"Conniving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... am ready to suspect Simon Rattar of any crime in the calendar—leaving out petty larceny and probably bigamy. But he's the last man to do either good or evil unless he saw a dividend at the end, and where does he score by taking any part or parcel in conniving at or abetting or concealing evidence or anything else, so far as this particular crime is concerned? He has lost his best client, with whom he was on excellent terms and whose family he had served all his life, and he has now got instead an unsatisfactory young ass whom he suspects, or says ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... with untiring energy, extended and brought into orderly government the British dominions; in 1785 he voluntarily resigned, and on his return he was impeached before the House of Lords for oppression of the natives, and for conniving at the plunder of the Begums or dowager-princesses of Oudh; the trial brought forth the greatest orators of the day, Burke, Fox, and Sheridan leading the impeachment, which, after dragging on for ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... that time working in a factory. When my fellow-workmen found out what manner of man I was, they let me do a good share of their work in addition to my own. In thanks they took the job away from me by conniving to throw the blame on me for a theft committed by one of them. I was arrested, of course, and sent ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... we see From doubt is never free; 75 The little that we do Is but half-nobly true; With our laborious hiving What men call treasure, and the gods call dross, Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, 80 Only secure in every one's conniving, A long account of nothings paid with loss, Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, After our little hour of strut and rave, With all our pasteboard passions and desires, 85 Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, Are tossed pell-mell together in the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... people. The better sort—perhaps all of them—would have been glad if the fugitive had surrendered, but they were not going to help the authorities to induce him to do so. Very well. Then they, must be punished for conniving at his outlawry. ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... secret fortifications, laid mines and placed anti-aircraft guns. Foreign spies and international adventurers play a sleepless game to learn these military and naval secrets. The Isthmus is a center of intrigue, plotting, conniving, conspiracy and espionage, with the intelligence departments of foreign governments bidding high for information. For the capture or disablement of the Canal by an enemy would mean that American ships would have to go around the ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... is hereby placed in arrest and confined to his quarters. Charge—conniving at concealing the absence of a cadet from inspection after 'taps,' eleven—eleven-fifteen P.M., on the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... accompanied as it was by the announcement that Valentine was about to form his own judgment of Mr. Marksman by visiting the house in Kirk Street that very night, seemed to quiet and satisfy Mrs. Thorpe. Her last hopes for her son's future, now that she was forced to admit the sad necessity of conniving at his continued absence from home, rested one and all ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... be considered by Japan and Germany. England herself having an alliance pending with Germany, was decidedly wary of this new diplomatic conversation with the yellow empire of the Pacific. What was in the wind? Why was Germany conniving secretly with Japan? What effect would it have on the English-Austrian-German alliance secretly discussed in the Taunus Hills only the autumn before. Obviously the mission was ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... which was delivered to him in the presence of his landlord. The letter was couched in the most coarse and unfeeling language; he charged my Father with being the author and instigator of all my faults, and accused him of having not only encouraged me in disobeying his orders, but also of conniving at my running away from the school.—This was a most fortunate circumstance for me, and the only thing that could have saved me from being taken back again. Mr. Wyndham told my Father that nothing on earth ought to prevail upon him to place his son again under ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... of a Chinese envoy, through lines of troops drawn up to salute him as he passed. At the same time, letters from Formosa had also been received by the Chinese in Manila, and the Government at once accused them of conniving at rebellion. All available forces were concentrated in the capital; and to increase the garrison the Governor published a decree, dated May 6, 1662, ordering the demolition of the forts of Zamboanga, Yligan (Mindanao Is.), Calamianes ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... announce the electoral vote with and without the votes of Missouri. At last the Missouri question was disposed of; but words had been uttered which could not be recalled; and wounds had been inflicted which left scars. The South could never quite forget that it had been charged with conniving at crime in maintaining slavery. "You have kindled a fire," said Cobb, of Georgia, to Tallmadge, "which all the waters of the ocean cannot put out, which seas of blood only ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... things, did not constitute a pledge on the part of both. However, Tishy is not the first young lady, let me tell you—if you don't know already—who has been guilty of equivocation on those lines. It is even possible that her father was conniving at it, was intentionally accepting what he knew to be untrue, to avoid the trouble of further investigation, and to be able to give his mind to the demolition of that ignoramus. A certain amount of fuss was his ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... grant Isabella the desired blessing on her task. He did not fail to bring forward the fact of a zealous Catholic, such as Don Ferdinand Morales, wedding and cherishing one of the accursed race, and conniving at her secret adherence to her religion, as a further and very strong incentive for the public establishment of the Inquisition, whose zealous care would effectually guard the sons of Spain from such unholy alliances in future. He urged the supposition of Marie's having become the mother of children ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... at meals, and find them spilling their milk over the table and themselves, plunging their fingers into their own or each other's mugs, or quarrelling over their victuals like a set of tiger's cubs. If I were quiet at the moment, I was conniving at their disorderly conduct; if (as was frequently the case) I happened to be exalting my voice to enforce order, I was using undue violence, and setting the girls a bad example by such ungentleness ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... homes.[575] He was convinced that some of the employees of the Indian Office and of the Interior Department were personally profiting by the distribution of supplies to the refugees and that they were conniving with citizens of Kansas in perpetrating a gigantic fraud against the government. The circumstances of the ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... for that work, Governor," replied the captain bluntly. "I will go and get the corn, and if need be teach the savages a lesson upon the dangers of plotting and conniving, but as to talking smoothly with men who are lying ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... France—mark that well! Later in life, the Man of Blood and Iron, taunted with the charge of attempting to give away German territory, made a strong "diplomatic" defense. He fearlessly produced the draft of a proposed treaty showing that France was conniving to acquire Belgium, through the under-play of politics, ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... anxiety and praying for night to come so that I might lie awake and pray for the sun to rise, and in this way pass the time as quickly as possible. There would be difficulty in getting my visitors to bed early, another thing to test my power at conniving. They were bridge players, of course, and as such would be up till all hours of the morning overdoing themselves in the effort to read each ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... probably put the matter right when he pointed out that talk of prejudice must not be understood as general. Negroes were not excluded from the schools, and the laws were administered to white and black alike. He drew attention to the dismissal of a magistrate who had been suspected of conniving at the return of a fugitive, as also to the case of a member of Parliament who had sought to have Negro immigration stopped and had ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... John, who enjoys the reputation of being the most despicable of English kings, speedily gave Philip a good excuse for seizing a great part of the Plantagenet lands. John was suspected of conniving at the brutal murder of his nephew Arthur (the son of Geoffrey), to whom the nobles of Maine, Anjou, and Touraine had done homage. He was also guilty of the less serious offense of carrying off and ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... the ordination of a commonwealth a legislator is to think upon that which is most honorable, and, laying aside models for preservation, to follow the example of Rome conniving at, and temporizing with, the enmity between the Senate and the people, as a necessary step to the Roman greatness. For that any man should find out a balance that may take in the conveniences and shut out the inconveniences ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... be ruin," said Glossin to himself, "absolute ruin, if the heir should reappear—and then what might be the consequences of conniving with these men?" ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... horror struck, 'The ink! Yes, when you said she was with the Dusautoys! I understand! He has been in hiding, he has been here! And this expedition was to arrange a clandestine meeting between them under your father's own roof! You conniving! you who said you would sooner see your ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you been the slaves Of these conniving knaves Now's your relief. Swear you no longer will, Neither in shop nor mill, Tremble for pen ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... chair, and at his request sat down by his side. He then entered into a long story of grievances, which Captain Lockett considered to be frivolous, and said, "that the minister had injured his prospects in many ways, and at last disgraced him in the eyes of all people at Lucknow, by conniving at the elopement of the dancing-girl that he was a soldier and regardless of life under such disgrace, and prepared to abide by the result of his present attempt to secure redress, whatever it might be; that his terms were the payment down of five lacs of rupees, the restoration of his ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... bushel of wheat I bought to keep wife and little ones from starving, my pair of two-year-olds and seven sheep were all seized and sold under the hammer, for just enough to pay the debt and costs, to Squire Gale, the clerk of the court, who is another of those conniving big bugs, who are seen going round with the sheriff, at such times, with their pockets full of money to buy up the poor man's property for a song, though never a dollar will they lend him to redeem ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... the ill-success of his latest stratagem, accused the Nazir of conniving at Paeho Bey's escape. But the latter easily justified himself with the Divan by giving precise information of what had really occurred. This was what Ali wanted, who profited thereby in having the fugitive's track ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ordinary purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the wind blows where it listeth, at will upon the corruptions and abuses of mankind. What have looks, or tones, to do with that sublime identification of his age with that of the heavens themselves, when in his reproaches to them for conniving at the injustice of his children, he reminds them that 'they themselves are old'. What gesture shall we appropriate to this? What has the voice or the eye to do with such things? But the play is beyond all art, as the tamperings with it show: it is too ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... such publications was egregious, and justified Sherman's sarcasm that if anybody was conniving at Davis's escape, it was the officer who gave them to the public. It was, however, the direction to disregard his new truce, embracing Johnston's troops alone and based on their actual surrender, that stirred ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... excited, went on to tell us that the town militia were without ammunition also. He believed the fort's officers were conniving with the revolt. Presently he left us, saying he had met one of our freed servants, Jack, who would come soon to protect us. Shortly after daybreak Jack did appear and mounted guard at the front gate. "Go sleep, ole mis's. Miss Mary Ann" [Marion], "you-all ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... fully evolved; but certain Frenchmen, Voltaire among others, happening to cross the Straits of Dover, returned with them, and, the wretched government of Louis XV being not only too weak to withstand, but even conniving at, the boldness of the new philosophers, the French language, which was then spoken all over Europe, carried with it from mouth to mouth the new and fascinating doctrine ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... never to inquire. But I dismiss, as farfetched and improbable, his supposition that she is Gabrielle Desmaret's daughter. To me it is infinitely more likely, either that the deposition of the nurse, which poor Willy gave to Darrell, and which Darrell showed to me, is true (only that Jasper was conniving at the temporary suspension of his child's existence while it suited his purpose)—or that, at the worst, this mysterious young lady is the daughter of the artiste. In the former supposition, as I have said over and over again, a marriage between ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... madam, that in conniving at the perfidy of this unprincipled girl, your niece, you imagined that you were safe. It was an error. You are both discovered!" said ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Rapides; the justice for refusing to permit negro witnesses to testify in a certain murder case, and for allowing the murderer, who had foully killed a colored man, to walk out of his court on bail in the insignificant sum of five hundred dollars; and the sheriff, for conniving at the escape from jail of another alleged murderer. Finding, however, even after these removals, that in the country districts murderers and other criminals went unpunished, provided the offenses ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... when gentle malice loves to bring about a count-out. If it is a private members' night the Whips have no responsibility in the matter of keeping a House, and have even been suspected of occasionally conniving in the beneficent plot of dispersing it. But just now private members' nights stand in the same relation to the Session as the sententious traveller found to be the case with snakes in Iceland. There are none. Every night is a Government night, and weariness ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of 1876, and an ardent, unceasing, unselfish laborer in the church, in suffrage and temperance, for more than ten years. She did not lecture, but "talked"; talked to five hundred men at a time as if they were her own sons, and only needed to be shown they were conniving at injustice, in order to turn about and do the right thing. This same element of "motherliness" it was, which gained her the respectful attention of an audience of the roughest and most ignorant Cornish miners up in Caribou, who would listen to no other woman speaking upon the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... there would be no need for me to distress Miss Rachel, in the first days of her mourning for her mother, by an immediate revelation of the truth. In the former event, if I remained silent, I should be conniving at a marriage which would ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... to go further. Such a character would be every bit as reasonably possible as some of the science these science-conniving Readers are willing ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... comforted myself (and still do) with the hopes of the Lord's purging this polluted land. Surely the Lord hath begun and will carry on that great work of mercy, and will purge out the rebels. I know there will be always a mixture of hypocrites, but that cannot excuse the conniving at gross and scandalous sinners, &c. I recommend to them that fear God, seriously to consider, that the holy scriptures do plainly hold forth, 1. That the helping of the enemies of God, joining or mingling with wicked men is a sin highly displeasing. 2. That ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... daily in their houses. The murderers were frequently demanded, either living or dead, even with a promise of reward; they always returned a scoffing answer laughing at us. Finally, the commonalty, very much displeased with the Director, upbraided him for conniving with the Indians, and [declared] that an attempt was making to sell Christian blood;(5) yea, that the will of the entire commonalty was surrendered to him, and in case he would not avenge blood they should do it themselves, be the consequences what they might. The Director ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... rebels, most of whom had retired to the north and N.W. Not a few scraped round the right flank of the drive, crossed the railway, and plunged into the Graaff Reinet and Aberdeen districts, where they were joined by a band under Fouch, which had been lurking and conniving far away to the N.E. ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... will have to be done secretly—by conniving at his escape rather than by an order for his release. The citizens are greatly aroused over the alarming frequency of such occurrences, and as many of the offenders have lately escaped punishment by reason of court interference, I fear this man Brandon will have to bear the brunt, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... offends you or me. She, poor creature, offends herself, and we offend her and ourselves by permitting social conditions that make for such degradation. We are conniving with her to barter her birthright of freedom and real love for food and shelter, and taint and tinsel, whenever we encourage marriage on any other ground than that of true love, and when we regard virtue as a matter ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... Union or remain in it as they chose must be maintained. If we ask what the North fought for, the answer is: A majority, by no means overwhelming, of the Northern people refused to purchase the adhesion of the South by conniving at any further extension of slavery, and an overwhelming majority refused to let the South dissolve the Union for slavery or for any ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... this sure blessing! but I suppose that if it tarry, it may be the greater when it comes. Our troubles as a Church, though of a different kind, are not small. The great point with me is, lest, if in our anxiety to keep things together, we should be sinfully conniving at what is done against the faith, and so bringing a judgment upon ourselves. I do not for a moment think that by anything which has yet been done or permitted our being as a Church is compromised (though things look alarmingly as if it might be before long), but I ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... statesman, however capable he may be, can hope to enjoy the confidence of the country or attain to high official position. Thoughtful, sober people will not entrust power to men who sanction mob law, and who rise to high honor by conniving at or participating in assassination and murder. They have too much self-respect to ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... voice rasped—"I believe you to be a rogue. I believe that you are contriving the escape of this infamous Comte de la Foret. I believe you are attempting to bribe me into conniving at his escape. I shall do nothing of the sort, because, in the first place, it would be an abominable violation of my oath of office, and in the second place, it would result in my ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... 'Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him opportunities of meeting her alone. I think there's no sight I wouldn't have rather seen than that. I think there's no man in the world I wouldn't have rather had ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... airs that every honest man was weary of him and that he (the bishop) had come to the conclusion that "pride and arrogance hath ravished him from the right remembrance of himself." In reply to Browne's covert hint that Staples was conniving at the authority of the Pope, the latter charged the archbishop, whom he described as his purgatory, with abhorring the Mass, and prayed that an inquiry should be held.[15] An attempt was made to patch up the quarrel, but the archbishop was far from ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... "I have by a mere breach of your faith, by a single dash of my pen, saved you all this money which you were bound to pay. I have exonerated you from the payment of it. I have gained you 250,000l. a year forever. Will you not reward a person who did you such a great and important service, by conniving a little at ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... all, not at all," protested Mr. Bingle, with a deprecatory gesture. "I'm a selfish, conniving old rascal, that's what I am. We've always wanted children, Mrs. Bingle and I, and we never—er—never seemed to have 'em as other people do, so we began to look for children that needed parents as much as we needed children. That's the whole thing in a nut-shell. We are a bit high-handed ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... you are, dear heart,' he said, and a great sadness lay in his voice. She told him that the truth was often cruel to hear; that she but spoke these things because he let himself drift into weak conniving at the intrigues of Johanna Elizabetha. Then she recounted the petty spite and the thousand taunts to which she was subjected. She painted Stuttgart in sombre colours, the dullness, the stiffness. Why should Wirtemberg ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... their masters, affairs always secret, dark, foul, and fraudulent, were to him the normal condition of life. It was to be presumed that Mrs. Trevelyan should continue to correspond with her lover,—that old Mrs. Stanbury should betray her trust by conniving at the lover's visit,—that everybody concerned should be steeped to the hips in lies and iniquity. When, therefore, he found at Colonel Osborne's rooms that the Colonel had received a letter with the Lessboro' post-mark, addressed ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... see you are conniving with her!" exclaimed the Prince, loudly. "Don't tell me another word, I don't believe you. I shall go straight to the office, and I will speak to Herzog. We will take measures to prosecute the papers for libel if they dare to publish ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... unsparing, and the greater part of those present must have shared his impatience with Mr. Wilmington's request that he would give way to him for a moment. Yet they all probably felt the same curiosity about what was going forward, for it was plain that Mr. Wilmington and Colonel Marvin were conniving at the same point. Marvin had now gone to Mr. Gerrish, and had slipped into the pew beside him with the same sort of hand-shake he ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... with him as he entered the house, and the first minutes of exquisite feeling had no interruption and no witnesses, unless the servants chiefly intent upon opening the proper doors could be called such. This was exactly what Sir Thomas and Edmund had been separately conniving at, as each proved to the other by the sympathetic alacrity with which they both advised Mrs. Norris's continuing where she was, instead of rushing out into the hall as soon as the noises of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... profession, and tending to counteract all efforts for the salvation of men; and the man, after frankly acknowledging that it was wrong, said that this was the first time that any of them had conversed with him on the subject. This may be the case with other churches; and while it is, the whole church is conniving at the evil, and the whole church is guilty. Every brother, in such a case, is bound, on his own account, to converse with him who is thus aiding the powers of darkness, and opposing the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and try to persuade him to cease ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... curious study. He would be glad not to go too far, and yet his chief dread is lest he be left behind. His consciousness of pure aims allows him to become an accomplice in the worst crimes. Suspecting himself at bottom to be a theorist, he hastens to clear his character as man of practice by conniving at an enormity. Thus, in September 1792, a band of miscreants committed the grievous massacres in the prisons of Paris. Robespierre, though the best evidence goes to show that he not only did not abet the prison murders, but in his heart deplored them, yet ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... the men of his own day, at least to the unexhausted astonishment of times following, a charge was suddenly reported from the Committee to the Commons against the Lord Chancellor, not of straining the prerogative, or of conniving at his servants' misdoings, but of being himself a corrupt and venal judge. Two suitors charged him with receiving bribes. Bacon was beginning to feel worried and anxious, and he wrote thus to Buckingham. At length he had begun to see the meaning of all these ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... I have done else? If I had accepted Cecilia's hand, and treated her as a friend, I should have felt as though I were conniving at ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt |
