"Keener" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... We have not done with this question so speedily. See, I do not grudge you your faith, nor do I wish to disturb it. The child must believe, that all its parents do and require of him is right, but the stranger sees with different, keener eyes, than the son and daughter. You occupy a filial relation towards your Church—I do not. I know the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and if I had lived in Palestine in his time, should have been one of the first to follow the Master, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gradually began to avoid the beaten path trodden by all. His attendance at parties became less and less frequent, and although he went out somewhere on holidays, he always returned home sober. His mother watched him unobtrusively but closely, and saw the tawny face of her son grow keener and keener, and his eyes more serious. She noticed that his lips were compressed in a peculiar manner, imparting an odd expression of austerity to his face. It seemed as if he were always angry at something or as if a canker gnawed at him. At first his friends came to visit him, but never ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... cries once, "that man that had a naked sword hanging over his head from a single thread; so as to me it always did!" "Desirest thou power?" he asks at another time. "But thou shalt never obtain it without sorrows—sorrows from strange folk, and yet keener sorrows from thine own kindred." "Hardship and sorrow!" he breaks out again, "not a king but would wish to be without these if he could. But I know that he cannot!" The loneliness which breathes in words like these has often begotten in great rulers a cynical contempt of men and the judgements ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... has never known the real Ireland; the sadness that is present, though veiled, in the green bravery of Spring, and under the songs of Summer. Nor have they ever known the real Ireland who have not divined beneath that poignant sadness a heart of joy, deep and perpetual, made only keener by that ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... intellect. Our machinery, our institutions, our great systems, the entire body of enterprise is governed by brains. It is this that will alter. Just behind intellect there is a vision that is purer, keener, more powerful than the vision of your eyes, than the hearing of your ears, than the touch of your hands. This world is being transformed into another which comes into being at our spiritual touch. The world needs ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... Cinderella, with the result that his life has to be completely rearranged. A commonplace tale, but there is a rare and distinct flavour about the telling of it. Mr. NIVEN'S manner has indeed a very particular charm, over which one would take an even keener pleasure in lingering if only he himself lingered a little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... common did or mean Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe's edge ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... and his observation of all her finer moods make him a most delightful out-of-doors companion. In the beautiful environs of Cambridge he used to take those long walks which furnished him with such a fund of accurate observation of the sights and sounds of the natural world. No man has a keener eye for a bird than he, nor a quicker ear to distinguish between their songs; and no unusual sound of insect life escapes his scrutiny,—he is keenly alert to know what is going on under his feet as well as over his head. The most modest flower does not escape his ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... keener tempests rise; and fuming down From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb A vapory deluge lies, to snow congealed. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along, And the sky saddens with the ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... save his own thoughts, Monty fixed a keener attention upon the slowly advancing pair, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... inevitable that, in years to come, the realisation of his loss would become keener and deeper; but now, in the reaction from shock, and in the anxiety and stress and dire necessity for activity, only the surface sorrow was understood—the pity of it, the distressing circumstances ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... much keener vision than that of M. de Campvallon to detect any break, or any discordance, in the audacious comedy which had just been played before him by these ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... the industry for years can fully appreciate. In addition to the fact that living under one's own vine and fig-tree is in itself a very pleasant ideal to look forward to, there is no branch of agronomy that calls for a keener appreciation of the laws of Nature, that brings man into closer touch with Nature, that makes a greater demand on a man's patience, skill, and energy, or in which science and practice are more closely related, than in that of fruit-growing. To all ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... felt his power multiplied many times, his intellect sharpened, and a keener edge put on all of his faculties, when coming into contact with a strong personality which has called forth hidden powers which he never before dreamed he possessed, so that he could say things and do things impossible to him ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... between man's life in the spiritual world and his life in the natural world, in regard both to his outer senses and their affections and his inner senses and their affections. Those that are in heaven have more exquisite senses, that is, a keener sight and hearing, and also think more wisely than when they were in the world; for they see in the light of heaven, which surpasses by many degrees the light of the world (see above, n. 126); and they hear by means of a spiritual atmosphere, which likewise surpasses by many degrees the ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... any woman who cannot imagine Isabel's shy glances, and the low, sweet words in which she answered such delightful protestations? And soon, to add a keener zest to his happiness, Luis began ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... inflicted upon those who help the State—the absolute black silence of convict excommunication, the blows and kicks inflicted without opportunity for retaliation or complaint, the hostility of guards and keepers, the suffering of abject poverty, keener in a prison house than on ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... Here files of pins extend their shining rows, Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux. Now awful beauty puts on all its arms; The fair each moment rises in her charms, Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace, And calls forth all the wonders of her face; Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. The busy sylphs surround their darling care, These set the head, and those divide the hair, Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown; And Betty's praised for labours not ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... effect of this conversation reached beyond the humorous. In some subtle fashion, it provoked the girl to keener interest in the young man. She was perhaps, though she would have denied the suggestion hotly, a little piqued by the exaltation with which he praised his rustic sweetheart. Josephine was an exceedingly attractive young woman, and ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... gentleman. Independence of situation had induced independence of thought; study and investigation rendered him original and just, by simply exempting him from the influence of the passions; and while hundreds were keener, abler in the exposition of subtleties, or more imposing with the mass, few were as often right, and none of less selfishness, than this simple-minded and upright gentleman. He loved his native land, while ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... be jealous of?" she retorted quickly. "For after all one is one's self, you know, and not another. Gerty is beautiful and I am not, but her loveliness is as keen a delight to me as it is to her—keener, I think, for she is sometimes bored with it and I never am. And she is more than this, too, for she is as devoted—as ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... if one looked a second time and more searchingly one would perceive some clouding and coarsening of that refinement, signs not yet marked enough to tell their story openly and not likely to be noted by the ordinary observer, but able to make the keener student of the human countenance ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... A new doctrine arises, the older representatives of the science oppose it partly because of keener insight and greater experience, partly also from indolence, not wishing to allow themselves to be drawn out of their accustomed equilibrium; among the younger generation there arises a growing sentiment in favor ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... keener observer of character than the policeman had proved himself to be; and so, despite the suspicious circumstances which had awakened that worthy's doubts, Inspector Murray recognized in his visitor a lady of rank. He arose to receive her and handed her a chair, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Then peal'd at intervals with mingled swell 140 The echoing harp, shrill clarion, horn, and shell; While Bards ecstatic, bending o'er the lyre, Struck deeper chords, and wing'd the song with fire. Then mark'd Astronomers with keener eyes The Moon's refulgent journey through the skies; 145 Watch'd the swift Comets urge their blazing cars, And weigh'd the Sun with his revolving Stars. High raised the Chemists their Hermetic wands, (And changing forms obey'd their waving hands,) Her treasur'd gold from Earth's deep chambers ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... the three turnings of a true life, upward, inward, outward. Upward to God, inward to self, outward to the world. The more one knows God the keener is the longing to get off with Himself alone, the deeper is the yearning to be pure, and the stronger is the passion to help others ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... the Captain, with never a bit of curiosity in his big, kind voice; and Cyrus felt as small as he was. But when he left the old man at Mrs. North's door, he was uneasy again. Maybe Gussie was right! Women are keener about those things than men. And his uneasiness actually carried him to Dr. Lavendar's study, where he tried to appear at ease by ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... nobleman of wealth and fervent piety, had established at Oxford a lectureship, the object of which was to prove the truth of the Christian religion. These lectures had found their way in tracts to the little library of Franklin's father. When but fifteen years of age the boy read them, with a far keener relish than most school-boys now read the flashy novels of the day. In order to refute the arguments of the deists, the lecturers were bound to produce those arguments fairly and forcibly. But to this young boy's piercing mind, the arguments against Christianity seemed stronger than those which ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... behind Yoganandaji into the courtyard within the hermitage walls. Hearts beating fast, we proceeded up some old cement steps, trod, no doubt, by myriads of truth-seekers. The tension grew keener and keener as on we strode. Before us, near the head of the stairs, quietly appeared the Great One, Swami Sri Yukteswarji, standing in the noble ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... secured many of them before our eyes. Notwithstanding this, I do not suppose that flying-fish are more unhappy or more persecuted than their less agile brethren; and while they live they probably have a keener enjoyment of existence. I believe that, in the minutest details of creation, the all-beneficent God metes out to all living beings the advantages and disadvantages of existence for some great end, which it is not His will to ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... of northern conquerors; and the bleak regions of Upper Europe and Asia have poured forth from time to time the hungry hordes, whose iron sinews swept the nerveless children of the gardens of the earth from the face of their idle paradises: and, but for this stream of keener life and nobler energy, it would be difficult to imagine a more complete race of lotus-eaters than would now cumber the fairest ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... followed the movement of his glass and one after another he saw Madame Marsy, Jouvenet, Madame Gerson, so many living and exceedingly taunting recollections, when suddenly Sulpice trembled, shaken by a keener and almost angry feeling as his glance was directed to a box against the dark-red of which two faces were boldly outlined: those ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... said, shaking a bottle of pills. "It does a human creature no end of good to run away at times. I often wonder why more of us don't do it and come back keener and better." ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... that they are drawn with the pen rather than the brush; and it is instinct with an honest, high-souled purpose. In these respects it resembles "Adam Bede," but in others it surpasses its predecessor. It displays a far keener insight into human passion, a subtler analysis of motives and principles, and it suggests a mental and a moral philosophy nobler in themselves and truer to humanity and religion. The pathos, too, is more genuine; for it is not based ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... eagle stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, And winged the barb that quivered in his heart; Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel. He nursed the pinion that impelled the steel; While the same plumage that had warmed his nest, Drank the last life blood ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... part, did I say? No, in Carleton's story he has a part. No writer more frequently and with keener effect uses the historical present. Compare Carleton's straightforward narration and marching chapters with the average British writer of history, and at once we see the difference between chroniclers,—who ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... raise, But, when the fire was kindled, fear'd the blaze; As much they studied, so in time they found The easiest way to give the deepest wound; But then, like fencers, they were equal still, - Both lost in danger what they gain'd in skill; Each heart a keener kind of rancour gain'd, And, paining more, was more severely pain'd, And thus by both was equal vengeance dealt, And both the anguish they ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... we not take an enemy, and pay him no wages, to teach us, and give us profit and instruction, in matters which had escaped our notice? For an enemy has keener perception than a friend, for, as Plato[524] says, "the lover is blind as respects the loved one," and hatred is both curious and talkative. Hiero was twitted by one of his enemies for his foul breath, so he went home and said to his wife, "How is this? You never told me of it." But ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... is wise to exterminate the weeds at once. And beware of remaining longer in sin. The deeper you sink, the more bitter will be your restoration. Why continue to sear you conscience, and sow the seeds of keener remorse? No matter how painful it may be, break with sin at once. Severe operations are often necessary, for the skilful surgeon knows that the disease cannot be cured by surface applications. The farmer takes his hoe and his spade and his axe, and ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... time the sweetness had borrowed an edge of irony. It was Science annihilating tradition, and the tougher the tradition, the keener the blade which Science ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... fishing-town,—the Bailie, with his stump of a pipe for company, always choosing the esplanade, while Christie and I as frequently idled along the opposite pavement, pausing now and then at the little shop-windows and gazing at their mean or meagre displays, illumined by a farthing candle, with a keener zest than I had ever experienced in the Rue Rivoli or the Palais Royal. Our walk rarely extended beyond either extremity of this street; it was uniform, monotonous, unvaried by any more striking incident than a lunge into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... anything to bless himself with except the roll of bank-notes that he has just produced from his breast-pocket. One and all, the players are levelled by the invisible presence of the goddess they are courting. Well, the visible presence of the judge in a court of law oppresses us with a yet keener sense of lowliness and obliteration. He crouches over us, visible symbol of the majesty of the law, and we wilt to nothingness beneath him. And when I say 'him' I include the whole judicial bench. Judges vary, no doubt. Some are young, others old, by the calendar. But the old ones have an air ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... the words: 1. Our keener sense of man's displeasure than of God's. 2. The consequent possibility of accepting pardon with too light a heart. 3. The means of ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... reason, if we observe in respect of the sense of shame that girls seem somewhat defective, we must contrast their condition with that which will subsequently develop as age advances, and not expect to find prematurely in the girl a keener sense of shame than is ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... been said that between a vigilant jailer and a prisoner who wishes to escape, the chances are in favor of the prisoner; the fact is, the interest of the one is keener than that of the other. The jailer may forget that he is on guard; the prisoner never forgets that he is guarded. The captive thinks oftener of escaping than the jailer of preventing his flight, and hence we hear of ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... there wasn't a keener, brighter lad than Andy in all Lanarkshire. He had always a good story to crack. He was handy with his fists; he could play well at football or any other game he tried. He wasn't educated; had he been, we all used to think, he micht ha' made a name for himself. I didn't ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... the rasp of the flesh was so sore, Faith, that had yearnings far keener than these, Saw the soft sheen of the Thitherward Shore Under the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... wages. The next step was even more serious. Having succeeded in his retail business, the master began to covet a still larger market,—the wholesale market. However, the competition in this wider market was much keener than it had been in the custom-order or even in the retail market. It was inevitable that both prices and wages should suffer in the process. The master, of course, could recoup himself by lowering the quality of the product, but when ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... They imagine that a woman whose virtue is not always on the qui vive, will be easier to overcome than a prude; even experience does not undeceive them. How often are they exposed to a severity all the keener that it was unexpected? Their custom then, is to accuse women of caprice and oddity; all of you use the same language, and say: Why such equivocal conduct? When a woman has decided to remain intractable, why surprise the credulity of a lover? Why not possess ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... flit to an extreme of parsimonious retaliation. As the will fluctuates, so must be the fate of the hundred thousand workers. If the will decides that the pay of the men must go down, curtailed it is, irrespective of their protests that the lopping off of their already slender wages means still keener hardship. Apparently free and independent citizens, this army of workers belong for all essential purposes to the Vanderbilt family. Their jobs are the hostages held by the Vanderbilts. The interests and decisions of one family ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... for clearing away the cobwebs which are so apt to smother the joy and beauty of life. In the same way a complete change in the mode of living keeps a man's sympathies alive, his mental outlook clear, his enthusiasms bright; it gives him understanding, and a keener appreciation of the essentials which go to make up the real secret of happiness, the real joy of living. The people we call "narrow" are always the people whose life is deliberately passed in a "rut." They may have health, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... know what their relations are to it. The first thing to be done is for them to try to understand each other. One class sees that the other has lighter or at least different labor, opportunities of travel, a more liberal supply of the luxuries of life, a higher enjoyment and a keener relish of the beautiful, the immaterial. Looking only at external conditions, it concludes that all it needs to come into this better place is wealth, and so it organizes war upon the rich, and it makes demands of freedom from toil and of compensation ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... seemed to him that his own lagging body had long since failed, and that his aching, naked soul wandered stiffly through the endless day. As night approached Pierre stopped frequently, propping himself with legs far apart; sometimes he laughed. Invariably this horrible sound shocked Willard into a keener sense of the surroundings, and it grew to irritate him, for the Frenchman's mental wanderings increased with the darkness. What made him rouse one with his awful laughter? These spells of walking insensibility were pleasanter far. At last the big man fell. To Willard's mechanical ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... dispatched the Sergeant through the doorway with an accurate and vigorous kick. He fell, and lay sprawling on the ground for a second, then gathered himself up and ran hastily over the heath, soon disappearing in the darkness. The memory of Beaumaroy's look was even keener than the sensation caused by Beaumaroy's boot. It sent him in flight back to Inkston, thence to London, thence into the unknown, to some spot chosen for its remoteness from Beaumaroy, from Captain Naylor, from Mike and from Neddy. He recognized his unpopularity, ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... liking what he had begun through necessity, slackened not his industry in augmenting his fortune; on the contrary, small profits were but a keener incentive to large ones,—as the glutton only sharpened by luncheon his appetite for dinner. Still was Mr. Brown the very Alcibiades of brokers, the universal genius, suiting every man to his humour. Business of whatever description, from the purchase of a borough ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... precisely the spirit of a professor who steps to the chair, smiles, and takes the class; but as he drove down Whitehall, this thought pierced him with a keener point than the steel of ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... than elephants was the tread of my man! Keener than a leopard was the flash of his eye! Stronger than an oak tree was the strength of his arm! Swifter than lightning was the stroke of his ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... lie—I had been sick and the doctor said air like this for mine, and so I followed this trail. I picked it up here and I'd have been all right if I hadn't run up against that lightning-chaser of a Bender. I guess folks are keener out this way than they are in the cities. More time ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... vests, short jackets, and shaggy cloaks. But the broad-bladed battle-axe, and the sinewy arm which wielded it, inspired admiration for all the uncouth costume. The haughty indifference with which the Prince of Ulster treated every one about the Court, except the Queen, gave a keener edge to the satirical comments which were so freely indulged in at the expense of his style of dress. The wits proclaimed him "O'Neil the Great, cousin to Saint Patrick, friend to the Queen of England, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... crowded. Mr. W. delivered a noble, eloquent, High-Church, Apostolical-Succession discourse, in which he banged the Dissenters most fearlessly and unflinchingly. I thought they had got enough for one while, but it was nothing to the dose that was thrust down their throats in the evening. A keener, cleverer, bolder, and more heart- stirring harangue than that which Mr. C. delivered from Haworth pulpit, last Sunday evening, I never heard. He did not rant; he did not cant; he did not whine; he did not sniggle; he just got up and spoke with the boldness of a man ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the best men, those who have really developed that moral faculty which I detect, in beginning and germ, as it were, in myself, I see no abatement in reverence for the ideal. Rather, the better and saintlier that they are, the keener do they feel their fallings off from it. A moral lapse, which would give me hardly a moment's uneasy thought, is capable of causing in them acute and prolonged sorrow. The nearer they draw to the moral ideal, strange paradox, the farther off from them does it ever appear, and they ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... manifest that the girl's beauty made a deep impression on Barkman. Before seeing her he had professed to regard the position as hopeless, or nearly so; now he was ready to reconsider his first opinion, or rather to modify it. His quick intelligence appeared to have grown keener as he suddenly changed his line of argument, and began to set forth the importance of getting the case fully and fairly discussed ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... wavering—the drought, the hail, the harvest frost. If his teams fall sick, or the season goes against him, he must work double tides. Still, it now and then happens that things go right, and the red wheat rolls ripe right back across the prairie. I don't know that any man could want a keener thrill than the one you feel when ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... was very happy. These things were not said to him, and he had been successful. He took an interest in all things keener than he had felt for years past. One day he was in the stables with his son, and spoke about the hunting for the coming season. He had an Irish horse of which he was proud, an old hunter that had carried him for the last seven years, and of which he ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... imprisoned by that close-set, hide-bound love of hers were now a little loosened and set free; though the activities of youth were stirring in her, and her inner life, if still isolated, was a shade more expanded than of old,—yet she had no desire for greater change, and she had no keener vision for the world outside herself than before. She saw nothing of that diabolical thing which her father and madame had been so long plotting as the outcome of their friendship, the parable of which her education had been the text. If her intelligence was warping ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... the train windows. Every smallest shade made its effect upon her brain. Tamara was sensitive to all form and color. She was a person who apprehended things, and from the habit of keeping all her observations to herself perhaps the faculty of perception had grown the keener. ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... was distinctly in the way. He had a keener eye than the majority of young men, and occasionally exercised the old man's privilege of saying outright things which, despite theory, are better left unsaid. Moreover, the situation was ill-defined, and an ill-defined situation does not improve in the keeping. Sir John ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... as womanly, those words that start From sorrow's lip strike home to sorrow's heart. Madam, our griefs are one; But yours, from kinship close and your high place, The keener, mourning him in youth's glad grace Who loved you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... to compare notes Lord and Lady Ridsdale quite disagreed over Allan. The gentleman liked him, he thought him clever, gifted and intellectual; Lady Ridsdale, with the keener sense belonging to women, read his ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the playful kicking they usually indulged in. Here and there a man sprang clear of the rutted road, but Winston did not notice him or return his greeting. He was abstractedly watching the rude frame houses flit by, and wondering, while the pain in his side grew keener, when he would get his supper, for it happens not infrequently that the susceptibilities are dulled by a heavy blow, and the victim finds a distraction that is almost welcome in the endurance ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... going to say, Fan—what is it that you wish?" said Merton, with a keener interest than he usually manifested in ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the side horses who pulled harder—ever increasing their gallop—that one noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With screams squeals, and waving of whips ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the pulpit. His beautiful beaming face and the singular way in which he looked up with closed eyes was very attractive and must be well remembered. But I did not notice it with the interest I might have done, if other faces had not awakened in my memory a still keener interest. For in a pew among those reserved for the professors and officials of the city, I saw one in which there was certainly seated John Hatton and his wife. There were some young men with them, who had a remarkable resemblance ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... life.' As fast as the faculties are multiplied, so fast does it become possible for the several members of a species to have various kinds of superiorities over one another. While one saves its life by higher speed, another does the like by clearer vision, another by keener scent, another by quicker hearing, another by greater strength, another by unusual power of enduring cold or hunger, another by special sagacity, another by special timidity, another by special courage; and others by other bodily and mental ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... but his conscience stirred uneasily. The boys were making a long circle that day and would come in with the appetites—and the tempers—of wolves. It occurred to Happy Jack that their appetites were much keener than they had ever been before, and he sat there a little longer while he thought about it; for Happy Jack's mind was slow and tenacious, and he hated to leave a new idea until he had squeezed it dry of all mystery. He watched Jakie moving in desultory fashion about ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... as if startled by the sound of a human voice. He replied, and then the two men talked a little. But the stranger evidently preferred silence. Cameron understood that. He laughed grimly and bent a keener gaze upon the furrowed, shadowy face. Another of those strange desert prospectors in whom there was some relentless driving power besides the lust for gold! Cameron felt that between this man and himself there was a subtle affinity, vague and undefined, perhaps born of the divination ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... most natural possible manner led the conversation to the subject of portrait-painting. There was his text before him—the famous "Red Duchess"—and he talked well. I found myself listening with absorbed attention, and even the shy Mr. Blake became oblivious of the keener agonies of self-consciousness. So we went on until the game course ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... it's not so easy to forget a face like yours. You are a little browner, your eyes rather keener perhaps, your head held a bit higher, your shoulders broader and drawn back more like a soldier's than ever; but, so far as I can see, those are the only changes. You might easily have forgotten me, and I'm immensely flattered that you haven't. But the fact ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... was remarkable. No animal that man has broken to his use is keener to recognize a master and flout a coward than the horse. No coward has ever been able to do ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Slackening the reins, I let my horse take his own course. He trotted on with unerring instinct, and by nine o'clock was scrambling down the steep ascent into the meadows where we were encamped. While I was looking in vain for the light of the fire, Hendrick, with keener perceptions, gave a loud neigh, which was immediately answered in a shrill note from the distance. In a moment I was hailed from the darkness by the voice of Reynal, who had come out, rifle in hand, to see who ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... attacking the member for Oxford University. To weaken his wonderful ascendency over the House has seemed to be the wish nearest his heart, and the signal failure which has thus far attended all his efforts only gives a keener edge to his sarcasm and increases the bitterness of his spirit. That persistent and inflexible determination which, from a fashionable novelist, has raised him to the dignity of leader of the Conservative party in the House of Commons, that unsparing and cold-blooded malignity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... the man of bitter moods, looking round upon the company with the antithetic laughter that comes from a keener appreciation of the miseries of life than ordinary men are capable of. "Ah, there's people of one sort, and people of another, ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... calculated. They were willing enough that the Huguenots should be murdered; but the murderers might not always be able to draw the line between orthodoxy and heresy. Things were fast getting beyond all control; the thirst for plunder was even keener than the thirst for blood. And it is certain that among the many ignoble motives by which Charles was induced to permit the massacre, was the hope of enriching himself and paying his debts out of the property of the murdered Huguenots. Nor were Anjou ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... portion. At this season he would refrain from joining the Gang, and honourably forswore his share of their plunder, always giving Mother Drum a broad piece for each night's Supper, Bottle, and Bed. But when his pressing business was over, no man was keener in the chase, or brought down the quarry so skilfully as Captain Night. He loved to have me with him, to talk to and Question me; and it was one day, after I had told him that the Initial letter D was the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... notwithstanding, to render me more uncertain than ever, as to the success of my own suit. Anneke's colour had come and gone, as Bulstrode stood near her, acting his dumb-show of leave-taking; and, to me, she seemed far more affected than Mary Wallace had been. Nevertheless, her feelings were always keener and more active than those of her friend; and, that which my sensitiveness took for the emotion of tenderness, might be nothing more than ordinary womanly feeling and friendship. Besides, Bulstrode was actually ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... there in Rome than to those who sat on the same bench with him in the upper room at Corinth. For you know that sometimes it is true about people, as well as about scenery, that 'distance lends enchantment to the view.' A great many of us have much keener sympathies with 'brethren' who are well out of our reach, and whose peculiarities do not jar against ours, than with those who are nearest. I do not say Quartus was one of these, but he may very well ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... stimulated that the interest in normal stories is difficult to rouse. I will not here dwell on the deleterious effects of over-dramatic stimulation, which has been known to lead to crime, since I am keener to prevent the telling of too many sensational stories than to suggest a cure when ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... intelligence and spirit of inquiry, while Phoebe was happy in doing her duty by profiting by all opportunities of observation, in taking care of Maria and listening to Mervyn, and Miss Charlecote enjoyed scenery, poetry, art, and natural objects with relish keener than even that of her young friends, who were less impressible to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when herons take wing, the white birds were now all flying towards Ahab's boat; and when within a few yards began fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous, expectant cries. Their vision was keener than man's; Ahab could discover no sign in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down into its depths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a white weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it rose, till it turned, and then there were plainly ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... traces of a most desperate battle were everywhere apparent, yet their defeat must have been crushing and complete, for hundreds of the invaders had apparently been mowed down where they had stood. Others had fallen in hand-to-hand encounters, their limbs slashed and disabled by keener swords than their own, while many seemed literally riddled by bullets which could never have been fired by ordinary guns, or if so, at such close quarters that in nearly every case the balls had passed clean ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... person's senses are keener in situations of grave peril than at other times, for, calculating as clearly as he could the period it would take his comrade to reach the horsemen, only a short way back on the prairie, Cadmus heard sounds which indicated their approach, though they ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... one hundred acres for $90,000. With his wonted prodigality, born of superb confidence in future gains, he also deeded ten acres of his valuable "Grove Property" to the trustees of Chicago University.[592] Yet with a far keener sense of honor than many of his contemporaries exhibited, he refused to speculate in land in the new States and Territories, with whose political beginnings he would be associated as chairman of the Committee on Territories. He was ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... writers of real force, the men of genius, were the three Oriel men, with less experience, at that time, with less extensive learning, than Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. But they were bolder and keener spirits; they pierced more deeply into the real condition and prospects of the times; they were not disposed to smooth over and excuse what they thought hollow and untrue, to put up with decorous compromises and half-measures, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... modern proper names I have thought it best in each case to decide which would give the keener impression of verisimilitude. Consistency has, therefore, been abandoned. Horace, Virgil and Ovid exist side by side with such original Latin names as Julius Paulus. While Como has been preferred to Comum, the "Larian ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... Lane. In the puffy, once handsome face, there are signs of age, for its owner is past sixty; yet he is dressed in superb fashion; and in an hour or so, when the bottle has been diligently circulated, his wit will be brighter and keener than that of any young man present. I do not say it will be repeatable, for the talker belongs to a past age, even coarser than that of the Kit-kat. He is Charles Sackville,[14] famous as a companion of the merriest and most disreputable of the Stuarts, famous—or, rather, infamous—for ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... recognition of Laura, or to Marian's recognition of her, in proof of her identity. If we had loved her less dearly, if the instinct implanted in us by that love had not been far more certain than any exercise of reasoning, far keener than any process of observation, even we might have hesitated on first ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... energies were bent toward the successful execution of the Bradlaugh order, which had to be completed on the first of February. And as day after day went by her realization of the magnitude of the task he had undertaken became keener. Excitement was in the air. Ditmar seemed somehow to have managed to infuse not only Orcutt, the superintendent, but the foremen and second hands and even the workers with a common spirit of pride and loyalty, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in the hands of the Si-Fan, this journey to the north had indeed been undertaken with the utmost reluctance. Nayland Smith had written to me once during my brief absence, and his letter had inspired a yet keener desire to be back and at grips with the Yellow group; for he had hinted broadly that a tangible clue to the whereabouts of the Si-Fan head-quarters had at ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... gave me a keener appreciation of winter upon the heights. When, from the window of our snug log cabin, I looked up toward Long's Peak, and saw the clouds of snow dust swirling about its head, I pictured just what was ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... knowledge of it, this knowledge being proper to God. Yet the demons know scientific truths: because sciences are about things necessary and invariable, and such things are subject to human knowledge, and much more to the knowledge of demons, who are of keener intellect, as Augustine says [*Gen. ad lit. ii, 17; De Divin. Daemon. 3, 4]. Therefore it seems to be no sin to practice the magic art, even though it achieve its result ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... at the head of the race, just as he wanted to be and as Cord had advised, and now he felt sure of being the winner. His excitement, his delight, and his tenderness for Frou-Frou grew keener and keener. He longed to look round again, but he did not dare do this, and tried to be cool and not to urge on his mare so to keep the same reserve of force in her as he felt that Gladiator still ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... that, thtilled with a patriotism the keener-edged because it was acquired, he went to work in this way:—He was going to make one of these long poems, like those (inferior) Greek fellows had; and he was going to make it in Latin. (I do not ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... child, he wrapped him warmly, and put the boy in behind him, to kneel and see that his father did not fall out. Then he turned the horse around, and started toward Number Nine. The horse knew the road, and was furnished with keener vision than the man who drove him. Jim was aware of this, and letting the reins lie loose upon his back, the animal struck into a long, swinging trot, in prospect of home and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... colors more than compensates for the lack of odor. Through the music of color and line we are made responsive to common things which otherwise would leave us cold, or if we are responsive to them, our sensitiveness becomes finer and keener. It is largely because he is so accomplished a musician in color and composition that Jan Vermeer can make the inside of a room or some commonplace act by a commonplace person the object of an intense and ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... (if the looks may indicate the age,) Our senior some few years; no keener wit, No intellect more subtle, none more bold, Was found in ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... fundamental, but it would be tedious to spend a year or two in formal and dry exercises to train recognition of color alone; for each step in recognition of color is best tested by exercise in its imitation and arrangement. When perception becomes keener, emphasis can be placed on imitation of the colors found in art and in nature, resting finally on the selection and grouping of colors ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... solemnity of its stately ritual. She detested the meretricious show, the tinsel gaudiness, the bowing and genuflecting, the candles and the draperies, of Romanism, and of its pinchbeck imitator Ritualism; but I doubt whether she knew any keener pleasure than to sit in one of the carved stalls of Westminster Abbey, listening to the polished sweetness of Dean Stanley's exquisite eloquence; or to the thunder of the organ mingled with the voices of the white-robed choristers, as the music rose and fell, ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... nature helped him to success. His pleasure-loving and self-indulgent temper needed the pressure of emergency, of actual danger, to flash out into action. Men like Commines who saw him only in moments of security and indolence scorned Edward as dull, sensual, easy to be led and gulled by keener wits. It was in the hour of need and despair that his genius showed itself, cool, rapid, subtle, utterly fearless, moving straight to its aim through clouds of treachery and intrigue, and striking hard when its aim was reached. But even in his ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... up with success, especially in the direction of music and poetry, of the Gaelic language, and of the study of Irish archaeology and the protection of its remains. But a new Davis would mark with keener interest the many tasks which yet remain to be taken ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... interest as he rambled on. He seemed such a friendly, homely soul that I could but regard him more kindly than I did some of our keener-witted fellow seamen. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... Maurice's arms could hold her," says Mrs. Bethune, with a low laugh. It is a strange laugh. Lady Rylton's glance grows keener. "Such a mere doll of a thing. A mite!" She laughs again, but this time (having caught Lady Rylton's concentrated gaze) in a very ordinary manner—the passion, the anger ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... had doggedly resisted the little instruction he might have received. For instance, he had been to the Carmelite's school at ——, and instead of showing any aptitude for work, he had played truant with a keener delight than any of his school-fellows. His was an eminently contemplative nature, kindly and indolent, but proud and almost savage in its love of independence; religious, yet opposed to all authority; somewhat captious, very suspicious, and inexorable with hypocrites. The observances ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... away as poor as when he came? That wasn't all nor half of all. To lose the money would be bad, but he had much more to lose than that. For one day he had enjoyed the fun of being stronger and wiser and swifter and keener-sighted than anybody else. Isn't that better than money and all the prizes for good luck? Yes, indeed, his heart answered over and over again. How could he go back and give up the wisdom and the swiftness and the clear sight and the strength, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... recovered his strength and his nerves. He lost his furtive, restless, watchful look; the bracing sea air and the burning sun put into his face the healthy tan and the uplifted frankness of a sailor. His eyes grew keener from long scanning of the horizon; he knew where to look for sails, from the creeping coastwise schooner to the far-rounding merchantman from Cape Horn. He knew the faint line of haze that indicated the steamer long before ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to Barbadoes, Mr. H. has not taken so public a part in political controversies as he did formerly, but is by no means indifferent to passing events. There is not, we venture to say, within the colony, a keener or more sagacious observer of its institutions, its public men ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... following days Dave had a keener eye than usual for evidences of 'industrial development.' He found them on every hand. Old properties, long considered unsalable, were changing owners. Handsomely furnished offices had been opened ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... thing or two she doesn't know!" He lifted his head and spoke in an easier voice. "One queer thing—it may interest you. Those few weeks of living as an Indian among Indians—amazingly intensified all the other side of me. I never felt keener on the Sinclair heritage and all it stands for. I never felt keener on you two than all this time while I've been concentrating every faculty on—the other two. Sounds odd. But ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... circle as a man of skill and perseverance in his business; of pure life; of retiring and affectionate habits; happy in his domestic relations,—his extreme interest in the national politics, then growing more anxious year by year, engaged him to scan the fortunes of freedom with keener attention. He was an early laborer in the resistance to slavery. This brought him into sympathy with the people of Kansas. As early as 1855 the Emigrant Aid Society was formed; and in 1856 he organized the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, by means of which a large amount of money was ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... none keener in that way than Lord Geoffrey Cleveland, sir; he can see all the roguery that is going on in the whole fleet, at any rate, and ought ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... buried alive. Their spirits have never rested, but come out at all times from the huge fissure in the ridges where their bodies were put. Their anguished cries as the stones and earth fell on them are still to be heard echoing through the scrub there; and sometimes it is said one, keener sighted than his fellows, sees their spirit forms flitting through the Budtha bushes, and hears again their tragic cries, as they disappear once more into ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... to forget the price of his country's liberty, or that of his own; it is the recollection of the terrible bloody onset—the audacious charge—the enemy's repulse, which sweetens victory. And surely no soldiers can appreciate the final triumph with a keener sense of gladness than those who fought against such odds as did the Black Phalanx. Beating down prejudice and upholding the national cause at the same time, they have inscribed upon their banners every important battle from April, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... have brought science and order into the comparative method, and largely to have widened its scope. In this sense, comparison is criticism; and to compare with increased intelligence, with a clearer consciousness of the end in view, is to reform criticism itself, to make it a keener weapon and more ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... given an impulse to your life: that you read more, study more, take a keener interest in everything. You could not possibly have said a thing which could have given me more pleasure than that. It is splendid! It justifies me in aspiring to you. It satisfies my conscience over everything which I have done. It must be right if that is the effect. I have felt so happy and ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... of conviction. He then went into the house to wash his hands, and, coming back, sat down at his ease in a wicker arm-chair near the table. He felt happy, and in a good temper. The verdure, the sunlight and the blue sky filled him with a keener sense of the joy of life. Large towns with their bustle and din were to him detestable. Around him were sunlight and freedom; the future gave him no anxiety; for he was disposed to accept from life whatever it could offer him. Sanine shut his eyes tight, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... criminology the name of the celebrated Frenchman was familiar to him as that of the foremost criminal investigator in Europe, and he found himself staring at the fragment of gold with a new and keener interest. ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... but a mist which revealed as each cloud wreathed and went out, the red of some strange flower or some tall peak, blue and snowy and fairylike in lonely moonlight; and now so great was my conversion that the more brutal the outrage offered to my ancient ideal, the rarer and keener was my delight. I read almost without fear: "My dreams were of naked youths riding white horses through mountain passes, there were no clouds in my dreams, or if there were any, they were clouds that had been cut out as if ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore |
