but the Frari "Madonna and Child" was just installed in its place. Carpaccio was beginning his long series of St. Ursula, and the Bellini and Vivarini were in keen rivalship. ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... lowing of the cattle and the bleating of the sheep still came on the keen, fresh morning air. Among the crowd she recognized the locksmiths by their blue frocks, the masons by their white overalls, the painters by their coats, from under which hung their blouses. This crowd was cheerless. All of neutral tints—grays and blues predominating, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... reached the upper landing, that the others were by the window, and that the window was open. A keen wind rushed through it, and by the blown candle's light he could see snowflakes whirled into the house through the window's dark, star-studded square. There was whispering going on. He heard ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... he has not authorized me to speak of it. Have patience; let him go to work, wait, and you will see if old Seignebos has a keen scent." ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... children, and had only 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 in the morning before ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... shockingly unsteady on your feet, and feel very dazed and feeble; but you are also hungrier than ever now, with the keen morning air whetting your appetite, and the immediate business ahead of you is to find food. So you turn to the bank at your side and begin to grub; and as you grub you wander on, eating the roots that you scratch up ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... hath not Fortune to friend." Then they arose on the morrow and busied themselves with contriving how they should turn away their parent from that man, and the mother forefelt mischief from them, for what she saw in their eyes of change, she being wily and keen of wit. So she took precaution for herself against her children and Salma said to Salim, "Thou seest what we have fallen upon through this woman, and very sooth she hath sensed our purpose and wotteth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... is a powerful, savage beast, and directing his strong jaws, tireless muscles, keen scent, and all-seeing eyes are exceedingly nimble wits. He is well equipped to make the severe struggle for existence which his present environment compels. In many Western localities, despite the high price offered for his scalp, he has ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... and wind assisted the fire in drying our clothes, and we were soon ready to commence our journey. We kept our eyes about us as we went on, on the chance of any birds or animals appearing. Hunger, it is truly said, makes keen sportsmen, and we should not have let a mouse escape us if we had seen one. We kept close to the bank, and for a mile or more the rapids continued, though we saw that on the opposite side a canoe might descend without danger. Alick was constantly examining the bank. "I ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... I took up my keen hunting knife and deliberately and slowly opened the side of my thumb, more to the pain of Jimmy, I fancy, than to myself, as I could see by the ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... places, and also by those, especially the empathic habits, connected with individual nervous condition: people accustomed to the round arch finding the Gothic one unstable and eccentric; and, on the other hand, a person taking keen pleasure in the sudden and lurching lines of Lotto finding those of Titian tame and humdrum. But such intrinsically existing preferences and incompatibility are quite enormously increased by an emotional bias for or against a particular kind of art; by which I mean a bias not due to that art's ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... wiliness, and the same indifference to consequences when once an idea had taken possession of him. And that's just what happened. When Mellor confided to him his secret, the idea possessed him, and he was just as keen on carrying it out as Mellor. If between them they could only get possession of the Garside flag, it would be one of the greatest achievements in the history ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... one of the pieces is marked with a star. Now when the whole is properly fitted together it will set inside that square and the star will rest directly above the hidden spring. As you have most at stake, it is for you to give to the world the last words of the Rajah. Is your wit keen enough, and your courage high enough to essay and ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... to bed, dear Antony; then, with the dawn of a new day we shall all arise with hearts refreshed and wits more keen. So ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... might not be snapped up as so many mouthfuls by the dragon. But as Jason was hastening down the palace steps, the Princess Medea called after him and beckoned him to return. Her black eyes shone upon him with such a keen intelligence that he felt as if there were a serpent peeping out of them, and although she had done him so much service only the night before, he was by no means very certain that she would not do him an equally great mischief before ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... Keen, alert, intelligent Chinese boys addressed the crowds admonishing them not to buy Japanese goods in Chinese shops. The pressure became so strong that all Chinese merchants from the lowest shopkeeper up ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... their own brothers to get near the spoil. And would they not repel a foreigner,— One they had cause to envy? Englishmen Are very unforgiving of defeat. It is your glory, the impediment: So gluttonous are soldiers of reward— So sporting-keen are Englishmen for fame. ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... fulness of his strength, of medium stature, his body vigorous and without the corpulency of his later years, appearing tall beside the small, delicate, boyish form of Melanchthon. In the face which showed the effects of vigils and inward struggles, shone two fiery eyes whose keen brilliancy was hard to meet. He was a respected man, not only in his order, but at the University; not a great scholar—he learned Greek from Melanchthon in the first year of his professorship, and Hebrew soon after. He had no extensive book learning, and never had the ambition to shine ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... few weeks before she died, she spoke of this to her old friend, Brigadier Elizabeth Thomas, adding, 'Whenever "Twice Born Men" is mentioned, I want to run and hide my head.' But while she felt all this, her keen sense of true values withheld her from putting a trumpet to her lips and declaring it. Rather, with that Christlike modesty and dignity that characterized all her public service, she entered every door that publicity opened to her and gave her message. ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... smiled as one who invites further confidences. But he received instead a keen glance from the old ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... chiefly owing to an accident, which had rendered her almost incapable of walking, and she was also extremely susceptible of cold, and therefore hardly ever went out; but there was so much youth and life about her at sixty-three that she and Annaple often seemed like companion sisters, and her shrewd, keen, managing eldest-born like ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fault as mine that he was the wrong man in the place. He couldn't do any harm in Jerusalem, it seemed. Let him wail in the Jews' Wailing Place, if he'd any complaints, said I to myself. I thought he was too keen on money to resign because his silly pride was hurt. But to my surprise, he informed me that he'd come to 'hand in his papers,' as he called it. So much the worse for his pocket and the better for mine! Only it struck me as d—d queer, considering ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... waiting impatient—the entire crowd, touched to its heart with one impulse, broke into a burst of weeping and lamentation, "a chaudes larmes" according to the graphic French expression. They wept hot tears as in the keen personal pang of sorrow and fellow-feeling and impotence to help. Winchester—withdrawn high on his platform, ostentatiously separated from any share in it, a spectator merely—wept; and the judges wept. The Bishop of Boulogne ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... tomb. For talents mourn, untimely lost When best employed, and wanted most; Mourn genius high, and lore profound, And wit that loved to play, not wound; And all the reasoning powers divine, To penetrate, resolve, combine; And feelings keen, and fancy's glow - They sleep with him who sleeps below: And if thou mourn'st they could not save From error him who owns this grave, Be every harsher thought suppressed, And sacred be the last long rest. HERE, where the end of earthly things Lays heroes, patriots, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... as good a word as any I can jump on at short notice," replied Buck. "He seemed as keen on getting back to London as some o' these globetrotters who have got sick o' ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... here Baxter's Anacreon, which he told me he had long inquired for in vain, and began to suspect there was no such book. Baxter was the keen antagonist of Barnes. His life is in the Biographia Britannica. My father has written many notes on this book, and Dr Johnson and I ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... whole responsibility of the family's support should come upon her and Belle, what would they do? Her heart sank, and her very soul cowered at the prospect. She could not live in the present hour like Belle, but with too keen a foresight realized how dark and threatening ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... group, Charley dismounted, and petting and soothing his trembling horse, ran his keen eyes over the animal's legs and flanks. From the little pony's left foreleg trickled ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... about himself, though he seems to; and I don't think my father understood what he was feeling. Jack doesn't like being interfered with, and he was getting to resent programmes being drawn up. Papa is so tremendously keen about anything he takes up that he carries one away; and then you come and smooth out all the difficulties. It isn't always easy—" she broke off suddenly, and added, "That is what Jack wants, what he calls something REAL. He is bored with the life ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... stranger than expected, this is not so with Egypt. Everything seems to be just as I had imagined it. We know too much about the land of the Pharaohs to be taken thoroughly by surprise. Perhaps there is something in our having seen so much that our perceptions are no longer as keen as when we landed in Japan. The appetite for sight-seeing becomes sated, like any other, and I fear we are not as impressionable as before. So we decide not to visit Turkey and Greece upon this trip but to take these when fresh. The crowds of squalid wretches who surround ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... expenditure of much time and trouble, prepared a revised form, but the companies failed to agree to their general adoption, and without legislation, compulsion could not of course be applied. This led to the Board of Trade, who were keen on uniformity, appointing, in 1906, a Departmental Committee on the subject. On this Committee sat my friend Walter Bailey. The Committee heard much evidence, considered the subject very thoroughly, and recommended new forms of Accounts and Statistical Returns, which were ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... up at the inn where the Inspector was waiting, and soon afterwards were bowling along between the high banks of the country lanes to the tunnel. It was a cold, still afternoon; the air was wonderfully keen, for a sharp frost had held the countryside in its grip for the last two days. The sun was just tipping the hills to westward when the trap pulled up at the top of the cutting. We hastily alighted, and the Inspector and I bade Bainbridge good-bye. He said that he only wished that he could stay ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... to express himself in action on these assumptions. So while he seems to take in what is told him, with an intuition that is surprisingly swift, and a personal adaptation no less surprising, the disappointment is only the more keen when the instructor finds the next day that he has not penetrated at all into the inner current of this scholar's ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... crab's provender: crab's love, if soothing, Is no sweeter than pincers are soft—and a new sickle Cuts no sharper than crab's claws nip, keen as boar's toothing! Yet crab's love's no less fervent than bard's, if less musical— 'Tis a new thing I'd lilt—but a ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... captains to De Soto with the command that he should immediately take a troop of horse, proceed to the doomed village, gallop into its peaceful and defenceless street, set fire to every dwelling, and with their keen sabres, cut down every man, woman and child. It was a deed fit only for ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... work; let her, if she will, measure the stellar distances, study the mechanical principles or the learned professions, make a picture or write a book; and there have been women, true and noble women, who have done all these, women who have proved themselves capable of as high attainments, as keen and subtile thought as man; but let her never for such as these abdicate her own nobler work, neglecting the greater for the less. If a woman has a special gift, let her exercise it; if she has a particular mission, let her work ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... scarcely be compressed into eight volumes of a modern history. As a work of art, of its kind, it is unrivaled. In his description of the plague of Athens he is minute as he is simple. He abounds with rich moral reflections, and has a keen perception of human character. His pictures are striking and tragic. He is vigorous and intense, and every word he uses has a meaning. But some of his sentences are not always easily understood. One of the greatest tributes which can be paid to him is, that, according to the estimate of ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... is to be any other rule, that of hereditary succession is perhaps as good as any. By no other rule is it possible to preserve the liberties of the State. By no other to intrust the power of making the laws to those only who have that keen instinctive sense of injustice and wrong which enables them to detect baseness and corruption in their most secret hiding-places, and that moral courage and generous manliness and gallant independence that make them fearless in dragging out the perpetrators to the light of day, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... forgiven for his review, and above all Jeffrey, a friend, though of opposite character, nearly as true as Irving himself. Procter had introduced Carlyle to the famous editor, who, as a Scotch cousin of the Welshes, took from the first a keen interest in the still struggling author, and opened to him the door of the Edinburgh Review. The appearance, of the article on Richter, 1827, and that, in the course of the same year, on The State of German Literature, marks the beginning of a long series of splendid historical and critical ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... kindly to the powers that be; I marvel they should use me so well; and when I think of the case of others, I wonder too, but in another vein, whether they may not, whether they must not, be like me, still with some compensation, some delight. To have suffered, nay, to suffer, sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great truth, and has to be learned in the fire. - Yours ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and, unobserved herself, to observe all that passed. Her nearest relations were aware that she had good sense, but seem not to have suspected that under her demure and bashful deportment were concealed a fertile invention and a keen sense of the ridiculous. She had not, it is true, an eye for the fine shades of character. But every marked peculiarity instantly caught her notice and remained engraven on her imagination. Thus while still ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... a sudden now spruce and keen, as a new ground hatchet. He now began to have a good opinion of his own features and good parts, now to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... direct towards any reasonable and definite end. This rendered her tongue-tied, and, as she fancied, stupid. Her unreadiness mortified her. She, usually indifferent enough to the impression she produced on others, was sensible of a keen desire to appear at her best. She did in fact, so she believed, appear at her worst, slow of understanding and of sympathy.—But then all the future hung in the balance. The scale delayed to turn. And the strain of waiting became agitating to the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... our teeth," whispered Paignton Rob. The ears of the serving-man were keen, "Shall it be ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... hour named, Marcel, Gustave Colline, and Alexander Schaunard, keen set as on the last day of Lent, went to Rodolphe's, whom they found playing with a sandy haired cat, whilst a young woman was ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... his days, did Martin Luther, on parole, under sentence of death, working, thinking, writing, printing. And over in France a serious, sober young man, keen, mentally hungry, translated one of Luther's pamphlets into French, and printed it for his school-fellows. Having printed it, he had to explain it, and next to defend it—and also his action in having printed it. The young man's name was Jean Chauvain. He spelled it "Caulvain" or "Calvain." The ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... and grasslands breed in their sons certain qualities and characteristics-courage, hardihood, the stiff-necked pride of the freeman, vigilance, wariness, sense of locality,[1169] keen powers of observation stimulated by the monotonous, featureless environment, and the consequent capacity to grasp every detail.[1170] Though robbery abroad is honorable and marauder a term with which to crown a hero, theft at home is summarily dealt with among most ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... back to his horse and rode on, still looking for the bag. His search was thorough and, being a keen-eyed young man, he discovered the place where Lorraine had crouched down by a rock. She must have stayed there all night, for the scuffed soil was dry where her body had rested, and her purse, caught in the juniper bush close by, was sodden ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... pardon, talking baudiness, I tried to burst open the door, and could not. I was not fond of poorliness in women, had a keen nose, and oftentimes could smell a woman if poorly, even with her clothes down; how it was I did not smell her, considering how near my nose had been to her split and her breasts, I can't say, but suppose randiness overcame my other senses. I played with my prick which ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... the Lake country. It is needless to say that the first poetess of Nature was charmed with the first poet of Nature, and the poet with the poetess. Her letters were full of expressions of delight and keen appreciation of the privilege she was enjoying. Wordsworth was kindness itself. "I am charmed with Mr. Wordsworth, whose kindness to me has quite a soothing influence over my spirits. Oh! what relief, what blessing there is in the feeling of admiration ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... to the national spirit. Impressionism is an art which does not give much scope to intellectuality, an art whose followers admit scarcely anything but immediate vision, rejecting philosophy and symbols and occupying themselves only with the consideration of light, picturesqueness, keen and clever observation, and antipathy to abstraction, as the innate qualities of French art. We shall see later on, when considering separately its principal masters, that each of them has based his art upon some masters ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... giving him a keen look, in which he seemed to be laughing at the young athlete's uncompromising politics, while admiring ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... keen business ability made him a wealthy man, and sent him to congress as a representative from the great state of New York, is reported to have said, "I would give fifty thousand dollars for a college education." When he ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... man. Ostensibly Sir Ulick had no motive in all this, but the hospitable wish of seeing Castle Hermitage one continued scene of festivity; but under this good fellowship and apparent thoughtlessness and profusion, there was an eye to his own interest, and a keen view to the improvement of his fortune and the advancement of his family. With these habits and views, it was little likely that he should yield to the romantic, jealous, or economic tastes of his new lady—a ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... which did not conceal a mouth cut thin and straight. He had student hands, long and well kept. It was not his dress, though that was careful as a girl's, which set him apart from farmers listening on the benches around him, but the keen light of his blue eyes, wherein ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... came up with him, where he lay panting on a slab among the snow, and caught him by the horns, and forced his head back, and drove the keen sword through ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... Wilbraham is between himself and his bankers, and the sex of Mr. Beechtree between him and his God, and that both are irrelevant to the business before this committee and need not be discussed." The committee applauded this, though they felt a keen interest in both the irrelevant topics. The President called on Signor Cristofero to address the committee, and beckoned Mr. Wilbraham to ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... she, Pauline, had been too willful and headstrong with Harry? If so, was it possible that the keen edge of his adoration was wearing dull? Pauline had just succeeded in stamping these unpleasant questions deep down into the subconscious parts of her mind when the young man whisked up ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... scarcely changed. His dark visage was still vital with intelligence, still keen and strange from the exercise of an inexhaustible imagination. Yet in his eyes, which formerly had sparkled with the wit of youth, there was more depth and a hint of somberness. He had ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... me must at least with equal pace Sometimes move with me at my being's height: To follow him to his more glorious place, His purer atmosphere, were keen delight. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... o'clock profound obscurity enwrapped the hollow. Not a star looked down on us. Heavy clouds driven by a keen eastern wind covered the entire sky. The passage of the "Terror" would be invisible, not only in our immediate neighborhood, but probably across all the American territory and even ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... student body in 1949, and there was little indication that this number would rapidly increase. For the most part the situation was beyond the control of the Bureau of Naval Personnel. Competition was keen for acceptance at Annapolis. The American Civil Liberties Union later asserted that the exclusion of Negroes from many of the private prep schools, which so often produced successful academy applicants, helped explain why there were so ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Mankind, whom my Correspondent wonders should get Estates, are the more immediately formed for that Pursuit: They can expect distant things without Impatience, because they are not carried out of their Way either by violent Passion or keen Appetite to any thing. To Men addicted to Delight[s], Business is an Interruption; to such as are cold to Delights, Business is an Entertainment. For which Reason it was said to one who commended a ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... old fence-rail! How oft these youthful legs, With Alice' and Ben Bolt's, were hung Across those wooden pegs. 'Twas there the nauseating smoke Of my first pipe arose: O mother, dear! these agonies Are far less keen than those. ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... thirty years of age, six feet tall, and weighed a little over two hundred pounds. He would not be called handsome, although he was really a fine looking man, with keen gray eyes that could become hard and penetrating when he was greatly moved. He was a gentle man with a soft, quiet voice and a Southern drawl. He was very religious and was the Second Elder in ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... hollow shell the Southern Confederacy really was. The lieutenant evidently has a large strain of white blood in his veins, and could probably, if so disposed, trace descent from the F. F's. He stands six feet, is well proportioned, has a keen, quick eye, a gentlemanly address, and a soldierly bearing. He goes from here to his home in Georgia, on a leave of absence which extends to the first of November, when he will join the Tenth Cavalry, ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... years, and abundantly mischievous in its effects. With a mind overstrained and a body overtaxed, he was burning his candle at both ends.... A highly irritable organism spurred the writer to excess.... Labor became a passion, and rest intolerable yet with a keen appetite for social enjoyments.... His condition became that of a rider whose horse runs headlong with the bit between his teeth, or of a locomotive, built of indifferent material, under a head of steam too great for ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... heart fill'd with friendship and love, A brain free from passion's excess, A mind a mean action above, A hand to relieve keen distress. Poverty smiled on his birth, And gave what all riches exceeds, Wit, honesty, wisdom, and worth; A soul to effect noble needs. Legitimates bow at his shrine; Unfetter'd he sprung into life; When vigour ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle |
