"Cunning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cunning in your schools than I had thought, for it is a certain method of showing them their vanity," returned the trapper, suddenly abandoning a discussion, from which the naturalist was just beginning to anticipate great delight, by turning to his dog, whose restlessness he attempted ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... told me that they were the most savage and warlike of all the wild tribes in the Pampa del Sacramento, between the rivers Ucayali and Hualtaga. "We must be on our guard against them, for they are equally cunning as fierce, and I truly believe that they really do eat those they can ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... by this outburst, as he was cunning enough to know precisely how far he could venture with safety. "I am waiting," ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... The curious nest among the branches green, The busy weaver-bird plaits of thick leaves, And in and out its pliant meshes weaves; And since thou sayest 'twere hard to match thy fine, Strong, woven fabrics, watch the weaver twine His cunning wefts. Though still," she said, "think not I scorn thy gifts, Prince Eblis; for I wot Their worth is greater than my tongue can say." Then Eblis deeper in the cave led her a little way, And showed a stately screen of such fine art One almost felt the breeze that ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... have the cunning of foxes," he said to Agathe. "In all my days I never saw a man carry things with such a high hand as that soldier; they say war educates young men! Joseph has let himself be fooled. They have shut his mouth with wine, and those miserable pictures, ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... stretched from the Black Water to Grammoch-town, twenty-odd miles, there was never a sign of the perpetrator. The Killer did his bloody work with a thoroughness and a devilish cunning that defied detection. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... saw the corn ripening better," I observe, and let him feel a little of the cunning of the ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... unhappy lady refused; but at last, overcome by his earnest entreaties, and feeling how unjustly she had been disgraced and ill-treated, she consented to accompany him. Thus, by cunning, he gained his end, which he could not have accomplished by any other means. Therefore I say ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... incredible that demon possession did not exist before that time, or has not existed since. In this connection it should be remembered that these beings are not only intelligent themselves, but that they are directly governed and ordered by Satan, whose wisdom and cunning are so clearly set forth in the Scriptures. It is reasonable to conclude that they, like their monarch, are adapting the manner of their activity to the enlightenment of the age and locality. It is evident that they are ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... shy and charming. I try not to watch but upon my word I cannot help it sometimes, she is so 'cunning,' as you girls say. When I carry her a letter from Mac she tries so hard not to show how glad she is that I want to laugh and tell her I know all about it. But I look as sober as a judge and as stupid as an owl by daylight, and she enjoys her letters in ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... frustration of the scheme Bob had undertaken in concert with her. Brooding on her deadly purpose, she had come to regard it as a certain thing that before long her husband would be killed. The details were arranged; all her cunning had gone to the contrivance of a plot for disguising the facts of his murder. Savagely she had exulted in the prospect, not only of getting rid of him, but of being revenged for her old humiliation. A thousand times she imagined herself in Bob's lurking-place, raising ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... seduced Autolycus's daughter Anticleia, and that Odysseus was really the son of Sisyphus, not of Laertes, whom Anticleia afterwards married. The object of the story is to establish the close connexion between Hermes, the god of theft and cunning, and the three persons—Sisyphus, Odysseus, Autolycus—who are the incarnate representations of these practices. Autolycus is also said to have instructed Heracles in the art of wrestling, and to have taken part in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... The head chief of the Winnebagoes was well known to me, and we became fast friends. He was a friendly man to all the settlers, but I knew the characteristics of the Indian well enough to trust none of them. He never overcomes the cunning and trickery in his nature and I learned to know that when he seemed most amiable and ingratiating was the time to look out for some deviltry. The Indians were great gamblers, the squaws especially. They would gamble away everything they owned, ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... that my son may have the best education that is to be had in England or America. But my express will and directions are, that he never be sent for that purpose, to the Connecticut colonies, lest he should imbibe in his youth, that low craft and cunning, so incidental to the people of that country, which is so interwoven in their constitutions, that all their acts cannot disguise it from the world; though many of them, under the sanctified garb of religion, have endeavored to impose themselves on ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... their neighbours, and the treaty of Westphalia, though, as we have said, it was long the Public Law of Europe, was an embodiment, not of principles of justice or of the rights of nations, but of the relative force and cunning of what are happily called the powers. France obtained, as the fruit of the diplomatic skill with which she had prolonged the agony of Germany, a portion of the territory which she has recently disgorged. The independence of Germany was saved; ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... Billy treated her to a slow and surreptitious wink, his freckled countenance grinning beneath the rosetted hat. It never could have occurred to Emmy Lou that Billy had laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing of all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, when public attention had become diverted, she proffered him the hospitality of a grimy little slate rag. When Billy returned ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... resting place in the clefts of the rock for the foot, he must know how to support himself with the elbow, and be able to climb by means of the muscles of the thigh and calf, even the neck must serve when it is necessary. The chamois are cunning, they place out-guards—but the hunter must be still more cunning and follow the trail—and he can deceive them by hanging his coat and hat on his alpine stick, and so make the chamois take ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... at this moment, Chauvelin had already resolved on one great thing: namely, that on that eventful day, nothing whatever should be left to Chance; he would meet his cunning enemy not only with cunning, but also with power, and if the entire force of the republican army then available in the north of France had to be requisitioned for the purpose, the ramparts of Boulogne ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... thinking just now that if we had let Cornwood and Boomsby escape from the steamer last night it would have saved us a world of trouble," added Captain Blastblow, with a cunning leer and ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... chiefest among their football-kickers. He has the simple frankness of a man who feels himself to be perfectly sound in bodily, mental, and moral structure; and his self-revelation is a thousand times nobler than the assumed impersonality which is a common trick with cunning speakers who never forget their own interests. Thus it is, that, wherever Mr. Beecher goes, everybody feels, after he has addressed them once or twice, that they know him well, almost as if they had always known him; and there is not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... me to the hospital, and they called my illness brain-fever. But long before they thought me convalescent I was conscious, lying awake and plotting my escape. With cunning I managed it. Of my wife and child I never once thought. Every trace of human affection seemed withered up in my heart. I took the money subscribed for me with a hypocrite's smile, and I slunk away from England. I went to Montreal in Canada, and I deliberately ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a veritable bandit chief—a man of great cunning and influence, besides being a born gentleman. A Hungarian, and therefore a Slav, he should naturally support the Russian cause. He has a strong following and his men would make first-rate soldiers. We are seeking his support, ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... says he can't have been followed. He knows several gardeners hereabout, and he seems to have called on each of them on his way—in at the front of the garden and out at the back each time, after a few minutes' conversation. Gipps is rather a cunning ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... defile with patience whatever image had attracted his eyes. By day and by night he moved among distorted images of the outer world. A figure that had seemed to him by day demure and innocent came towards him by night through the winding darkness of sleep, her face transfigured by a lecherous cunning, her eyes bright with brutish joy. Only the morning pained him with its dim memory of dark orgiastic riot, its keen ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... here. No such letter ever came to a prisoner here. All letters received are carefully read by officers of the prison before they go into the hands of the convicts, and any such letter could not be forgotten. Again, Charles Williams is not a Christian man, but a dissolute, cunning prodigal, whose father is a minister of the gospel. His name is an assumed one. I am glad to have made your acquaintance. I am preparing a lecture upon life seen through prison bars, and should like to deliver the same ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... striking-looking boy, with the unmistakable signs of gipsyhood about him, sunburnt and freckled, as if his whole life had been spent out of doors, which indeed it mostly had. His features were good, his eyes especially fine, though with an expression which at times approached cunning. His teeth, white as ivory, gleamed out when he smiled, and in his smile there was something very charming. It was curiously sweet for such a rough boy, and with a touch of sadness about it, as is often to be ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... clutches of Arbaces, a subtle, crafty Egyptian, who attempted by the magic of his dark sorcery, to win her away from Glaucus. In pursuit of his base designs, Arbaces murders Apaecides, the brother of Ione, imprisons the priest Calenus, the only witness of the deed, and with great cunning weaves a convicting web of circumstantial evidence around Glaucus, his hated rival. Glaucus is tried, convicted, and doomed to be thrown to the lion. Ione and Nydia are also prisoners in the house of Arbaces. Glaucus has been placed in that gloomy and narrow cell in which the criminals ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... And the dragon was cunning. From hour to hour, growing more restive, it employed devices of craft and subtlety. As when Merton Gill, carefree to the best of his knowledge, strolling lightly to another point of interest, graciously receptive to the pleasant ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... will, sir. Ah! I little thought when I occupied the position of a gentleman, Mr. Meekin"—the cunning scoundrel had been piously grandiloquent concerning his past career—"that I should be reduced to this. But it is ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... With that cunning peculiar to criminals who scent danger from afar, he had made his exit at the right time. After he had pocketed the diamonds which formed a part of Eugenie's trousseau, and which were exposed in the parlor, he scaled the window, slipped an overcoat over his ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... he could be cruel on occasion I had no doubt, and he had certainly managed to overawe my little stock of courage. But when I had said my prayers that night, I felt stronger and braver; before I fell asleep I determined to do my utmost to keep my spirits up; I would meet cunning with cunning, and above everything give him no ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... best feelings and intentions, so that his teaching seems rather to be that we should look beyond mere external trifles. Those he attacks are mostly middle-class people, or those slightly below them—the dogs in office, and the dogs in the manger. The artifice and cunning of the waiter of the Hotel at Yarmouth, where little Copperfield awaits the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... me, I went, and by smooth words, and a piece of money, got him to come into the house with me; where, in the presence of divers people, I demanded of him several astrological questions, which he answered with great subtlety; and, through all his discourse, carried it with a cunning much above his years, which seemed not ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... Cunning David! By this time Elise had her arm round his neck, and was devouring his face with her keen eyes. Everything was shaken off—the pain of her foot, melancholy, fatigue—and all the horizons of the soul were bright again. She had a ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... every political campaign of any importance. If anything, his spirits were improved by the disaster. The enemy, he said, had taken the offensive; and it was now up to the Society to outwit the enemy. He gave Mary to understand that he had taken the measure of their cunning, and had already bent his mind to the task which, so far as she could make out, depended solely upon him. It depended, so she came to think, when invited into his room for a private conference, upon a systematic ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... people, the Yana were reduced to less than a dozen who escaped extermination. These were mainly women, old men and children. This tribal remnant sought the refuge of the impenetrable brush and volcanic rocks of Deer Creek Canyon. Here they lived by stealth and cunning. Like wild creatures, they kept from sight until the whites ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... prefer, as I suspect, To philosophize, why, then, reflect: If the cunning rascal upon the limb Hadn't tempted her ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... North American aborigines very frequently consent, in their exchanges, to take any offer made to them by their equals, however insufficient it may be, because they fear revenge. Schoolcraft, Information etc., II, 178. As to the effects of cunning, the Tungusi, when they get a glass of brandy from the Russians, grow almost idiotic, and give away their goods at mock-prices in drink. (v. Wrangell, Nachrichten, I, 233.) In the higher stages of civilization, on the other hand, very distinguished people are, by ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Then the cunning that comes to the rescue of all scheming gentry who depend on their wits emerged from perverse hiding. An ingenious idea to solve the nagging problem of the fifty thousand arrived full-blown. Grinning secretively to himself, he walked into the ...
— The House from Nowhere • Arthur G. Stangland
... that you will write to Mr Jamieson, do you? I will take care he does not get a letter either. Is my authority thus to be set at defiance by a—well, no matter what you are. I know more of your affairs than you do, or than your poor, ignorant, half-witted mother does herself; though she is cunning enough to hide away those documents which would, could I find them, place you and her, and some other persons, too, entirely in my power. I'll find them still, however, some day; but that English minister, by teaching you to read, has ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... For this it is which the apostle meaneth when he saith, we have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail, that is to say, his flesh." How easy a matter is it in this our day, for the devil to be too cunning for poor souls, by calling his by-paths the way to the kingdom! If such an opinion or fancy be but cried up by one or more, this inscription being set upon it by the devil, "This is the way of God," how speedily, greedily, and by heaps, do poor simple souls, ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... of Russia, second son of Alexander II., was born on the 10th of March 1845. In natural disposition he bore little resemblance to his soft-hearted, liberal minded father, and still less to his refined, philosophic, sentimental, chivalrous, yet cunning grand-uncle Alexander I., who coveted the title of "the first gentleman of Europe.'' With high culture, exquisite refinement and studied elegance he had no sympathy and never affected to have any. Indeed, he rather gloried in the idea of being of the same rough texture ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... could have escaped him. No detail of risk and danger, of the chance of being seen even, had been overlooked; for he was a master at his craft, the greatest master in the wild, perhaps. The wolf? My dear sirs, the wolf was an innocent suckling cub beside Gulo, look you, and his brain and his cunning were not the brain and the cunning of a beast at all, but ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... she said gratefully, forgetting all about the cunning enemy in disguise for whom she was to be always looking out. Indeed she had felt so lonely a minute before that she was rather disposed to welcome a comrade in misfortune. "The cabman in the cab opposite tells me he is engaged, and I do not remember ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... brain is never at a loss—cunning Isaac! cunning rogue! Donna Clara, will you trust yourself ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... galleys. The conditions were already accepted on both sides, when the negotiations were suddenly interrupted by the duplicity of Kondiaronk, surnamed the Rat, chief of the Michilimackinac Hurons. This man, the most cunning and crafty of Indians, a race which has nothing to learn in point of astuteness from the shrewdest diplomat, had offered his services against the Iroquois to the governor, who had accepted them. Enkindled with the desire of distinguishing ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... if he deserved his reputation. Seen upon the street he would be taken for a second or third class gambler, one in whom a certain amount of cunning is pieced out by a readiness to use brute force. His face, clean-shaved, except a "Bowery-b'hoy" goatee, was white, fat, and selfishly sensual. Small, pig-like eyes, set close together, glanced around continually. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the very greatest girls can be) she was playing at "oughts and crosses" with Janey Harman when the arithmetic master came round. He sat down, not unwillingly, beside Miss Shields, erased, without comment, the sportive diagrams, and set himself vigorously to elucidate (by "the low cunning of algebra") ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... could not possibly have understood a great deal of it;[37] nevertheless I devoured it with avidity, and it stamped upon my mind the strong conviction that, on even the most solemn and important of questions, men are apt to take cunning phrases for answers; and that the limitation of our faculties, in a great number of cases, renders real answers to such questions, not merely actually impossible, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... to polishing the pavement with a zeal unknown before. He knew well enough that the slave by the threshold would not believe in that excuse, lentiles being plentiful enough. Terror had robbed Athribis' deceitful tongue of its usual cunning, and now he silently bewailed his startled answer. If the slave by the threshold should report to Heraklas' mother the fact that Athribis ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... dozen, or a score of the well-known animals are exalted into a hierarchy of petty gods, headed by the strongest like the bear, the swiftest like the deer, the most majestic like the eagle, the most cunning like the fox or coyote, or the most deadly like the rattlesnake. Commonly the arts and the skill of the mystical huntsman improve from youth to adolescence and from generation to generation, so that ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... earliest memories I revolted against the strata in which birth placed me. History—I have had lots of time to read history, in hospital beds—tells me there have been few socio-economic systems under which the strong, intelligent, aggressive, cunning or ruthless couldn't work their way to the top. Very well, I intend to do ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... tremendously interested in the party. He spent hours with Georgianna and the Board of Strategy, preparing the list of guests. His cunning in ascertaining from the unsuspecting child who, among her schoolmates, she would like to invite, ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... crop may be relied upon. To hoe his cornfield, a Hopi will often run over the desert forty, fifty, sixty, and even eighty miles in a day. Sometimes, when the field is near by, the Hopi will ride on his burro. These cunning creatures are almost a necessity of Indian life. The streets would seem lonely without them. It will be noticed occasionally that one of these animals has lost part of his left ear. This is proof that he is possessed of kleptomaniac ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... Was it cunning or instinct in Wych Hazel? Mrs. Coles answered with a significant chuckle, but added—'My dear, you know he has ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... foreman. "Here's another bit of cork. Try again." John did his best to repeat the performance, but the brains of the manager interfered with the trained muscles of the corkcutter. The latter had not forgotten their cunning, but they needed to be left to themselves, and not directed by a mind which knew nothing of the matter. Instead of the smooth graceful shape, he could produce nothing but rough-hewn clumsy cylinders. "It must have been chance," said the foreman, "but I could have sworn that it was the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spires and arches and rich fretwork of dark stone, seemed to him the model of what all cathedrals should be. The swift river that ran between overhanging buildings, and beneath old bridges that were carved with armorial bearings and decorated with the rare ironwork of cunning smiths, famous long ago, bore in its breast the legends of his own forest home, and was impersonated in many a verse he had learned to sing with his comrades. The shady nooks and corners, the turns in the ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... is dying tell all the truth, to ease his mind," said the master-carpenter with a machiavellian pretence and cunning. "It was vanity, it was, as you say; it was the peacock in me made me be the friend of many women and not the husband of one. I came down here to Quebec from the Far West to get away from consequences. It was expensive. I had to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... war broke out on the part of the Sabines, and this was by far the most formidable: for nothing was done under the influence of anger or covetousness, nor did they give indications of hostilities before they had actually begun them. Cunning also was combined with prudence. Spurius Tarpeius was in command of the Roman citadel: his maiden daughter, who at the time had gone by chance outside the walls to fetch water for sacrifice, was bribed by Tatius, to admit some armed soldiers into the citadel. After they were ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... you goe like a cunning spokesman, answer uncle; what, doe you thinke me desperate of ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... (one of their customs borrowed from civilization,) looked on with that air of stolid indifference peculiar to the male barbarian. They were mostly dressed in suits of seal-skins, but some of them wore greasy Guernsey frocks and other European clothing. Many of the women carried cunning-looking babies strapped upon their backs in seal-skin pouches. The heads of men and women alike were for the most part capless; but every one of the dark, beardless faces was surmounted by a heavy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... the canyon, now swollen to nearly fifty men, were slowly approaching from the direction of the chimney, and making use of every tuft, and bush, and rock, affording Bart a fine view from the gallery of the clever and cunning means an Indian will adopt to get within ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... former bully. Hamilton was writing, and doubly engaged in keeping Louis from listening to an interesting history, delivered by Salisbury, of a new boy who had arrived that half-year from a neighboring school. The boy in question was a cunning dunce, who had already discovered Louis' failing, and having partaken of the assistance Louis supplied as liberally as allowed, had come more especially under the ken of the seniors, and Hamilton had ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... He was cunning and wary, and a man of infinite resource. It was not long before he found out that the polar discovery had not been announced, but he also discovered from listening to the conversations of some of ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... gold, all the sides set with roses, on branches as they were growing about this fountain. On the benches sate eight fair ladies in strange attire, and so richly apparelled in cloth of gold, embroidered and cut over silver, that I cannot express the cunning workmanship thereof. Then when the king and queen were set, there was played before them, by children, in the Latin tongue, a manner of tragedy, the effect whereof was that the pope was in captivity and the church brought ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... labored to give him both precision and speed. That was the work of fifteen years, and now at the end of this time the old man knew that his life work was a failure, for he had made the hand of Andrew Lanning cunning, had given his muscles strength, but the ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... believe we fought almost literally a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. To add to the merriment, a matter-of-fact fellow in the gallery, who in his innocence took everything for reality, and who was completely wrapt up and lost by the very cunning of the scene, at last shouted out: ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the matchless tales of All-Father Odin, who crosses the Rainbow Bridge to walk among men in Midgard and sacrifices his right eye to drink from the Well of Wisdom; of Thor, whose mighty hammer defends Asgard; of Loki, whose mischievous cunning leads him to treachery against the gods; of giants, dragons, dwarfs and Valkyries; and of the terrible last ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... had of course not been able to ascertain whether the desired effect had been produced, for he did not know at what church the meeting between Faustina and Gouache was to take place, and he was too cunning to follow her as a spy when he had struck so bold a blow at her affection for the artist-soldier. His intellect was keen, but his experience had not been of a high order, and he naturally thought that she would reason as he had reasoned himself, if she chanced to see him ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... will," was the reply. "Soldiers are the simplest race of mankind, when they come in contact with the cunning men of cities. An army, showy and even successful as it may be, is always an instrument and no more—a terrible instrument, I grant you, but as much in the hands of the civilian as one of your howitzers ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... A cunning man, was Daniel Boone. They could not see behind his face. At the shooting matches he allowed them to beat him. This pleased them immensely; they did not suspect that he planted his balls precisely where he had purposely aimed; and that he was wise enough ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... of a disastrous and terrible nature, are attributed to the direct action of these evil spirits, and are considered as plain manifestations of their displeasure. It is claimed by many that the whole system of Shamanism is a gigantic imposture practised by a few cunning priests upon the easy credulity of superstitious natives. This I am sure is a prejudiced view. No one who has ever lived with the Siberian natives, studied their character, subjected himself to the same influences ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... at the knees, and thumping the stage perpetually with his stick. Slowly and clumsily, with constant interruptions and interminable mistakes, the first act dragged on, until Lucy appeared again to end it in soliloquy, with the confession of her assumed simplicity and the praise of her own cunning. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... without any of his father's ability or force of character. The Duke of Lerma was "the Atlas who bore the burden of the monarchy."[1] He was a man, according to Quevedo, "alluring and dexterous rather than intelligent; ruled by the interested cunning of his own creatures but imperious with all others; magnificent, ostentatious; choosing his men only by considerations of his own special policy or from personal friendship." Under such a man, who ruled the King at his will, it was not likely that any portion of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... at the foot of the bed, and directed his little cunning eyes to the physician in amazement and admiration. Behind him, in the corner, sat the son of Marie Antoinette, humiliated, still, and motionless. Yet, in spite of the injunction of Jeanne Marie, he had turned around, and was looking toward the bed; but not to the knitter of ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... Asiatic cunning, though it had saved my life, could not please me. What confidence can I have in people accustomed to sport with their honour and their soul? We were about to mount our horses, when we heard a groan from the mountaineer who had been wounded ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... And cunning old Megan was taking no chances. Feeling in the pocket of her skirt she found a crust, and walking to her side of the bridge she called to a black cur that was playing about. Hurling the crust across the ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... gather itself again to one intense point of personality. It has too an innate knowledge of—an instinct for—another, greater rhythm, another order of Reality, as yet outside its conscious field; or as we say, a capacity for the Infinite. This capacity, this unfulfilled craving, which the cunning mind of the practical man suppresses and disguises as best it can, is the source of all your unrest. More, it is the true origin of all your best loves and enthusiasms, the inspiring cause of your ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... in the Battle of the Marne or he may have murdered his gigolette and been transported to one of the French penal colonies.... An apache, en musicien! ... black cloth around his throat, hair parted in the middle, velours trousers; a vrai apache I tell you, a cool, cunning creature, shredded with cocaine and absinthe, monotonous in his virtuosity, playing the accordion. He had begun before we arrived and he continued after we left. I like to think of him as always playing, but ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... said to himself. But he saw the cemetery-gate at the end of the street. "I must make this walk last longer," he thought. Accordingly, he invented several cunning devices to prolong it, stopping now and then to point out something worth noting in the handsome grounds which lined the street. And so they sauntered along, she appearing to have forgotten the speech which had embarrassed her, or at least she did not resent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... the day. Writing some time after the commencement of the fatter, Steele said, in the Dedication prefixed to the first volume, "The general purpose of this paper is to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our behaviour." And elsewhere he says: "As for my labours, which he is pleased to inquire after, if they but wear one impertinence out of human life, destroy a single ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... voice inquiring "if Madam was at home." Instantly she divined the motive of his call. The young man had come to the conclusion the Judge would try to influence his mother, and before meeting him in the afternoon he wished to have some idea of the trend matters were likely to take. His policy—cunning, Madam called it—did not please her. She immediately assured herself that "she wouldn't go against her own flesh and blood for anyone," and his wan face and general air of wretchedness further antagonized her. She asked him fretfully "what he had been doing to himself, ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... meant, not that which might well and to advantage be done if good and able men would resolve to do it, spite of all hindrances, but that which, upon a cunning review of party balances and a judicious probing of public opinion, seemed to be a policy fit for his party to pursue. The first, original and masterly statesmen are needed to initiate and perform—the other is simply the art ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... complete a sway as if a sceptre had been placed in his single hand. On the same principle, the more multitudinous a representative assembly may be rendered, the more it will partake of the infirmities incident to collective meetings of the people. Ignorance will be the dupe of cunning, and passion the slave of sophistry and declamation. The people can never err more than in supposing that by multiplying their representatives beyond a certain limit, they strengthen the barrier against the government of a few. Experience ...
— The Federalist Papers
... that this apportioning of a continent three thousand miles distant from Germany was anything but a pipe-dream of diplomats in their dotage. It was inconceivable that it could be the practical and achievable cunning of military bullies and strategists. The truth dawned too slowly for her to display any vivid burst of anger. "It isn't true," she said. And then, "It seems incredible." And lastly, ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... on average temper and character. Of deep and true gentlemanliness—based as it is on intense sensibility and sincerity, perfected by courage, and other qualities of race; as well as of that union of insensibility with cunning, which is the essence of vulgarity, I shall have to speak at ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... that her cunning little underlip drooped and quivered perceptibly. She feared that her indecision would forfeit her the friendship ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... is given as the Yoruban for spider. The change of n into l is not uncommon, even supposing the West Indian word to be uncorrupt.] The Negroes think that this spider is the 'Ananzi' of their stories, but that his superior cunning enables him to take any shape he pleases. In fact, he is the example which the African tribes from which these stories came, have chosen to take as pointing out the superiority of wit over brute strength. In ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... was all that Barney heard him say, but he spoke a name that the American did not hear. Maenck also looked his surprise, but his expression was suddenly changed to one of malevolent cunning and gratification. He turned toward Prince Peter with a few low-whispered words. A look of relief crossed the face of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... possession. From a wealthy neighbour he had borrowed a McCabe's watch and chain, also for one night only. His arrangements made with a gang of city roughs, in order to prevent the marriage being broken off, also came to light. Amarendra Babu saw that he had been dealing with a cunning and desperate man and prudently determined to give him a wide berth in future. But his daughter was in Amarendra Babu's clutches, and she was forced to expiate the sins of her father. The luckless girl was kept on very short commons and ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... being arrested? But intelligent men do not let themselves be arrested. Those who are lost are brutes who go straight ahead, or the half-intelligent, who use their skill and cunning to combine a complicated or romantic act, in which their hand is plainly seen. As for him, he was a man of science and precision, and he would not compromise himself by act or sentiment; there would be nothing to fear during the action, and ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... without a minister and his pretended necessary hallowing, more than any other act, enterprise, or contract, of civil life,—which ought all to be done also in the Lord and to his glory,—all which, no less than marriage, were by the cunning of priests heretofore, as material to their profit, transacted at the altar. Our Divines deny it to be a Sacrament; yet retained the celebration, till prudently a late Parliament recovered the civil liberty of marriage from their encroachment, and transferred the ratifying and registering ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Machias and his relations with the French Government to the satisfaction of the Boston people, though apparently with little regard to truth. The desire to encourage a man, who promised to be a good customer of their own, finally prevailed over their caution, and the cunning Puritans considered they got out of their quandary by the decision that, though the colony could not directly contribute assistance, yet it was lawful for private citizens to charter their vessels, and ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... and venomous fang, Crouch in this den. And thou wouldst leave it! Thou! more cunning than Falsehood, ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... the French had blocked up Lord Howe in New York, and that the American patriots had triumphed over the British army and were everywhere successful. How earnestly we longed for letters which might inform us of the truth! but our cunning captors took care that we should not get them. Perhaps they themselves believed the reports they spread among us. One thing we knew, that in spite of all their reverses, the English were not likely to give in without a desperate and prolonged ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... wife!" It was the death-knell of his hopes of securing the fortune for which he had not hesitated to sacrifice every particle of moral principle. When he turned and saw impending retribution in the shape of the two stalwart representatives of the law, a look of cunning came into his face, and with one swift motion he turned to flee up the staircase ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... to tip your tongue with cunning, I pray dip your pencil in colours; and fall to that you must do, not ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... home, shamefaced and indignant, suffocated by wrath, by confusion, and all the more cast down because, with his Norman cunning, he was quite capable of doing the thing with which he was charged, and even of boasting of it as a shrewd trick. He had a confused idea that his innocence was impossible to establish, his craftiness being so well known. And he was cut to the ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... shield,[596] both large and solid, decorating it all over, and around it he threw a shining border, triple and glittering, and from it [there hung] a silver belt. Of the shield itself, there were five folds; but on it he formed many curious works, with cunning skill. On it he wrought the earth, and the heaven, and the sea, the unwearied sun, and the full moon. On it also [he represented] all the constellations with which the heaven is crowned, the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the strength of Orion, and the Bear,[597] which they also call by the appellation ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... they had sat together in late talk, he had drawn from Shock with cunning skill (those who knew him would recognise the trick) the picture of his new missionary's home, and had interpreted aright the thrill in the voice that told of the old lady left behind. But now, as Shock glanced at his Convener's face, there was nothing ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... business habits of the country, which leave so little time for parental instruction, and, perhaps, in some degree to the acts of political agents, who, with their own advantages in view, among the other expedients of their cunning, have resorted to the artifice of separating children from their natural advisers by calling meetings of the young to decide on the fortunes ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... flesh. These uncouth beings now attracted divine attention. Summoning them into their presence, the gods first gave them forms and endowed them with superhuman intelligence, and then divided them into two large classes. Those which were dark, treacherous, and cunning by nature were banished to Svart-alfa-heim, the home of the black dwarfs, situated underground, whence they were never allowed to come forth during the day, under penalty of being turned into stone. They were called Dwarfs, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... was Son of God by being true to His Sonship. He naturally acted the part. We prove best that we are right by being right, not by accepting captious, critical propositions. The stars shine. We know they are stars by their shine. Satan would have Jesus use His divinity in an undivine way. He was cunning. But Jesus was keener than ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... grief, anxiety for Lilian was now added. I had seen many more patients die from being mistreated for consumption than from consumption itself. And Dr. Jones was a mercenary, cunning, needy man, with much crafty knowledge of human foibles, but very little skill in the treatment of human maladies. My fears were soon confirmed. A few days after I heard from Miss Brabazon that Miss Ashleigh was seriously ill, kept her room. Mrs. Ashleigh made this excuse for not immediately returning ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hell itself was not so black as the rage, hatred, and thirst of vengeance, which at this moment consumed Bartle Flanagan's heart. He who had laid his plans so artfully that he thought failure in securing his prize impossible, now not only to feel that he was baffled by the superior cunning of a girl, and made the laughing-stock of his own party, who valued him principally upon his ability in such matters; but, in addition to this, to have his heart and feelings torn, as it were, out of his ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... flock of sheep, To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell; And sometime where earth-delving conies keep, To stop the loud pursuers in their yell; And sometime sorteth with the herd of deer: Danger deviseth ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Frenchmen, are now so .degenerated, that three Frenchmen(1081) can evidently beat One Englishman. Our army is running away, all that is left to run; for half of it is picked up by three or four hundred at a time. In short, we must step out of the high pantoufles that were made by those cunning shoemakers at Poitiers and Ramilies, and go clumping about perhaps in wooden ones. My Lady Hervey, who you know dotes upon every thing French, is charmed with the hopes of these new shoes, and has already bespoke herself a pair of pigeon wood. How did the tapestry ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... which the cunning and selfish savage resorts for the sake of easing himself at the expense of his neighbour are manifold; only a few typical examples out of a multitude can be cited. At the outset it is to be observed that the evil of which a man seeks to rid himself need not be transferred to a person; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... thing for Sinclair to watch. He was used to power in men and beasts. He understood it. A cunning devil of a fighting outlaw horse was his choice for a ride. "The meaner they are, the longer they last," he used to say. He respected men of evil as long as they were men of action. He was perfectly at home and contented among men, ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... in making a breach by turning the mountain streams against the walls. Once within, the exasperated Indians took a terrible revenge, a single priest being, as we are told, the sole survivor of the twenty thousand inhabitants. In the end the Spaniards put down the insurrection by treachery and cunning, seized the chiefs, and sent Andres to Ceuta, in Spain, where he remained ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... authorities, for they do not countenance crime. Has it come to the pass that, counting on juggleries of the law, criminals believe that they may kill, maim, burn, and slay as they list without punishment? Is this to be another instance of the law's delays and immunity for a hideous crime, compassed by a cunning and cynical trickster of legal technicalities? The people of Canaan cry out for a speedy trial, speedy conviction, and speedy punishment of this cold-blooded and murderous monster. If he is not dealt with quickly according to his deserts, the climax ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... governmental cohesion with the other side. Moreover, for many years past, the south-eastern district of Negros Island has been affected by sporadic apparitions of riotous religious monomaniacs called Santones (vide p. 189). These conditions, therefore, favoured the nefarious work of the cunning Tagalog and Panay refugees, who found plenty of plastic material in the Negros inhabitants for the fruitful dissemination of the wildest and most fantastic notions anent the horrors awaiting them in the new Anglo-Saxon domination. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... 2: As stated above (Q. 55, AA. 3, 4, 5), the vice directly opposed to prudence is cunning, to which it belongs to discover ways of achieving a purpose, that are apparent and not real: while it accomplishes that purpose, by guile in words, and by fraud in deeds: and it stands in relation to prudence, as guile and fraud ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... was funny," said the interpreter, with suave heat. Cunning deviltry distorted his features. And, stepping forward in the boat, he ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... Cunning men are here apt to break in, and, without directly controverting the principle, to raise objections from the difficulty under which the Sovereign labours to distinguish the genuine voice and sentiments of his people from the clamour of a faction, by which it is so easily counterfeited. The nation, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... rivers, the family is born, bred, fed, and lives in the boat. In moving her, the man and his wife and two of the elder children will handle the oars; while a little one, sometimes hardly more than an infant, will take the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient. Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... where principles of public law were concerned! The opposition mildly but firmly recalled the existence of other nations than France, and suggested the consequences of international bad faith. The conclusion of the matter was the adoption of a cunning and insolent combination of two propositions, one made by each side, "to lay the request on the table, or to explain that there is no occasion for its consideration." The incident is otherwise important only in the light of Napoleon's ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... remarkable that Tom never grew any larger than his father's thumb, which was only of an ordinary size; but as he got older he became very cunning and full of tricks. When he was old enough to play with the boys, and had lost all his own cherry-stones, he used to creep into the bags of his playfellows, fill his pockets, and, getting out unseen, would again ...
— The History of Tom Thumb, and Others • Anonymous
... of the old Michel regarded Ste. Marie with a glance of mingled cunning and humor. It might have ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... more effectual carnage, this art (however simple and gross at first) opened at length into wide scientific arts, into strategies, into tactics, into castrametation, into poliorcetics, and all the processes through which the first rude efforts of martial cunning finally connect themselves with the exquisite resources of science. War, being a game in which each side forces the other into the instant adoption of all improvements through the mere necessities of ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... out anything?" she asked, with a glaringly false eagerness that gave him a new panic of suspicion and whetted his cunning. ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... the world for more nor twenty years, and came back the like of an old bitch fox, harried by hunting, and looking for and mindful of the burrow where she was thrown?... As we're made, we're made, wee fellow; you're either a salmon that hungers for the sea, or a cunning old trout that kens its own pool and is ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... his laugh with the poacher he was transporting with equal good humour. His politeness for the fair sex has already been hinted at by Miss Rebecca Sharp—in a word, the whole baronetage, peerage, commonage of England, did not contain a more cunning, mean, selfish, foolish, disreputable old man. That blood-red hand of Sir Pitt Crawley's would be in anybody's pocket except his own; and it is with grief and pain, that, as admirers of the British aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to admit the existence of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... did we dig trenches. No, not the same thing as digging trenches anywhere! For it is really nearly as easy to dig trenches in the ocean. For every spadeful you throw out two fall in, and if, by the use of much cunning, you do manage to get a hole dug, then you must not leave it for a single instant, for it is only waiting until your back is turned to disappear. There is one thing—those trenches were good cover, for we would no sooner occupy them than we would be covered up entirely. I would defy an aeroplane ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... aware of his own restraint, his refinements of instinct and of mood. It was as if he drew, in his desperate necessity, upon unrealised, untried resources. There was something in Anne that checked the primitive impulse of swift chase, and called forth the curious half-feminine cunning of the sophisticated pursuer. She froze at his ardour, but his coldness almost kindled her, so that he approached by withdrawals and advanced ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... the latest discoveries, and these gentlemen are usually quick enough in noting down everything in their interleaved books! How many different ways there are of dispatching a work like this, even though it were but done in a passing manner I However, at the present moment, my cunning brains cannot think of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... said vehemently, "that if the poor thing didn't bark at every one who passes it wouldn't be kept there. I do think men are cunning brutes. I've let it go twice, on the sly; it's nearly bitten me both times, and then it goes simply mad with joy; but it always runs back home at last, and they chain it up again. If I had my way, I'd chain that man up." Jon saw her teeth and her eyes gleam. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... childe, Warble his native Wood-notes wilde, And ever against eating Cares, Lap me in soft Lydian Aires, Married to immortal verse Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of lincked sweetnes long drawn out, With wanton heed, and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running; Untwisting all the chains that ty The hidden soul of harmony. That Orpheus self may heave his head From golden slumber on a bed Of heapt Elysian flowres, and hear Such streins as would have won the ear Of Pluto, to have quite set free His half ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... popular with neutrals. Building upon the German myth that Captain Weddigen's submarine, U-29, was destroyed while saving life, Professor Flamm "expects" that the neutrals will stop all traffic with England, "in view of the cowardly and cunning method of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... used to shrink when the black waiter drew near, and her mother and aunt would be convulsed with furtive mirth. "See the little gump," her mother would say in the tenderest tone, and look about to see if others at the other tables saw how cunning she was—what a charming little goose to be ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in Scripture taught, And all with gold were gilded bright To add new splendour to the rite: Twenty-and-one those stakes in all, Each one-and-twenty cubits tall: And one-and-twenty ribbons there Hung on the pillars, bright and fair. Firm in the earth they stood at last, Where cunning craftsmen fixed them fast; And there unshaken each remained, Octagonal and smoothly planed. Then ribbons over all were hung, And flowers and scent around them flung. Thus decked they cast a glory forth Like the great saints who star the north.(102) The sacrificial ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the camp. Carson, having mounted his twelve men, had the other two horses led, to meet any emergency. Vigorously the pursuit was pressed. There was no difficulty in keeping the track. The Indian with all his cunning was never the equal of the far more intelligent white man. Indeed the ordinary savage was often but ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... steps than these; for in a short time he began to give himself out for a person who made it his business to procure stolen goods to their right owners. When he first did this he acted with so much art and cunning that he acquired a very great reputation as an honest man, not only from those who dealt with him to procure what they had lost, but even from those people of higher station, who observing the industry with which he prosecuted certain malefactors, took him for a friend of Justice, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Star a very knowing horse, and she loved to tell her father and mother all the cunning things he did, and how glad he always was to see her, when she ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... already in the dust? But his threat lacerated my heart. I knew the law gave him power to fulfil it; for slaveholders have been cunning enough to enact that "the child shall follow the condition of the mother," not of the father, thus taking care that licentiousness shall not interfere with avarice. This reflection made me clasp my innocent babe all ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... An affected burst of laughter). What nonsense. None of us Hagberds belonged to the sea. All farmers for hundreds of years, (fraternal and cunning?) Don't alarm yourself, my dear. The sea can't get us. Look at me! I didn't get drowned. Moreover, Harry ain't a sailor at all. And if he isn't a sailor, ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... mine," she said, "and now dey keel heem, an' white man, he yappy—yappy—yappy; not do—not do any t'ing! He send for Mount' P'lice, mabee no do anyt'ing unless Indian man . . . he keel." The little hiss of breath again and a cunning ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... older; wiser they may grow, but it is the wisdom of the serpent. We scarce grow less sensual, less vain, less eager after what we think pleasure; I would we continued as generous and as warm. We gain the cunning to veil our passions, to regulate even our vices according to the scale (and that no parsimonious one) which what we call "society" allows; we lose the enthusiasm which in some degree excused our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... woods covered all the earth except the deserts and the river bottoms, and men lived on the fruits and berries they found and the wild animals which they could shoot or snare, when they dressed in skins and lived in caves, there was little time for thought. But as men grew stronger and more cunning and learned how to live together, they had more time to think and ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... bewailing this hardness of heart, in which he thought himself singular. "This much sunk me. I thought my condition was alone; but how to get out of, or get rid of, these things I could not." Again the very ground of his faith was shaken. "Was the Bible true, or was it not rather a fable and cunning story?" All thought "their own religion true. Might not the Turks have as good Scriptures to prove their Mahomet Saviour as Christians had for Christ? What if all we believed in should be but 'a think-so' ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... formed a nest where I could remain without fear of falling off. I was completely concealed by the thickness of the leaves from being seen by any one passing below, and I trusted, from the precautions I had taken, that the Indians would not discover my trail. Still, such cunning rogues are they, that it is almost impossible to deceive them. My great hope was that they might not find out that I had fallen, and so would not come to look for me. As I lay in my nest, I listened attentively, and thought that I could still ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... you the luckiest girl!" cried Tabitha, looking enviously at the treasure as she bent over it to smooth the soft, shaggy coat. "Just see what beau-ti-ful ears he has! And what a cunning nose! See ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown |
