Cunning

“ By and by he discovered that cunning was more effective than violence, and less troublesome. Still later he became convinced that the greatest cunning was virtue, and made him a moral code, and subdued the world. ”

“ Doubt not that she will discover some cunning simple, that will strengthen your body, as well as comfort your heart. Then return to this realm with your potion, and ask me at my father's hand. He will deem you but a stripling, and set forth the terms of his bargain, that to him alone shall I be given who knows how to climb the perilous mountain, without pause or rest, bearing his lady between his arms.'
When the varlet heard this cunning counsel of the maiden, he rejoiced greatly, and thanking her sweetly for her rede, craved permission to depart. ”

“ The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning, know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning, he blunders and betrays. ”

“ The fowls of heaven, too, have felt the cunning of her hand; the wild swans have left the Ladye's Lowe, the wild geese have fled from the royal lakes of Lochmaben, and the blackcock and the ptarmigan come no more to the snare of the fowler. Let her therefore scream and weep under the strong hand and sharp nails of her bitter enemy. And for the other woman—even she whose husband lives on the deep waters, and to whom she bears children in the image of other men—let her, I say, suffer from the fingers of witchcraft: pleasant is the strife between workers of wickedness ”

“ However, since I have your vote, I pray you listen to me whilst I show that, although one woman used cunning for a good purpose, others have been crafty for evil’s sake. Since we have sworn to tell the truth I will not hide it, for just as the boatwoman’s virtue brings no honour to other women unless they follow her example, so the vice of another cannot disgrace her. ”

“ The man himself, tall, stout, and of a forbidding look, was of a fearless and resolute character, and if he resorted to cunning, it was because cunning alone could serve his purposes in a country, the laws of which were not openly to be defied. ”

“ Low animal cunning was succeeded by more refined kinds of cunning. The more important of these go by the names of business shrewdness, strategy, and diplomacy, none of which differ from ordinary cunning in anything but the degree of adroitness by which the victim is outwitted. ”

“ The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast, are the increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery of the desires: so it is that punishment tames man, but does not make him "better"—it would be more correct even to go so far as to assert the contrary ("Injury makes a man cunning," says a popular proverb: so far as it makes him cunning, it makes him also bad. ”

“ We speak of the cunning workman, and we speak of the cunning man; and refer to a certain faculty of contrivance manifested in dealing with characters and affairs on the part of the one, and in dealing with certain modifications of matter on the part of the other; but so entirely different are the two faculties, and, further, so little dependent are they, in at least their first elements, on intellect, that we may find the cunning which manifests itself in affairs, [Pg 408] existing, as in Angus, totally dissociated from mechanical skill ”

“ This cunning is most profitable of all cunnings, in the which cunning religious men specially, more than other, and every day continually, should study more diligently than other men that they might apprehend it ”

“ So the proverb, “il est méchant comme un âne rouge,” signifies he is as vicious as a cunning donkey. The expression “les plus rouges y sont pris,” the most cunning are deceived, is to be found in Cotgrave. The Latins used the word ruber with the figurative signification of cunning. Faire tomber le ——, to have an offensive breath. Faire ——, to have one’s menses. (Thieves’) , Lampion ——, police officer, or “reeler.” See Pot-à-tabac. C’est —— de boudin, the thing goes wrong, matters look bad. (Military) Les culs rouges, the chasseurs and hussars, a corps of light cavalry with red pants. ”

“ The words are expressly intended to mislead some person—yourself in all probability—and the cunning which has put them to that use is a cunning which (as constantly happens when uninstructed persons meddle with law) has overreached itself. My thirty years' experience reads those words in a sense exactly opposite to the sense which they are intended to convey. I say that Admiral Bartram is not free to apply his legacy to such purposes as he may think fit ”

“ There are some Cunning-men who yet can scarce be called Rational Creatures; yet they are often more successful than Men of Sense, because those they have to deal with are upon a looser Guard; and their Simplicity maketh their Knavery unsuspected.
[Pg 126] There is no such thing as a venial Sin against Morality, no such thing as a small Knavery: He that carries a small Crime easily, will carry it on when it grows to be an Ox. But the little Knaves are the greater of the two, because they have less the Excuse of Temptation. ”

“ There is a cunning, which we in England call, the turning of the cat in the pan; which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him. ”

“ She feels that there is a disproportion between her offense and her punishment, and that she is being wronged and defrauded of life. Cunning is one of the forms which intelligence takes in a fight. And in general people become cunning when they are oppressed or do not participate on an equal footing in their society. ”

“ Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable." ”

“ And, being confronted also by one of Her sternest regulations, that only the shrewd, the cunning, the appropriate or desired or presently essential or fit shall survive when assailed by millions of other creatures not so fortunately equipped, we are compelled to admit that we are at least a part of a more or less internecine struggle and so do our best, willy-nilly, as time and occasion may warrant or suggest to escape via secrecy, intrigue, cunning and the like. ”

“ With a low curtsey, and a downcast glance of the deepest respect, Tib received the little packet, and Redhall hurried back to his writing chamber and his portfolios.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE KNIFE. "Cunning is a crooked weapon; and nothing is more hurtful than when cunning men pass for wise."—BACON.
The Earl of Ashkirk occupied an apartment immediately below that of his sister ”

“ Cunningham, disengaging himself from the dead man's grasp, went towards the bodies of his children, and throwing himself upon the earth by their side, he kissed their lifeless eyeballs, and mourned over them. ”

“ The scoundrel in charge was a Captain Cunningham. He had risen from the ranks. A great, florid, burly, drunken brute, not less than sixty years old, This fellow no doubt sold our rations, for in December we once passed three days on rye bread and water, and of the former not much; one day we had no food.
He kicked and beat his victims at times when drunk, and when I proposed to him to make ten pounds by letting my aunt know where I was, he struck me with a heavy iron key he carried, and cut open my head, as a great scar testifies to this day. ”

“ Cunningham.
"She certainly deserves to be cut," said her husband, doughtily. Yet he added, "It would be precious hard to manage, though—not to mention inconvenient—if she comes to live at Norrey's Knoll and everything is patched up according to law."
"There you are, you see!" exclaimed Gerald. "I tell you," he said, with a tug at his mustache, "that it's very difficult to cut people whom one has known all one's [Pg 215] life, unless they've committed murder or embezzled." ”

“ Cf. 1. 6. 14 and note.
2. 5. 10 And garters which are lost, if shee can shew ’hem. Gifford thinks the line should read: ‘can not shew’. Cunningham gives a satisfactory explanation: ‘As I understand this it means that if a gallant once saw the garters he would never rest until he obtained possession of them, and they would thus be lost to the family. Garters thus begged from the ladies were used by the gallants as hangers for their swords and poniards. See Every Man out of his Humour, Wks. ”

“ Allan Cunningham took pleasure from early childhood in the stories of the country-side, and he here puts upon record the latest memories of the itinerant storyteller in whom the earliest form of our national literature, once dependent wholly on the recitations of the Scóp and gleeman, after many changes finally became extinct. At this day, probably, there is not one man left in the three kingdoms who earns his bread by carrying from house to house, for oral recitation, the tales and traditions of his country-side. ”

“ He muttered a brief and pithy prayer, and then said: "Evil shape, who art thou, and wherefore comest thou unto me? If thou comest for good, speak; if for my confusion and my harm, even do thine errand; I shall not fly from thee." "I come more for mine own good than for thy harm," responded the figure. "Far have I ridden and much have I endured, that I might visit thee and this land again." "Do you suffer in the flesh, or are you tortured in the spirit?" said the pastor, desirous to know something certain of his unwelcome companion. ”

“ Mark rose and shouted, and waved him back from a place which, to a person unacquainted with the dangers of the bay, real and superstitious, seemed sufficiently perilous: his granddaughter, too, added her voice to his, and waved her white hands; but the more they strove, the faster advanced the peasant, till he stood to his middle in the water, while the tide increased every moment in depth and strength. "Andrew, Andrew," cried the young woman, in a voice quavering with emotion, "turn, turn, I tell you! O the Ships, the Haunted Ships!" ”

“ And when he saw the strife between the woman of the Rowantree-burn and the mariner's wife he laughed aloud in the fulness of his joy. "Strong may the strife be, and long may it continue," said he, "for pleasant is the feud between the raven and the hooded crow, and the small birds sing when the hawks of heaven fight. That woman has destroyed the firstlings of the flock, has dried up the udders to the sucking lambs, and lessened the riches of men who live by sweet cheese and fattened herds. ”

“ What would have been his condition had he neglected any other duty incumbent on him? Would he not have been depraved as an individual personally guilty? and accordingly seeing that he that offends in one point is guilty of all, would he not have been unworthy of representing his posterity, or in consequence of his depravity would he not have resolved to eat of the tree of life, and thus have exposed himself to the stroke of Divine indignation, and have been cut off? ”

“ It is the paying of the vow—the performance of some duty, that the language is employed to inculcate. When the heart of any one is opposed to duty, he cannot vow sincerely. That he is not disposed to vow [Pg 103] when the duty presents itself is his sin. And to vow falsely—else than which he could not do in his circumstances, would also be sin in him. He is, therefore, called upon, not to do a sinful act, but, in the use of means, to endeavour to obtain a disposition to vow with cordiality, and then to perform the duty. ”

“ In the midst of all this tumult, mounted on a little white horse and dressed in black, rode a young man, around whom the dust ascended and descended as if agitated by a whirlwind. This was the minister. He passed on, nor looked to the right or left, but with singular meekness, and a look of sorrow and resignation, endured the tumultuous scorn of the crowd. Long before he reached the limit of the village he seemed more a pillar of dust than a human being. "Is the Kirk a dog, that thou comest against her with staves?" ”

“ The scholiast imagined by author wanted to upbraid a lazy pupil who passed his time sucking his pen, as do others biting their nails, and to scold him at the same time for sucking without a pen, meaning for being a cunnilingue. But it may be taken to refer, and I think with more reason, to a man who is in the habit of putting out his tongue for the obscene act of the cunnilingue, and who is so accustomed to it that he puts it out in the ordinary intercourse of life. ”

“ And the maiden retired with her lover.
"'It was half an hour after midnight when one of the keepers of the chase, as he lay beneath a holly-bush, listening with a prolonged groan to the audible voice of revelry in the Hall, from which his duty had lately excluded him, happened to observe two forms approaching: one of low stature, a light step, and muffled in a common mantle; the other with the air and in the dress of a forester, a sword at his side and pistols in his belt. The ale and the wine had invaded the keeper's brain and impaired his sight ”

“ He used to laugh and tell me that religion was all humbug, he himself only followed and preached it as his trade, to get a good living. He would draw me on his lap, put his hands up my clothes, and tell me my cunny would soon have a crop of beautiful soft hair on it. And one day he threw me back and kissed my cunt till I fainted, and when I came round my clothes were up to my waist, and he was standing between my legs as they hung over the side of the sofa and frigging himself so as to spend all over my belly, and after all would not let me go home till I had kissed and handled his cock. ”

“ Right glad was the countess of their coming. She gazed steadfastly upon Owain, and said, "Luned, this knight has not the look of a traveller." "What harm is there in that, lady?" said Luned. "I am certain," said the countess, "that no other man than this chased the soul from the body of my lord." "So much the better for thee, lady," said Luned, "for had he not been stronger than thy lord, he could not have deprived him of life. There is no remedy for that which is past, be it as it may." "Go back to thine abode," said the countess, "and I will take counsel." ”