"Presence of mind" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... entirely out of breath when I reached our trenches, and had I not had the presence of mind to shout "Kamerad," which I had heard was the customary thing, I dare say ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... turning short in the wood, he found himself among them. They had kindled a fire, and were broiling a bird of some kind, and part of a Kangaroo, the remainder of which, and a cockatoo, hung at a little distance upon a tree: The man, being unarmed, was at first greatly terrified; but he had the presence of mind not to run away, judging very rightly, that he was most likely to incur danger by appearing to apprehend it; on the contrary, he went and sat down by them, and, with an air of chearfulness and good humour, offered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... mystery, long suspected by the servants, and come to light at last to the master,—he had guessed that there was a young woman in the case; but when she stood there before him, asking for her dead husband as if he were living, any presence of mind Robinson might have had forsook him; he could not tell her the truth,—he could only leave the door open, and say to her, 'Wait awhile, I'll come back,' and betake himself to the drawing-room where Molly was, he knew. He ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sit in a boat on the lake, and wait the coming of the pursued deer. The frightened beast, fleeing from the unreasoning brutality of the hounds, will often seek the open country, with a mistaken confidence in the humanity of man. To kill a deer when he suddenly passes one on a runway demands presence of mind and quickness of aim: to shoot him from the boat, after he has plunged panting into the lake, requires the rare ability to hit a moving object the size of a deer's head a few rods distant. Either exploit is sufficient to make a hero of a common man. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... account. This high-flying condition of the tresses, and the singularity of the ornaments which appeared to be thrown at hap-hazard into them, suggested so oddly the idea of a bewitched person, that I could scarcely converse with any presence of mind, or realize that these really were the nice, well-informed, sensible little girls of my own neighborhood,—the good daughters, good sisters, Sunday-school teachers, and other familiar members of our best educated circles; and I came away from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
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