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Artful   /ˈɑrtfəl/   Listen
Artful

adjective
1.
Not straightforward or candid; giving a false appearance of frankness.  Synonym: disingenuous.  "A disingenuous excuse"
2.
Marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with cunning or craft.  "An artful choice of metaphors"



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"Artful" Quotes from Famous Books



... artful and well-concocted way, which we may readily conceive, but it were weary to detail, John Dillaway managed to forge a will of Jane Mackenzie aforesaid; and inducing some dressed-up "ladies" of his acquaintance to personate the weeping nieces of deceased (doubtless with ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... Slinkton was heard through the clatter from the opposite side of the staircase, and he came in. He had not expected the pleasure of meeting me. I have seen several artful men brought to a stand, but I never saw a man so aghast as he was when his ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens

... giving in would be very awkward for a young woman who shrieked out on platforms that old maids were the highest type. Adeline guessed Olive had perfect control of her now, unless indeed she used the expeditions to Cambridge as a cover for meeting gentlemen. She was an artful little minx, and cared as much for the rights of women as she did for the Panama Canal; the only right of a woman she wanted was to climb up on top of something, where the men could look at her. She would stay with Olive as long as it served her purpose, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... of the National Government. Three members of President Buchanan's cabinet—Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury; Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War; and Thompson, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Interior—were rank and ardent disunionists. To the artful machinations of these three arch-traitors, who cared more for self than they did for the South, the success of the conspiracy was largely due. Grouped about them was a number of lesser functionaries, willing to lend their help. Even the President did not escape the suspicion ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various

... Artful, clever Hal! He had carried it all off so coolly and naturally that Sam Truax, who had been closely studying Hastings's face from the ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham

... lightly up into her own room, and soon reappeared clad resplendent in the new peacock-blue dress, with hat and parasol to match, and a little creamy lamb's-wool scarf thrown with artful carelessness around her pretty neck and shoulders. Harry looked at her with unfeigned admiration. Indeed, you would not easily find many lighter or more fairly-like little girls than Edie Oswald, even in the beautiful half-Celtic ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... This artful speech made an impression on the rebellious Thomas, who glanced at Polly's happy face, remembered his promise, and, with a groan, resolved to ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... the outrage was longer continued. Could such a public fraud be carried on under any other than a Spanish government? It is not pleasant to record the fact, but it is nevertheless true that the Spaniards in Cuba are artful, untruthful, unreliable even in small things, with no apparent sense of honor, and seeking just now mainly how they can best avoid their honest obligations. As evil communications are contagious, the Cubans have become more or less impregnated with this spirit of commercial dishonesty. It ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... or reckless protest against impotence of will, the little worth of common aims, the fretting triviality of common rules. Franklin or Cobbett might have gloried in the regularity of Madame de Wolmar's establishment. The employment of the day was marked out with precision. By artful adjustment of pursuits, it was contrived that the men-servants should be kept apart from the maid-servants, except at their repasts. The women, namely, a cook, a housemaid, and a nurse, found their pastime in rambles ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... Zastrozzi is formed by prefixing an extra syllable to the name Strozzi from Zofloya. The incidents are those which happen every day in the realm of terror. The villain, the hero, the melancholy heroine, and her artful rival, develop no new traits, but act strictly in accordance with tradition. They never infringe the rigid code of manners and morals laid down for them by previous generations. The scenery is invariably appropriate as a setting to the incidents, and even the weather may be relied ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... sailors of the country are our fellow-citizens, and interested with us in the passage and faithful execution of wholesome laws. They can not be swerved from their duty of citizenship by artful appeals to their spirit of brotherhood born of common peril and suffering, nor will they exact as a test of devotion to their welfare a willingness to neglect ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... he are such friends," said this artful young lady. '"Because I can't make him out—because I don't care whether he is or not! And now, Mr. Stanmore, though you've not been to see your mamma yet, you've behaved like a good boy, considering; ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... Westwick only reached Venice in time to join the guests over their coffee and cigars. Observing the splendour of the reception rooms, and taking note especially of the artful mixture of comfort and luxury in the bedchambers, he began to share the old nurse's view of the future, and to contemplate seriously the coming dividend of ten per cent. The hotel was beginning well, at all events. So much interest in the enterprise had been aroused, at ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... always infinitely various, the developments take place in many different directions; some fit the creature for life in deep seas, some for flying in the air, some for living in holes and crevices, some for catching prey by swift pursuit, others for catching it by artful contrivance, and so forth. Many changes will also arise from protective necessity: if an insect happens to be like a dead leaf, it will escape the notice of birds which would snap up a conspicuously coloured ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... often cried when she was glad, an' I was to believe her spite of her crying! I wish I'd made Job Swift go arter her. I'll make him go arter that sermon anyhow. I won't go near her agin 'bout this bisness, that's certain;" and the remorse-stricken, but artful deacon hastened to his brother deacon's house to tell him that it was "all settled with Mis' Kinney 'bout the sermon, an' she was quite willin';" and, "O," he added, as if it were quite a second thought, "ye'd better go up an' git the ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... disease—is eating the healthy core out of English life (dear old English life!) and partly from the charming pictures in Punch and the clever satirical articles, pointing at mysterious depths of contamination, in the other weekly papers. She believes there's a dreadful coterie of uncannily artful and desperately refined people who wear a kind of loose faded uniform and worship only beauty—which is a fearful thing; that Gabriel has introduced me to it; that I now spend all my time in it, and that for its sweet sake I've broken the most sacred ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... upon any opinion of their own. Deprived of his guiding influence, they were whirled about, the sport of every gust, and easily driven into any port; and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel were the most directly opposite to his opinions, measures, and character, and far the most artful and most powerful of the set, they easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy. As if it were to insult as well as to ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... captivated by much tenderness; and suspicious precautions, bolts, and bars, make neither wives nor maids virtuous; we cause them to do evil by so much austerity; their sex demands a little freedom. Of a verity she has taken her fill of it, the artful girl; and with her, virtue has grown ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere

... by which Balfour pressed Morton to accept of this dangerous promotion, as soon as he had gotten rid of his less wary and uncompromising companion, Macbriar, were sufficiently artful and urgent. He did not affect either to deny or to disguise that the sentiments which he himself entertained concerning church government, went as far as those of the preacher who had just left them; but he argued, that when the affairs ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... handsome; has an air of haughty and fashionable superiority; is intelligent, dry, sarcastic, and clever. I should have received much pleasure from his conversational powers, had I not previously been prejudiced against him, by hearing that he is infinitely artful, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... is here dwarfed into a puny, malignant sophist; nor is the final issue in the later poem even for a moment in doubt—a serious defect from an artistic point of view. Jortin holds its peculiar excellence to be 'artful sophistry, false reasoning, set off in the most specious manner, and refuted by the Son of God with strong unaffected eloquence'; merits for which Milton needed no original of any kind, as his own lofty religious sentiments, his argumentative ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... relate, as the artful bird, followed by her ardent suitor, soon flew away beyond my sight. It may not be rash to conclude, however, that she held out no longer ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... he established his silk mills, and in 1718 procured a patent to enable him to secure the profits for fourteen years. But Lombe did not live much longer; for the Italians, exasperated at the injury done to their trade by its introduction into England, sent an artful woman over, who associated with the parties in the character of a friend, and, having gained over one of the natives who had originally accompanied Mr. Lombe, administered a poison to him, of which, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... This specious and artful oration, in which, while affecting to condemn what he dared not defend openly, he had more than insinuated a doubt of the legality of sentencing the traitors, was listened to by all present, with deep attention; and by the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... for himself if he will expend a few pennies weekly for a month or so upon the halfpenny or penny "comic" papers which are bought so eagerly by boys. They begin upon the facts of sex as affairs of nodding and winking, of artful innuendo and scuffles in the dark. The earnest efforts of Broadbeam's minor kindred to knock the nonsense out of even younger people may be heard at almost any pantomime. The Lord Chamberlain's attempts to stem the tide amaze the English Judges. No scheme for making ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... squirm as he might, the horse would be caught in one or the other of the relentless loops. And so it proved. While Sunnysides was side-stepping a throw by Farrish, Pete's rope slipped snakily over his head, and tightened around the arched neck. With an artful lunge toward the Indian, and a lowering of his head, the horse struggled to throw off the coil. But ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... Stanwix!" said the captain, "an artful old seadog! I never yet knew one who did not think the sun rises and sets from poop to forecastle, who did not wheedle with all the young blood to get them ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... skill that quite blinded the too-trusting Varus, inducing him to send bodies of troops into different parts of the country, some to gather provisions for the winter supply of the camps, others to keep watch over some tribes not yet subdued. The Roman force thus weakened, the artful German succeeded in drawing Varus with the remainder of his men from their intrenchments, by inducing one of the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... respectability, got possession of pianos merely to pawn or sell them, having paid no more than the first month's charge. It was Mr Lord's experience that year by year the recklessness of the vulgar became more glaring, and deliberate fraud more artful. To-day he had successfully prosecuted a man who seemed to have lived for some time on the hire-purchase system, and it made him ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... to secure. In two short months the truth was revealed. I had no dowry, which so disappointed him, that he began to cast reflections on my poverty, adding that he had been deceived by the false representations of my artful mother. This gave me so much pain, that I sought relief for my distress in frequenter interviews with Milando, who, seeing himself ill treated for his poverty, resolved to quit a profession in which neglect and distrust too often repay its ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... of the most notable shots on our side, tho he was not much to boast of in a rough-and-tumble fight, owing to the weakness before mentioned. General Ames put him among the gunners, and we were quickly made aware of the loss we had sustained by receiving a frequent artful ball which seemed to light with unerring instinct on any nose that was the least bit exposed. I have known one of Pepper's snowballs, fired point-blank, to turn a corner and hit a boy who considered ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... concentrated in aim even than a church. To that, perhaps, a large part of its satisfyingness was due. Contrasted with the confused movement and presences of a Fabian meeting, or the inexplicable enthusiasm behind the suffrage demand, with the speeches that were partly egotistical displays, partly artful manoeuvres, and partly incoherent cries for unsoundly formulated ends, compared with the comings and goings of audiences and supporters that were like the eddy-driven drift of paper in the street, this long, quiet, methodical ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... though an affair of life or death requires their haste." Colman thus takes him to task for this observation: "This two-edged reflection, glancing at once on Terence and the ladies, is, I think, very ill-founded. The delay of Mysis, on seeing the emotion of Pamphilus, is very natural; and her artful endeavors to interest Pamphilus on behalf of her mistress, are rather marks of ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... in metal houses? Dr Payerne has been making experiments in submarine steam navigation at Cherbourg, and with such success as to be able to sink his vessel at any moment, to live in it under water, and to propel it in any given direction. Are we to be invaded by a fleet of these artful contrivances, or is it a preparation for the escape of the future emperor from St Helena? There are one or two interesting facts from Australia, although not about gold: the bodies of Dr Leichardt and some of his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... shines bright, the morning's fair, The gossamers {233b}float on the air, The dew-gems twinkle in the glare, The spider's loom Is closely plied, with artful care, Even in ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte

... changes Etruscan murmur into Terza rima—Horatian Latin into Provencal troubadour's melody; not, because less artful, less wise. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... suppose it was partly owing to the fact of my having arrived at a more thoughtful age, or it may be that their peculiarities of disposition exhibited themselves more strongly among strangers. They were neither of them surface characters. Miriam was too reserved, and Annie too artful to be easily understood. But no one who had once known Miriam could, ever forget her. Her parents called her 'a peculiar child;' among her friends the old people called her 'queer,' and the young ones 'cracked,' She was not pretty, but everybody pronounced her a fine-looking girl. Her eyes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Listened to his artful pleading; Went with him in search of pleasure, Glad to show him ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten

... confirmation of my being an Impostor, was the arrival of a letter from yourself declaring that you had no sort of acquaintance with Alphonso d'Alvarada. These seeming proofs of my perfidy, aided by the artful insinuations of her Aunt, by Cunegonda's flattery, and her Father's threats and anger, entirely conquered your Sister's repugnance to a Convent. Incensed at my behaviour, and disgusted with the world in general, She consented to receive ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... landmarks being exactly opposite. He had not forgotten the guide's account of these two unexplored regions where there was "nothing of interest to show tourists." He began to see through the plot from the hour of the so-called tragedy. How easy, with the artful guide's connivance, to cast a stone down the echoing ravine, then conceal themselves in the corridor close by, extinguish their torches, and await in silence the next coming of their assistant! He himself had been adroitly decoyed ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... with his laugh, "she has behaved TOO well. If she had studied the whole situation with the most artful eye to its mastery, she could not possibly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... very well indeed," exclaimed Lucre, caught on his weakest side by this artful compliment; "but you must forget purgatory—however I can conceive that it was the mere force of habit that prompted you to utter it. Well, then, you shall read your recantation on Sunday, since you wish ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... every night for the stay-at-home, but I only managed to get to one, given by the pupils of Madam Melba, which was a feast of harmony. After the programme refreshments were brought round by V. A. D.'s, whom the boys called, "Very Artful Dodgers," but it was not the "Thank you for the cakes and tea!" that they dodged! We had a cricket-match, one-armers versus one-leggers, and we one-leggers were allowed to catch the ball in our hats; but the one-leggers lost as we were nearly all run out. Some of us being ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... successor to General Schuyler, and now, for the first time, appeared prominent among statesmen. He had been appointed attorney-general of New York by Governor Clinton, and, in respect to talent and influence, was a rising man. Artful and fascinating, he had secured the votes of a sufficient number of federalists in the state legislature to gain his election, and he went into Congress a decided opponent of the administration; not on principle, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... failed her—with Mrs. Bygrave herself. What was the true cause of this lady's mysterious seclusion? Was she a person of the strictest and the most inconvenient integrity? or a person who could not be depended on to preserve a secret? or a person who was as artful as Mr. Bygrave himself, and who was kept in reserve to forward the object of some new deception which was yet to come? In the first two cases, Mrs. Lecount could trust in her own powers of dissimulation, and in the results which ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... "borrowed" my whole theory of universals from Hegel—"unconsciously," he has the caution to say; but that qualification does not in the least mitigate the mischievous intention and effect of his accusation as a glaring falsification of fact and artful misdescription of my work. It would be inopportune and discourteous to weary you with philosophical discussions. I exposed the amazing absurdity of Dr. Royce's accusation of plagiarism in the reply to his article ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... Hive was suffered to roam the woods that lined most of the river-banks, joining his master from time to time at the portages or landings. As for the missionary and the corporal, impatience formed no part of their present disposition. The first had been led, by the artful Peter, to expect great results to his theory from the assembly of chiefs which was to meet in the "openings"; and the credulous parson was, in one sense, going as blindly on the path of destruction, as any sinner it had ever ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... nice to him, dear.' Roger's return finds her very artful indeed, 'I wonder where I put ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... then for adding to the intrinsic evils of the system the odious feature of animosity to individuals. In the ranks of the foe are thousands of plain men who do not understand the principles for which we are struggling. They are deceived by artful demagogues into a posture of hostility to those whom, knowing, they would love. It is against such men that you may perhaps be arrayed, and the laws of war do not forbid you to pity them even in the act of destroying them. It is the more important that we should ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... licentiousness prevail among those whom he is taught to regard as his superiors? Besides, we must remember how entirely unprotected the negro is in his domestic relations, and how very frequently husband and wife are separated by the caprice, or avarice, of the white man. I have no doubt that slaves are artful; for they must be so. Cunning is always the resort of the weak against the strong; children, who have violent and unreasonable parents, become deceitful in self-defence. The only way to make young people sincere ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... Diego, "but Don Wenceslas is artful. And yet, I think I see the direction of his trained hand in this." Then he burst into a rude laugh. "Come, amigo," he said, noting Jose's dejected mien; "let us have your story. We may be able to advise. And ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... the Major, 'I hint at nothing. But Joey B. has lived in the world, Sir: lived in the world with his eyes open, Sir, and his ears cocked: and Joe tells you, Dombey, that there's a devilish artful and ambitious ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... scraping their pack-saddles against the walls of narrow lanes. Their master knew no peace of mind till, having passed the narrows, he found on some moor or common "plenty o' sea-room," notwithstanding the danger that "plenty o' sea-room" might induce the too artful Teddy to "turn topsails under," or in other words indulge in a roll ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... declaration against the claim of that nobleman; because he knew that such a declaration, in the present circumstances, would have no authority, and would only serve to revive the memory of Mortimer's title in the minds of the people. He proceeded in his purpose after a more artful and covert manner. He procured a settlement of the crown on himself and his heirs male,[*] thereby tacitly excluding the females, and transferring the Salic law into the English government. He thought that, though the house of Plantagenet ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... proportion. House was none Void of its family; nor yet had come Hardanapalus, to exhibit feats Of chamber prowess. Montemalo yet O'er our suburban turret rose; as much To be surpass in fall, as in its rising. I saw Bellincione Berti walk abroad In leathern girdle and a clasp of bone; And, with no artful colouring on her cheeks, His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw Of Nerli and of Vecchio well content With unrob'd jerkin; and their good dames handling The spindle and the flax; O happy they! Each sure of burial in her native land, And none left desolate a-bed for France! One wak'd to tend the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... adroit, dexterous, deft, clever, ingenious. Skin, hide, pelt, fell. Sleepy, drowsy, slumberous, somnolent, sluggish, torpid, dull, lethargic. Slovenly, slatternly, dowdy, frowsy, blowzy. Sly, crafty, cunning, subtle, wily, artful, politic, designing. Smile, smirk, grin. Solitary, lonely, lone, lonesome, desolate, deserted, uninhabited. Sour, acid, tart, acrid, acidulous, acetose, acerbitous, astringent. Speech, discourse, oration, address, sermon, declamation, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... is, from without, like the detective or the surgeon. He sees things more or less from their point of view: he feels with the Marchioness: he himself as a child was once a Smike: he cannot help liking the fun of the Artful Dodger: he has been a good friend to Barkis: he likes Traddles: he loves Joe: poor Nancy ends her vile life in heroism: and even his brute of ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... the machine of memory start again with an almost audible "puff, puff," and I went on to the end quite comfortably. The pause had seemed terribly long to me, but I was surprised afterwards to find that it had been so brief as to be generally unnoticed or regarded as an artful way of emphasising a point. I let it go at that, but I knew myself that in that moment I had lost ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... every day, each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the string. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less he ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... disarraying himself of the cast-off clothing which he had assumed for the occasion, thrust them into the fire, and watched until the whole was entirely consumed. Having thus guarded against direct evidence, he made some artful dispositions of negative disproof, that he might be provided with full armor against all suspicions; and then retiring to his homely bed with a feelingless heart, and unmurmuring conscience, he slept soon ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... artful shapes of eyes and ears; The molten image neither sees nor hears: Their hands are helpless, nor their feet can move, They have no speech, nor thought, nor power, nor love; Yet sottish mortals make their long complaints To their deaf idols, and their ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... At these questions, the artful black conceived that there was something in the wind, and he therefore very quietly replied, "I do not care ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... artful minx, Penny!" Dundee chuckled. "You're working up suspense for the entrance of ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... learned that the fancied spy was but his neighbour Leonard; and, without so saying, he cleverly contrived to make the supposition of such espionage an additional reason for the cessation of Leslie's visits. Randal then, in his own artful, quiet, roundabout way, had sought to find out if any communication had passed between L'Estrange and Riccabocca. Brooding over Harley's words to him, he suspected there had been such communication, with his usual ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... whom were Booker, George Wharton, and Gadbury, who gained a livelihood by practising on the credulity of even men of learning so late as 1650 to the 18th century. In Ashmole's life an account of these artful impostors may be read. Most of them had taken the air in the pillory, and others had conjured ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... when the Puddin' was brought back. 'You have to be as smart as paint to keep this Puddin' in order. He's that artful, lawyers couldn't manage him. Put your hat on, Albert, like a little gentleman,' he added, placing the basin on his head. He took the Puddin's hand, Sam took the other, and they all set off along the road. A peculiar thing about the Puddin' was that, ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay

... maladies, of no slight malignity, to which they are peculiarly liable. One of these, arising mainly from want of more worthy occupation, is that perpetual use of stratagem and contrivance—that little, artful diplomacy of private life, by which the simplest and most natural transactions are rendered complicated and difficult, and the common business of existence made to depend on the success of plots and counterplots. ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... king of Cambaya, whom he secretly advised to refuse if asked. However it was agreed to settle a Portuguese factor at this place to conduct the trade; and at parting Azz treated Albuquerque with so much artful civility, that he said he had never seen a more perfect courtier, or one more fitted to please and deceive a man of understanding. Some time afterwards, the king of Cambaya gave permission for the Portuguese to erect a fort at Diu, on condition that he might ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... no doubt a most seductive cadence, But we who look for argument by fact We miss conciliation's artful aidance, We note a want ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various

... the tokens of a great traffic of pleasure, that night-aspect of Paris which represents it as a huge market for sensations. Beyond the Boulevard des Capucines it flared through the warm evening like a vast bazaar, and opposite the Cafe Durand the Madeleine rose theatrical, a high artful decor before the footlights of the Rue Royale. "Where shall we go, what shall we do?" Mrs. Dallow asked, looking at her companion and somewhat to his surprise, as he had supposed she ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... talked to her about her wrongs, till at last, what between the liquor and his artful incitements, she was inflamed into a condition of savage fury against Mr. Quest. When once she got to this point he would let her have no more brandy, seeing that she was now ripe for his purpose, which ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... the devising of signals and the various methods of scoring against their opponents. But gradually a new and sinister note had crept in. Mignon did not actually counsel her team to take unfair advantages, but she made many artful suggestions, backed up by a play of her speaking shoulders that conveyed volumes to her followers. It began to dawn upon Mary that these "clever tricks," as Mignon was wont to designate them, were not only flagrant dishonesties but dangerous means to ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... D. of Guise Refusal Alban and Alban. Artful Husband Caesar in AEgypt D. Sabastian Country Wit Cleomenes Lawyers Fortune Love Triumphant Jane Shore D. Carlos She wou'd and wou'd not Friendship in Fashion Love in a Riddle Titus and Berenice Turnbridge Walks Biter Ladies last Stake Jane Grey Oroonoko Non Juror Tender Husb. Timon What d'ye ...
— The Annual Catalogue (1737) - Or, A New and Compleat List of All The New Books, New - Editions of Books, Pamphlets, &c. • J. Worrall

... peculiar characteristics,—among others, he was a gnome. Living underground for the greater part of his time, he had ample opportunities of working out curious and artful riddles, which he used to try on his fellow-gnomes; and if they liked them, he would go above-ground and propound his conundrums to the country people, who sometimes guessed them, but ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... tried at different stages of history, and each era will have its peculiar glory in eternity. . . . At the present time the trial for the church is peculiar; never before, perhaps, were the insinuations of the adversary so plausible and artful—his ingenuity so subtle—himself so much an angel of light—experience has sharpened his wit—"WHILE MEN SLEPT the enemy sowed tares"—he is now the base hypocrite—he suits his blandishments to all—the Church is lulled in the arms of the monster, rolling the sweet morsel under her ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... other attempts upon his life, obliged him to confine himself to his convent, where he engaged in writing the history of the council of Trent, a work unequalled for the judicious disposition of the matter, and artful texture of the narration, commended by Dr. Burnet, as the completest model of historical writing, and celebrated by Mr. Wotton, as equivalent to any production of antiquity; in which the reader finds "liberty without licentiousness, piety without hypocrisy, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... Fabens had discovered in him more than one design which she pronounced artful; she studied his character, and told her husband and daughter in confidence, she believed him a cunning flatterer, and a cheat; and that he would not always sail in smooth water ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... cruel, provoked from me by the mixed nature of my attraction to her; the need of turning a reasonable and cool front to that pathetic beauty, that artful music, which whipped jaded nerves to mutiny. The arrow in them struck so true, that I was shocked at my work. It transfixed the child in her, latent in most women, which moaned at my feet; so that for sheer shame as though it were actually a child I had hurt, I could ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al

... with our growing years, and that we become more just in our perceptions of our own and our neighbour's shortcomings? ... I would humbly suggest that young people, though they look prettier, have larger eyes, and not near so many wrinkles about their eyelids, are often as artful as some of their elders. What little monsters of cunning your frank schoolboys are! How they cheat mamma! how they hoodwink papa! how they humbug the housekeeper! how they cringe to the big boy for whom they fag at school! what a ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... currents of baser interest; but what hope is left to one like me, who finds himself so placed that he can neither inherit nor transmit aught but disgrace! I do not affect to despise the advantages of birth, simply because I do not possess them; I only complain that artful combinations have perverted what should be sentiment and taste, into a narrow and vulgar prejudice, by which the really ignoble enjoy privileges greater than those perhaps who are worthy of the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... which is more in Rule than Practice: Ars est celare Artem. 'Tis the Foible of your worser Poets to make a Parade and Ostentation of that little Science they have; and to throw it out in the most ambitious Colours. And whenever a Writer of this Class shall attempt to copy these artful Concealments of our Author, and shall either think them easy, or practised by a Writer for his Ease, he will soon be convinced of his Mistake by the Difficulty of ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald

... serpent by miraculously revealing to her the character of her visitor. It was under the aspect of a venerable hermit, emaciated with fasts and watchings, that he entered the Ponziano palace: his intention was, by some artful words, to inspire Francesca with aversion and disgust for the solitary life, and at the same time for that hidden life which she so zealously practised in the midst of the world. He was shown into a large room, where the assembled family were sitting and conversing together. ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... Rustle! And at her feet the gay-topped candles were bent this way and that—as Miss Royle, with an artful serpent-smile on her bandaged face, writhed her ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... Loathed, hated, detested. Brag'gart, a boaster. 5. Vow'ing, making a solemn promise to God. Tes'ti-mo-ny, open declaration. 6. Fal'tered, hesitated. Mo'tive, that which causes action, cause, reason. 7. Sub'tle (pro. sut'l), artful, cunning. Stud'y, a private room devoted to study. 10. Glim'mer-ing, a ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... one of Mr. F.C. PHILLIPS's heroines used to address her little book, but DE LA RUE's are not "dear Diaries," nor particularly cheap ones. This publisher is quite the Artful Dodger in devising diaries in all shapes and sizes, from the big pocket-book to the more insidious waistcoat-pocket booklet,—"small by degrees, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various

... was Jacko! He could wink, and whiff tobacco, Like a man (an artful homo) and a brother. And the Parrot—ah! for patter, And capacity for chatter On—no matter much what matter, That gave scope for clitter-clatter, The world could hardly furnish such another. The Parrot was a bird That could talk great bosh with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various

... dangerous,) insinuations, he leaves him no rest; it is as if by means of an unfortunate affinity, founded however in nature, this influence was by necessity more powerful over him than the voice of his good angel Desdemona. A more artful villain than this Iago was never portrayed; he spreads his nets with a skill which nothing can escape. The repugnance inspired by his aims becomes tolerable from the attention of the spectators being directed to his means: these furnish ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... age have, commonly, an unguarded frankness about them; which makes them the easy prey and bubbles of the artful and the experienced; they look upon every knave or fool, who tells them that he is their friend, to be really so; and pay that profession of simulated friendship, with an indiscreet and unbounded confidence, always to their loss, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... perhaps;—because he has not got a farthing in the world. Dear Frederic, I only wish to put you on your guard. Of course this is very unpleasant, and I shouldn't do it if I didn't think it my duty. I believe she is artful and very false. She certainly deceived Sir Florian Eustace about her debts;—and he never held up his head after he found out what she was. If she has told you falsehoods, of course you can break it off. Dear Frederic, I hope you won't ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... many years younger than himself; and often have I laughed in my sleeve when I thought what a cuckold she made of him. But he suspected nothing of the kind; I was the only person, besides the parties, who knew of the intrigue; even Lagrange, artful spy as he was, did not discover it. My master, who was addicted to gambling, was absent until a late hour every night, at Crockford's; and thus her ladyship had every opportunity to enjoy frequent interviews with her lover. As I knew of her ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... soft her hand, though delicate her frame, To urge the rural toil, fond to obtain The country housewife's humble name and praise. Continued agitation separates soon The unctuous particles; with gentler strokes And artful, soon they coalesce; at length Cool water pouring from the limpid spring Into a smooth glazed vessel, deep and wide, She gathers the loose fragments to a heap, Which in the cleansing wave, well wrought and press'd, To one consistent ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss

... of having been made the victim of artful dissimulation added fuel to his vexation, more especially as, turning his head and glancing into the courtyard, he saw the comedian slipping through a side passage, and the Rhodian obediently following at his heels. This filled up the measure of Sergius's wrath. To his excited ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... arrived, supper was announced. At first he refused to take any, but on the artful landlady bawling in his ear, that all gentlemen supped when they arrived, he hesitated to consider (which certainly was not at all necessary) whether he was not bound to take some. Another very important remark of the hostess, which was, that he would have nothing ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... sternest kings open prisons, and grant favors, upon joyful occasions. Now a marriage in the royal family is of course a joyful occasion!—and so it should be in that of the King of Hazeldean." Admire that artful turn in the Parson's eloquence!—it was worthy of Riccabocca himself. Indeed, Mr. Dale had profited much by his companionship with that ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... artful Harley P. When his task was completed he stood outside the door of the post-office whimsically surveying the ruin of his fortune. Less than two thousand dollars was all he had to show for a life-time of endeavor, and one thousand of that was contained in a single bill and was Mr. Hennage's ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... "Oh yes, an artful tale! Follow her into slavery! Pull down your houses and go into bondage! I dare say! 'I'll give you grain, indeed!' she says," voices in the crowd were ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... to you that I do not like this factotum of his, this Abimelech Henley. The amiable qualities of his son more than compensate for the meanness of the father; whom I have long suspected to be and am indeed convinced that he is artful, selfish, and honest enough to seek his own profit, were it at the expence of his employer's ruin. He is continually insinuating new plans to my father, whom he Sir Arthurs, and Honours, and Nobles, at ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... Artful are the gestures of his mouth, elaborate and full of guile. When he draws back the bow of his lips his face is like a mask of lacquer, set with teeth of pearl, fantastic, terrible.... What strange tale lives in the gestures of his mouth? Does a fox-maiden, ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens

... to the end, and, during a brief absence of the grand-duke, was secretly married to Prince Rudolph. In time, about to become a mother, the artful woman began to clamor for an acknowledgment of the union. She braved exposure, hoping to force the prince into giving her the station she sought. All was discovered, easily, therefore. But the old duke was all-powerful within his realm: the clandestine union was ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... (bold, daring) Bien hablado (a courteous speaker) Callado (taciturn) Cansado (tiresome) Comedido (thoughtful, considerate) Corrido[191] (acute, artful) Divertido (amusing) Entendido (experienced, conversant) Experimentado (experienced, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... What Thackeray endeavoured after when "copying the language of Queen Anne," and succeeded in attaining, was the spirit and tone of the time. It was not pedantic philology at which he aimed, though he did not disdain occasional picturesque archaisms, such as "yatches" for "yachts," or despise the artful aid of terminal k's, long s's, and old-cut type. Consequently, as was years ago pointed out by Fitzedward Hall (whose manifest prejudice against Thackeray as a writer should not blind us in a matter of fact), it is ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... as viewed from behind, a walking eagle has an appearance of perpetually knocking 'em in the Old Kent Road. On Charley's next birthday I shall present him, I think, with a proper pearly suit, with kicksies cut saucy over the trotters, and an artful fakement down the side, if the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... a provocation. Max was artful enough to know that no girl who ever fills a kettle lets it run over unless she is much preoccupied. He chose to think she was preoccupied with him. So he laughed, and she looked quickly round and blushed, and turned her back upon ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... details were explained to Baahaabaa, he was in a frenzy of excitement. As judge, his decision was to be final, which should have warned Whinney, who, as the challenged party, had the right to select the subject. His choice was distinctly artful. ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... artful is the contrast of the love-lorn Princess's humility with her furious behaviour, in the pride of her purity, while she was yet a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... proceedings, in all probability, were but the artful contrivance of an ambitious priest; and yet, connected as they were with a female whose well-known predilection for the occult sciences, and herself no mean adept therein, they assumed in those ages of credulity and superstition more the character ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... The artful old fellow had been "playing 'possum," as he termed it, all along; only waiting for the denouement of the little drama before disclosing himself. However, he seemed so genuinely pleased with what had taken place that neither of the principal ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... in the peculiar requirements of photoplay authorship. The writer of printed fiction is a master of words. He revels in artful phrases and unique constructions. He woos immortality not by his plots, but by his clever handling of words—his 'style'." And then the editor goes on to say that the photodrama will become great when it has developed ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... perfect marvels of youthfulness and vivacity. They sparkled, and beamed, and ogled, and moved about over everybody and everything at such a rate, that the plain gray hair above them looked unnaturally venerable, and the wrinkles below an artful piece of masquerade to represent old age. As for her dress, I remember few harder pieces of work than the painting of it. She wore a silver-gray silk gown that seemed always flashing out into some new light whenever she moved. It was as stiff as a board, and rustled like the wind. Her ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... shouldn't also pretend to be artful flatterers to cajole me!" nurse Li added; "do you imagine that I'm not aware of the dismissal, the other day, of Hsi Hseh, on account of a cup of tea? and as it's clear enough that I've incurred blame, I'll come by and by ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Constitution. You should leave those to your Betters. —What! and my pretty Jenny Diver too! As prim and demure as ever! There is not any Prude, though ever so high bred, hath a more sanctify'd Look, with a more mischievous Heart. Ah! thou art a dear artful Hypocrite. —Mrs. Slammekin! as careless and genteel as ever! all you fine Ladies, who know your own Beauty, affect an Undress. —But see, here's Suky Tawdry come to contradict what I was saying. Every thing she gets one way she lays ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... received full in his eyes, and was immediately staggered with its force. He then began to see the designs of the enemy, and indeed to feel their success. A parley now was set on foot between the parties, during which the artful fair so slily and imperceptibly carried on her attack, that she had almost subdued the heart of our hero before she again repaired to acts of hostility. To confess the truth, I am afraid Mr. Jones maintained a kind of Dutch defence, and treacherously delivered up the garrison without duly weighing ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... few Instructions lackt, Strait by the Moons pale light away he packt, And in a trice, his Curtains open'd wide, He sate him by Achitophels Bed-side. And in this style his artful ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... and extreme necessity, to take upon myself a responsibility which might possibly subject me to the displeasure of His Imperial Majesty, and would most certainly expose me to be continually harassed by prejudicial reports and false accusations, supported by artful intrigues, against which neither prudence nor ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... Lat. n. artificium, something made (fa'cere, to make) by art: hence, an artful ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... their existence until the outward chord to which they vibrate in response sends its message to stir them. But was she not already pledged to that other,—that cold-blooded, contriving, venal, cynical, selfish, polished, fascinating man of the world, whose artful strategy would pass with nine women out of ten for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... things considered, and contrasted with thy artful silence on the subject of this grace-saying Nereid of thine, I must beg thee to be more explicit upon that subject in thy next, unless thou wouldst have me form the conclusion that thou thinkest more of her than ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... keeps him in town, Turns him from sportsman to town-gentleman. I never dreamed that he could be in love! In love with whom?—I'll find the vixen out! What right has she to set her cap at him? I warrant me, a forward, artful minx; I hate him worse than ever. I'll do all I can to spoil the match. He'll never marry— Sure he will never marry! He will have More sense than that! My back doth ope and shut— My temples throb and shoot—I am cold and ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles

... deceived and trifled with by such scoundrels. Repairing, therefore, to a hut, in which they knew the chief passed the greater part of his time, they discovered him sitting on the ground in company with the artful Ducoo and the Nouffie messenger, and engaged in a very high dispute with both of them. Their unexpected and abrupt intrusion, in a moment cut short their wrangling, and they spoke with much emphasis of the shameful manner in which they had ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... simplicity of her answers removing a part of the suspicion of artful duplicity which had originally weighed upon him. After all, there was not so much of that in it as mere wretchedness of circumstance and cowardice of morals. What a family she must have! What queer non-moral natures they must have ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... dolphin, these long, snaky rascals carefully tested the bait, lying still for sometimes as long as two minutes with the bait in their mouths, ready to drop it out on the first intimation that it was not a detached morsel. After these periods of waiting the artful creature would turn to go, and a sudden jerk of the line then reminded him that he was no longer a free agent, but mounting at headlong speed to a strange bourne whence he never returned to tell the tale. My catch that lovely morning ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... footing it all the way in the company of a few fellow-students. If he was sickly as a child, he gathered vigour in his 'teens and grew up a manly youth. He was of short stature and great agility, high-spirited, brave, the cheeriest of companions, full of resource in emergencies, and with an artful humour by which he made his escape from many a difficult situation incident to Continental travel at the time. On the journeys from town to town on the way to Geneva he held out better than any of his comrades, stepping along with no impedimenta but his Hebrew Bible which ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... once her air, Both studied, tho' both seem neglected; Careless she is, with artful care, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... season gaining? Time will run On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? He who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... Hyrcanus, paid his court so successfully to the dominant faction as to obtain for his master the protection of Caesar, and for himself the procuratorship of Judea. Raised to this commanding eminence, he named Phasael, his eldest son, governor of Jerusalem, and confided to the younger, the artful and unscrupulous Herod, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... known in the large encampment before sunrise. In spite of the good opinion we entertained of our guests, we were also satisfied they had lied to us when they denied they had been in the large camp since the trail herds began to pass. This was the last question we had asked, and the artful manner in which they had parried it showed our guests to ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... The second is artful, cunning, and designing; shielding the rich man from the possibility of being entrapped, and affecting at the same time, to have a tender and scrupulous regard, for the interests of the whole community. It declares, 'that nothing ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens

... With artful passes Dextry settled it in the pan bottom and washed away the gravel, leaving a yellow, glittering pile which raised a yell from the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... and the Hospital, the preference which they showed to Philip of France during the wars in the Holy Land. He returns, in fine, to punish as a rebel every adherent of his brother Prince John. Are ye afraid of his power?" continued the artful confident of that Prince, "we acknowledge him a strong and valiant knight; but these are not the days of King Arthur, when a champion could encounter an army. If Richard indeed comes back, it must be alone,—unfollowed—unfriended. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... grieved, and rejoiced not; lord of the five desires, skilled in all the arts of warfare, the foe of those who seek deliverance, therefore his name is rightly given Pisuna. Now this Mara raga had three daughters, mincingly beautiful and of a pleasant countenance, in every way fit by artful ways to inflame a man with love, highest in this respect among the Devis. The first was named Yuh-yen, the second Neng-yueh-gin, the third Ngai-loh. These three, at this time, advanced together, and addressed ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... white nigger as ebber libbed! He did do it, and he needn't 'ny it, not while I'm standin' here! Don't you let him go, ole marse! he's cunnin' as de debbil, and he'd run away, sure as ebber you's born! You take my 'vice and don't you let him go! he artful as ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... he done! Why, he's at your daughter's feet,' cried Aunt Becky, with scarlet cheeks, and flashing eyes; 'and she—artful gipsy, has brought him there by ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... across the Potomac; but here I had lost my all, whether large or small; and not only had I been bilked out of it—I had bilked myself out of it by sinking, in pretended smartness, below the level of a more artful dodger. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... king. The exquisitely shaped silver model is a dashing and gallant foe, worthy of the finest steel tempered at Kendal or Redditch. No other fish leaps so desperately out of the water in its efforts to escape, or puts so many artful dodges into execution, forcing the angler with his arched rod and sensitive winch to meet wile with wile, and determination with a firmness of which gentleness is the warp and woof. While it lasts, and when the fish are in a sporting humour, ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... heart thumped painfully, then the confusion of the unwitting eavesdropper compelled him to make his presence known. He did so with that fine discrimination and artful delicacy he summoned in times ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... figure and scheme, While fortune and fashion 'gainst love tip the beam. For Bessie's dark locks And Phyllis's smart frocks Are but snares to entrap the society fox. Pray, how can a bachelor be at his ease With such artful ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... poet. We have corresponding words in English, but the feeling they produce is not identical. The lesser fervour of the northern nations renders them, in some respects, more sophisticate than they suspect, compared with the "artful" Italians.] ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... much grieved to laugh, as I might otherwise have done, at the boy's impertinence," observed Mr Lennard to the general; "but as I look upon him as deceived by artful men, I cannot treat him with the rigour he deserves. What do you ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... as the noble Lord at the head of the Government shall permit them to proceed. It is not, I repeat, to be attributed to the practices or conduct of the clergy, or to the Tithe Corporation Act, or even to the want of enforcing that Act, but to that system of agitation, combined in the most artful manner, and carried on with a perseverance unequalled on any other occasion; and the noble Lords may rely upon it, that the state of things which now prevails in Ireland[15] will continue to exist even after this measure shall have been adopted, if that system of agitation ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... great trial in the House of Lords, and Sacheverell's most able defence, often attributed to his friend Atterbury. This speech, which Boyer calls "studied, artful, and pathetic," deeply affected the fair sex, and even drew tears from some of the tender-hearted; but a certain lady to whom, before he preached the sermon, Sacheverell had explained the allusions in it to William ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... call it artful, sir," he cried. "Why, who's going to show me which is the way out again? I've got my eye fixed on it, but if I shut it up I shouldn't be able to find it again. It's just this," he continued. "You holds the bamboos down or on one side, and as soon as you're gone by ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... you'd come," he said, approvingly. "It's Amazon that's away—that little badger-pye bitch we got last week—I 'ad to give 'er a bit of a 'iding—she tried to run a sheep when we was walkin' out last evening—she's a revengeful sort, she is, and very artful, and when we gets near kennels, her took an' bolted past Jimmy over the 'ill, an' I says to Jimmy, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... it! I dreaded that artful girl would make mischief between us,—would alienate the only heart I had left to care for me. Oh, how I wish she had been forty fathoms under the sea before you ever saw her!—before ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... world, Queen Bee," Sandip rambled on, "are really fights between hypnotic forces. Spell cast against spell —noiseless weapons which reach even invisible targets. At last I have met in you my match. Your quiver is full, I know, you artful warrior Queen! You are the only one in the world who has been able to turn Sandip out and call Sandip back, at your sweet will. Well, your quarry is at your feet. What will you do with him now? Will you give him the coup de grace, or keep him in your ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... pamphlet, how we are cajoled. A colony bishop is to be a more innocent creature than ever a bishop was, since diocesan bishops were introduced to lord it over God's heritage. ... Can the A-b-p, and his tools, think to impose on the colonists by these artful representations.... The people of New England are greatly alarmed; the arrival of a bishop would raise them as much as any one thing.... Our General Court is now sitting. I have hinted to some of the members, that it will ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... constructive power; perfectly under control, the movements smooth, unvarying, rhythmical, charming, excelling in agility and power its living prototype—but still, scientific—to the discerning eye, artful. The other, something more than rhythmical, more than smooth, beyond the control of human agency, beyond the power of man to analyze as to synthetize—more than science can explain, more than even art dare claim. The one explicable, the other inexplicable; the one from the hand of patient ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... invariably handsomer than those fortunate daughters of Mammon whom she is called upon to serve, and who often treat her with such top-lofty hauteur. And how stylish she frequently is, and how difficult it is to describe this incommunicable quality of style, which those artful setters of baits—the dealers in ready-made fabrics—understand so well! Who has not noticed how the tall, slender-framed girls, with their graceful movements and flexible spines, their long, smooth throats and curved waists, are drafted off to stand as veritable decoy-ducks? Who has not ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... pretends, it might be a fair question why the young man was not cured by it. But it is a much graver question why a man who has shrewdness and learning enough to go so far after his facts, should think it right to treat them with such astonishing negligence or such artful unfairness. ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... of the first decade of the twentieth century. When we meet them first they are young girls—fifteen and sixteen—"rather like racehorses, quivering with delicate, sensitive, and luxuriant life; exquisite, enchanting proof of the circulation of the blood; innocent, artful, roguish, prim, gushing, ignorant, and miraculously wise"—at an age when "if one is frank, one must admit that one has nothing to learn: one has learnt simply everything in the previous six months." These two young people are unconscious ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... professions? To a certain point he was; while he was only artful on others. He wished to appear just and magnanimous; while, in secret, it was his aim to work on the better feelings, as well as on the pride of Gardiner, and thus secure his services in getting his own ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... speedy route that Golding and Nevins make three trips to Paris. The Committeeman contrives to interest several French bankers in his supposititious mine, and by artful manipulation he brings these bankers and the American Money King ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... it?" he said. "Artful old dog, Verity! But why in—why didn't 'e tell me you was comin' aboard this trip? We 'aven't the right fixin's for a lady, so you must put up with the best we can do for you, Miss Yorke. Nat'rally, we're tickled to death to 'ave your company, an' if on'y that blessed uncle of your's ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... tenants were known to be most in motion; and the rustling of a leaf, or the snapping of a dried twig beneath the light tread of the smallest animal, was apt to conjure images of the voracious and fire-eyed panther, or perhaps of a lurking biped, which, though more artful, was known to be scarcely less savage. It is true, that hundreds experienced the uneasiness of such sensations, who were never fated to undergo the realities of the fearful pictures. Still, facts were not wanting to supply sufficient motive for a ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... do triumphant heroes call To grace with harp their festal hall? O! must my voice awake the song?— My skill the artful tale prolong? Yes! I am call'd—it is my doom! Unhappily, ye know not whom, Nor what, impatient ye demand! How hostile now the fever'd hand, Across these chords unwilling thrown, To echo plainings of my own! Little indeed ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... burglar?" "No, worse than burglars!" And having never learned that anything brought more terror to womankind than the soft step of the artful burglar, I listened with bated breath to the ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... no doubt given by the children, was soon fixed upon as being the witch. The four ministers of Boston and another from Charlestown having kept a day of fasting and prayer at the troubled house, the youngest child was relieved. But the others, more persevering and more artful, continuing as before, the old woman was presently arrested and charged with bewitching them. She had for a long time been reputed a witch, and she even seems to have flattered herself that she was one. Indeed, her answers were so "senseless" that the magistrates referred it to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson



Words linked to "Artful" :   tricksy, sly, perverted, manipulative, dodgy, twisted, scheming, guileful, adroit, crafty, knavish, artless, wily, insincere, pawky, slick, elusive, precious, deep, distorted, ingenuous, cute, foxy, misrepresented, cunning, tricky, designing



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