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Schemer   /skˈimər/   Listen
Schemer

noun
1.
A planner who draws up a personal scheme of action.  Synonym: plotter.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Schemer" Quotes from Famous Books



... please,—and then a droop of his blond eyelashes, a lazy, impertinent drawl of his voice, a hint of half-bored condescension in his manner, convinced me that he was shy and affected. In a breath I appraised him as intellectual, a fool, a shallow mind, a deep schemer, an idler, and an enthusiast. One result of his spasmodic confidences was to throw a doubt upon their accuracy. This might be what he desired; or with equal probability it might be the chance reflection of a childish ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... of hiding pearls is to tie the gems in a rag attached to the anchor that is thrown overboard when the boat lands. Another is to fasten a packet to a piece of rigging adroitly run to the masthead, there to remain until opportunity permits the dishonest schemer to ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... time Goldsmith engaged with Dr. Smollett, who was about to launch the "British Magazine." Smollett was a complete schemer and speculator in literature, and intent upon enterprises that had money rather than reputation in view. Goldsmith has a good-humored hit at this propensity in one of his papers in the "Bee," in which he represents Johnson, Hume, and others taking seats in the stagecoach bound for Fame, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... to recover his balance and self-respect. It would have been so like a Lancashire chap to have seen and dealt shrewdly with a business schemer who tried to outwit him that he was gradually convinced that he had thought all that had been suggested, and had comported himself with triumphant though silent astuteness. He even began to ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Seward and Chase already lay the tracks for the Presidential succession, then I can only admire their short-sightedness, nay, utter and darkest blindness. The terrible events will be a schooling for the people; the future President will not be a schemer already shuffling the cards; most probably it will be a man who serves the country, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... with everybody in Paris worth knowing, has a number of offensive and unjustifiable allusions to Lola Montez at this period of her career. He talks of her "consummate impudence," of her "pot-house wit," and of her "grammatical errors," and dubs her, among other things, "this almost illiterate schemer." ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... side of the picture. If no man could become rich in Peru, no man could become poor. No spendthrift could waste his substance in riotous luxury. No adventurous schemer could impoverish his family by the spirit of speculation. The law was constantly directed to enforce a steady industry and a sober management of his affairs. No mendicant was tolerated in Peru. When a man was reduced by poverty or misfortune, (it could hardly be by fault,) the arm of the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... feller!" growled Gavegan. He stepped closer, bulking over Larry. "You think you are such a damned smart talker and such a damned clever schemer—but I'll bet I'll have you locked ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... "You schemer! It's not a bad idea though, and perhaps I'll do the same, though I hate drawing maps. Hello! Is this the piazza? I'd no idea we'd got back to Fossato so soon. Yes, it's been a 'happy day,' but I feel all I want now ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... you. They're at the mercy of any political schemer who thinks it worth his while to fool 'em. Take Leith, for instance. There's a man over there who has controlled every office in that town for twenty-five years or more. He buys and sells votes and credentials like cattle. His name ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... particularly to court, were those who had great possessions. He coveted a fortune that should place his family beyond any chance of poverty. This weakness was his undoing. He became the private partner of an unscrupulous schemer and robber, and intrusted to him all that he had, and more, to be adventured in speculation. His name was dishonored in Wall Street by association with a scoundrel whom prudent financiers distrusted and shunned. He was warned, but would not ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen

... disposition, soon conceived a dislike for the gifted little fellow, and attempted to injure him by composing a piece for the harpsichord full of the most extraordinary difficulties, and then asking him to play it at sight. The boy, however, at once executed it without a mistake, and thus the malicious schemer was foiled by his own device. Attilio was of a different disposition; he praised the young musician to the skies, and was never weary of sitting by his side at the organ or harpsichord, and hearing him ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... fortune on market tips in the Kaffir circus or the industrial "penny bazaar," Nevertheless, it is likely enough that even in the best of the mediaeval days success was not only to the strong and brave, but also went often to the cunning, fawning schemer who pulled the brawny leg of the burly fighting-man. However that may be, there can be no doubt that now the prizes of fortune often go to those who cannot be trusted to make good use of them or even to enjoy them, that Mr Wells's great satire on our financial upstarts—"Tono-Bungay"—has plenty ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... offhand way, of "the perfect woman." It was a faithful list of Miss Millicent's charms, so far as they were apparent to him. Shirley had noted them down with great carefulness, and would be sure to notice how fully the authoress met the ideal he now had in mind. It only remained for the schemer to say something to Miss Fern that would suggest Roseleaf to her, whenever they were ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... cried the Prince, as Mitouflet, his groom of the chambers, came in. "I was just going to send for him!—You may go, Mitouflet.—Go you, my dear old fellow, go and have the nomination made out; I will sign it. At the same time, that low schemer will not long enjoy the fruit of his crimes. He will be sharply watched, and drummed out of the regiment for the smallest fault.—You are saved this time, my dear Hector; take care for the future. Do not exhaust your friends' patience. ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... knowledge? Are you going to be wise and let fate take its course, or are you going to meddle in affairs which you know nothing about? Don't do it, Mr. Courage!" she exclaimed, with a sudden catch in her voice. "Leslie Guest was a diplomatist and a schemer all his life, and you know the penalty he paid. You have not the training or the disposition for this sort of thing. You would be foredoomed to failure. Don't ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... everything to lose by denouncing them. Should the worst come to the worst, the ravings of a dipsomaniac could do little harm to a man as respected as the African merchant. Every event had been foreseen and provided for by the old schemer. Above all, he had devised a method by which even a coroner's inquiry could be faced with impunity, and which would do away with all necessity ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... through blind gluttony cannot be enumerated by a justly incensed pen. The loss to us, to our sons and daughters.... This secret and sinister schemer hid his purpose, it now appears, in a cloak of seeming benevolence. We recall a feeling of doubt, which we generously and wrongfully suppressed at the time, concerning the motives of ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... bitter enmity. With your marriage to Lucille these, so far as I am concerned, ended for ever. I will even admit that in my younger days I was prejudiced against you. That has passed away. You have been all your days a bold and unscrupulous schemer, but ends have at any rate been worthy ones. To-day I am able to regard you with feelings of friendliness. You are the husband of my dear sister, and for years I know that you made her very happy. I ask you, will you believe in this statement of ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... will in no wise consider as an Inanity and Theatricality, a poor conscious ambitious schemer; we cannot conceive him so. The rude message he delivered was a real one withal; an earnest confused voice from the unknown Deep. The man's words were not false, nor his workings here below; no Inanity and Simulacrum; a fiery mass of Life cast-up from the great bosom of Nature ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... elements around, And test the right and wrong! On one side, creeds that dare to teach What Christ and Paul refrained to preach; Codes built upon a broken pledge, And Charity that whets a poniard's edge; Fair schemes that leave the neighboring poor To starve and shiver at the schemer's door, While in the world's most liberal ranks enrolled, He turns some vast philanthropy to gold; Religion, taking every mortal form But that a pure and Christian faith makes warm, Where not to vile fanatic passion urged, Or not in vague philosophies submerged, Repulsive with all Pharisaic ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... aspiring schemer was thus agreeably engaged, Mauleverer, sliding through the crowd with that grace which charmed every one, old and young, and addressing to all he knew some lively or affectionate remark, made his way to the dancers, among whom he had just caught a glimpse of Lucy. "I wonder," ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... this schemer? Dost thou know indeed That I am prisoned here, while my loved father Lies on the bed of death? Dost thou distrust me, That thou ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris

... lovers are sure to get kissed, and that they would not put themselves in such a position did they not expect it; that Eleanor is going to Bold only because circumstances prevent Bold from coming to her; that she is certainly a little fool, or a little schemer, but that in all probability she is thinking a good deal more ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... are, Phil. Shall I get it out?" asked the other, whose heart had been touched by what he heard; for Larry was a sympathetic sort of a chap, who could not bear to witness suffering, and might be easily deceived by any schemer. ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... too, shall go in town to-day, to engage my passage, and I will attend to the matter myself," Sir William replied, and the heart of the schemer sank within her. ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... and elaborate avarice. He was no doubt acquisitive and retentive and mean-spirited, but these were merely the ugly aspects of a disposition that involved many other factors. He was also incurably a schemer. He liked to fit things together, to dove-tail arrangements, to devise economies, to spread ingeniously into new fields, he had a love of organization and contrivance as disinterested as an artist's love for the possibilities ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... visitor a fairly good view of the interior. The front room was large and fairly well furnished with light inexpensive furniture, grass rugs and an assortment of nondescript, "catch-as-catch-can," but not unattractive, art upon the walls. Langford, who was not a sleepy schemer, was able to get a good view of the room before any one ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis

... worn jambs beside the old-fashioned fireplace where, winter mornings, he kicked on his frozen boots, and the living-room where, later in the morning, he ate so largely of buckwheat cakes. He was a figure, wicked some said, a schemer many said, a rock of refuge for his friends said more. This was the man, no uncommon type in the great ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... "You're a cunning schemer, sobrina. I should never have thought of that. We shall try. Now I remember, Eduardo once saved this man's life. Wasn't it a noble, daring deed? For all, I'm very angry with him, leaving me as he has done; and sha'n't be pacified ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... had had enough of speculation where the butler was concerned. Where that schemer was allowed to get within reach of it, hard cash ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... he, becoming still more nettled. "I suppose if it was the heir of Maxfield that was talking to you you'd hear, wouldn't you? You'd be all smiles and nods to the owner of ten thousand a year, eh? Do you suppose we can't see through your little game, you artful little schemer? Now, ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... creatures chatter to each other in their hypocritical fashion. But the wife just glances slyly at her husband, and he looks guiltily away at the far horizon; for the dear schemer has been making a confidant of him, for want of ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... exchange of commodities, free of duty, a very material increase of the business of the island will inevitably follow. It is quite possible to double the trade within the next ten or fifteen years. There will be some wildcat speculation, some unwise investment and some loss to investors. The schemer and the promoter will find victims who will put their money into companies whose future is wholly hopeless. But along with that there may reasonably be expected a steady growth and improvement. But it will come by gradual increase ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... more than he could perform, his rapid success awakened aspirations for a possible future. He was odious to Venice, but a Venetian, who watched his meteoric course, wonders, in his secret diary, whether this unerring schemer was to be the appointed deliverer. He was a terror to Florence, yet the Florentine secretary, to whom he confided his thoughts in certain critical hours, wrote of him as men have written of Napoleon, and erected a monument to his memory ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... itself, "if I am found out; but wait until your back is turned and I will do as I like, and lie about it." There can be no objective punishment for successful fraud; and as no espionage can cover the whole range of a child's conduct, the upshot is that the child becomes a liar and schemer with an atrophied conscience. And a good many of the orders given to it are not obeyed after all. Thus the Secularist who is not a fool is forced to appeal to the child's vital impulse towards perfection, ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... and urged, the broken-hearted schemer languidly compared the seamen's declaration with the logs; and, even in his feeble state of mind and body, made an awkward ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... harbour, and gave the barrister such assurances of devotion to duty that Brett felt quite satisfied that Dubois could not arrive in Palermo without his knowledge. Of course it was quite on the cards that some secluded creek along the coast might be preferred by the astute schemer as a point of debarkation, but this was a ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... interrupted himself by bursts of fury. Owing to this, it was some time before I could arrive at a clear understanding of the facts of the case. When I did, I could scarcely help feeling sorry for the unfortunate schemer, although in truth he richly deserved the disappointment he had met. Never was there a more glaring instance of excess of cunning over-reaching itself,—for no deception had been practised by Madame Sendel and her daughter. They doubtless ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... than even I took you to be, and you have acted a mean and dastardly part from the first—the part of a schemer and a coward. Pray, let me see the face of our ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... Eden's Empress, needs defended be; The Serpent greets her when she seeks the tree. Serene she sees the speckled tempter creep; Gentle he seems—perversest schemer deep— Yet endless pretexts, ever fresh, prefers, Perverts her senses, revels when she errs, Sneers when she weeps, regrets, repents she fell; Then, deep-reveng'd, reseeks the ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various

... was so, or whether the threat was an empty one, thrown out by this subtle old schemer for the purpose of safeguarding his life from their possible hate and impatience, it answered his end with these semi-intoxicated men, and secured him the silence he demanded. Breaking open the seal of the envelope ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... that they were friends before the woman fled from her cottage in the suburbs. I think the stealing of the marriage certificate has a strong savor of a man's thoughtful cunning. The woman could not have been so deep a schemer in those days. Now, Olive, let us suppose that these two were plotting in unison. Edward Percy's first wife dies, and no one the wiser about the marriage. Then he inherits his uncle's wealth. If Edward Percy were to die then, the woman, Cora, could come ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... Heaven, like the destruction of an innocent. Majendie's finer instinct had surrendered to the charm of her appealing and astounding purity, by which he meant her cleanness from the mercenary taint. He had seen himself contending, grossly, with a fierce little vulgar schemer, who (he had been convinced) would hang on to poor Gorst's honour by fingers of a murderous tenacity. His own experience helped him to the vision. And Maggie had come to him, helpless as an injured child, and feverish from her hurt. He had asked her what she had wanted with Gorst, and it seemed ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... habits and loose morals of the crusading hosts. He left behind him brother John, whom he had tried to bribe into fidelity, and a little lame, black foreigner, Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, who had been adviser, schemer, general brain box and jackal to the Lionheart, and who now swept through England with a thousand knights, trying cleverly and faithfully to rule the restive English and to keep them in some order and loyalty, in his ill-bred, active ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... woman who can head a revolt and fire a cannon, would think no sacrifice too great for a cold-hearted schemer like Lauzun—yet you who swore you loved me, when the coach was waiting that would have carried me to paradise, and made us one for all this life, could suffer a foolish girl to separate us in the very moment of triumphant union. You were mine, Hyacinth; heart and ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... put his own private designs in execution; towards the same end the letter contributed not a little, by inflaming the fears and resentment of the nation against France, which in vain disclaimed the earl of Melfort as a fantastical schemer, to whom no regard was paid at the court of Versailles. The French ministry complained of the publication of this letter, as an attempt to sow jealousy between the two crowns; and as a convincing proof of their sincerity, banished the earl of Melfort ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... well as Hippolytus, is recognised as a saint in the Romish Breviary, [348:2] it is thus certain that the bishop of Portus regarded the bishop of Rome as a schemer and a heretic. It is equally clear that, at this period, all bishops were on a level of equality, for Hippolytus, though the pastor of a town in the neighbourhood of the chief city, did not acknowledge Callistus as his metropolitan. ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... terrible flight. And lately Maugher, his uncle, and his bitterest foe though out of his own household, he had banished, archbishop though he was, from Rouen, to our small Isle of Guernsey, where there was scarce footing for the tread of so great and dark a schemer in high matters. And already the Conqueror had himself appeared at Edward's Court in England, and prepared ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar

... old fool, Shirley. He merely annoys me. I suppose I feel a certain natural chagrin at having been beaten, and in consequence cherish an equally natural desire to pay the old schemer back in his own coin. Under the rules as we play the game, such action on my part is perfectly permissible, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... temperament. For more than an hour after Granet had left him, he paced up and down his little room, stood before the high windows which overlooked the Thames, raised his hands above his head and gazed with flashing eyes into the future—such a future! All his life he had been a schemer, his eyes turned towards the big things, yet with himself always occupying the one glorified place in the centre of the arena. He was, in one sense of the word, a patriot, but it was the meanest ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and her precious trio of ministers with her, Louis recalled the crafty old schemer Maurepas to power from the banishment into which the Pompadour had sent him; but he otherwise began well by making Turgot his ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall

... of our kind schemer. How fondly he dwelt on them, how affectionately he wrote of them to his boy! How he read books of travels and looked over the maps of Europe! and said, "Rome, sir, glorious Rome; it won't be very long, Major, before my boy and I see the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the joy of Jove had its fulfilling, And Heaven's tenth moon chronicled her relief, 10 She gave to light a babe all babes excelling, A schemer subtle beyond all belief; A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing, A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief, Who 'mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve, 15 And other glorious ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... later generations as an adventurer, a schemer, a charlatan, Law originally deserved anything but such a verdict of his public. Dishonest he was not, insincere he never was; and as a student of fundamentals, he was in advance of his age, which is ever to be accursed. His method was but the forerunner ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... card; the distinct possibility that a detective might knock upon his door at any moment—with the inevitable result of his detention pending inquiries—formed a chain which had seemed complete, save that Antony Ferrara, was the schemer. For another to have compassed so much, would have been a notable victory; for Ferrara, such ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... agreeable. It is probable that if he had been trained in another sphere and in different circumstances he might have been a better man. As things stood, he was unquestionably a pleasant one, and Captain Romer found it hard to believe that he was an underhand schemer. ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... this schemer,' the good Chemerant will continue, addressing himself to me," said Croustillac, "'as to this imposter, this sharper, as he has impudently imposed upon me, so that I confided to him a half-dozen secrets of state, each more important ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... jewel precluded that supposition. Their hostess, if none of the others, was within access of this room and its open window. But how about the rest? Perhaps the lights would tell. Eagerly the little schemer looked forth, and let her glances travel down the full length of the balcony. Two separate beams of light shot across it as she looked, and presently another, and, after some waiting, a fourth. But the fifth failed to appear. This troubled her, but ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... by thoughts like these. Its author was no mere bustling schemer, but a grave and blameless presbyter of Alexandria. Arius was a disciple of the greatest critic of his time, the venerated martyr Lucian of Antioch. He had a name for learning, and his letters bear witness to his dialectical skill and mastery of subtle irony. At the outbreak of the controversy, ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... he said. "No. You've done everything. You couldn't have done more if—if you'd been the most experienced woman schemer in big business. You went up to prepare the ground for our business. Well, you prepared it in a way I'd never have guessed. You've brought this hard business head, Bull Sternford, right down out of his fortress to meet us on our business proposition. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... knock the head of you, I'm thinking, and drive you from the door. God help her to be taking you for a wonder, and you a little schemer making up the ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge

... who knew him, and knew him well, this confidential conversation with the woman whose platonic friendship he had enjoyed through so many years would certainly have caused greatest surprise. That he was a schemer was entirely undreamed of. That he was attracted by "Winnie Heyburn" was declared to be only natural, in view of the age and affliction of her own husband. Cases such as hers are often regarded ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... took it upon himself to place me under surveillance. People said M. Emanuel had been brought up amongst Jesuits. I should more readily have accredited this report had his manoeuvres been better masked. As it was, I doubted it. Never was a more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. He would analyze his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and forthwith indulge in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not whether I was more amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one morning ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... has evidently reached a crisis. As long as I can keep him in sight he's safe, but should he be left here alone with one of these women in his present frame of mind, there's no knowing what might happen. Any woman if fairly attractive and a schemer, can marry almost any man she has a mind to. You know," she added, "he's not given to talking without a purpose and usually acts even though he lives to repent of it afterwards. Why, if he were left here, he might marry from ennui, who knows? ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... of the Marquis de Mores six months previous had served greatly to heighten Maunders's personal prestige and to strengthen the lawless elements. For the Marquis was attracted by Jake's evident power, and, while he drew the crafty schemer into his inner counsels, was himself drawn into a subtle net that was yet to entangle both men in ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... deep breath, sat back and looked Kellogg over very critically. There was not a suspicion of a gleam of humour in his face; to the contrary, it blazed with the ardour of the instinctive schemer, the man who, with the ability to originate, throws himself heart and soul into the promotion of the product of his imagination. Kellogg was not sketching the outlines of a gigantic practical joke; he believed implicitly in the feasibility of his project; ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... favor of the delicious humor and the compelling veracity with which the chief character was presented. So universal was this type and so broadly recognizable its traits that there were many towns in which someone accosted the actor who impersonated the ever-hopeful schemer with the declaration: "I'm the original of Sellers! Didn't Mark ever tell you? Well, he took the Colonel ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... know little about cattle have written much of the meek and patient ox. Those who know them well tell us that the ox is the "most cussedest of all cussed" animals; a sneak, a bully, a coward, a thief, a shirk, a schemer; and when he is not in mischief he is thinking about it. The wickedest pack mule that ever bucked his burden is a pinfeathered turtle-dove compared with an average ox. There are some gentle oxen, but they are rare; most are treacherous, some are dangerous, and these are best got rid of, as they ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... forbids him to live when his only love has proved false, his only link to life has gone. But before he dies he has the satisfaction of seeing the late repentance and regret of every enemy, whether secret schemer ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... that we are grown, and that it is more than the body that smarts. It is shame we feel—shame so bitter that if a look could lay you dead at my feet, though it cost us all, though it left us beggared, I would look it joyfully—were I alone! But you, cowardly interloper, a schemer living on our impotence, walk on and trample ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... resentment. A flash told her now that they were all on tiptoe, and her nonchalance was a piece of acting which she enjoyed for its effect upon the others. She most mischievously enjoyed her privilege. And she had a new cause for triumph, a double success. She felt herself a schemer, an intriguer, which she was not. She was merely an opportunist, seizing the main chance. Not only had she a secret understanding with Gaga; she had also a secret understanding with Gaga's mother. She was most marvellously Sally ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... but widespread feeling that perhaps the capitalists were engineering the situation for their own ends. It is difficult to imagine how a state of unrest and insecurity, to say nothing of a state of war, can ever be to the advantage of capital, and surely it is obvious that if some arch-schemer were using the grievances of the Uitlanders for his own ends the best way to checkmate him would be to remove those grievances. The suspicion, however, did exist among those who like to ignore the obvious and magnify the remote, and throughout the negotiations the hand ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... planting attorney, a great schemer, a kind of Will Wimble in his way, had thought fit, of all things in the world, to bring his umbrella, which the wind, as might have been expected, reversed most unceremoniously the moment he attempted to hoist it, and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... no smile on mine, for as I met his eyes I saw in him, in spite of his gallant bearing and gorgeous dress, the bloodthirsty traitor and schemer who had risen against us and headed the mad savages who had cut down my brother-officers and friends. He was the man, too, who held me prisoner, and my resentment was growing when, in an indistinct dreamy way, the scene in the desperate charge came back, and ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... Verus was no schemer; he walked in at the front door with a free and careless step, and scorned to climb the backstairs. Only for the greatest object and aim of his life was he prepared to sacrifice his inclinations, his comfort and his pride, and to make unhesitating use of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... to escape from Dr. Argyle. Something in his manner told her that he was not sincere; that he was a schemer, perhaps a fortune-seeker, and she gladly rejoined ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... him again; and if he dares to show his face in the city, we will have him at last, even if we have to search for him in Alsatia with a band of soldiers. He has too long escaped the doom he merits, the plotter and schemer, the vile dog of a seminary priest! Once let us get him into our hands and he shall be hanged, drawn, and quartered, like those six of his fellows. No mercy for the Jesuits; it is not fit that such fellows should camber the earth. There will ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... decided that the time was ripe for a frank talk with her. It angered her that she had not realized this sooner, that she had been drawn from her position, had been forced to discuss with him on his own terms and at his own time and in his own manner. She felt all the fiery indignation of the schemer who has been outwitted. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... Flanger before four o'clock. How much longer do you intend to cruise in this boat?" asked the schemer, beginning to ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... this idea uppermost, he used to wake with his eyes shut and his ears wide open; but it was to hear drowsy monosyllables dropping out at intervals like minute-guns, or to find Lucy gone and Talboys reading the coals. Then the schemer sighed, and took to strong coffee soon after dinner, and gave up his nap, and its loss impaired his temper the rest ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... saint. His superior knowledge of law proved so strong a recommendation at a time when Napoleon was reorganizing it in 1808 and 1811, that, by the advice of Cambaceres, he was one of the first men named to sit on the Imperial High Court of Justice at Paris. Popinot was no schemer. Whenever any demand was made, any request preferred for an appointment, the Minister would overlook Popinot, who never set foot in the house of the High Chancellor or the Chief Justice. From the High Court he was sent down to the Common Court, and pushed to the lowest rung of the ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... should have been enough; but as a schemer Lodovico was wholly extraordinary. His plans grew in the maturing, and took in side-issues, until he saw that Naples should be to Charles VIII as the cheese within the mouse-trap. Let his advent into Italy to break the power of Naples be free and open; but, once within, he should find Milan ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... interesting discovery. On this wild tract of hill and forest was a vein of coal so valuable that, to the practical mind of the discoverer, the Judge's unconsciousness of its existence was amazing. He himself was a practical, driving, business schemer from New York. He knew the value of what he saw, and the availability of the material in consequence of a certain position in which the mines lay. Before he left Delisleville he had explained this with such a presenting of facts that the Judge ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Mrs. Thornburgh looked round hastily. She herself had opened that door into the garden. A garden on a warm summer night offers opportunities no schemer should neglect. Agnes and Rose were chattering and laughing on the gravel path just outside it, their white girlish figures showing temptingly against the dusky background of garden and fell. It somewhat disappointed the vicar's ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... his extraordinary business abilities, while he could not but feel satisfied and pleased with his competency, his assiduity, and his untiring devotion, the quick, sensitive nature of this truthful, genuine man felt magnetically the malign force working in the brain of the subtle and calculating schemer. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of his mission, and narrowly escaping her mother's gun, had he waved his hand and smiled so gayly as he thundered away up the street? Had he other schemes more subtle; or was he simply reckless, regarding even this adventure as a joke? As a boy he had been both—a crafty schemer and reckless doer—but now he was grown to a man. And if the lines about his mouth were any criterion he would soon be coming back to carry out by stealth what he failed to accomplish by assault. So she, too, waited patiently, to foil his machinations and ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... little schemer it is!" he said, looking down on her with fond, proud eyes. "Who would have imagined that she could plot, and plot so mysteriously? I used to think she was a ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... Army in a frenzy of excitement. While the troops of the South may not have given their assent to such measures, yet they rejoiced secretly; in their hearts that the great agitator, emancipator—the cause of all our woes—was laid low. To him and him alone all looked upon as being the originator, schemer, and consummater of all the ills the South had suffered. However the hearts of the Southern people may have changed in the thirty years that have passed, or how sadly they deplored his death, even in a decade afterwards, I but voice the sentiment ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... failure of his plan discouraged the schemer, for they were not annoyed any further during the remainder of the night. With the coming of morning they ate an early breakfast, settled their reckoning with the French landlord, who insisted on apologizing profusely for ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... extraordinary behavior the previous evening, but she was beginning to suspect that this meddlesome Fitzroy had contrived, somehow or other, to banish Captain Devar as he had outwitted Marigny on the Mendips. Talented schemer that she was, she did not believe for a moment that Simmonds had told the truth at Bristol. She argued, with cold logic, that the man would not risk the loss of an excellent commission by bringing from London a car so hopelessly out of repair that it could not be made available ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... pulling strings and manipulating mediocrities. All things to all men, plausible to the old, magnetic to the young, persuasive among the intellectual, impressive to the weak-minded, Gibbon Wakefield was always more than the mere clever, selfish schemer which many thought him. Just as his fresh face and bluff British manner concealed the subtle mind ever spinning webs and weaving plans, so, behind and above all his plots and dodging, was the high dream and ideal to which he was faithful, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... an' he struttin' up to Daisy Burn, when she and Miss Armytage tached the little childher there; an' Miss Linda thinkin' no more of him than if a snake was watchin' her out ov the bushes. But, moreover, I heerd him an' his old schemer of a father whispering at the bee: "Do you go down to herself," said Zack, "an' I'll spake to the squire." "Sure, my lad," thinks I, "if you do you'll have company along wid you;" so I dogged him every ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... became so trenched, so dug out and twisted about, so covered with sheds and huge working models and all the play of their developing powers, it was like no other place on earth. And long since it had become too little for the things they sought to do. The eldest son was a mighty schemer of wheeled engines; he had made himself a sort of giant bicycle that no road in the world had room for, no bridge could bear. There it stood, a great thing of wheels and engines, capable of two hundred and ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... and the Scotch Presbyterians. No one who knew him intimately doubted his conscientious sincerity and earnestness, yet four fifths of the English upper classes were in his later years wont to regard him as a self-interested schemer who would sacrifice his country to his lust for power. Though he loved general principles, and often soared out of the sight of his audience when discussing them, he generally ended by deciding upon points of detail the question ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce

... But Darth was not a healthy place for him. It was extremely likely, for example, that Don Loris would feel that the very bad jolt he'd given that astute schemer's plans, by using stun-pistols at the spaceport, had been neatly canceled out by his rescue of Fani. He would regard Hoddan with a mingled gratitude and aversion that would amount to calm detachment. Don Loris could not be counted on as a ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... proceeded to carry it out with considerable finesse. An ordinary schemer would have been content to work with a savage hound. The use of artificial means to make the creature diabolical was a flash of genius upon his part. The dog he bought in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... waited a day or two longer before upsetting the whole administration. It would have been quite as easy to have overthrown Pichereau a day after her soiree as a few days before. Was Granet then, in a great hurry to be made minister? Oh! her opinion of him had always been a correct one! An ambitious schemer. He had triumphed, or at least he had expected to triumph. And the consequence was that Sabine found herself without a Minister to introduce to her guests. It was as if Granet had purposely ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... we assume to be a schemer of the first ability, is simply nothing more than a coquette, who hopes that I shall pay my court to her, because I have already done so, and who, now that she has received a confirmation of the king's regard, hopes to keep ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... present in human form, and who will again be transformed, or "exalted," so soon as by the slaughter of their tyrant he has set the Druses free. His bride will be exalted with him. The imposture succeeds only too well. "Mystic" as well as "schemer," Djabal, for a moment, deceives even himself; and when the crisis is at hand, and reason and conscience reassert themselves, the enthusiasm which he has kindled still forces him on. His only refuge is in flight; and ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... better life for herself over at Donkey Street than she could at Ansdore. Of course if she waited she might get somebody better, but she might have to wait a long time, and she did not care for waiting. She was not old or patient or calculating enough to be a really successful schemer; her plans carried her this time only as far as a triumph over Joanna and an ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... then, thought Bingo gladly. He did not know. He wanted revenge for his wrongs and upon the wrong man. How well the schemer had covered his tracks! Asbury should have his revenge and Morton ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... "I suppose we must go in," she said grudgingly. "It's getting rather chilly." They were both in low-cut frocks, and had come out without any wraps. With the intuition of a born schemer Mina seized on ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... Bertran, gnashing his teeth, took up the service of the man he loathed; gnashing his teeth, he let Richard kiss him in the lists and shower favours upon him. When presents of stallions came from Navarre he began to see what Don Sancho was about. Any meeting of Richard and that profound schemer would have been Bertran's ruin. So when Richard was King, he judged it time to ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... position of a rich prelate, it is not surprising that corruption abounded. The offices of the Church offered the same possibilities of money-making that civil offices, especially those in the great American cities, offer to the mere schemer to-day. The descriptions of some of the churchmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries remind us far more of the professional politician than of a modern clergyman, whether Catholic ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... Then as the schemer remained silent he demanded, frowning darkly, "What's Loralindy Byars got ter ...
— A Chilhowee Lily - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... the Baron. It was so significantly said, that her face changed; and the schemer, fearful of the sinister ambiguity of his expressions, hastened to explain. 'This time he shall go hunting in a carriage, with a good escort of our foreign lancers. His destination shall be the Felsenburg; ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... nature a schemer and by habit a villain, and he was sure to put this discovery to profit. He came out of the little office and sat down at his desk, and ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... Cunning old schemer that she was, she forgot nothing. And not even we, who were of the Doctor's party, could imagine what reasons she had for some of her preparations. She took me inside and told me that the one thing I must remember to bring with me was ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... confronted by a mysterious stranger who suddenly interrupts the proceedings by singing the praises of "good old Jarge" to the accompaniment of an accordion? No, there is something wrong about that election story; I believe Rudolph was a schemer, and the whole affair cut and dried before he stood for election at all. Certain it is that Rudolph, supported by all Germany, attacked Ottokar; this was the first rencontre between Bohemia and the House of ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... insurance companies won't take us at ordinary rates. We're obliged to be Foresters, or Old Friends, or that sort of thing, where they ain't so particular. The wages of a engine-driver average about eight shillings a day, but if he's a good schemer with his coals—yes, I mean if he economises his coals—he's allowed so much more. Some will make from five to ten shillings a week that way. I don't complain of the wages particular; but it's hard lines for such as us, to have to pay income-tax. The company gives an account of all our wages, ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... disgrace. Jerry tried to "get even," as he called it, by trying to wreck Mr. King's monoplane, the Aegis. He also betrayed Dave's whereabouts to his guardian. Because Dave was right and Jerry wrong, there plots rebounded on the schemer and did ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood

... of Mr. Mertzheimer flashed. All through the glowing praise of the County Superintendent the schemer had sat with head cast down and face flushed in mortification and anger. Now his head was erect. Good! That praise was just a bluff! That red-head would get a good hard knock now! Good enough for her! Now she'd wish she had not turned down the son of the leading director of Crow Hill school! Perhaps ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers



Words linked to "Schemer" :   planner, plotter, politician, scheme, deviser, contriver, angler



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