"Keen-eyed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it "does their own hearts good," to the trouble of inquiring or the pain of refusing,—who would rather relieve twenty rogues than miss the blessing of one honest soul who was ready to perish,—those kind-hearted, free-handed scatterers of indiscriminate benevolence who are the keen-eyed, whining cadger's chief support, his standing joke, and favourite prey; and who are more than ever disposed to give to whomsoever shall ask of them in such a season as this. All the mendicancy which appears on our streets ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... my mind of the Royal Family as it filed out of church on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. The Prince, heavy-built, imposing, gorgeous; his hair iron grey, ruddy-faced, hook-nosed, keen-eyed. Danilo, his heir, crimped, oiled and self-conscious, in no respect a chip of the old block, who had married the previous year, Jutta, daughter of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz, who, on her reception into the Orthodox Church, took the name of Militza. Montenegro was still excited ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... one occasion he met his match in a pert, jolly, keen-eyed son of Erin, who was up as a witness in a case of dispute in the matter of a horse deal. Curran was anxious to break down the credibility of this witness, and thought to do it by making the man contradict himself—by tangling him up ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... position and distribution of the land and its peoples, "even from the Caspian to the Northern Ocean, where men are said to have dogs' faces," are now first described by an honest and clear-headed and keen-eyed observer, neither timid ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... twenty-five louis each, which would have been a reasonable price for a book which no one ever saw! They invited De Bure to dinner, flattered and cajoled him, and, as they imagined, at a moment they had wound him up to their pitch, they exhibited their manufacture; the keen-eyed glance of the renowned cataloguer of the "Bibliographie Instructive" instantly shot like lightning over it, and, like lightning, destroyed the whole edition. He not only discovered the forgery, but reprobated it! He refused his sanction; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the French king, with all his new chivalry around him, dashed down the narrow valley—the white standard of France on one side of him, his keen-eyed little son on the other—and began to deploy the whole advance battalion, preliminary to a grand charge—whiz! whiz! whir! whir! from both sides came the arrows, as thick as hail and as terrible as javelins, from the hidden archers. The astonished ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Shakespeare for dubious things which he makes his gentlewomen say and do, they are apt to forget how surprising were the canons of behaviour and decorum for gentlewomen under good Queen Bess. For my part I am prepared in all such cases to give their keen-eyed and marvellous contemporary the benefit of the doubt. He would not represent ladies as ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... feverish until two o'clock; for I could not guess the effect of this telegram, should it be read by Pendleton. I found him impassive and keen-eyed, and I waited longer than usual for that aquiline swoop of his, as he turned in his revolving chair. I felt sure then that he had not read the ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... the girl's cheeks signaled the fact that Betty had guessed more of the truth than Louise cared to have her or anybody know. She shook her head negatively to the keen-eyed old woman; nevertheless she went forward, found one of Lawford's handkerchiefs and bound up his head. The cut did not seem very deep; yet the shock of the blow he had suffered certainly had ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... but I say for all that that she's a goin' off in her looks mighty fast," replied the keen-eyed Mike. "You don't think she'd be a ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... them dreaded a failure in the coming bodily tests before the keen-eyed, impartial surgeons of the ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... led the way with great care and formality. To a keen-eyed observer, though, his courtesy would have appeared over acted and fulsome; but the object of his assiduities seemed to pay him little attention, further than by a vacant smile that struggled around the corners of his ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... better class of houses this iron work is rendered quite ornamental. The narrow streets are kept scrupulously clean, and are paved with cobble-stones which we were told were brought by ships from the coast of New England, and have a gutter running down the middle. There is an abundance of active, keen-eyed scavengers waddling about, always on the alert to pick up and devour domestic refuse or garbage of any sort which is found in the streets. These are the dark-plumed, funereal-looking buzzard, or vulture, a bird which is protected by law, and depended on ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... "But—but," sputtered the keen-eyed little Irishman, "'Tis not Charlie at all! 'Tis but an effigy dressed in Charlie's clothes and hung at the ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... my tripod with a sandbag to prevent it glistening in the sun. As I drew nearer to the trench, which I could now see quite distinctly, more and more of St. Quentin came into view. Such a picture gives one rather a queerish feeling. If a keen-eyed Hun observer spotted me, with my load, he would take me for a machine-gunner or something equally dangerous. But, fortunately, ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... As it was, they had been given no alternative, and Miss Norris, who had proposed to catch an after-dinner train at the junction, in the obvious hope that she might have in this way a dramatic cross-examination at the hands of some keen-eyed detective, was encouraged tactfully, but quite firmly, to travel by the earlier train with the others. Antony had felt that Cayley, in the tragedy which had suddenly befallen the house, ought to have ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... leader addressed the men during the afternoon, and Jim listened to him with deep interest. Peter Lalor was a young Irishman, not yet thirty-five, not far short of six feet in height, and splendidly proportioned; keen-eyed, too, with regular features and a resolute, convincing air. There was a note of domination in the man's character, and he was certainly the strongest personality in the republican movement. He pleaded for zeal in the sacred cause for which they might presently be called upon to shed their ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... hundred and eleven barrels of oil in her lower hold. The governor expressed his sense of Betts' services, and reminding him of his old faculty of seeing farther and truer than most on board, he asked him to go up into the brig's cross-trees and take a look for whales. The keen-eyed fellow had not been aloft ten minutes, before the cry of "spouts—spouts!" was ringing through the vessel. The proper signal was made to the Henlopen and Abraham, when everybody made sail in the necessary direction. By sunset a great number of whales were fallen ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... presence much less the counsel of the professional patriot, with his insistent blue uniform and brass buttons. Under an elaborate pretense of independence, John Kollander was a limber-kneed time-server, always keen-eyed for the crumbs of Dives' table; odd jobs in receiverships, odd jobs in lawsuits for Daniel Sands—as, for instance, furnishing unexpected witnesses to prove improbable contentions—odd jobs in his church, odd jobs in his party organization, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... sharp edge which one can so often detect in otherwise warm winds blowing under a hot sun. Though she had already travelled so many miles, Connie brightened up within a few minutes after we got on this moor; and we had not gone much farther before a shout from the rumble informed us that keen-eyed little Dora had discovered the Atlantic: a dip in the high coast revealed it blue and bright. We soon lost sight of it again, but in Connie's eyes it seemed to linger still. As often as I looked round, the blue of them seemed the reflection of the sea in their little convex mirrors. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... a keen-eyed, quiet man, with a brown, closely-cut beard, had paused in his occupation of buttering hot toast for the impending rabbit, and was smiling quizzically. "If you have literary secrets to dispose of, Mrs. Littleton, let me warn you against making a confidant ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... evergreen oak and heath, and a species of sundew, with here and there yellow broom, gum cistus, and an unfamiliar plant with blue flowers. Trees and shrubs fight for light and air, the fittest survive and thrive, sheltering little birds from the keen-eyed, quivering hawks above them. The road makes me think of what the French Mediterranean littoral must have been before it was dotted over with countless vulgar villas, covered with trees and shrubs that are not indigenous to the soil, and tortured into trim gardens that might have ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... asked all three of the non-commissioned officers some further questions as they stood there. None of the quartette discovered the fact that, close to them, crouching under the canvas cover of a life boat as it swung at davits, lay one of the keen-eyed Filipino passengers. This swarthy little fellow was only about half versed in English, but he understood enough of the talk to realize what was ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... was as keen-eyed as the red-headed chief. In the new boldness that she had learned in her position as general pet of the expedition, she would sometimes talk to the ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... afternoon Billy invited Carl to go with him to Centerville, and there he was fitted out with a good supply of everything he needed in the way of clothes. So great was the change on his return that at first the keen-eyed little Tom was not able to recognize him, but a moment later exclaimed: "Ah, Carl, I always knew ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... belonged to the eyes or to the glasses. "I could almost believe that he remembers the Time- travellers," she said to herself. But if he did he gave no further sign of it, nor could the children see much trace of the boy Hugh in this keen-eyed, ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... look at him more closely, and with an involuntary feeling of apprehension; if the man was not mad, he was in a state of mind akin to madness, and quite as dangerous. The sheriff felt that he must speak the prisoner fair, and watch for a chance to turn the tables on him. The keen-eyed, desperate man before him was a different being altogether from the groveling wretch who had begged so piteously for life a few ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... against the wall, his hat in his hand. The light from the eight-sided hall lamp fell on his thick-set shoulders and square, determined, honest face. The keen-eyed, blunt Vermonter's distress at the news ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... The keen-eyed Asiatic took his place with Themistocles and Glaucon in the stern. The sturdy boatmen sent the pinnace dancing. All through the brief voyage the admiral was at whispers with Sicinnus. As they reached the Spartan flag-ship, half a score of pinnaces trailing behind told how the Peloponnesian ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... spiteful words, for well He hated him with grudge despiteous. Full oft his wrath was roused to such a point He could not hold his peace; even to the King He jeered one day at visionary knights. The keen-eyed King, with intuition, knew The motive of his speech,—"Our knight, Sanpeur, But contradicts your verdict, Torm, and proves That which the great King Arthur taught,—the man Is strongest who can claim a strength divine From whence ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... erratic scrawl of fleurs-de-lis—on the easy sand. Halting on the verge of the water, it furtively picks up crabs as if it were a trespasser, conscious of a shameful or wicked deed and fearful of detection. It is not night nor yet quite day, but this keen-eyed, suspicious bird knows all the permanent features of the sand-spit. The crouching, unaccustomed shape bewilders it; it pipes inquiringly, stops, starts with quick, agitated steps, snatches a crab—a desperate deed—and flies ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... they skirted the edge of the forest—the waggons keeping in the open—kept on making incursions towards where the huge trees spread their boughs, and the country was park-like and grand. And now, to bring forth the driver's exclamation, the keen-eyed black fellow, who had evidently caught sight of something which had excited his interest, was running swiftly in and out of the bushes more and more towards the great trees, in full chase, throwing up his spear now and then as if to signal his ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... assorted weapons, priests of the Orthodox Church with uncut hair and beards, wearing hats that look like inverted stovepipes, hook-nosed, white-bearded, patriarchal-looking Turks in flowing robes and snowy turbans, fierce-faced, keen-eyed mountain herdsmen in fur caps and coats of sheepskin—all these combined to make me feel that I had intruded upon the stage of a theater during a musical comedy performance, and that I must find the ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... this from love of justice, from devotion to his neighbour—no! he simply tries to prevent anything that might, in any way, interfere with his ease and comfort. Nikolai Ivanitch is married, and has children. His wife, a smart, sharp-nosed and keen-eyed woman of the tradesman class, has grown somewhat stout of late years, like her husband. He relies on her in everything, and she keeps the key of the cash-box. Drunken brawlers are afraid of her; she does ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define—what is a bird, To classify by rote and book, nor fail To mark its structure and to note the scale Whereon its song might possibly be heard. Thus far, no farther;—so ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... when the first batch of laborers, some American and some Mexican, returned to camp. These men started to go by the checker's hut at a distance, but keen-eyed Superintendent Hawkins saw them and ordered them around to ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... sight of his father was undoubtedly a shock—he looked so worn and old. But in the cab he seemed hardly to have changed, still having the calm look so well remembered, still being upright and keen-eyed. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a big farm. He knew it must be big, because of the bigness of the house and the size and number of the barns and outbuildings. On the porch, in shirt sleeves, smoking a cigar, keen-eyed and middle-aged, ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... The presence of keen-eyed Marie Victor's brass camp-bed in My Lady's sleeping-room was a source of wonder to the velvet-eyed spy who was Ram Lal's especial "Bureau of Intelligence." "Strange ways has this Mem-Sahib," murmured the Hindu when he craved to know if the Daughter of the Sun and Light of the World ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... would answer, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to our compartment. In threes and fours they would shuffle into our car and gaze with dull, stupid curiosity upon the prostrate man, as sheep gaze at a dead member of the flock. Dr. Scholtz, keen-eyed and watchful, stood on guard in the doorway. Platinum would have melted under the courteous warmth of his manner ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... oh, how slow that keen-eyed star Has tracked the chilly grey! What, watching yet? how very far The morning ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... partridges were it not for the rooks and magpies. Hedges wherein the birds can hide their nests are few and far between in the wall country, so the keen-eyed rook spies out many a nest in the spring of the year. For this reason and because they eat the corn, the farmers hate them. We cannot share their feelings. We should be sorry to see the old rookery in the garden diminished in the slightest ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... every one who met him that he was moving aimlessly. Now and then some keen-eyed pedestrian stopped to take a second look and, turning to do so, felt an instinctive pity for this burdened, care-encumbered man, wending his way ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... Glenora in a fine canoe owned and manned by Kitty, a stout, intelligent-looking Indian woman, who charged her passengers a dollar for the fifteen-mile trip. Her crew was four Indian paddlers. In the rapids she also plied the paddle, with stout, telling strokes, and a keen-eyed old man, probably her husband, sat high in the stern and steered. All seemed exhilarated as we shot down through the narrow gorge on the rushing, roaring, throttled river, paddling all the more vigorously the faster the speed of the stream, to hold good steering way. The canoe ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... boys, was that of imitating the noise of every bird and beast in the woods. This faculty was not merely a pastime, but a very necessary part of education, on account of its utility in certain circumstances. The imitations of the gobbling, and other sounds of wild turkeys, often brought those keen-eyed, and ever-watchful tenants of the forest within the reach of their rifle. The bleating of the fawn, brought its dam to her death in the same way. The hunter often collected a company of mopish owls to the trees about his camp, and amused himself with their hoarse screaming; his ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... immeasurably superior to nine-tenths of the books of travel that are offered the public from time to time. Perhaps it is to be traced to the fact that Mr. Lucas is an intellectual loiterer, rather than a keen-eyed reporter, eager to catch a train for the next stopping-place. It is also to be found partially in the fact that the author is so much in love with the artistic life of ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... already far upon my journey. It was a Sabbath morning, and from every village rose the sweet tinkling and calling of the bells. I bore no dangerous papers with me now, and might therefore be more careless as to my route. At one point I was questioned by a keen-eyed toll-keeper as to whence I came, but my reply that I was riding direct from his Grace of Beaufort put an end to his suspicions. Further down, near Axbridge, I overtook a grazier who was jogging into Wells upon his sleek cob. With him I rode for some time, and ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the war the gallant Blackburn, scouting with six comrades in thick bush, found himself in the presence of a considerable commando. The British concealed themselves by the path, but Blackburn's foot was seen by a keen-eyed Kaffir, who pointed it out to his masters. A sudden volley riddled Blackburn with bullets; but his men stayed by him and drove off the enemy. Blackburn dictated an official report of the action, and ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... conversation he was fluent and agreeable, defending the peculiar domestic institutions of his people. The delegate from Oregon was Mr. Joseph Lane, who had served bravely in the Mexican war, gone to Oregon as its first Governor, and been returned as its first Territorial Delegate. He was a keen-eyed, trimly built man, of limited education, but the possessor of great common sense. Henry M. Rice, the first Delegate from the Territory of Minnesota, had been for years an Indian trader in connection with ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... that their visitors were two keen-eyed men. The evidence of their calling lay in the stars that decorated their left breasts. Both looked as though they could hold their own against odds. And of course they were armed as became ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... result, rode a little further forward, and the group of staff officers, of course, went with him. Some keen-eyed Northern gunner picked them out, and a shell fell near. Then came another yet nearer, and when it burst it threw ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sensitive to a possible charge of jealousy before this keen-eyed mother of a girl whose beauty had been the talk of the settlement now ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... stepped forward, the herald rose and proclaimed the rules of the game: how that each man should shoot three shots, and to him who shot best the prize of a yoke of fat steers should belong. A dozen keen-eyed bowmen were there, and among them some of the best fellows in the Forester's and Sheriff's companies. Down at the end of the line towered the tall beggar-man, who must needs twang a bow-string with ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... by the Princess Ta-user. She delivered it not. The word she should have brought came to Moses by a son of Belial, a godless Hebrew, sent by Jambres, for the brotherhood of priests would have had Moses come to the temple, for their own ends. But the servants of the Lord God of Israel are keen-eyed and they know a jackal from a hare. However, these matters I did not hear from the people. Such secret things are not discussed upon the streets. All that I heard in Pithom may be talked openly ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the city that they sought. So numerous and so prominent upon the bold bluff of Cole's Hill were these graves becoming, that Standish, overlooking the town from the Fort and his home close beneath its walls, pointed out to Carver and Bradford that the savages, doubtless as keen-eyed as himself, would in seeing how many of the invaders were under ground find courage to attack those still living, and it was his proposal that the earth should be leveled ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... meaning of the passage! And the same demand is made upon our credulity in regard to the eight hundred and fifty similar instances! Sir Frederic Madden, Mr. Duffus Hardy, Mr. Hamilton, Dr. Ingleby, accomplished palaeographers, keen-eyed, remorseless investigators, learned doctors though you be, you cannot make men who have common sense believe this. Your tests, your sharp eyes, and your optical aids, even that dreadful "microscope bearing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... hand, the poppies had prospered in my field; and not only had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the birds. Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed unharvested each year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy seeds were hidden from the keen-eyed songsters. And further, climbing after the sun through the wheat stalks, the poppies grew taller and taller and more royal even than the primordial ones of ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... make the latter condition unirksome. Happily there was small need to delve at learning. His brain was like that of a healthy wild animal freshly captured from nature. And as such an animal learns to snap at flung bits of food, springing to meet them and sinking back on his haunches keen-eyed for more; so mentally he caught at the lessons prepared for him by his professors: every faculty asked only to be fed—and remained ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... from the keen-eyed Bushman produced a joyful effect. He saw grass in front. He saw some bushes with leaves! They were still a mile off, but the oxen, as if the announcement had been understood by them, moved more ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... the window in the little passage was filled with plants. His guide led him into what seemed to him an enchanting room—homely enough it was, but luxurious compared to what he had been accustomed to. He saw white walls and a brown-hued but clean-swept wooden floor, on which shone a keen-eyed little fire from a low grate. Two easy chairs, covered with some party-coloured striped stuff, stood one on each side of the fire. A kettle was singing on the hob. The white deal-table was set for tea—with a fat brown teapot, and ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... ships up in the Hamoaze or Portsdown creek, you will understand that London, as well as the dockyard towns, was full of seafarers. You could not walk the streets without catching sight of the gipsy-faced, keen-eyed men whose plain clothes told of their thin purses as plainly as their listless air showed their weariness of a life of forced and unaccustomed inaction. Amid the dark streets and brick houses there ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... keen-eyed Scot. "I houp Sir Henry trusts me as a faithfu' servant. I've been on Glencardine estate ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... audacious old houses were stored. He glorified the ships themselves. From the quarter decks of our clippers, those marvels of cleanliness and speed, he told how those miraculous captains had issued their orders to Yankee sailors, brawny, deep-chested, keen-eyed and strong-limbed. He told what perils they had faced far out on the Atlantic—"the Roaring Forties" those waters ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... advocates and their different ways of living; of the Pope in his closet and of Guido in the prison cell; and last, the full description of the streets and the Piazza del Popolo on the day of the execution—all with a hundred vivifying, illuminating, minute details attached to them by this keen-eyed, observant, questing poet who remembered everything he saw, and was able to use each detail where it was most wanted. Memories are good, but good usage of them is the fine power. The mise-en-scene ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Voltaire and Rousseau and the company of the "Encyclopaedia," had been keenly conscious of the corroding evils in the whole system of French political and social life, and had labored directly and indirectly to diminish them. Keen-eyed observers from abroad, men of the world like Chesterfield, philosophers like Arthur Young, had at different epochs observed the symptoms of social disease and prognosticated the nature of its progress. The France of that day has been likened to a pyramid with the sovereign for its apex, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... A keen-eyed, quick-speaking woman met her at the elevator, and led her back into what she called "your corner" of the room. Evidently the room was divided into countless corners, for several groups were clustered together in different sections. But Eveley gave them only a fleeting glance. Her heart ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... and "monkeys." Where poverty ceases, avarice begins. From the day when Sechard first caught a glimpse of the possibility of making a fortune, a growing covetousness developed and sharpened in him a certain practical faculty for business—greedy, suspicious, and keen-eyed. He carried on his craft in disdain of theory. In course of time he had learned to estimate at a glance the cost of printing per page or per sheet in every kind of type. He proved to unlettered customers that large type costs more to move; or, if ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... every now and then to turn a page. The old woman enters from right, and comes quickly towards Franklin. She is wonderfully keen-eyed and light of foot, and is clad in a green quilted petticoat, with a green bodice, a touch of white at neck, and a green double cape. A white cap is perched on her snow-white head. She also carries a small market-basket, ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... the Museum of the American Society for Scientific Research. In a room of the biological department there, the precious fragment of golden quartz lies guarded. A microscope is over it, and there is never a moment of the day or night without an alert, keen-eyed watcher ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... caught by a signal from the other vessel, and a keen-eyed sailor wig-wagged back an answer. It was all right, although at first I still remembered the timely warning regarding the slightly submerged mine. As a matter of fact, it was merely a desire of the sister ship's captain to turn around and "sweep ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... a careful look at Bent's friend as they all sat down to supper—out of sheer habit of inspecting any man who was new to him. And after a glance or two he said to himself that this young limb of the law was a sharp chap—a keen-eyed, alert, noticeable fellow, whose every action and tone denoted great mental activity. He was sharper than Bent, said Cotherstone, and in his opinion, that was saying a good deal. Bent's ability was on the surface; he was an excellent specimen of the business man of ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... would heal the paralytic, and, before He dealt with bodily disease, attended to spiritual weakness, and said, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee,' ere He said, 'Take up thy bed and walk,' there was a group of keen-eyed hunters after heresy sitting eagerly on the watch, who snatched at the words in a moment, and said, 'Who is this that forgiveth sins? No man forgiveth sins, but God only! This man speaketh blasphemies!' And they were right. He did claim ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... respected by both parties. I have taken it from an orator, whose eloquence enables Englishmen to repeat the name of Demosthenes and Cicero, without humiliation; from a statesman, who has left to our language a bequest of glory unrivalled and all our own, in the keen-eyed, yet far-sighted genius, with which he has made the profoundest general principles of political wisdom, and even the recondite laws of human passions, bear upon particular measures and passing events. While of the harangues of Pitt, Fox, and their compeers on the most important ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... with, my friend is as keen-eyed, as level-headed as any woman I know—the last person in the world to be taken for a 'sensitive.' I had never suspected it in her; but one night she laughingly admitted having been 'in the work' at one time, and I begged for a sitting. We were dining at her house—Jack Ross, a Miss Wilcox, and ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... round, they try to 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 know' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... long-anticipated holiday. Moved by a common impulse, they all went out on deck to witness the ruins under the effect of sunrise previous to their plunge into the matutinal bath; and it was whilst they were admiring the exquisite beauty of the scene that the keen-eyed colonel became conscious of the fact that they were beleaguered by ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... night canvas dummies were drawn up by mules and set up in the same place. Again the keen-eyed birds of the air spotted them, flashed their range back to their heaviest mouthpieces, and for the better part of the day the entire batteries of their heaviest caliber, expended their energies and their shells on the dummies; there was no kind or character of explosive ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... longer listening. He wished to believe the whole fantastic story an invention of the keen-eyed old madame herself. Yet something within him confessed to its truth. A tumultuous storm of baffled desire, of impotent anger, swept over him. The ring he wore burned into his flesh. But he had no thought of ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... apologising about the forgotten breakfast, of the High Ritual in the sacred place, and the solemn joy of the vested celebrant of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The incense rose in clouds to the gilded, diapered roof, the organ pealed ... then the ward seemed to fill with men in khaki Service dress, keen-eyed and tan-faced beings, of quiet movements and well-bred gestures, obviously stamped with the cachet of authority. Upright, alert, well-knit, and strong, the visitors exhaled the compound fragrance of healthy virility, clean linen, and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the people as could not bear arms lay prostrate in prayer, Anianus, hopeful to the last, sent his messenger to the ramparts to look for the banners of the Roman army. Far and wide, from his lofty outlook, the keen-eyed sentinel surveyed the surrounding country. In vain he looked. No moving object was visible, only the line of the forest and the far-off bordering horizon. He returned with ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... the skaters came into the casino for some hot coffee, their merry voices and laughter filling the room. Seldom is there gathered together a company of finer men and women, boys and girls, than Karen saw before her. Descendants of the Vikings these were,—golden-haired, keen-eyed and crimson-cheeked. ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... let it be Carnac," said Dolphin, looking at the keen-eyed man, who replied, "I pass it ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... straw. The Nation gave the power of the South into the hands of ignorance and poverty and inexperience, and then demanded of them the fruit of intelligence, the strength of riches, and the skill of experience. It put before a keen-eyed and unscrupulous minority—a minority proud, aggressive, turbulent, arrogant, and scornful of all things save their own will and pleasure—the temptation to enhance their power by seizing that held by the trembling hands of simple-minded and unskilled ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... we must rid ourselves were approved warriors, fierce as wolves, cunning as foxes, keen-eyed as hawks. They had no reason to doubt us, to dream that we would turn upon them, but from habit they watched us, with tomahawk and knife resting lightly ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... a strange-looking procession that trudged into barracks. Twenty beautiful, spirited horses, six hangdog-looking thieves, with a single exhausted horse in the rear, on which was mounted an alert, keen-eyed and very hungry young soldier who wore a scarlet tunic and buffalo-head buttons. The next day Corporal Black had another stripe on his sleeve." [The foregoing story is an actual occurrence. The author had the honor of knowing personally the North-West Mounted Policeman ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... to be sent out before they have been carefully considered, and that means long considered, we cannot be responsible for the consequences. Things which look perfectly innocent to you or to the people who send them, when read by the keen-eyed men in the German Intelligence Office may give them all sorts of hints as to what are our doings and intentions. By pleasing one American newspaper you may send thousands of men to their ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... nerved arm to pierce the depth of fate; Marion with rapture seized the sword of fame, Young Laurens graced a father's patriot name; Moultrie and Sumter lead their banded powers, Morgan in front of his bold riflers towers, His host of keen-eyed marksmen, skill'd to pour Their slugs unerring from the twisted bore. No sword, no bayonet they learn to wield, They gall the flank, they skirt the battling field, Cull out the distant foe in full horse speed, Couch the long tube and eye ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... the living animal—a triumph so celebrated in Apelles. Juan Sanchez Cotan, painted at Granada a "Crucifixion," on the cross of which Palomino says birds often attempted to perch, and which at first sight the keen-eyed Cean Bermudez mistook for a piece of sculpture. The reputation of this painter stood so high, that Vincenzio Carducci traveled from Madrid to Granada on purpose to see him; and he is said to have recognized him among the white-robed fraternity of which he was a member, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... undress—say, shirt-sleves, shorts, grey stockings and shoes, bore about the same resemblance to each other that a three months dead jay nailed to a keeper's lodge bears to the bright-plumaged bird when flying about. On horseback, Tom was a cockey, wiry-looking, keen-eyed, grim-visaged, hard-bitten little fellow, sitting as though he and his horse were all one, while on foot he was the most shambling, scambling, crooked-going crab that ever was seen. He was a complete mash of a man. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... mused, "is, no doubt, keen-eyed and eminently shrewd, and one in this world who has ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... trail to the mountain, keeping as much as possible within the great shadows cast by the towering peaks. Not a sound met her acute listening as she pressed on—not a living thing seemed to move anywhere in the whole great Gap, except this slender-footed, keen-eyed girl, whose heart beat with apprehension of wiles, stratagems, and ambush concerning the venture ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... The keen-eyed monkey had found a cellar-window, sunk a little below the level of the ground—a long, narrow, horizontal slip, with a grating over its small area not fastened down. He had lifted it, and pushed open the window, which went inward on rusty hinges—so rusty that they would not ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... occupied an arm-chair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if he were cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the rough-coated keen-eyed ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... returned the woodsman; "should it be keen-eyed Reuben Ring, I shall feel none the less certain that good aid is at my back. The whole of that family are quick of wit and ready of invention, unless it may be the wight who hath got the form without the reason of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... fish that we saw. (The term "fish" is always applied to the salmon by anglers: other inhabitants of the water are spoken of as "trout" or "bass;" a salmon is a "fish.") Although we had seen none before, our keen-eyed Indians had seen many as we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... address to his erring consort. In autumn Tennyson visited the late Duke of Argyll at Inveraray: he was much attached to the Duke—unlike Professor Huxley. Their love of nature, the Duke being as keen-eyed as the poet was short-sighted, was one tie of union. The Indian Mutiny, or at least the death of Havelock, was the occasion of lines which the author was too wise to include in any of his volumes: the poem on Lucknow ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... year almost to a day, with unvarying regularity. They remain in the smooth waters of lagoons for about two weeks, swimming about in incredible numbers, and apparently so terrified of their many enemies in their own element, and the savage, keen-eyed frigate birds which constantly assail them from above, that they sometimes crowd into small pools on the inner reef, and when the tide is low, seek to hide themselves by lying in thick masses under the overhanging ledges of coral rock. ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... Captain Wharton," returned the peddler. "There is a sergeant at this moment looking after us, as if he thought all was not right; the keen-eyed fellow watches me like a tiger lying in wait for his leap. When I stood on the horseblock, he half suspected that something was wrong. Nay, check your beast—we must let the animals walk a little, for he is laying ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... mounted men continued on their way. It was unknown to them, as it was also to their companions in the cornfield, that the keen-eyed Indians had been aware of the departure of the courier from Bryant's Station. Indeed, it was suspected afterward that intentionally the red men had permitted him to proceed through their lines. All the warriors apparently were eager for the messenger ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... it thought I was seeking the little sweet treasure, the hiding-place of which it only knew; but no! I neither desired perpusilla nor the honey. I was on the search for something great this day. Keen-eyed fish-eagles and bustards poised on trees above the sinuous Gombe thought, and probably with good reason that I was after them; judging by the ready flight with which both species disappeared as they sighted my ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... side of the house, and as we turned the corner came on what was evidently the real entrance, facing a sunny slope of garden where hyacinths and violets told of the coming of spring. Here we were greeted by some half a dozen friendly dogs, whose demonstrations brought to the door a neat little, keen-eyed peasant woman, with an expression in her face that suggested that she was the real watch dog, on behalf of her master, standing between him and an intrusive world. As a matter of fact, as we afterward learned, that is one ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... sparkle, and wondered, sickeningly, if the enemy saw it too. But I had not long to wait before being satisfied on this point. The keen-eyed Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled subordinates, but crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it fixedly. Then, grasping the back with his capable-looking hand, instead of beginning at once a quest which his gendarmes had abandoned, ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... going on the Indian who had been in pursuit of her husband returned with his hands stained with pokeberries, waving his tomahawk with violent gestures as if to convey the belief that he had killed Mr. Daviess. The keen-eyed wife soon discovered the deception, and was satisfied that her husband ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... the tent where the boys slept, Dave found a keen-eyed, hatchet-faced man. He sat stiff as a poker, and seemed to pierce Dave through and through with his glance as he looked him ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... exposed: But lo! both spearpoints in their wicker shields Lodged ere a blow was struck, and snapt in twain. Then they unsheathed their swords, and framed new modes Of slaughter: pause or respite there was none. Oft Castor on broad shield and plumed helm Lit, and oft keen-eyed Lynceus pierced his shield, Or grazed his crest of crimson. But anon, As Lynceus aimed his blade at Castor's knee, Back with the left sprang Castor and struck off His fingers: from the maimed limb dropped the sword. And, flying straightway, for his father's tomb He made, ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... dropped in to Chuck Weaver's place, where the sporting men from all over the continent inevitably drifted when in Denver. But he had little expectation of finding the men he wanted there. These two rats of the underworld would not attempt to fleece keen-eyed professionals. They would prey on ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... of the three horsemen, for they were purposely very plainly clad, everything about them, however, looking good and soldierly. It was their beautiful horses that took the attention of most of the sturdy country-looking folks, and more than one keen-eyed man approached them with no little freedom, scanning their mounts from head to heel, one man giving the King a nod and stretching out his hand to run it down his ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn |
