"Clever" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at all costs became necessary, and it was very simple when it came. "Why grope about for the significant, when the obvious is at hand? Let me paint the obvious; the obvious always pleases," said some clever innovator. So he painted the obvious,—pretty clothes, pretty faces, and trivial action, with the results foreseen: he pleased then, and he pleases still. Crowds still flock to the Spanish chapel in S. Maria Novella to celebrate the ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... I could depend upon his promptness and exactitude, it was the rule of the house. He also observed that he would throw in a couple of miller-guns for the Marcos gratis—that everybody was using them now. He had a mighty opinion of that clever device. I said: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... She told me she had met you two or three times by accident and you had talked to each other for a little while. She seemed to feel she ought to speak of it to me and to Miss Mason. Teresa is a dear, but she isn't as clever as some of the other girls and I don't think you would ever care to be very intimate friends. She never could understand you as Tory and Louise do. You did tell Teresa she was to be chosen ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... efficacious in their teaching on the side of modesty and manliness, truth and simplicity. When some girl shall have traced from first to last the character of Beatrix, what, let us ask, will be the result on her mind? Beatrix was born noble, clever, beautiful, with certain material advantages, which it was within her compass to improve by her nobility, wit, and beauty. She was quite alive to that fact, and thought of those material advantages, to the utter exclusion, in our mind, of any idea of moral goodness. She realised it all, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... drinking Spins the heavy world around. If young hearts were not so clever, Oh, they would be young for ever: Think no more; 'tis only thinking ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... snappy play; the military precision with which their work is done. Possibly you dream of the wriggling open field running of Snake Izard, or the bulwark defense of Nichols; or in your West Point experiences you are reminded of the tussle you had in suppressing the brilliant Kromer, that clever little quarterback and field general, or the task of stopping the forging King, the Army's ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... that one of them was Grace Kerr. That he could not tell which, he upbraided himself, not willing that she should be subjected to the indignity of pursuit. It was a clever trick, but the preparation for it and the readiness with which it was put into play seemed to reflect a doubt of her entire innocence in her father's dishonest transactions. Still, it was no more than natural that she should bend every faculty to the assistance of her father in escaping ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... himself and passing the whole evening with us; but much as I was displeased with him, I was still more so with myself for being unable to resist laughing and appearing entertained (he was so uncommonly clever), tho' I persevered in my determination of not speaking to him. I do not like his having got the entree there, and think him, even old as he is, a dangerous acquaintance for Caroline. Of course you perceive it was Sheridan." Considering ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... have been makers of artificial flowers; both are clever artists, and the shops of the West End have fairly blazed with the glory of their roses. Winsome lassie's and serene ladies have made themselves gay with ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... concentrated essence of feminine witchery. Intuition strong, logic weak, and the two qualities so balanced as to produce an indefinable charm; will-power large, but docility equal, if a man is clever enough to know how to manage her; knowledge of facts absolutely nil, but she is exquisitely intelligent in spite of it. She has a way of evading, escaping, eluding, and then gives you an intoxicating ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate fellow and clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably neatest apartment in town. ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... figure, with an air of modest reserve more in keeping with her youth and dainty dimpling beauty than with her errand, her appearance produced an astonishment none of which the gentlemen were able to disguise. This the clever detective, with a genius for social problems and odd elusive cases! This darling of the ball-room in satin and pearls! Mr. Spielhagen glanced at Mr. Cornell, and Mr. Cornell at Mr. Spielhagen, and both at Mr. Upjohn, in very evident ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... up and made a long and clever speech, and begged Asgrim and the others who took the lead in the quarrel to look ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... factory, and as he was active and clever in his work, he soon earned enough to take a pretty little house, where they all lived together. Harry grew older, and went to school, where he was a good boy, and never forgot how God had preserved him from the wicked trader, and what his poor mother had suffered to bring ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown
... desire or be proud of. Generous, high-minded, witty, and talented, and with a strong and noble physical development, he seemed born to command the love of women. The only trouble with him was, in common parlance, that he was too clever a fellow; he was too social, too impressible, too versatile, too attractive, and too much in demand for his own good. He always drew company about him, as honey draws flies, and was indispensable every where and to every body; and it needs a steady head and firm nerves for such a ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the liberty indispensable to science, which seeks the truth, necessary to the soul. For the Greeks painting was, as it should always be, "imitation of beautiful bodies." Everything disagreeable or ill-formed should be excluded from painting. "Painting, as clever imitation, may imitate deformity. Painting, as a fine art, does not permit this." He was more inclined to admit deformity in poetry, as there it is less shocking, and the poet can make use of it to produce in us certain feelings, such as the ridiculous or the terrible. In his Dramaturgie (1767), ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... pointed, trenchant, incisive, keen; poignant, piercing, acute, penetrating, severe, excruciating, intense, subtile, violent; biting, sarcastic, acrimonious, acrid, cutting; sagacious, clever, perspicacious, ingenious, bright, discerning, resourceful, astute, shrewd, apt, smart, long-headed, acuminous; fierce, fiery, unquenchable, eager; exacting, close; steep, abrupt, precipitous; pungent, piquant peppery, high-seasoned: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... notice Mr. Mackintosh, an opponent whom Burke did not consider beneath him. But the champion was Thomas Paine. At the White Bear, Piccadilly, Paine's favorite lounge, where Romney, who painted a good portrait of him, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Colonel Oswald, Horne Tooke, and others of that set of clever, impracticable reformers used to meet, there had been talk of the blow Mr. Burke was preparing to strike, and Paine had promised his friends to ward it off and to return it. He set himself to work in the Red-Lion Tavern, at Islington, and in three months, Part the First of the "Rights ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... She loved to see the admiring affection which she had been finding there. But Nancy's eyes were cold and unseeing. Judith, like most clever little girls, was extremely sensitive to public opinion, and she almost dropped her dumb-bells in an agony of shame and humiliation as she saw the coldness of Nancy's eyes faithfully repeated in all the eyes about her. Alas, ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... Here they were, all thinking of, talking of, evoking one unknown, mysterious personality —that of the shadowy and yet terribly real human being who chose to call himself The Avenger. And somewhere, not so very far away from them all The Avenger was keeping these clever, astute, highly trained minds—aye, and bodies, ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Mitchell. "But I wouldn't have any bitter or sex-problem books. They do no good. Problems have been the curse of the world ever since it started. I think one noble, kindly, cheerful character in a book does more good than all the clever villains or romantic adventurers ever invented. And I think a man ought to get rid of his maudlin sentiment in private, or when he's drunk. It's a pity that every writer couldn't put all his bitterness into one ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... believe it, therefore it must be true," sounds like a shameless abandonment of reasonableness. The fact that a belief is "consoling," quite independently of its truth or falsehood, creates a bias towards its acceptance. That it is pleasant to believe oneself very clever and competent will incline one to that belief until something important depends, not on our thinking ourselves so, but on our being so. Before an examination, the wish to succeed will make me sceptical about my prospects, much as I should like to think them the brightest; afterwards, ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... vicious life, and his unjust and tyrannical rule, it is surprising that instead of being severely punished he was sent to the cell of Penwortham and allowed to hold office as Prior until his death. The story of the fight between the convent, headed by Thomas de Marleberge, a clever and well educated young monk who afterwards became abbot, and the wicked and shameless Norreys, is related at full length in the chronicles which have come down to us, written it would seem by Marleberge's own hand. The scandalous behaviour of the Abbot and the neglected state of his house was ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... exactly correspond—and if some Anglo-Saxons have the 'Celtic' note it is certain that many thousands of Celts have not; why then I shall be glad enough to use a better and a handier and a more exact, if only some clever person will ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... At a clever caricature of the German Emperor the soldiers laughed and clapped their hands. While they were laughing I looked through ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... wrote a series of satirical letters signed "Jonathan Oldstyle." In these letters, his earliest work of any significance, he touches the Addisonian string upon which his critics have harped so insistently ever since. They are decidedly clever for a boy of nineteen, but not cleverer than the best college work of to-day, and perhaps more consciously imitative. The fact that they were greatly praised and gained some vogue through copying in other ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... discontent in regard to the queen's proposed marriage to Philip of Spain, in the interest of France, encouraged Elizabeth to associate herself with the factious, and to become, as it were, the stalking-horse of the disaffected. She was far too clever to commit herself to any direct act of rebellion, but de Noailles was prodigal of her name in all the intrigues that he fostered, and the plot organised by means of Sir Peter Carew, in Devonshire and Cornwall, had for its declared object the marriage ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... entered. But the jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate fellow and a clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest apartment in the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... wedge-shaped district partially dividing the Munshis and Bassas. The Bassas are a very remarkable pagan race who permeate the entire protectorate of Northern Nigeria, and are to be found in small colonies in almost every province. They are clever agriculturists, naturally peaceful and industrious. The Munshis, though also good agriculturists, are a warlike and most unruly race, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... a clever mind like mine to deduce from my daughter's behaviour that Miss Eliza remains unchanged through the changing years," murmured Ross in Elinor's ear. "Tempus may fugit, but Miss Eliza's disposition stands ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... might have been, a little was saved from the wreck, and the appearance of a suitor, in the person of Everard G. Roxdal, ensured her a future of competence, if not of the luxury she had been entitled to expect. She had a good deal of affection for Everard, who was unmistakably a clever man, as well as a good-looking one. The prospect seemed fair and cloudless. Nothing presaged the terrible storm that was about to break over these two lives. Nothing had ever for a moment come to vex their mutual contentment, till this Sunday afternoon. The October ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... 'She has the spirit of four great parishes,' says the wit in the comedy, 'and a voice that will drown all the city.' If a gallant stood in the way, she drew upon him in an instant, and he must be a clever swordsman to hold his ground against the tomboy who had laid low the German fencer himself. A good fellow always, she had ever a merry word for the passer-by, and so sharp was her tongue that none ever put a trick upon her. Not to know Moll was to be inglorious, and she 'slipped from one company ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... Tamara. "Well, the women seem to make up for it. I have never met so many clever ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... Cauchois, of New York, brought out his Private Estate coffee maker, a clever combination of the French drip and filter processes, employing a thin layer of Japanese paper as a filtering agent. The same year, Finley Acker, of Philadelphia, was granted a United States patent on a percolator employing two ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... of this verse is to show the utility and necessity of acts. Without acting no one, however clever, can earn any fruit. Both the vernacular translators give ridiculous versions of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to him; he's a clever fellow. He's sharp enough. I had an old master once, who possessed a collection of parchments, among which were charters of ancient constitutions, contracts, and privileges. He set great store, too, by ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... a spark of life into the company; she wrote a really clever little song about "the Exclusive Crew of the Irish Stew," but she could not induce the exclusive crew to sing it, so her first poetic effort was love's labor lost. So she looked enviously upon the canoes and resolved more firmly than ever to ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... JIGGER. A very minute insect of tropical countries, which pierces the thick skin of the foot, and breeds there, producing great pain. It is neatly extricated with its sac entire by clever negroes. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... about his sport. He described the places where he found partridges, expressed his astonishment at not having caught any hares in Joseph Ledentu's clever, or else appeared indignant at the conduct of M. Lechapelier, of Havre, who always went along the edge of his property to shoot the game that he, Henry de ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to do with setting the standard of life and desirable prosperity may be illustrated by the following incident: During one of the campaigns a clever cartoonist drew a poster representing the successful alderman in portraiture drinking champagne at a table loaded with pretentious dishes and surrounded by other revellers. In contradistinction was his opponent, a bricklayer, who sat upon a half-finished wall, eating a meagre ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... scalawag will recognize the rope now, ma'am, the same as a human outlaw will recognize the rope—or the law. Of course both will be outlaws when there's no rope or no law around, but—Why, ma'am," he laughed—"I'm gettin' right clever at workin' my jaw, ain't I? Are you headin' back to the Flyin' W? Because if you are, I'd be sort of glad to go along with you—if you'll promise you won't go to galivantin' around the country on foot no more. Not ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... through great perseverance, secured the freedom of his wife and six children; one child he was compelled to leave behind. Daniel belonged to Robert Calender, a farmer, and, "except when in a passion," said to be "pretty clever." However, considering as a father, that it was his "duty to do all he could" for his children, and that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, Daniel felt bound to seek refuge in Canada. His wife and children were owned by "Samuel Count, an old, bald-headed, bad man," who "had of late years ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... of wasting good gasoline on you. She loaded her car with girls on purpose. There was no room to spare. She stopped it above the station yard and stayed there until after the train had come in. After a while she drove into the yard and out again. Not one of us set foot on the platform. It was a clever bluff and ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... "but then she is very clever. You will see if she is not clever when you hear the story I shall now tell you," and Lisetta laughed, and showed her own one double chin, with its two little round dimples. Then she smoothed down her peasant apron, bade Giovanni leave off pinching ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... clever," the Buriat said. "He saved the life of my child by taking off his leg, and he is running about again now. He is as a brother to me, and I would gladly give a thousand cattle rather than that ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... that he could remember about the millionaire's servants—and, under the clever questioning of the detective, he was surprised to find how much he did remember—all kinds of odd details about them which he had ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... George, he was my child and all my children, my silly child, and life has knocked him about for me, and I've never had a say in the matter; never a say; it's puffed him up and smashed him—like an old bag—under my eyes. I was clever enough to see it, and not clever enough to prevent it, and all I could do was to jeer. I've had to make what I could of it. Like most people. Like most of us.... But it wasn't fair, George. It wasn't fair. Life and Death—great serious things—why couldn't they leave him alone, and his ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... and eternal separation from the sultan. I mentioned to your highness that the Georgian slave who had preceded me in the sultan's favour had been sent as a present to my brother. This woman, although she had always appeared fond of me, was in fact my most bitter enemy. She was very beautiful and clever, and soon obtained the most unlimited influence over my brother. Yet she loved him not; she had but one feeling to gratify, which was revenge on me. My brother had so often led the troops to victory, that he had acquired an unbounded sway over them. Stimulated ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... breeze sprang up from the northward, and she hauled in a little to fetch the easternmost of the islands, among which she was about to cruise. A Greek pilot had been taken on board on the Zone's first entering the Archipelago. He was a clever old fellow, and he undertook to carry the ship in safety through all the dangers with which she would be surrounded. Zappa had once plundered a ship of which he had charge, and he was doubly anxious to ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... the pieces of Aristophanes the motto of a pleasant and acute adventurer in Goethe: "Mad, but clever." In them we are best enabled to conceive why the Dramatic Art in general was consecrated to Bacchus: it is the intoxication of poetry, the Bacchanalia of fun. This faculty will at times assert its rights as well as others; and hence ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... had something else just at present to make her anxious and unhappy. She was a shrewd and clever child; she had not been tossed about the world for nothing, and she could read character with tolerable accuracy. Without putting her thoughts into regular words, she yet had read in that hard new face a grasping ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... he was ruthlessly selfish, when he poured scorn upon me; at such times I thought him, as Trenchard has expressed it, a "beastly" man. He certainly had no great opinion of myself. "You think yourself very clever, Ivan Andreievitch. Yes, you think you're watching all of us and studying all our characters. And I suppose there'll be a book one day, another of those books by Englishmen about poor Russians—and you'll flatter yourself that now at last ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... most cordially received. Ottilie justified Kestner's praises. Pretty, but not strikingly so—clever, but not obtrusively so; her soft dark eyes were frank and winning; her manner was gentle and retiring, with that dash of sentimentalism which seems native to all German girls, but without any of the ridiculous extravagance too often seen in ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... corner of the carpet and looked there—it was loose; it had often been used for a hiding-place. I looked in Miss Evelyn's boot and in her ribbon box. I emptied Mrs. Kingdon's full powder box. I climbed ladders and felt along cornices. I looked through the pockets of Mrs. Kingdon's gowns—a clever bell-boy it takes to find a woman's pocket, but even the real masculine ones among 'em are half feminine; they've had so much ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... that," he said. "He told you that I made off with her fortune? Gad! but he was clever, very, ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... old Rover worked that night! Could n't see out of his eyes, nor hardly wag his clever old tail, for two days; thorns in both his fore paws, and the last coon took a piece right out of ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the curse o' brain paarts, but stricken man wi' a mighty intelligence. 'Twas a fine an' cruel act, for the more mind the more misery. 'Twas a damned act sure 'nough! Doan't 'e let on 'bout it, mate, but theer'll be clever surprises at Judgment, an' the fust to be damned'll be the God o' the Hebrews Hisself for givin' o' brains to weak heads. Then the thrawn o' heaven'll stand empty—empty—the plaace 'tween the cherubims ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... is very clever and well informed. He can talk pleasantly about anything, especially about yachting and the sea, and of ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... you sir," said Mr. Bagges, facetiously addressing himself to his eldest nephew, Harry,—"Eh! what? I am glad to hear, sir, that you are doing well at school. Now—eh? now, are you clever enough to tell where was Moses when he put ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... See also Appendix B. The quaint poem of Richard E. White to "The Little Dancing Saint" (Overland, May, 1914) is worthy of mention, though the place of her childhood is mistakenly assumed to be Lower California instead of San Francisco. It is to be hoped also that the very clever skit of Edward F. O'Day, entitled "The Defeat of Rezanov," purely imaginative as a historical incident, but with a wealth of local "atmosphere," written for the Family Club, of San Francisco, and produced at one of its "Farm Plays," will yet be ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
... conversation, descending from elevated theories concerning love, strayed into the flowery garden of polished blackguardism. It was the moment of clever, double meanings; veils raised by words, as petticoats are lifted by the wind; tricks of language, cleverly disguised audacities; sentences which reveal nude images in covered phrases, which cause the vision ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... she responded; "that is exactly what the last few chapters have been about. The real heir has turned up, and is trying to prove his own identity; only he is so changed that no one believes him. It is capitally worked out. A very clever author, my dear——" ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... had a number of farms all in fine order and clear of mortgages; and each year he added to his estates. He was sober, shrewd, even cunning, hated by most of his neighbours because he was too clever for them and kept on getting richer. His hard side was for the world and his soft side for his family. Not that he was really soft in any respect. He had had to fight his life-battle alone, beginning with nothing, and the many hard knocks had hardened ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... it very much, for I should think you'd have to be very clever to make such pretty things. I really quite fancy those rosebuds in my hat, now I know that you're going to learn how to make them. Put an orange in your pocket, and the flowers in water as soon as you can, so they'll be fresh when you ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... discover some subject in which your companion is interested, and get him to talking. Then show yourself a good listener. A woman may get the reputation of being bright and clever if she will simply show herself a good listener. To do this, she must give her attention to the person who is talking. She must seem interested. Her eyes must not wander around the room; she must not take up picture or book and glance over it; her questions must ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... from pure selfishness, and sometimes exhibit a sinful disregard for the happiness of other people. Nothing makes it right to ease yourself at the expense of others, or to shirk burdens by shifting them to other shoulders. Some are clever at that, but such action may be positively sinful. On the other hand, God can deliver us from that anxious care and foreboding and unrest with which so many good people ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... the Pontifexes were welcomed as great acquisitions to the neighbourhood. Mr Pontifex, they said was so clever; he had been senior classic and senior wrangler; a perfect genius in fact, and yet with so much sound practical common sense as well. As son of such a distinguished man as the great Mr Pontifex the publisher he would come into a large property by-and-by. Was there ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... what is wrong. It is a specialised type of humour, or rather wit, the type that undergraduates might appreciate. In fact I was recently gratified to hear that the students of a Scots university were rhapsodising about it. The real fault of the book is that it is clever, and to be clever is to be at ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... pirates who had given him such frights from the backs of their black stalls turned out, when once he made their acquaintance, to be good inoffensive tradesmen, embroiderers, dealers in spice, pipe-mouthpiece turners—well-bred fellows, humble, clever, close, and first-class hands at homely card games. Four or five times a week these gentry would come and spend the evening at Sidi Tart'ri's, winning his small change, eating his cakes and dainties, and delicately retiring on the stroke of ten ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... methods used to advertise patent medicines will suggest means of extending the usefulness of health-promoting goods. Aside from clever methods of suggestion that lead many people to take medicine for imaginary ailments, especially seasonal ailments, patent-remedy advertisers have employed (as an argument for the efficiency of their cures) scientific theory, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... the Count was commanding, entreating, cursing his servants, tipsy, and out of the way during the crisis, my conscience afterwards insinuated, by my clever contrivance. They now mounted to their places with the agility of alarm. The postilions' whips cracked, the horses scrambled into a trot, and away rolled the carriage, with its precious freightage, along the quaint main street, in the ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... out Ralph indignantly. "Oh—that's absurd! Price couldn't possibly swing Dad's work. He's not clever enough." ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... relations of details, are sublime and impressive; but the masses which result from the eclipse of details are contemptible and painful.[27] And we shall show, in following parts of the work, that distances like those of Poussin are mere meaningless tricks of clever execution, which, when once discovered, the artist may repeat over and over again, with mechanical contentment and perfect satisfaction, both to himself and to his superficial admirers, with no more exertion of intellect nor awakening of feeling than any tradesman has in multiplying ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... with the most wonderful part of the story, it so happened that on the very day when Napoleon was born, his mother dreamed that the world was on fire. She was a shrewd, clever woman, as well as the prettiest woman of her time; and when she had this dream, she thought she'd save her son from the dangers of life by dedicating him to God. And, indeed, that was a prophetic dream of hers! So she asked God to protect the boy, and promised that when he grew ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... make his way in the world. He had a slender schooling, a much-abbreviated law education in a lawyer's office, and little enough of that intellectual discipline needed for leadership at the bar; yet he had a clever wit, an engaging personality, and a rare facility in speaking, and he capitalized these assets. He was practising law in Lexington, Kentucky, when he was appointed to ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... bonus the government had awarded them for their singularly clever work in rescuing Lieutenant Chapin, the inventor of Chapinite, by their aeroplane Golden Eagle II, had supplied them with ample funds for their trip. As for Billy Barnes (or "Our Special Staff Correspondent, William Barnes," as he was now known), besides ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... It is ALL,—all. Absurd, isn't it? I must have been very young when I thought that clever. But to return: would that little ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... our coroner is a very clever man, and you will be glad to know him—very glad to know him, sir, and he will be glad to know you, so I am sure it will be a mutual gratification. It's at four o'clock the inquest is to be, and I dare say, sir, if you are there by half-past, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Clever woman, I thought to myself. She isn't altogether chummy with those old maid sisters, and yet she knows better than to have any open disagreement. I'll bet she gets her secretary when she gets ready for one! I'll be on the lookout for the ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... charity-school among the other children a little Jewish girl, so clever and good; the best, in fact, of them all; but one of the lessons she could not attend—the one when religion was taught, for this was ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... considered unpatriotic, and Fox's absence from parliament when the thanks of the house were voted to Duncan was particularly blamed. The secession of their leaders gave some whigs of less standing an opportunity of coming to the front. In Fox's absence the remnant of the opposition was led by Tierney, a clever financier and a brilliant speaker with a bitter tongue. From the beginning of the war constant motions had been made for peace with France. They were discontinued after 1797; for it was generally recognised that ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... circles, just at this period, that the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General were not the best friends in the world; and the latter was wont to call the former an old fogey, and the former to say of the latter that he might be a very clever philosopher, but certainly no lawyer. And so by degrees the thing got much talked about in the profession; and there was perhaps a balance of opinion that the Solicitor-General had ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... applied to Westerners, for they originally learned literature, science, and other arts from the East; but they have proven apt pupils and have excelled their old masters. I wish I could find an apothegm concerning a former master who went back to school and surpassed his clever pupil. The non-existence of such a maxim probably indicates that no such case has as yet occurred, but that by no means ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... a dupe trotting into a carefully-laid pitfall. She had him by the generosity of his confidence in her. Moreover, the recollection of her recent feeble phrasing, when she stood convicted of the treachery, when a really clever woman would have developed her resources, led him to doubt her being so finely gifted. She was just clever enough to hoodwink. He attributed the dupery to a trick of imposing the idea of her virtue upon men. Attracted by her good looks ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... as you do, I should fancy. I like to know what new things people are discovering, and how the world looks to clever men. But I can't study; I have no perseverance. I read the ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... stinting in temporal goods which men may practise toward one another: such as greed, usury, overcharging and plating wares that sell as solid, counterfeit wares, short measures and weights, and who could tell all the ready, novel, clever tricks, which multiply daily in every trade, by which every one seeks his own gain through the other's loss, and forgets the rule which says: "What ye wish that others do to you, that do ye also to them." If every ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... neatly tied-up bundles of young well-grown beans lying on the fresh cabbage-leaves would be one of the attractions of the village shop. A day or two ago all the plums that were ripe had gone the same way, to the children's disgust. Mrs. MacDougall was a clever gardener, and had a ready sale for her small stock of produce. To-day Elsie and Duncan would get no dinner beyond the bit of bread. That was the result of their loitering. They had lost the valuable time through their talk over ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... care, Simpson," said the boatswain; "the doctor's a clever man, and he'll make you take this puffin ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... clever enough to catch a few boy offenders, without demanding that other boys 'queer' themselves with every ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... willingly see him, on condition however that no mention is made of certain subjects on which it would be impossible for us to agree. To tell the truth, the Catholicism preached by De la Choue—worthy, clever man though he is—his Catholicism, I say, with his corporations, his working-class clubs, his cleansed democracy and his vague socialism, is after ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... has brought the photographs, and scarcely has he taken them from his pocket when both pluck up a spirit. These pictures are the intermediaries over whose heads the chat revives; for now the two are not entirely alone; there are eyes that look at you and they are not embarrassing. Pierre has had the clever idea (there was really no roguishness in it) to bring all his photographs, from the age of three; there was one that showed him in a little skirt. Luce laughed with pleasure; she spoke to the photo ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... the parlor, a prey to mingled feelings. She did not dare refuse the task thrown on her by her imperative niece. Not only her niece's anger would be incurred by the refusal, but also the niece's insinuations that the aunt was not sufficiently clever for the task. However difficult, the thing must be attempted. And, which made matters worse, even if the attempt should succeed, it would be a rewardless one to Miss Sally. If she might detain the captain for herself, the effort would be worth making. The aunt sighed deeply, ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... rule, and a very good rule it is; but he naturally likes to be the first to look at it," said Mrs. Gresley, with a great exercise of patience. She had heard Hester was clever, but she found her very stupid. Everything had to be ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... lessons of the pupil are very short and simple, but as his mind ripens they become longer and more difficult. The education of the soul precedes that of the mind. They wish to make their children good before they make them clever; and good by the feelings of the heart rather than the instruction of the head. Every care is taken to refine and strengthen the sentiments and instincts, the conscience, good sense and taste, as well as the affections, filial piety, friendship, and the love of Nature. ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... "Thou art clever in thy way, Tom," he said, "and I like the minuteness of thy calculations, for they show an aptitude for trade; but there is genius in our calling as well as cleverness. Come hither, boy," he added, drawing Tom to a window ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... yet so well known as whist, but an hour's study of this clever little book ought to be enough to enable anyone to play with moderate success. It is written mainly for the instruction of amateurs, but, in addition, the author, who is herself an expert, has given numerous hints that will be valuable to ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... brothers, Franz and Carl, are twenty and eighteen years respectively. Franz is the eldest of 16 children and is said to weigh 24 pounds and measure 21 inches in height; Carl is said to weigh less than his brother but is 29 inches tall. They give a clever gymnastic exhibition and are apparently intelligent. They advertise that they were examined and still remain under the surveillance ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance—that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... markedly appreciative, will not only endear you more to him than any protestation of your love could do, but will have an excellent effect on him mentally and morally. Just as you always feel dazzling when in company of people who admire you and always talk brilliantly when with those who think you clever, similarly Perseus will be spurred on by your admiration (real or assumed) to ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... the performance, miss,' he added. 'Did you hear Frivol's song? It was very clever, quite the ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... under a cloud, and equally certain that his relatives at home were content to take no further interest in his fortunes. During the fifteen or sixteen years which he had spent in or about the colony, Hadden followed many trades, and did no good at any of them. A clever man, of agreeable and prepossessing manner, he always found it easy to form friendships and to secure a fresh start in life. But, by degrees, the friends were seized with a vague distrust of him; and, after a period of more ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... position to promote business. Not a few of these merchants were Uighurs and Mohammedans; many Uighurs were also employed as clerks, as the Mongols were very often unable to read and write Chinese, and the government offices were bilingual, working in Mongolian and Chinese. The clever Uighurs quickly learned enough of both languages for official purposes, and made themselves indispensable assistants to the Mongols. Persian, the main language of administration in the western parts of the Mongol empire besides Uighuric, also ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... paraphernalia of the art-student in Paris. It gave consideration in the eyes of one's fellows. It was something to boast about. But the difficulty was that they had scarcely enough money to keep themselves, and though they argued that French-women were so clever it cost no more to keep two then one, they found it difficult to meet young women who were willing to take that view of the circumstances. They had to content themselves for the most part with envying and abusing the ladies who received protection from painters of more settled respectability ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... inspector, unable to follow these observations, "you are a clever dodger, but you can't dodge me. Have you any statement to make with reference to the lady that was ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... a Western city is the pivot about which the action of this clever story revolves. But it is in the character-drawing of the principals that the author's strength lies. Exciting incidents develop their inherent strength and weaknesses, and if virtue wins in the end, it is quite in keeping with its carefully-planned antecedents. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... "There are very clever girls," the Very Young Man went on hastily; he found himself a little on the defensive, and he did not know just why. "They are able to do things in the world. But—many men ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... over," she whispered blithely to the wife, who sat in a dull abstraction, oblivious of the hospital flurry. "And it's going to be all right, I just know. Dr. Sommers is so clever, he'd save a dead man. You had better go now. No use to see him to-night, for he won't come out of the opiate until near morning. You can come tomorrow morning, and p'r'aps Dr. Sommers will get you a pass in. Visitors only Thursdays ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... isn't reasonable. No one about this place is suspected. We have thought of this, however: the murderess may have taken all of these things away with her in order to prevent immediate identification of her victim. She may have been clever enough for that. It would ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... quitted him without noise, taking away one of his tables, and some peas and thimbles: and that I did with a safe conscience, for he paid me nothing, and was not over free with the meat and the drink, though I must say of him that he was a clever fellow, and perfect master of his trade, by which he made a power of money, and bating his not being able to learn Irish, and a certain Jewish lisp which he had, a great master of his tongue, of which he was very proud, so much so that he once told me that when he had saved ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... "This is very clever of you, Madame," he said; "but do you think it will avail you anything? You can sit like that all night, if you wish, but before dawn I will ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... Chunky's clever foresight probably saved Tad Butler's life, for, instantly the pony found itself free, it began bucking and kicking in a circle, kicking a ring all round the compass before it finally decided to settle down on all fours. Finishing, it ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... the other day from a university professor that you are considered by no means deficient; rather clever in fact." ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... expounded in a veiled, clever, discreet and insinuating manner. But each word of the holy woman in cornet made a breach in the indignant resistance of the courtesan. Then the conversation drifting somewhat, the woman with the hanging rosary spoke of the Convents of her Order, of her Superior, of herself, ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... that it is weakened if they are weakened; that it revives with them; and that whether you attribute individual life to them or not, makes no alteration in the fact: their action upon you remains the same. And he must be a very clever man who can show me the exact difference between action and life. Hereafter, when we have descended the scale of the animal world together, and are arrived at the study of what are called microscopic ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... as she grew more at home, she freely chatted to Mrs. Brownlow, who was always ready to hear of Mary Ogilvie and Clara Cartwright, and liked to draw out the stories of the girl-world, in which it was plain that Caroline Allen had been a bright, good, clever girl, getting on well, trusted and liked. She had been half sorry to leave her dear old school, half glad to go on to something new. She was evidently not so comfortable, while Miss Heath's lowest teacher, as she had been while she was the asylum's ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... possible that I—the 'chit of a girl,' as everybody called me," thought Natasha—"is it possible that I am now to be the wife and the equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father looks up to? Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no more playing with life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies a responsibility for my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... is not a quotation, but very like one, for Miss RICHARDSON affects the modern manner. Though one of the dentists is quite the most agreeable person in the book, he isn't the hero, because the author is much too clever to have anything of the sort. Her method, exploited some time ago in that remarkable book, Pointed Roofs, is to get right inside one Miriam Henderson and keep on writing out her thoughts with as little explanation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... "Well, now, that's clever of ye," he said, thrusting out his hand, "I reckon you air the proprietor—how's ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... a wife as yours," replied the other, "I would take her from the stage to-morrow. A beautiful woman, a clever woman, a woman of unblemished character, and a woman who truly loves you. Man alive! what do ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... He was clever enough to meet this ugly development with a masterly piece of trickery conceived in the Eastern vein. One day a carefully arranged dispute took place between him and his wife, and the police were ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... ground from high up in a tree, and often when coming down a tree he comes down headfirst. He is very fond of hunting the cousins of Jumper the Hare and is so tireless that he can run them down. He is very clever and, like his cousin, Glutton the Wolverine, makes no end of trouble for trappers by stealing the baits from ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... own intellect had been useful. He had been brilliant because he accepted every problem and every difficulty as a challenge. But with the Platform's situation seemingly hopeless, he'd been starkly unable to face the fact that he wasn't clever or brilliant or intelligent enough. If Joe's solution to the proximity fuse bombs had been offered before his emotional collapse, he could have accepted it grandly, and in so doing have made it his own. But it was too late for that ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... Giuseppe Marchi by saying, "He was a clever colorist, but incapable of doing independent work." Cotton might, however, have told the whole simple truth, and that was that Marchi was hands, feet, eyes and ears for his master—certain it is that without his help Sir ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... points for signs of mining where they were not blown, or in arranging for temporary roadways to be constructed, or craters to be filled in where they had been exploded. But on a larger scale the enemy's very clever system of working his delay-action mines on the railways, was the biggest nuisance we had to contend with. The railway having been repaired well forward, a mine would suddenly go up miles behind, thus preventing ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... of the day was the vigorous chase, by some of the party, of an old pair of moulting gray geese with their young, all, of course, unable to fly. It was pitiful to watch the clever and fearless actions of the old birds as decoys, falling victims, at last, to parental love. Indeed, they were not worth eating, and to kill them was a sin. But when were there ever scruples over food on Peace River, that theatre ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... it is often a necessity to hunt for a suitable special topic on which to speak, the student should know that when he gets outside the classroom, he will find that he will not be invited to speak because he is ready at finding subjects and clever in speech. It is not strange, in view of the many advertisements that reach young men, offering methods of home training, or promising sure success from this or that special method of schooling, that they may come to believe that any one has only to learn to stand up boldly on a platform, and ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... in—what do you call it—oh, yes, toxology—putting their heads together over the analysing business, and they won't say anything so far—they'll leave that to the inquest. But I gathered this much, Mr. Purdie, from the one I spoke to—this man Parslett was poisoned in some extremely clever fashion, and by some poison that's not generally known, which was administered to him probably half- an-hour before it took effect. What's that argue, sir, but that whoever gave him that poison is something of an expert? Deep game, Mr. Purdie, a very deep game indeed!—and ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... is clear, that whoever is behind this telephone trickery is very clever, and very conceited over that cleverness. It may be a ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... not unprepared. She received this tranquilly. "Mr. Ransdell is a very clever man," said she with perfect good humor. "I've no hope of convincing you, but ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... a clever little brain!" He shut his eyes. "I married Miss Joan Meredyth on the first of June, or was it the second, in the year nineteen hundred and eighteen? We lived a cat-and-dog existence, and parted with mutual recriminations, since when I have not seen her! Marjorie, do ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... "The story's clever," he said. "But I can tell a more interesting tale." And he proceeded to relate the adventures of Cecil in the person of "the Bishop," to which his Lordship listened with ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... the experiences of the author, revived in imagination and combined in new ways. The horrendous incidents depicted in Dante's "Divine Comedy" never occurred within the lifetime experience of the author as such. Their separate elements did, however, and furnished the basis for Dante's clever combinations. The oft-heard saying that there is nothing new under the sun ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... performed considerable operations upon themselves. On the battlefield men have amputated one of their own limbs that had been shattered. In such cases there would be little pain, and premeditation would not be brought into play in the same degree as in the case of M. Clever de Maldigny, a surgeon in the Royal Guards of France, who successfully performed a lithotomy on himself before a mirror. He says that after the operation was completed the urine flowed in abundance; he dressed the wound with lint dipped in an emollient solution, and, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... thinking 'you might as well be a stick or a stone for all the thought I am giving you.'" The mental picture appeared to afford him satisfaction, for he resumed after a moment. "I believe if you'd practise it a while before the glass you could do it—you are so clever." ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... charge was, the vindication of the Jews was no whit less clever. For they found a defender in the archangel Michael. While Haman was delivering his indictment, he spoke thus to God: "O Lord of the world! Thou knowest well that the Jews are not accused of idolatry, nor of immoral conduct, nor of shedding blood; they ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... coquettishly, as if she were still a young bird. "I did like living there; no servants ever were allowed to wait upon me, for the young ladies of the house were so fond of me they fed me with their own fair hands. Dick was their nephew, and a nice-looking boy,—clever, too,—very; but he had one bad habit that grieved his aunts very much. At all his meals he would keep stuffing and stuffing himself, just like a little pig feeding for market. He always chose the daintiest dishes, and ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... husband, Mr. Davies, had the yellow fever in India, and he is still the colour of a guinea; but then he is rich, and Augusta has her carriage and establishment, and we all think she has done perfectly well. Now, this is better than 'earning a living,' as you say. By the way, are you clever?" ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... a rum 'un, though, ain't he?' chuckled Adams. 'Many a scheme he and I have laid to get money out of the grog-drinkers. But he was always ahead of me. I used, in my early days, to feel a little compunction when I saw a clever fellow going to ruin. But it never affected him in the least. All was fish that came into his net. I wish we had him with us. We want just such scheming devils as he to help us devise ways and means to circumvent ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... the moment of separation the new convert sometimes discovers the most valuable qualities in the wives he is obliged to abandon. One understands gardening perfectly; another knows how to prepare chiza, an intoxicating beverage extracted from the root of cassava; all appear to him alike clever and useful. Sometimes the desire of preserving his wives overcomes in the Indian his inclination to christianity; but most frequently, in his perplexity, the husband prefers submitting to the choice of the missionary, as to a ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... fatigue, it disappeared with the pleasure of seeing his present company disport themselves. They were not in the least afraid of him—how should they be, when he had spent months in the winning of their confidence and affection by every clever wile known to the genuine boy lover? That they respected him was plainly shown by the fact that, ill trained at home as most of them had been, with him they never overstepped certain bounds. At the lifting of a finger he could command their attention, though the moment before ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... Catherine made immense efforts to obtain a little influence. She was clever enough to bring the Connetable de Montmorency, all-powerful under Henri II., to her interests. We all know the terrible answer that the king made, on being harassed by Montmorency in her favor. This answer was the result of an attempt by Catherine to give the king ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... boys went through the act without a slip. They did everything that Signor Navaro had done in his performance, adding some clever feats of their own that had been devised with the help of Mr. Miaco. Mr. Sparling looked on with twinkling eyes and frequent nods ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... to go masked to the public ball at Versailles, where His Majesty could meet her under favour of a mask. I assured M. de —— that I should acquaint Madame with the affair, who would, no doubt, feel very grateful for the communication. He then added, "Tell Madame la Marquise that my wife is very clever and very intriguing. I adore her, and should run distracted were she to be taken from me." I lost not a moment in acquainting Madame with the affair and gave her the letter. She became serious and pensive, and I since learned that she consulted M. Berrier, Lieutenant of Police, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... his friend down to the front door. Here Karl, having heard them descending the stairs, joined them; and so far as Paul could see there was no change in the boy's manner. If he had done wrong he must be clever enough to hide the guilt that lay in his heart, and ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... She told us about it last night at dinner. Gave us month and day. It was very clever of her. We ought to give her birthday-gifts, don't you think? And yet you call ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... purpose and turn it into ridicule. He got upon a chair, not far from where George sat, but refused to go upon the platform. "No, thank yer my friends, I'm best down here; up there's the place for the gentlefolk, the clever uns, them as buy grey mares!"—(roars of laughter)—"but, Mr. Chairman, with your permission"—and here Bill put his had upon his chest and made a most profound bow to the chair, which caused more laughter—"there is just one question I should like to ask—not ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... It went off wonderfully well; but I confess I enjoyed the preparations more than the play itself: the ingenuity displayed was very amusing at the time. You on shore cannot imagine how difficult it was to find a snuff-box for "Sir Anthony Absolute," or with what joy and admiration we welcomed a clever substitute for it in the shape of a match-box covered with the lead out of a tea-chest most ingeniously modelled into an embossed wreath round the lid, with a bunch of leaves and buds in the centre, the whole being brightly burnished: at the performance ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... to catch a thief," he said. "Which of you was the thief that catcht me? Maybe I've been only a blundering blockhead, and perhaps you've been clever, and smart uncommon, but I'm thinking there's some of you hasn't been ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... sojourn of the profligate Captain Dugald came to my knowledge—came to my knowledge with a convincing power, beyond all possibility of questioning. Oh, you see, I discovered the bare fact, without the explanation of it! I believed myself the dupe of a clever adventuress, and my love was nipped in the bud. If I could believe otherwise now,—if I could believe that she was innocent in that affair, and that she has loved me all these years, and been true to that love, and is ready and willing to ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the autumn, and Densher had almost invidiously brought him down the outer staircase—the massive ascent, the great feature of the court, to Milly's piano nobile. This was to pay him—it was the one chance—for all imputations; the imputation in particular that, clever, tanto bello and not rich, the young man from London was—by the obvious way—pressing Miss Theale's fortune hard. It was to pay him for the further ineffable intimation that a gentleman must take the young lady's most devoted servant (interested scarcely less in the high attraction) ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... as kind to her as a brother would be. She doesn't think him ugly at all. She remembers that he has red hair. It doesn't strike her that Pat's is, if possible, a shade more fiery. She has never thought of comparing them, Mike is a clever fellow, and all the girls like him; but Pat, is Pat, and she would not have him like anybody else ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... the comprehension of the creature who spelt them out word for word, seeking all the time to appraise their exact monetary value to himself. But for what he had heard he would have found them disappointing. As it was, he gloated over them. Two thousand pounds a year his clever brother had earned by merely possessing them! He looked at them almost reverently. Then he suddenly remembered what else his brother had earned by their possession, and he shivered. A moment later the ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... disgust, and of the first importation of them as "that pestiferous crew of the Mayflower;" but he is by no means rancorous against individual Yankees. He spoke very favourably of M'Clellan, whom he knew to be a gentleman, clever, and personally brave, though he might lack moral courage to face responsibility. Magruder had commanded the Confederate troops at Yorktown which opposed M'Clellan's advance. He told me the different dodges he had resorted to, to blind and deceive the latter as to his ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... Brice—" he paused. My heart hung in my breast, suspended there with terror. What was the matter with Brice? What did Fraser suspect—or know? He turned to the doctor. "You will give Inspector Brice another injection," he said. "The Inspector has a strong mind, and a clever one. A normal injection would not ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... years they have carried on the unequal war. Clever enough to avoid meeting the Spaniards in any pitched battles, that, if lost, would ruin their cause, they have succeeded in harassing their foe, wasting Spain's money, wearing out her patience, and keeping her at bay ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 29, May 27, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... actual size; but by using a fine braid a doily of fairy-like texture, and just the size of the engraving may be produced. Any one accustomed to drawing may enlarge this or any of the designs given, but only clever ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.
... clever exploit, the Shawanoe, still standing erect, just within the lodge, turned to the chief and addressed him in what may be termed a mixture of the Shawanoe and Osage tongues. He paid no attention to the squaw at the other ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... all fools!" the lady said,— "The way is just to shave his head. Run! bid the barber come anon." "Thanks, mother!" thought her clever son; "You help the knaves that would have bit me, But all creation sha'n't outwit me!" Thus to himself while to and fro His finger perseveres to go, And from his lips no accent flows But,—"Here she goes, and there she goes!" The barber came—"Lord help him! what A queerish customer ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... hands to their mutual benefit; and it is this that produces the very unedifying spectacle which only too many men exhibit, and that makes the world to go as it goes. A man who is unintelligent is very likely to show his perfidy, villainy and malice; whereas a clever man understands how to conceal these qualities. And how often, on the other hand, does a perversity of heart prevent a man from seeing truths which his intelligence is quite ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... is the old churl I mean. Well, to come back to our story. Our people wished to leave this town to-day, and my lover would have lost me through his lack of money if, in order to wrench some out of his father, he had not made use of a clever servant he has. As for that servant's name, I remember it very well. His name is Scapin. He is a most wonderful man, ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... through the four Jhanas in succession. On rising from the fourth trance he should consider the event which last took place, namely his sitting down; and then in retrograde order all that he did the day and night before and so backwards month after month and year after year. A clever monk (so says Buddhaghosa) is able at the first trial to pass beyond the moment of his conception in the present existence and to take as the object of his thought his individuality at the moment of his last death. But since the individuality of the previous ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... discount bonds and mortgages for the country banks.' Actually, I heard Twigsmith mutter as he went out, that it wasn't right to insult a man's poverty. Now I hadn't the remotest idea of injuring Twigsmith's feelings, for he was a very clever fellow, and we made a good thing out of him in his time, but it seems that my advice might not have ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... company, who had brought four small field-pieces. The remainder of my Indians were subdivided into squadrons of 100, commanded by their own respective chiefs. Gabriel, Roche, and my old servant, with two or three clever young Californians, I kept about me, as aides-de-camp. We advanced to the pass, and found the enemy encamped on the plain below. We made our dispositions; our artillery was well posted behind breastworks, in almost an impregnable position, a few miles below the pass, where we had already ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... the old Warwickshire home he was no more than the clever, precocious eldest son of an alderman who had seen better days. He went his own way, and may be supposed to have lived a somewhat free life, for before he was nineteen he appears to have found himself compelled to marry one Anne Hathaway ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... get up to-day," she said at last, to Madame's great delight. She never ventured to exert any authority over her beautiful and clever daughter-in-law—not even the authority of a mildly expressed wish. She was willing to be to Felicita anything that Felicita pleased—her servant and drudge, her fond mother, or her quiet, attentive companion. Since her return from her mysterious journey ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton |
