"Shrewd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "how true it is that any deviation from what is right invariably leads us into a scrape. I have done wrong: wishing to get this boy out of his father's hands, and fearful that he would not join the ship, and imagining him to be by no means the shrewd fellow that he is in reality, I represented the service in a much more favourable light than I should have done; all that he says I told him I did tell him, and it is I who really led the boy into error. Mr Smallsole has ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ablest opponents was a young lawyer, not quite his own age, whose name was Stephen A. Douglas. In many places, during this campaign, Lincoln and Douglas met in public debate upon the questions of the day. And both of them were so shrewd, so well informed, and so eloquent, that those who heard them were unable to decide which was the greater of ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... of gray in it, lay more than a hint of the beauty that was said to have been hers in her youth. There was wistfulness in the delicate but firm mouth and chin; there was vigor in the broad forehead and the well-proportioned nose; and humor in the shrewd, quiet eyes set far apart. She belonged to an old Border family, and had lived all her life amid the almost perfect adjustments of well-to-do British society of the middle class, where every cog was greased and every wheel was ball-bearing. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... been published that morning postponing his execution until the return of the regiment. Just what was in the Marquis' mind no one could absolutely say, but he was shrewd enough to recognize the possibility of an outbreak or an attempted mutiny among the troops, when the sentence of execution was being carried out. He did not want any difficulties of that kind then. Not because he feared them ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... an idealist he was to be represented by Olof; as a realist by Gustaf; and as a communist by Gert." Farther on in the same work, he continues his revelation as follows: "The King and his shadow, the shrewd Constable, represented himself [the author] as he wished to be; Gert, as he was in moments of aroused passion; and Olof, as, after years of self-scrutiny, he had come to know himself: ambitious and weak-willed; unscrupulous when something was at stake, and yielding at other ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... of Antwerp, when the admirer of Rubens broke forth into a rapturous exclamation, which put an end to the dispute and attracted the notice of the inhabitants, many of whom by shrugging up their shoulders and pointing to their foreheads, gave shrewd indications that they believed him a poor gentleman disordered in ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... or no thought; upon the career he had embraced, and which he beheld obscurely before him. The Minister was a great friend of his family. A mountaineer of the Cevennes, brought up on chestnuts, his dazzled eyes blinked at the flower-bedecked tables of Paris. He was too shrewd and too wily not to retain his advantage over the old aristocracy, which welcomed him to its bosom: the advantage of harsh caprices and arrogant refusals. Ligny knew him, and expected no favours at his hands. In this respect he was more perspicacious than his mother, who credited herself ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... many of the younger couples go to the Louisiane and Antoine's, to continue the dance, and as my room at Antoine's was directly over one of the dancing rooms of the establishment, I might make a shrewd guess as to how long they stayed up, after my companion ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... she was being asked to answer her own question, Aunt Caroline considered. Then, with a flash of shrewd insight, "Well," she said, "if there were any possible excuse for it, I should say ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Kelley, as shrewd and unscrupulous a man as any in the annals of imposture, readily consented, but on pretty hard terms. He was to be taken in as a member of Dr. Dee's family, retained on a contract, and paid an annual stipend of fifty ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... Mrs. Willoughby, a widow of great beauty and fascination, a brunette, good-natured, clever, and shrewd. I might here pause, and go into no end of raptures on the various qualities of this lady's character; but, on the whole, I think I'd better not, as they will be sufficiently apparent before the end of ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... the master's cabin, introduced him, and stood by while they bargained. The sick skipper glowered at Mr. Gibney when Scraggs, with a wealth of detail, explained their presence, but, for all his predicament, he was a shrewd man and instantly decided to use Gibney and McGuffey as a fulcrum wherewith to pry a very low price out of Captain Scraggs. Mr. Gibney could not forebear a grin as he saw the captain's plan, and instantly he ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... shaped the whole course of their reasoning, is calmly and unhesitatingly discarded. The passion for the miraculous, the absorbing sense of diabolical capacities, have all vanished like a dream. The old theological measure of probability has completely disappeared, and is replaced by a shrewd secular common sense. The statements of the witches were pronounced intrinsically incredible. The dreams of a disordered imagination, or the terrors of the rack, would account for many of them; but even when it is impossible ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... the exploits of the day. You will no doubt smile, and wonder what exploits such a cur is able to perform; but I assure you that if he is at all like some of the gipsy dogs I have heard of, he has been taught a good many very shrewd tricks. The dogs of the gipsies are sometimes trained to steal for their masters. The thief enters a store with some respectably dressed man, whom the owner of the dog will commission for the purpose, and—the man having made certain signals to the animal—the gipsy cur, after ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... so now, his bearing and features were Nevil incarnate. But to the shrewd eye of Broome the last seemed subtly overlaid with the spirit of the East—a brooding stillness wrought from the clash of opposing forces within. When he laughed and talked it vanished. When he fell silent, and drifted away from ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... unsealed, in whom the waters are flowing, the labour mingles gently and genially with the thought, and the plough he holds with his hands lays open to the sun and the air more soils than one. Mr. Sclater without his books would speedily have sunk into the mere shrewd farmer; Donal, never opening a book, would have followed theories and made verses to the end ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... presence of royalty, as before those from whom they have nothing to hope or fear; the result being, that most minds quail before them. There were two Gitanas at Madrid, one Pepita by name, and the other La Chicharona; the first was a spare, shrewd, witch- like female, about fifty, and was the mother-in-law of La Chicharona, who was remarkable for her stoutness. These women subsisted entirely by fortune-telling and swindling. It chanced that the son of Pepita, and husband of Chicharona, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... said that the reckless exportation to the West Indies caused this extermination, but it is difficult to believe that so shrewd a race as were the Narragansett planters ever would have committed such a killing of a goose of golden eggs. The decay of the race was the action of a simple law—cause and effect. The conditions which rendered the pacer so desirable did not exist after the Revolution. Roads were improved, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Her small, shrewd eyes softened, as she received the gay salute with a smile and returned it. Her liking for this particular sextette ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... jine the two plantations. One is too little for her to rule. She's allus wanted our south 'bacco patch. Her hundred niggers and Massa's hundred would make a crew. O, she's a shrewd one; she sees further than her nose. She'd make my shettle fly fast ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... go away and try my fortune elsewhere, or to sit still and await events. A more impetuous man would have adopted the first of these alternatives, but my experience of life, confirmed as it was by the advice of Emma, who was a shrewd and far-seeing woman, soon convinced me that if I did so I should have no more chance of success than would an egg which undertook a crusade against a brick wall. Doubtless the egg might stain the wall and gather ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... They knew very well that these shouts and acclamations were not addressed to them, but only to General Bonaparte, the conqueror of Lodi and Arcola, the hero of the pyramids, the "savior of society," who, on the 18th Brumaire, had rescued France from the terrorists. Both consuls were shrewd enough to draw a lesson from this enthusiasm of the people, and willingly to fall back into the shade rather than to be forced into it. The Tuileries had been appointed for the residence of the three consuls, but the next day after ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... pursued with the most inveterate malice. John Gudyill, reinstated in his dignity, was more important than ever; and Cuddie, with rapturous delight, entered upon the cultivation of the mains of Tillietudlem, and the occupation of his original cottage. But, with the shrewd caution of his character, he was never heard to boast of having fired the lucky shot which repossessed his lady and himself in their original habitations. 'After a',' he said to Jenny, who was his only confidant, 'auld Basil Olifant was my leddy's cousin and a grand gentleman; ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was not a scrupulous man; but unlike them he was shrewd and far-sighted, and understood the statesmen and the peoples with whom he had to deal. The main object of his foreign policy was to preserve the prestige of the German army as the chief instrument of power in Central ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... his date too closely, we may take it that he was a leading man in Miletus for the greater part of the {3} first half of the sixth century before Christ. We hear of an eclipse predicted by him, of the course of a river usefully changed, of shrewd and profitable handling of the market, of wise advice in the general councils of the league. He seems to have been at once a student of mathematics and an observer of nature, and withal something having analogy with both, an inquirer ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... eighty, with a close cap and tiny flat white curls round her face,' whose function is 'quiescence in an easy-chair under the sense of compound interest gradually accumulating,' and who 'does her malevolence gently;' or Mr. Hackit, a shrewd, substantial man, 'who was fond of soothing the acerbities of the feminine mind by a jocose compliment.' Where but in George Eliot would you get a tea-party described with ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the sea and not the land has changed its level, was generally held at the time Lamarck wrote, though Strabo had made the shrewd observation that it was the land which moved. The Greek geographer threw aside the notion of some of his contemporaries, and with wonderful prevision, considering the time he wrote and the limited observations he ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... revert to personal matters. He turned instead to the topic always most congenial to him: the humours and ironies of the human comedy, as presented by his own particular group. His malicious commentary on life had always amused Susy because of the shrewd flashes of philosophy he shed on the social antics they had so often watched together. He was in fact the one person she knew (excepting Nick) who was in the show and yet outside of it; and she was surprised, as the talk proceeded, to find herself so little interested in his scraps of gossip, and ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... are practically amphibious, spending half their time in the ocean, and are therefore of necessity clean. So are certain coast negroes and Indian tribes living along river-banks. But Ellis (Pol. Res., I., 110) was shrewd enough to see that the habit of frequent bathing indulged in by the South Sea Islanders was a luxury—a result of the hot climate—and not an indication of the virtue of cleanliness. In this respect Captain Cook showed less acumen, for he remarks (II., 148) that "nothing appears ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... a knowledge of it to the sages of his empire. He also entreated them to bring him a little oil from the lamp of our Saviour, in Jerusalem, which he concluded must have marvelous virtues. It has been supposed, and with great reason, that under this covert of religion, the shrewd Tartar sovereign veiled motives of a political nature. The influence of the pope in promoting the crusades had caused his power to be known and respected throughout the East; it was of some moment, therefore, to conciliate his good-will. Cublai Khan had no bigotry ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... seventeen persons present and it looked as if a decision was inevitable. The landlord was shrewd. His first act was to invite all to drink at his expense, after which he made each pledge himself to abide by the decision, whatever it might be. These preliminaries being arranged, a show of hands was called for. The ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... means ill-looking. His cheeks and chin were clean shaven, the close-cut beard showing bluely under the coarse skin. For the rest, his hair was black and thick, slightly streaked with gray, and heavy eyebrows as dark in hue as his hair, overhung a pair of shrewd, gray eyes like small pent-houses. The man was Eugene Mortlake, the brains of the Mortlake Company. The individual who had just descended from the automobile, throwing a word to the chauffeur over ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... if I don't buy land here I'll take him West with me," said Murrell quietly. Bladen gave him a swift, shrewd glance, but Murrell, smiling and easy, met it frankly. "Come," he said, "it's a pity he should grow up wild in the pine woods—get him away from Yancy—I am' willing to spend five hundred dollars ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... himself by a reply, the lawyer estimated his possible client in one of his brief but shrewd and calculating glances. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... poet, of July 21, 1883, affirms that the account is correct in every particular, adding, 'My own explanation of the matter has been that the shrewd Italian felt his way by the involuntary help of my own eyes and face.' The story has been reprinted in the Reports of ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... I was satisfied, and returned in a comparatively cheerful mood to my plodding. I have a shrewd suspicion that my chief, Mr. Foster, used his good offices on my behalf with ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... minor characters are good and life-like, particularly Guibert, the shrewd, hesitating, talkative, cynical, really good-hearted old courtier, whom not even a court had deprived of a heart, though the dangerous influence of the conscienceless Gaucelme, his fellow, has ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... are serious bourgeois, well along in the fifties, just a trifle ridiculous, perhaps on account of their allure and their attire. But should one grow to know them better he would soon realise that most of them are shrewd, hard-working business men, each burdened with an anxiety or a sorrow ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... Tories; but take her on her own politics, ask her about other men or women and the chicanery of everyday existence - the rubs, the tricks, the vanities on which life turns - and you will not find many more shrewd, trenchant, and humorous. Nay, to make plainer what I have in mind, this same woman has a share of the higher and more poetical understanding, frank interest in things for their own sake, and enduring ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to Sandeau, who had used it in Marianna. George Sand changed it to that of Indiana) is a typical woman, strong and weak, tired even by the weight of the air, but capable of holding up the sky; timid in everyday life, but daring in days of battle; shrewd and clever in seizing the loose threads of ordinary life, but silly and stupid in distinguishing her own interests when it is a question of her happiness; caring little for the world at large, but allowing herself to be duped by one man; not troubling much about her own dignity, but watching ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... though shrewd and clever and prudent, he often calls unfortunate. For Nestor goes back home quickly and safely, but Odysseus wanders about for a long time and endures constantly innumerable sufferings and dangers. So it is a desirable and blessed thing if fortune is ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... could only stare at him and could not even interrupt him. For her shrewd woman instinct told her so convincingly that even her sense of loyalty could not eject the doubt which assailed her mind, that if there was not truth in what he was saying there was ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... a sovereign whose situation rendered jealousy only common prudence, it is not surprising that the wealth of Belisarius excited the imperial cupidity, and induced Justinian to seize great part of it" (Greece under the Romans, chap. 3). There is shrewd insight in this, and though we may regret that we cannot attain to more, it is better than leaving the ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... of his era to depend upon other achievements than those of war. "My intention certainly is," he said to Thibaudeau, "to multiply the works of peace. It may be that in the future I shall be better known by them than by my victories." The Memoires of the shrewd observer to whom the words were uttered, give us perhaps a more intimate acquaintance with the Consular Bonaparte than does any other single book; and it is impossible to study them without deriving the impression that he was at this ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... Pulteney), which has grown with the industry of the port. The society never again tried to resume its original purpose of creating new fishing centres, and here in Pulteneytown it has obviously only acted the part of the shrewd building speculator, investing in the ground-rents of a rising community and prudently helping in its development. Through this change of purpose it has contrived to save some of its capital, and having recently resolved to be ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... me or in spite of me, is that what it means? I have said no, but no does not satisfy him. [There is, however, no record from Symonds's side of any letter by Whitman to Symonds in this sense up to this date.] But read this letter—read the whole of it: it is very shrewd, very cute, in deadliest earnest: it drives me hard, almost compels me—it is urgent, persistent: he sort of stands in the road and says 'I won't move till you answer my question.' You see, this is an old letter—sixteen years old—and he is still asking the question: he refers to it in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Police entered his office at ten minutes to five. M. Desmalions, who had filled his post for the past three years with an authority that made him generally respected, was a heavily built man of fifty with a shrewd and intelligent face. His dress, consisting of a gray jacket-suit, white spats, and a loosely flowing tie, in no way suggested the public official. His manners were easy, simple, and full of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... you? See how it will be when I come to talk to him! A shrewd fellow like that who got out of the Micklethwayte concern just in time. Catch him giving up a place like that, though he may ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you see it—you're right there, Al, shrewd and clever! Al, there are ten freshmen in the Dickinson. Think hard now, the idea's growing. Ten freshmen. Suppose,—I only say suppose now that as a disciplinary measure we should decide that no freshman could enter the Jigger Shop say—well ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... from the burning. As a preliminary step, he was invited to supper, and treated with peculiar respect. The matter was gently touched upon, but discussion postponed until another occasion. Mr Levisohn being very shrewd, very needy, and enjoying no particular principles of morality and religion, perceived immediately the object of his hostess, met her more than half-way in her Christian purposes, and accepted her numerous invitations to tea and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... owing to the stupid money system, which these laborers them selves help to keep in force, the results of their combined efforts were either usurped by an unproductive class fortunate enough to be born rich, or those shrewd enough to accumulate money, such as trust managers, bankers, real estate speculators, stock jobbers, and brokers, gamblers, burglars, money loan swindlers, high salaried ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... earing and harvest, he knew nothing of agricultural operations. Of stock he was equally ignorant, and of the comparative goodness or badness of soil he was, of course, no judge. Such a man, in the choice of a farm, was sure to be shaved by the shrewd Yankee proprietor, and my poor friend ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... the poste, "and great scoundrels they are, too! We have been shadowing them for some time, but could never detect them in any overt act until to-day. They belong to a very dangerous gang of prowlers, led by a shrewd German named Waldmann, whose headquarters are in a wretched caboulot of the ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... a rogue to understand a rogue, and the reason of Vivian Standish's complete success in playing off his counterfeit manners, was because he had chosen to display them within a circle where shrewd or suspecting observation never found its way. He saw clearly what a field lay open to him in the drawing-room, and the delightful company of Ottawa's elite. All he had to do was to introduce himself to this "tony" little city fashionably dressed, and with that self-sufficient reserve ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... Let us attach them to the veranda by a wisp of straw rope, such as would not have held a person's hat on that blustering day. And with all these protestations of hurry, they proved irresponsible like children. Kelmar himself, shrewd old Russian Jew, with a smirk that seemed just to have concluded a bargain to its satisfaction, intrusted himself and us devoutly to that boy. Yet the boy was patently fallacious; and for that matter a most unsympathetic ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was not a very big brain; for that matter, her feet were tiny. She had the good sense to realise that her brain would last longer than her feet, so she got as much for them as she could while the applause lasted. She drove shrewd bargains with the managers and shrewder ones with Wall Street admirers, who experienced a slim sense of gratification in being able to give her tips on the market, with the assurance that they would see to it ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... depreciate it. In it the spirit of the Old Comedy is still at work. The privileged merry-maker, who, under different names, has appeared on almost all stages, whose part is at one time a display of shrewd wit, and at another of coarse clownishness, has inherited something of the licentious enthusiasm, but without the rights and privileges of the free and unrestrained writers of the Old Comedy. Could there be a stronger proof that the Old Comedy, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... at a few of the remaining incidents of this outwardly calm, yet inwardly eventful life. In an evil hour—though to it we owe the "Illustrations to Blair's Grave"—he fell into the hands of Cromek, the shrewd Yorkshire publisher, and was tenderly entreated, as a dove in the talons of a kite. The famous letter of Cromek to Blake is one of the finest examples on record of long-headed worldliness bearing down upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... with Rahl, to quarter himself upon an army acquaintance, and thus knew nothing of the hardships to which they were subjected. When he heard in the morning how they had fared, he at once sought the commander, and by a shrewd exaggeration of the Merediths' relations with Howe, supplemented by some guineas, secured the banishment of enough officers from the house to restore to the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... so awfully shrewd! Your eye is so everlastingly out for the main chance, and you're still so young that I predict a—a great future for you. I might even suggest that ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... and as full of life and vigour as his master was sapless. Just midway to the threescore years and ten, his bodily powers were at their highest, and in the ten years he had served Louis his mind had ripened so that few men were more astute, more shrewd to see and seize upon advantages, whether for himself or his master. In the King's service few scruples troubled him, the questionable act was Louis', his part ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... and extravagant conceptions of mediaeval heraldry. In the catalogue, the really ingenious piece of workmanship was entitled a 'Life-size model of the dodo'—a name, our readers know, appertaining to a now extinct bird, the very existence of which was at one time denied by shrewd men and good naturalists. Perhaps the following history of this curious creature, from its first to its last appearance before the eyes of men, will not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... not even brilliant scientists frequently exhibit the same lack of logic back in the Twentieth Century? Did not the historians, the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome show themselves to be the same shrewd observers as those of succeeding centuries, the same masters of the logical and ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... there Miss de Compton beheld a display of fox tactics shrewd enough to excite the admiration of the most indifferent—a display of cunning that seemed to be something ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... AND STOUGHTON) is a novel full of shrewd philosophy and excellent talk. Mr. ALEXANDER BLACK sets out to prove nothing, to justify no political or social attitude, but just to draw his fellow-Americans as he sees them going about their war-time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... and chain corslet, still an Irishman was so ugly a foe, that it was not worth while to fight with him unless he could be robbed afterwards. The Danes, who, like their descendants of Northumbria, the Lowlands, and Ulster, were canny common-sense folk, with a shrewd eye to interest, found, somewhat to their regret, that there were trades even more profitable than robbery and murder. They therefore concentrated themselves round harbors and river mouths, and sent forth ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... mintage of the East was stamped upon his features. He was a man accustomed to sway, if not to lead. His companion was as plainly as eastern product, but his manner was subordinate though his face that, alone of the three, seemed to hold a measure of fearful wonder at the turbulent throng of men, was shrewd enough. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... all with a puzzled look. He resented the insult which Blondel had flung at his friend Baudichon, but he saw all going against them, and no chance of redress; nay, capital was being made out of that which should have been a disadvantage. Worst of all, he was uneasy, fancying—he was very shrewd—that he caught a glimpse, under the Fourth Syndic's manner, of another man: that he detected signs of emotion, a feverishness and imperiousness not quite explained by ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... was buried decently, and Captain Walshawe reigned alone for many years at Wauling. He was too shrewd and too experienced by this time to run violently down the steep hill that leads to ruin. So there was a method in his madness; and after a widowed career of more than forty years, he, too, died at last with some guineas ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... said Agatha. "Yet you stated that you didn't think we would find the lode!" Then she gave him a shrewd glance. "Aren't you a little impatient to get ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... Theos confronted the speaker,—a tall, spare man with a pale, clean-shaven, intellectual face, small, shrewd, speculative eyes, and very straight, neatly parted locks,—a man on whose every lineament was expressed a profound belief in himself, and an equally profound scorn for the opinions of any one who might possibly presume to disagree with him. He smiled condescendingly ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... here announce that our hero was under a disguise, and he persuaded Wagner to go with him, and he observed that his companion ate very heartily. He observed another fact. Near the table where he sat with Wagner another party, a shrewd-faced man, had taken a seat, and Jack soon fell to the fact that this shrewd-faced man had young Wagner under surveillance, and when the two young men had nearly completed their repast this party boldly walked ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... Garrison's pay, and when she appeared with a dazzling necklace and a superb new gown at the garrison ball not long after Frost and his shrinking bride left for their honeymoon, people looked at her and then at each other. Nita Terris was sold to "Jack" Frost was the verdict, and her shrewd elder sister was the dealer. Mrs. Frank knew what people were thinking and saying just as well as though they had said it to her, yet smiled sweetness and bliss on every side. Frankly she looked up into the ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... say. As it happened, she believed that no one of the guests had witnessed the scene between herself and Mary, and to try to relate it, even with emendations of her own, would hardly redound to her credit. She was too shrewd not to know that the average person resents an affront against childhood. Then, too, Constance Stevens was making rapid strides toward popularity among the girls of Sanford High School and her cowardly nature ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... the inner door, followed by Mrs Tarleton, and throws herself on her knees by Bentley. Mrs Tarleton, whose knees are stiffer, bends over him and tries to lift him. Mrs Tarleton is a shrewd and motherly old lady who has been pretty in her time, and is still very pleasant and likeable and unaffected. Hypatia is a typical English girl of a sort never called typical: that is, she has an opaque white skin, black ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... trace an excellent illustration of the natural affinity between the fondness for feudalism and the love of law-breaking in Sir WALTER SCOTT. Whatever his head and his natural common sense dictated (and as he was a canny Scot and a shrewd observer, they dictated many wise truths), his heart was always with the men of bow and brand; with dashing robbers, moss troopers, duellists, wild-eagle barons, wild-wolf borderers, and the whole farrago of autocratic scoundrelism. With his soul devoted to dreams of feudalism, his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... [Laughing.] Ha, ha! there is the camp-style, too, A very cut-throat air! How this shrewd fool Makes the punctilio of honour show! Change helmets into coxcombs, swords to baubles, And what a figure is poor chivalry! Thanks ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... no way out of it, old friend. Were it not that he is in charge of the constable, I should have said that your only course was to aid your son to escape; but Knapp is a shrewd fellow as well as an honest one. You cannot possibly get your son away without his assistance, for he is handcuffed to the bed, and Knapp, in so serious a matter as this, would not, I am sure, lend himself to an escape. I have no doubt that with ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... stood awkwardly behind the two men, weary of the subject and waiting restlessly for the slow march to begin again. By the time they had crossed the quadrangle his restlessness had risen to fever. He wondered how his father, whom he knew for a shrewd suspicious man, could be duped by the servile manners of the porter; and the lively southern speech which had entertained him all the ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... strengthening in it. It is, of course, the figure of a man and not of a State; it is a man, clean, clean shaved and almost obtrusively strong-jawed, honest, muscular, alert, pushful, chivalrous, self-reliant, non-political except when he breaks into shrewd and penetrating voting—"you can fool all the people some of the time," etc.—and independent—independent—in a world which is therefore certain to give ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... and Rapp in particular, when speaking to me about the journey, could not conceal some marks of discontent on account of the great respect which Bonaparte had shown the clergy, and particularly to M. de Roquelaure, the Archbishop of Malines (or Mechlin). That prelate, who was a shrewd man, and had the reputation of having been in his youth more addicted to the habits of the world than to those of the cloister, had become an ecclesiastical courtier. He went to Antwerp to pay his homage to the First Consul, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the world without ever appealing to aught but their calculations. True, those who know how to make their "pile" are rated as men of ability. But look a little closer. How much of it do they owe to the unselfishness of the simple-hearted? Would they have succeeded had they met only shrewd men of their own sort, having for device: "No money, no service?" Let us be outspoken; it is due to certain people who do not count too rigorously, that the world gets on. The most beautiful acts of service and the hardest tasks have generally little ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... sat at her corner, beside Mary. He didn't talk, but his Wellington mouth moved perpetually in and out, and his small reddish eyes twinkled, twinkled, with a shrewd, secret mirth. You thought every minute he would burst out laughing, and you wondered what you were doing to ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... however, was not merely a keen man of business and successful tradesman. He was, in addition, an idealist and a dreamer of dreams; but so shrewd and level-headed was he, that he kept the two things quite apart. His business was never neglected, and he returned to it all the fresher, inasmuch as in his off times his mind was ardently concerned ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... the genii." "Why, are we not at Grand Cairo?" said Mobarec: "shall we not there find beautiful maidens?" "You are in the right," answered the prince; "but how shall we explore where they are?" "Do not trouble yourself about that," answered Mobarec; "I know a very shrewd old woman, whom I will entrust with the affair, and she ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... Doulah, the Nawab Vazir, who confirmed to him all his hereditary or acquired lands on the plains, at an easy rate; and, going there frequently to hunt, seems to have amused himself with the Raja’s children. The youngest son Samar, a lame but shrewd man, seems in particular to have attracted his notice, and he bestowed on him the title of Nader Shah, by which he is much better known than ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... or "the hotel." As in ancient Etruria, so here, the people assemble after heavy rains to pick up what luck throws in the way. It is said that they often gather gold pieces, square as well as round, bearing by way of inscription "prayers" to the Apostle of Allah. Some of us, however, had a shrewd suspicion that the Tibr, or "pure gold-dust," is still washed from the sands, and cast ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... dropsy, here is a strange fantastical oddity, one of your brethren, who harangues every day in the Pump-room, as if he was hired to give lectures on all subjects whatsoever — I know not what to make of him — Sometimes he makes shrewd remarks; at other times he talks like the greatest simpleton in nature — He has read a great deal; but without method or judgment, and digested nothing. He believes every thing he has read; especially if it has any thing ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... pool which served for the whole district. If by any chance disease broke out, the wearied beasts that met at the watering or drank of the tainted pool carried it far and wide, and plague soon raged from end to end of the country. Even in the days of Henry VIII. shrewd observers noted that the new grazing farms, where the cattle were better fed and kept separate, alone escaped these ravages, and that it was these farms whence came the only meat to be found in the ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... see! Wot ef I get a hundred thousand folks to pay me for tellin' it? But, speakin' o' this young feller, I calkilated to send him to the Turkey Buzzard Hotel;" and he looked at his sister with a shrewd ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... friendly, then," said Pliny with an anticipatory twinkle in his shrewd little gray eyes which gave direct contradiction to his words. "If Abner hain't feelin' jest cheerful them boys'll be wrastlin' all over ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... smart and shrewd, oh, very! When the hard times came, which made so many changes in the lives of the people who lived in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadows, Mr. Skunk was very quick to see that unless he could think of some way to protect himself, it was only a matter of time ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... many times, rubbed his hands, mopped his head, and cursed most things under heaven and some in it, Master Baldassare found himself watching the laundresses on the shore. They were the usual shrill, shrewd, and laughing line—the trade seems to induce high mirth—and as such no bait for the old merchant by ordinary; but just now the sun and breeze together made a bright patch of them, set them at a provoking flutter. Baldassare, prickly with dust, found them like their own cool ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... genial tempered man. He was shrewd and quick-witted, like a native of York, as he was. I received the greatest kindness from him as well as from his family. His house was like a museum. It was full of cabinets, in which were placed ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... the whole affair great fun and objected to being caught—at least Ryan's dog objected. The porter in our car caught Hal, but Ryan told him to let the dog go, that he would bring the two back together. This was shrewd in Ryan, for he reasoned that Major Carleton might wait for an officer's dog, but never for one that belonged to only an enlisted man; but really it was the other way, the enlisted men held the brakes. The dogs ran back almost a mile ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... chocolate, cotton and the like. These they trade or sell. When they return to Juchitan, they carry with them a lot of salted and dried fish, shrimps, salt and eggs. Upon these expeditions the whole family accompanies the woman; the traveling is done almost entirely by night. These Zapotec women are shrewd at bargaining. They must be doing a paying business. It was interesting to see the primitive devices for weighing. The scales consisted of two tin pans of equal size and weight hung from a balance beam. The only weight was a stone ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... shrewd blow has been dealt to the British by our abandonment, in agreement with the prospectus, of the Beckmesser Line. All has gone according to our hopes, our longings and our prayers. We ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... favourite became supreme. He was entirely without education, possessed little experience in affairs of state, and had led the life of a commonplace idler and voluptuary until past the age of fifty. Nevertheless he had a shrewd mother-wit, tact in dealing with men, aptitude to take advantage of events. He had directness of purpose, firmness of will, and always knew his own mind. From the beginning of his political career unto its end, he conscientiously and without swerving pursued a single aim. This was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... you give if I get Jesus into your hands?" Of all things this was probably the last they had thought might happen. Their eyes gleam. How much indeed—a good snug sum to get their fingers securely on his person. But they're shrewd bargainers. That's one of their specialties. How much did he want? Poor Judas! He made a bad bargain that day. Thirty pieces of silver! He could easily have gotten a thousand. Judas did love money greedily, and doubtless was a good bargainer too, but anger was in the saddle now, and ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... dissolved in fat; and, but for a crescent of white hair at the back of his head, he was completely bald. He reminded you of Mr Pickwick. He was grotesque, a figure of fun, and yet, strangely enough, not without dignity. His blue eyes, behind large gold-rimmed spectacles, were shrewd and vivacious, and there was a great deal of determination in his face. He was sixty, but his native vitality triumphed over advancing years. Notwithstanding his corpulence his movements were quick, and he walked with a heavy, resolute tread as though he sought to impress ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... flowers. The usual scholar's cap covers his grey hair. The blue-grey eyes are glancing down at his writing. Studies for the marvellously painted hands are among the Louvre drawings. The very Self of the man—the lean, strong, thinking countenance,—the elusive smile, shrewd, ironical, yet kindly, stealing out on his lips,—is alive here by ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... him—he was too thoroughly commonplace. His ways of living were those of a well-to-do man. Although he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension was all that he had to look to in the future, the major always kept two years' pay untouched, and never spent his allowances, like some shrewd old men of business with whom cautious prudence has almost become a mania. He was so little of a gambler that if, when in company, some one was wanted to cut in or to take a bet at ecarte, he usually fixed his eyes on his boots; but though he did not allow himself any extravagances, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... hour before the rest of the Glengarry men could arrive, and much fighting may be done in that time. He must avert attention from Macdonald Dubh, who was waiting to cram LeNoir's insult down his throat. Yankee Jim had not only all the cool courage but also the shrewd, calculating spirit of his race. He was ready to fight, and if need be against odds, but he preferred to fight on as ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... shrewd look at him and saw that he meant it; so she began dancing around Gloria in a frantic manner. The Princess looked coldly on, as if not at all interested in the proceedings, while Blinkie tore a handful ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... had been foreign secretary under Pitt, and the whigs who had joined Pitt's ministry in 1794, among whom Lords Spencer and Fitzwilliam and above all Windham call for special notice. Windham's powerful and comprehensive speech contained more than one shrewd forecast of the future. For once, Pitt and Fox supported the same measure, and Pitt, dwelling on security as our grand object in the war, specially deprecated any attempt on the part of Great Britain "to settle the affairs of the continent". Fox, in advocating peace, fiercely denounced the war ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... was falsehood, more or less consciously elaborated by the "finance editors," consciously initiated and encouraged by the shrewd business men of the Manderson group, who knew that nothing could better help their plans than this illusion of hero-worship—knew also that no word had come from Manderson in answer to their messages, and that Howard ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... of a bricklayer, and when he passed as a lawyer had to be content with petty suits that no one else would take up. It was said that he became the lover of Madame Rastoil, and it was certainly through her influence that he won his first cases. He was shrewd enough to show no particular political proclivities; so after the Coup d'Etat of 1851, when they were looking out for a mayor, his name was at once thought of. He was elected, and from that time everything prospered with him. As a result ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... some shrewd remarks on the evident attention of the Great Powers to establish an interest among the little sovereignties of Germany. Thus, Russia has married "her eldest daughter to an adopted Bavarian. The Cesarowitch is married to a princess of Darmstadt," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... shrewd captain put on his armour and paraded his little company of a dozen or more soldiers; and when he fired off the cannon on Burial Hill the Indians must have felt that the English were men of might thus to harness ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various |
