argute

Argute, �r-gūt′, adj. shrill in sound: keen: shrewd.—adv.

He was an argute sexton, and had learned, in his younger days, some smatterin o' Latin, though I never could ascertain that he retained more of the humane lear, than the twa proverbs, "Vita mortalium brevis," "Life is short," which comes originally frae Homer; and "Pecuni� obediunt omnia," which comes frae the sixth chapter o' Ecclesiastes—"Money answereth all things."

What has survived of the Celtic race is the blood and temperament, still found in a great many Frenchmen, certain traits which the ancients remarked in the Gauls being still recognizable: bellum gerere et argute loqui.

It is obvious, then, why dramatic critics delight in impaling a squirming situation on their argute pens and holding it up for ridicule with delighted cries of " hokum."

The facts I have to relate in this chapter, though true, may, from their extraordinary nature, be apt to be classed among creations of the fancy; yet I would rather that their credibility were tested by the mind of the plain and argute man of the world, than by that of the philosopher, who with his head down in the well, kicks at inexplicable mysteries growing on its brink.