"Intrigue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is a soldier, a young man commended often by his superiors for gallantry and skill—deservedly so, too—I do not seek to deny it. He is here in Richmond now, and he has known Helen Harley all his life. They were boy and girl together. But he has become mixed in an intrigue ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... whatever he is bid. The Archbishop of Thoulouse desires peace. Though brought in by the Queen, he is opposed to her in this capital object, which would produce an alliance with her brother. Whether the Archbishop will yield or not, I know not. But an intrigue is already begun for ousting him from his place, and it is rather probable it will succeed. He is a good and patriotic minister for peace, and very capable in the department of finance. At least, he is so in theory. I have heard his talents for execution censured. Can I be useful ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... Rajah, he is himself very evidently low-born and low-bred, and compared with the former one, so poor a specimen, that the greater popularity of the former is not to be wondered at. From all we have heard, they are contemptible rulers, as they appear to do nothing but intrigue for power among themselves. Changes are hence excessively frequent, and were they attended with much bloodshed, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... his friend pityingly. "My wonder is, amico," he replied seriously, "that they did not declare him immortal as well. When you read the true history of those exciting days and learn something of the political intrigue with which the Church was then connected, you will see certain excellent reasons why the Holy Father should have been declared infallible. But let me ask you, amico, if you have such doubts, why are you here, of all places? Surely it is not ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the Sayyid of Isfahan circumvented him, and together they did that which caused a great calamity.' It was, therefore, indeed a crisis, and the chief blame is laid on Sayyid Muḥammad. [Footnote: TN, p. 94. 'He (i.e. Sayyid Muḥammad) commenced a secret intrigue, and fell to tempting Mirza Yaḥya, saying, "The fame of this sect hath risen high in the world; neither dread nor danger remaineth, nor is there any fear or need for caution before you."'] Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel is still a mere ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... arrived at Greenwich, wishing to aggrandize themselves by indulging in exemplary relaxation, indicatory of implacable detestation of integral tergiversation and exoteric intrigue. They fraternized with a phrenological harlequin who was a connoisseur in mezzotint and falconry. The piquant person was heaping contumely and scathing raillery on an amateur in jugular recitative, who held that the Pharaohs of Asia were conversant with his theory ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... modern reader's impression of an Italian opera of Handel's days is a story about some ancient or mediaeval hero whose very name is often to most people unknown; if he happens to be someone as famous as Julius Caesar, the familiar episodes of his life are sacrificed to some imaginary and complicated intrigue presented in the form of long and elaborate songs, thinly accompanied, and separated by stretches of dreary recitative. But in those days persons of culture, in England as well as in Italy, were perhaps more interested in ancient history and in the history of the later Roman Empire ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... consistent scheme of politics. Nothing interposes to prevent the full operation of all the caprices and all the passions of a Court upon the servants of the public. The system of Administration is open to continual shocks and changes, upon the principles of the meanest cabal, and the most contemptible intrigue. Nothing can be solid and permanent. All good men at length fly with horror from such a service. Men of rank and ability, with the spirit which ought to animate such men in a free state, while they decline the jurisdiction of dark cabal on their actions and their fortunes, will, for both, cheerfully ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... to priceless horses; others of us turn from useful statistics and go broke on novels or poetry or music. Count Fosco was an educated gentleman and the pleasure of life was his purpose; crime and intrigue were his recreations. Andy Johnson was a good business man and wealth producer; murder was the direction in which his private understanding of personal disagreements was exercised and vented. Some men turn to ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... Wolsey and Cromwell were the subtlest statesmen of their age; indeed, in them statecraft may be said to have had its dawn; yet Henry VIII., by the sheer force of his tyranny and despotic will, baffled them both. While Cromwell, the greatest genius in Europe, thought he held all the threads of intrigue in his own hands, his royal master by the dogged pursuit of one end overthrew the minister's entire scheme. Saturated though he was with Machiavellian theories, a man of one book, and that book The Prince, Cromwell lost all by his inability ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... Lady Mar on her favorite subject. He told her, if the nation chose to make their benefactor king, he should not oppose it; because he thought that none of the blood royal deserved to wear the crown which they had all consented to hold in fee of Edward; yet he would never promote by intrigue an election which must rob his own posterity of their inheritance. But when she gave hints of her becoming one day the wife of Wallace, he turned on her with a frown. "Cousin," said he, "beware how you allow so guilty an idea ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... sighed. He had hoped for a clean breast of it, a confession of the intrigue that should leave the way open to a readjustment of relations. "So let's put the whole ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and maiden. Byzantium might be in decadence, her provinces falling away, her glory wasting; the follies of the court and emperors, the best manhood of the empire lost in cloisters and hermitages, the preference of the nobility for intrigue and diplomacy might be all working their deplorable results—nay, the results might be at hand! Still the passion of the people for fetes and holidays remained. Tastes are things of heredity. In nothing is a Byzantine of this day so nearly a classic Greek as in his delicacy and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... (1584), which has the further peculiarity of introducing allegorical characters into the prologue, and mythological into the play. Another piece belonging to this period is the Pentimento amoroso by Luigi Groto, which was printed as early as 1575. It is a wild tale of murder and intrigue, judgement and outrageous self-sacrifice, composed in sdrucciolo verse and speeches of monstrous length. Another piece, Gabriele Zinano's Caride, surreptitiously printed in 1582, and included in an authorized publication in 1590, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... was gone Barclay shuddered; his contempt for Brownwell was one of the things he prided himself on, and the intrigue revolted him. He stood a moment at the window looking into the street absently. He became conscious that some one was smiling at him on the crossing below. Then automatically he heard himself say, "Oh, Molly, can you run up a minute?" And a moment ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... after, his uncle appeared at Elanchovi and claimed his nephew's fortune and titles. All was given up to him, and I, who believed that I had only sold my services to favour an intrigue or an affair of smuggling, found that I had been the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... the Husband demands, lives daily in Danger of his Life; yet when discharg'd, all Animosity is laid aside, and the Cuckold is very well pleased with his Bargain, whilst the Rival is laugh'd at by the whole Nation, for carrying on his Intrigue with no better Conduct, than to be discover'd and pay so dear for ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... done with Vandalia, its dinners of game, and its political intrigue. The archives of the State were not removed to Springfield until 1839, and Lincoln remained a member of the Legislature by successive reelections from 1834 to 1842. His campaigns were carried on almost entirely without expense. Joshua Speed told the writers that on one occasion some of the ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... trounced me soundly, for he was disgustingly wiry and long of limb. That was how I saw his physical advantages. But, apart from this matter of physical superiority, he was no match for me. In the subtler qualities of intrigue I was his master; and he, never probably having observed himself as a hero of romance, had to yield to my proficiency in the art of producing a desired impression. It was in his capacity as an old campaigner, a knowing dog, and a seasoned salt, that he had carried Nelly ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... designated hour, came the little note promised me by Mr. Gryce. It was put in my hand with many sly winks by the landlady herself, who developed at this crisis quite an adaptation for, if not absolute love of intrigue and mystery. Glancing over it—it was unsealed—and finding it entirely unintelligible, I took it for granted it was all right and put it by till chance, or if that failed, strategy, should give me an opportunity to communicate with Mrs. ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... all this disclose but the intrigue of despairing guilt?" exclaimed young Van de Lear. "He had destroyed the purity of a lady and abandoned her, and was afraid to show his ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the clothes-line, you could see many things of interest. To the left lay Washington Square, full of somnolent Italians and roller-skating children; to the right was a spectacle which never failed to intrigue Ginger, the high smoke-stacks of a Cunard liner moving slowly down the river, sticking up over the house-tops as if the boat ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... I sauntered up and down between the lines of orange-trees which were dressed up with variegated lamps, and shed their powerful fragrance in the air: I ruminated upon what might be my friend's intentions, and what might be the result of an intrigue carried on in a country where the stiletto follows Love so close through all the mazes of his labyrinth, when I was again accosted by ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... rational eyes by detected imposture. The attempt is once more prepared, but Ireland will have no house of cards, still less will she suffer the building of an hospital for decayed fashion and impotent intrigue—a receptacle for political incurables—and meritorious, in the sight even of its projectors, simply for affording them snug stewardships, showy governorships, and the whole sinecure system ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... then—who? But, whoever the fair unknown rival might be, Helen hated her increasingly as the hours passed, regarding her as an enemy, a creature to be exterminated, and swept off the board. Jealousy pricked her desire of conquest. An intrigue with Richard Calmady offered singular, unique attractions. But the force of such attractions was immensely enhanced by the excitement of wresting his affections away from ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... had returned with the Duke, assisted the intrigue to the best of his ability by constantly arranging meetings, feasts, picnics in the forest, music in the evenings, followed by gay suppers. But he offended Wilhelmine deeply, though she gave no sign thereof, for ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... for them—the poor souls cannot be Blades. They must e'en sit and palpitate while the Blade flashes. The accomplished Blade goes through life looking unspeakable wickedness at everything feminine he meets, old and young, rich and poor, one with another. He reeks with intrigue. Every Blade has his secrets and mysteries in this matter—remorse even for crimes. You do not know all that his handsome face may hide. Even he does not know. He may have sat on piers and talked to shop-girls, kissed housemaids, taken barmaids to music ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... no mature woman with a long dark vista of intrigue behind her who was tormented thus, but a girl of simple life, not yet one-and twenty, who had been caught during her days of immaturity like a bird in a springe. To calm herself the more completely, she rose from her little stool and left the room, overturning ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... staring at the board. The problem, then, was to construct from the hunter's character the hunter's part. A keen trader, scout, and enthusiast of the West, known to and knowing the men of those parts, and able to bend the undercurrents—a delighter in danger, with a boy's zest for intrigue, risk, and daring—an uncomplex mind, little troubled by theories of political obligation, political faith and unfaith, loyalty to government or its reverse—a being born to adventure, but to adventure under ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... outside of my faculties of sense and rhetoric,' says Bill. 'What I wanted you to do is to go to Washington and dig out this appointment for me. I haven't no ideas of cultivation and intrigue. I'm a plain citizen and I need the job. I've killed seven men,' says Bill; 'I've got nine children; I've been a good Republican ever since the first of May; I can't read nor write, and I see no reason why I ain't illegible for the office. And I think your partner, ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... of Alfleri so much as a poet as a dramaturgus. I may be mistaken, and it is, perhaps, presumptuous in me to attempt to judge, but it has always appeared to me that Voltaire and Alfieri have managed dramatic effect and the intrigue and catastrophe of their tragedies better than any other authors. Shakespeare, God as he is in genius, is in this particular very deficient. Schiller, too, the greatest modern poetic genius perhaps ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... to have a hold upon the Duke," replied Wilton. "I found afterwards, your majesty, that their intention was to send the young lady to France, and I judged throughout that their design was to force the Duke into an intrigue which they found he ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... finding that his plans were frustrated, gathered around him some of those who had taken a leading part in the intrigue. These, leaving the city by a gate at which they had placed some of their own faction to open it to the French, issued out and made their way to the assailants' camp, to give news of the altered ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... the city stand or fall as it list, who cared, so long as Sah-luma escaped injury! Such, at least, was the tenor of Theos's thoughts, as he rapidly began to calculate certain contingencies that now seemed likely to occur. If, for instance, the King were made aware of Sah-luma's intrigue with Lysia, would not his rage and jealousy exceed all bounds? ... and if, on the other hand, Sah-luma were convinced of the King's passion for the same fatally fair traitress, would not his wrath and injured self-love overbear all loyalty ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... states surrounding the inner conclave of orthodox Chinese states, after four centuries of fighting and intrigue for the Protectorate, or at least for preponderance, at last, during the period 400-375 B.C. became the Six Powers, all equally royal, none of them owing any real, scarcely even any nominal, allegiance to the once solitary King or Emperor, then it was that the idea began to ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... stubbornness and the incalculable counted for much; it was half the battle not to know you were beaten, and it is so still. Even to-day, a great nation, it seems, may still make its army the plaything of its gentlefolk, abandon important military appointments to feminine intrigue, and trust cheerfully to the homesickness and essential modesty of its influential people, and the simpler patriotism of its colonial dependencies when it comes at last to the bloody and wearisome business of "muddling ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... in consequence of which apprehending the severity of the military law, the latter had set off to the capital to appeal to the electoral prince, but was no more heard of. The colonel, who is a finished master of intrigue, enters Storm's house in disguise, and attempts with the help of a band of his soldiers to carry off Ella by force. In this he is opposed by the good and gallant old officer, who, sword in hand, beats off the soldiers, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... were heartily welcomed, for, by setting foot on the rocky island, they had become members of the vast family of Napoleon's enemies—of the brethren who had united against his power—of the conspirators whose sworn duty it was to oppose Napoleon with the weapons of cunning as well as force—of intrigue creeping in the dark, or of ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... to meet the exigencies of the state, was always in want of money. His cupidity was excited by the wealth of the order of Knights Templars, and, emboldened by his successes over the spiritual power, he now entered upon the career of intrigue which resulted in the destruction and plunder of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to regret the suppression of lotteries, it is the whole tribe of play-writers and authors. Never will there be found again a "Deus ex Machina," so serviceable or so unfailing as the lottery. If your plot wanted a solution, or your intrigue a denoument, or your novel a termination, you could always cut through all your difficulties by the medium of a lottery-ticket. The virtuous but impoverished hero became at once a very Croesus, and the worldly-minded parent bestowed his daughter and his blessing on the successful ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... months he had had a sweetheart, not like the others, a woman with whom one engages in a passing intrigue, of the theatrical world or the demi-monde, but a woman whom he loved and won. He was no longer a young man, although he was still comparatively young for a man, and he looked on life seriously in a positive ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... long-continued and crushing tyranny that extends to all the details of daily life is only too likely to have the most unfortunate results on those who are subjected to it. And as a matter of fact we find that the well-to-do Catholics of Pope's day lived in an atmosphere of disaffection, political intrigue, and evasion of the law, most unfavorable for the development of that frank, courageous, and patriotic spirit for the lack of which Pope himself has so often been made ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... to maintain that indefensible claim she is driven to aggression and intrigue in every quarter of the globe; to setting otherwise friendly peoples by the ears; to forming "alliances" and ententes, to dissolving friendships, the aim always being the old ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... such satisfaction, that she expected to end it in the tranquillity of Teackle Hall, like some young eagle returned to her nest with abundant prey for the old birds there, worn out with storm and time. In place of love and healing nature, Vesta had found worldliness, resentment, intrigue, and aspersion, concluding with a reference to the one object she feared and shrank from—the hat of dark entail, the shadow upon her future life. Her eyes ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... occurred, had taught her to believe that the police could not insist on breaking open her desk unless some evidence could be brought against her. There was no evidence, and her desk was so far safe. But the same circumstances had made her understand that she was already suspected of some intrigue with reference to the diamonds,—though of what she was suspected she did not clearly perceive. As far as she could divine the thoughts of her enemies, they did not seem to suppose that the diamonds were ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... however, highly pleased with his argument) began to bewail the misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist each other in their necessities; but what vexed him, he said, most, was the cruelty of the fair: for he intrusted Wild with the secret of his having had an intrigue with Miss Theodosia, the elder of the Miss Snaps, ever since his confinement, though he could not prevail with her to set him at liberty. Wild answered, with a smile, "It was no wonder a woman should wish to confine her lover where she might be sure of having him entirely to ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... extraordinary that Santa Anna, once freed from his captivity, should not have re-entered Texas with an overwhelming force. The reason is very simple: Bustamente was a rival of Santa Anna for the presidency; the general's absence allowed him to intrigue, and when the news reached the capital that Santa Anna had fallen a prisoner, it became necessary to elect a new president. Bustamente had never been very popular, but having promised to the American population of the sea-ports, that nothing should be attempted against Texas if he were ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... becoming clearer that English intrigue was behind all these troubles with the Iroquois. Dongan, the Catholic Governor of New York at this period, a resourceful and adroit politician, formed the design of absorbing the territory of the Iroquois into the domain of James II. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... retired to Shikarpoor, which the Ameers of Sinde ceded to him; where, in place of conducting himself with prudence, he was so addicted to low intrigue with those about him, that his enemies availed themselves of this propensity to effect his ruin, and drove him from Shikarpoor, when, crossing the Indus, he fled through the desert by Juydalmeer, and ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... divided into two parts, one dealing with Lady Jane Grey, and the other with Mary Tudor as Queen, introducing other notable characters of the era. Throughout the story holds the interest of the reader in the midst of intrigue and conspiracy, extending considerably ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Feraud, who for many days now had experienced no real desire to meet Lieutenant D'Hubert arms in hand, chafed at the systematic injustice of fate. "Does he think he will escape me in that way?" he thought indignantly. He saw in it an intrigue, a conspiracy, a cowardly manoeuvre. That colonel knew what he was doing. He had hastened to recommend his pet for promotion. It was outrageous that a man should be able to avoid the consequences of his acts in such ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... this literature of the lower classes the principal legendary episodes of which we have studied the origin and followed the development; accommodated to a fiction, woven into a web of intrigue, they have undergone new transformations; they have lost every indication of their source; they are transposed in the new circumstances imagined for them; they have usually been dissociated from the circumstances which individualize them and fix their time and place. The ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... and had been years younger when he had met her first. She was married then to an old man, jealous and suspicious, knowing that his money had won the beautiful wild creature for him. It was at Buenos Aires, and the husband had found Madalena out in an intrigue; partly political, partly mercenary, and partly passionate. He had turned her from his house without a penny, and Knight—not personally concerned in the intrigue, but interested—had been flush enough at the time to lend her a thousand dollars, enough to go away ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... conceptions of its mood. When a relative clause is subjoined to what is itself subjunctive or conditional, some writers suppose that the latter verb should be put in the subjunctive mood; as, "If there be any intrigue which stand separate and independent."—Blair's Rhet., p. 457. "The man also would be of considerable use, who should vigilantly attend to every illegal practice that were beginning to prevail."—Campbell's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... life's exciting game. 'Twould be a good deed done, if you could throw Your servant in his way; I mean, you know, Just to play second: in a month, I'll swear, You'd make an end of every rival there." "O, you mistake: we don't live there in league: I know no house more sacred from intrigue: I'm never distanced in my friend's good grace By wealth or talent: each man finds his place." "A miracle! if 'twere not told by you, I scarce should credit it." "And yet 'tis true." "Ah, well, you double my desire to rise To special favour with a man so wise." ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... women in the house, I should have suspected a mere vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man's business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which could account for such elaborate preparations, and such an expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be something out of the ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... Poland of the mouth of the Vistula, of Dantzig and of the Polish portion of the Baltic coastline. This programme will prevent Lithuania and the Ukraine from becoming instruments of Prusso-German oppression and Austrian intrigue. It is only such a Poland as this which will be able to fulfil its historic mission as ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... surrounded him was a certain Judge Edward McGowan, a jolly, hard-drinking, noisy individual. He had been formerly a fugitive from justice. However, through the attractions of a gay life, a combination of bullying and intrigue, he had made himself a place in the new city and had at last risen to the bench. He was apparently easy to fathom, but the stream really ran deep. Some historians claim that he had furnished King the document which proved Casey an ex-convict. It is certain that now he had great influence ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... for class president, and unless all signs fail, she is going to be elected. Such an atmosphere of intrigue you should see what politicians we are! Oh, I tell you, Daddy, when we women get our rights, you men will have to look alive in order to keep yours. Election comes next Saturday, and we're going to have a torchlight procession in the ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... speak of women who are restrained by principle or prejudice; such women, though they would shrink from an intrigue with real abhorrence, yet, nevertheless, wish to be convinced by the homage of gallantry, that they are cruelly neglected by their husbands; or days and weeks are spent in dreaming of the happiness enjoyed by congenial souls, till the health is ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... hear or think nothing about duty, to just know that I had come back to England to stay, and that you were English, and that we were going to live just the sort of life I pictured to myself that two people could live so happily over here, without too much ambition, without intrigue, simply and honestly. I am a little weary of cities and courts, Francis. To-night more than ever England seems to appeal to me, to remind me that I am one ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... discussion of the London traffic problem as we practise it in our clubs is essentially the sage turning over and over again of such fragmentary schemes, headshakings over the vacant sites about Aldwych and the Strand, brilliant petty suggestions and—dispersal. Meanwhile the experts intrigue; one partial plan after another gets itself accepted, this and that ancient landmark perish, builders grow rich, and architects infamous, and some Tower Bridge horror, some vulgarity of the Automobile Club type, some Buckingham Palace atrocity, ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... neither would one easily guess the revolting vulgarity with which he was about to view "The Scarlet Letter." He could discover in it nothing but a deliberate attempt to attract readers by pandering to the basest taste. He imagines that Hawthorne "selects the intrigue of an adulterous minister, as the groundwork of his ideal" of Puritan times, and asks, "Is the French era actually begun in our literature?" Yet, being in some points, or professing to be, an admirer of the author, "We are glad," he says, "that 'The Scarlet Letter' ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... friend, often! I only pretended I had not in order to avoid a painful subject. You saw today, you were a witness, that I did all that a kind, an indulgent father could do. Now a father of altogether another type shall step into the scene. You shall see; the old soldier shall lay bare this intrigue, or a shameless woman will force her way into a ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... his fine airs before a real danger? Love, intrigue, diplomacy, were all driven from his mind; for he beheld that approaching, which is the greatest peril and disaster known to social man. He saw a bore coming ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... people. Secretiveness leads naturally to deceit; but it is not in itself serious enough to make much ado about. Healthy children in healthful social surroundings will outgrow this instinct; where the atmosphere is charged with intrigue and scheming and dissimulation, this instinct may survive longer, but its manifestation is in itself not a trait that should ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... courtesy demands that I hold my peace and pass on. The enemies of my country I denounce at all times, and in all places. You are a Turkish spy, one of those of whom I have been speaking, who sought the hospitality of Theos only to scatter gold amongst the common people to plot and intrigue for your master, the Sultan. Oh, I know that you are also a soldier and a brave man, for I have met you face to face in battle, and may God grant that I do so again. Yet you are a spy and a treacherous rogue, and I am very thankful that I have come here to tell ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... to intrigue with the king of Vijayanagar, and being invited to visit that city on the occasion of one of the great MAHANAVAMI festivals, left Belgaum with 13,000 men and 200 elephants. Before starting he wrote to Da Cunha, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... nodded. Here was a man after his own heart, which loved intrigue and duplicity. Evidently he would be a good ally in wreaking vengeance upon the white giant who had caused all his discomfiture—afterward there was always the kris if the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... most of the period of this long civil war, Catherine de Medicis [12] was either regent or in the exercise of a controlling influence in the government of France. She was a woman of commanding person and extraordinary ability, skilful in intrigue, without conscience and without personal religion. She hesitated at no crime, however black, if through it she could attain the objects of her ambition. Neither of her three sons, Francis, Charles, and Henry, who came ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... her splendid life of cultivated ease with the want of martial energy, we can see but too plainly that contact with a simpler and stronger people could not but produce a terrible catastrophe. The Italians themselves, however, were far from comprehending this. Centuries of undisturbed internal intrigue had accustomed them to play the game of forfeits with each other, and nothing warned them that the time was come at which diplomacy, finesse, and craft would stand them in ill ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... let die." But whilst Constant affected the highest thinking, unhappily he practised the lowest living; nor did the transcendentalism of his books atone for the meanness of his life. He frequented the gaming-tables while engaged in preparing his work upon religion, and carried on a disreputable intrigue while writing his 'Adolphe.' With all his powers of intellect, he was powerless, because he had no faith in virtue. "Bah!" said he, "what are honour and dignity? The longer I live, the more clearly I see there is nothing in them." It was the howl of a miserable man. He described himself ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... passion for Dyveke did not pass away. He erected a palace at Opslo, and lived there with his mistress until recalled to Copenhagen, when he took her with him. The most singular feature in this whole intrigue is that the royal voluptuary was from the outset under the absolute sway, not of the fair Dyveke, but of her mother, Sigbrit, a low, cunning, intriguing woman of Dutch origin, who followed the couple to the royal palace at Opslo, and afterwards ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... Scarlet Pimpernel would cease to be. THAT had been Chauvelin's plan all along. For the end he had schemed and thought and planned, from the moment that Robespierre had given him the opportunity of redeeming his failure of last year. He had built up the edifice of his intrigue, bit by bit, from the introduction of his tool, Candeille, to Marguerite at the Richmond gala, to the arrest of Lady Blakeney in Boulogne. All that remained for him to see now, would be the attitude of Sir Percy Blakeney ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and interesting. Moreover, it throws light on a celebrated exploit in our modern annals,—I mean that of the Mont Saint-Bernard. Messieurs les Ambassadeurs," he added, bowing to the two diplomats, "will see that in the element of profound intrigue the political men of the present day are far behind the Machiavellis whom the waves of the popular will lifted, in 1793, above the storm,—some of whom have 'found,' as the old song says, 'a haven.' To be anything ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... dusky man who looked at her like a wistful monkey, and slipped nimbly about the room in her service; and who, likewise, rejoiced greatly over certain backsheesch which he, with the joy the native has in all intrigue, imagined to be the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... as it was necessary to obtain a pension. There were the superintendents, the supervisors, the special teachers, the principals—petty officers of a petty tyranny in which too often seethed gossip, scandal, intrigue. There were the "soft places"; the deceitful, the easy, the harsh principals; the teachers' institutes to which the poor teacher was forced to pay her scanty dollars. There were bulletins, rules, counter-rules. As she talked, Sommers caught the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... strangely uninfluenced by the knowledge of Bridget's engagement to Colonel Faversham, her simultaneous intrigue with Mark Driver could scarcely fail to bring Jimmy to his senses. For the present, however, Sybil tried to hope that there might be more difficulty in running his quarry to earth than he anticipated. She might indeed be hiding ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... land hunger is largely responsible for Irish rents. Friends and neighbours—aye, even relatives near as brothers and sisters, compete against each other, and eagerly force up the price. Every Irish land agent will tell you of underhand intrigue in connection with land. Not only do brothers secretly strive to obtain advantage over each other by means of higher bidding, but bribery is tried. Mr. Robert Hare, of the Dublin Board of Works, said:—"My father was an agent, and on one occasion he was weighing the respective claims of two ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... and the king sat on the throne of his kingship, he summoned the chief of his viziers and said to him, "What deemest thou of this that yonder robber-youth hath done? Behold, he hath entered my house and lain down on my bed and I fear lest there be an intrigue between him and the woman. How deemest thou of the affair?" "God prolong the king's continuance!" replied the vizier. "What sawest thou in this youth [to make thee trust in him]? Is he not vile of origin, the son of thieves? Needs must a thief revert to his vile ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... intrigues over the Cabinet. Promises made by his managers at Chicago were presented for redemption. Rival candidates bidding for his favor, tried to cut each other's throats. For example, there was the intrigue of the War Department. The Lincoln managers had promised a Cabinet appointment to Pennsylvania; the followers of Simon Cameron were a power; it had been necessary to win them over in order to nominate Lincoln; they insisted that their leader was now entitled to the Pennsylvania seat in the Cabinet; ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... not a year of fighting, was pro-eminently a year of intrigue. William's enemies on the continent strove to turn the representative of the West-Saxon kings to help their ends. Edgar flits to and fro between Scotland and Flanders, and the King of the French tempts him with the offer of a convenient settlement on the march of France, Normandy, ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... of Ireland to the same yoke that England bore with silent but sullen indignation, when he judged it expedient to endeavour to prevent his enemies from taking advantage of his being at a distance from the chief seat of political intrigue. He knew that Lord Bellingham was intrusted with the secrets of the Commonwealth's-men, and determined to pay him a conciliatory visit in prison. He met the captive Earl with mock humility, and sycophantic friendship; talked largely of his talents ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... seize and occupy them. You will warn the said officers that such an event is apprehended, and that they will be held responsible for the defense, to the last extremity, of the forts and garrisons under their respective commands, against any assault, and also against intrigue and surprise. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... prevented him from knowing her, until the reality broke through the poetical vision only to shock him by its inferiority or repulsiveness. As to the poor girl herself, she never had the capacity for learning to know him. In the sequel she proved to be the not unwilling slave of a petty domestic intrigue,—oppression from which he would have rescued her. Married life enabled him to discover that she was the reverse of the being that he had fancied. They were first married in Scotland in 1811. Shelley made acquaintance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... sometimes as full of meaning as a threat; and, in a word, that to the fathers who had hated with their hearts and fought with their arms, would now succeed the sons, who would indeed hate with their hearts, but would no longer combat their enemies, save by means of intrigue or treachery. As, therefore, it certainly was not Raoul whom he could suspect either of intrigue or treachery, it was on Raoul's account that De Guiche trembled. However, while these gloomy forebodings cast a shade of anxiety over De Guiche's countenance, De Wardes had resumed the ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Lana an exceedingly quick intimacy between Lois and me sentimentally interested the former, and, as I have said, aroused the mischievous, yet not unkindly, curiosity of the latter. Like all people who are deep in intrigue themselves, any hint of it in others excited her sophisticated curiosity. So when we concluded it might be safe to call each other Lois and Euan, Lana's curiosity leaped over all bounds ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... don't pretend that I felt very anxious about him. He had never sought either my friendship or my protection, and we looked at life from totally different angles. To me there was something common and dirty about an intrigue with a school-slavey. My brother, I thought, should have been above that sort of thing. But he wasn't and he never has been. With him a woman is just a woman. He raises his hand and they come running, and apologizing ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... precautions, Peter did not feel entirely safe. He was well aware of Sophia's ambition, and of her skill in intrigue, and during the whole progress of his tour he anxiously watched the tidings which he received from Moscow, ready to return at a moment's warning in case of necessity. He often spoke on this subject to those ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... else to think of," said he. Casting his eyes on the first page of one, he read, "'Mistress Sigbirth; an original Tragedy, in Five Acts.' What is this?—in my own handwriting, too! Have I written this tragedy?" He read again, "'The Intrigue on the Promenade; or, the Fast-Day. A Vaudeville.' However did I get all this? Some one must have put them into my pocket. And here is a letter!" It was from the manager of a theatre; the pieces were rejected, not at all in ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... sister of a Courtesan, an Andrian by birth; and she having become pregnant, he gives his word that she shall be his wife; but his father has engaged for him another, the daughter of Chremes; and when he discovers the intrigue he pretends that the nuptials are about to take place, desiring to learn what intentions his son may have. By the advice of Davus, Pamphilus does not resist; but Chremes, as soon as he has seen the little child born of Glycerium, breaks off the match, {and} declines him ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... a Catholic, though at times conforming, and as brother of the hapless Duke of Norfolk, he had hated the Cecils. His dislike of Robert Cecil had been inflamed by partizanship for his kinsman Essex; notwithstanding, with his insatiable love of intrigue, he is said to have played off the two against one another. Now, convinced that Cecil was too strong, or too necessary, to be discarded, and possessing James's full confidence, he set himself to the cure of ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... yourselves suppose for a moment that the uneasiness in the populations of Europe is due entirely to economic causes and economic motives; something very much deeper underlies it all than that. They see that their governments have never been able to defend them against intrigue or aggression, and that there is no force of foresight or of prudence in any modern cabinet to stop war." (New ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... narrated, at a time when the Debats published a novel by him which was spoken of far and wide. Nathan laid the foundation for this affair. Trailles, Charles-Edouard's master, carried on the negotiations and brought the intrigue to a consummation, being urged on by the Abbe Brossette's assent and the Duchesse de Grandlieu's request. La Palferine's liaison with Madame de Rochefide effected a reconciliation between Calyste du Guenic and his wife. In the ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... and France, the extermination of Protestantism, and the subjection of Europe to the despotic sway of Spain and Rome. The interest of the history is therefore European. To grasp it requires a knowledge of the minutest threads of a tangled web of intrigue which spread from the Escorial to the North Sea. This knowledge Mr. Motley has obtained. The cabinets of Spain, England, and France have yielded up their inmost secrets to his indefatigable research. He peeps over the shoulder of Philip, and reads the despatch ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... because, for once, he was dancing with an angel. She laughed and blushed. He flattered deliciously, and it cost him little; for he fell in love with her that night, deeper than he had ever been in his whole life of intrigue. He asked leave to call on her: she looked a little shy at that, and did not respond. He instantly withdrew his proposal, with an apology and a sigh that raised her pity. However, she was not a forward girl, even when excited by dancing and ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... could help other men writing silly letters to her? Did he not think she could keep out of a mess? And she smiled the self-satisfied smile of a woman conscious of many admirers and of her own powers of intrigue. ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... the ideal democracy as is possible. That change will be in itself our most potent guarantee against all future wars. No democracy ever encouraged bloodshed. It is, to my mind, a clearly proved fact that all wars are the result of court intrigue. There will be no more of that. The passing of monarchical rule in Germany will mean ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a greater pedant than a mere man of the town? How many a pretty gentleman's knowledge lies all within the verge of the court? He will tell you the names of the principal favourites; repeat the shrewd sayings of a man of quality; whisper an intrigue that is not yet blown upon by common fame; or, if the sphere of his observations is a little larger than ordinary, will perhaps enter into all the incidents, turns, and resolutions, in a game of ombre. When he has gone thus far, he has shown you the whole circle ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... Congress when he once snuffed the air of Washington. There was something grateful to Abel Newt in the wide sphere and complicated relations of the political capital, of which the atmosphere was one of intrigue, and which was built over the mines and countermines of selfishness. He hoodwinked all Belch's spies, so that the Honorable Mr. Ele could never ascertain any thing about his colleague, until once when he discovered that the report upon the Grant was to be brought in within a day or two by ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... the centre of international intrigue. There was an Italian battalion about 1,500 strong, the Czech 12th Regiment of about 200, and the British Middlesex Regiment, 220. To maintain their prestige the French were arming the Lett revolters as fast as the Russian General Affinasiaff could defeat and disarm ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... Duchess, are aware, he showed alarm, and I had all that I could do to reassure him. I find it everywhere amongst your aristocracy—this stubborn confidence in the existence of the reigning order of things, this absolute detestation of anything approaching intrigue." ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sent some to Sparta to accuse Lysander; and on his acquittal the Libyans, going away, said, "You will find us, O Spartans, better judges, when you come to dwell with us in Libya," there being a certain ancient oracle, that the Lacedaemonians should dwell in Libya. But as the whole intrigue and the course of the contrivance was no ordinary one, nor lightly- undertaken, but depended as it went on, like some mathematical proposition, on a variety of important admissions, and proceeded through a series of intricate and difficult steps to its ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... on the jetty at Port Said, consequently, a bronze effigy of the man for a few years known as "Le grand Francais," visage directed toward Constantinople (where once he had been potent in intrigue), the left hand holding a map of the canal, while the right is raised in graceful invitation to the maritime world to enter. This piece of sculpture is the only material evidence that such a person as Ferdinand de Lesseps ever lived. The legacy to his family ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... and empires, and therefore of loyalty to sovereigns, has gone by. The history of nations is the history of intrigue, quarrelling, and bloodshed, and we are determined to put a stop to warfare for good and all. We hold in our hands the only power that can thwart the designs of the League and avert an era of tyranny and retrogression. That power we intend to use whether the British ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... to display itself at this juncture. His perplexity excited him to a degree of irritability bordering on delirium; and circumstances conspired to increase it. He had lent an acquaintance the key of his rooms at court, for the purpose (he tells us) of accommodating some intrigue; and he suspected this person of opening cabinets containing his papers. Remonstrating with him one day in the court of the palace, either on that or some other account, the man gave him the lie. He received in return a blow on the face, and is said by Tasso to ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... inferiors, which intimacy could not be in the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or private malevolence." In other words, you can more quickly destroy a man's friendship by one word of sarcasm than by any amount of intrigue. Does not this read very much like sheer wickedness? Certainly it does; but the author would have told you that you must fight the wicked with their own weapons. In the "Havamal" you will not find anything ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... at the gaming-table, and but very few honourable debts—by being harsh and severe to a private supplicant, while he is publicly a liberal subscriber to a person he never saw—by leaving his vis-a-vis at the door of a well-known courtesan, in order to have the credit of an intrigue—in making use of an optical glass for personal inspection, though he can ascertain the horizon without any—by being or seeming to be, every thing that is in opposition to nature and virtue—in counting the lines in the Red Book, and carefully watching the importation of figurantes ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... country-house life Mr. Benson mingles mystery, intrigue, and comedy with the skill of which he alone has ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... this low way of intrigue, when he shall consider that he has a footboy or an apprentice for his rival, and that he is seldom or never admitted, but when they have been his tasters; and the fool of fortune, though he comes at the latter end of the feast, yet pays the whole reckoning; and so ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... personal incident of emotion in the hope that it may help to explain a success that might otherwise seem inexplicable. The Mormon Church had, for years, employed every art of intrigue and diplomacy to protect itself in Washington. I wish to make plain that it was not by any superior cunning of negotiation that my mission succeeded. I undertook the task almost without instruction; I ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... experienced, as we have observed, a sentiment of repulsion at hearing the name of Mademoiselle de Tecle appear in the midst of this intrigue. It amounted almost to horror, and he could not control the manifestation of it. How could he conquer this supreme revolt of his conscience to the point of submitting to the expedient which would make his intrigue safe? By what detestable sophistries ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Slope was thinking of the second book of Euclid and his unpaid bill at the buttery hatch. In age the lady was younger than the gentleman, but in feelings, in knowledge of the affairs of love, in intrigue, he was immeasurably her junior. It was necessary to her to have some man at her feet. It was the one customary excitement of her life. She delighted in the exercise of power which this gave her; it was now nearly the only food for her ambition; she would boast to her sister that she ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... adopted to acquire her African possessions were peculiarly typical. Like the madness that plunged her into a struggle with civilization they were her own undoing. Into a continent whose middle name, so far as colonization goes, is intrigue she fitted perfectly. Practically every German colony in Africa represented the triumph of "butting in" or intimidation. The Kaiser That Was regarded himself as the mentor, and sought to recast continents in the same grand way that he ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... of marriage, to conceal a mode of conduct, that would for ever have damned their fame, had they been innocent, seduced girls. These particularly stood aloof.—Had she remained with her husband, practising insincerity, and neglecting her child to manage an intrigue, she would still have been visited and respected. If, instead of openly living with her lover, she could have condescended to call into play a thousand arts, which, degrading her own mind, might have allowed the people who were not deceived, to pretend to be so, she ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... she thought them at an end, and that she was returning to her father: for when her master found her virtue was not to be subdued, and he had in vain tried to conquer his passion for her, being a gentleman of pleasure and intrigue, he had ordered his Lincolnshire coachman to bring his travelling chariot from thence, not caring to trust his Bedfordshire coachman, who, with the rest of the servants, so greatly loved and honoured the fair damsel; and having given him instructions accordingly, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... country,' continued the priest, 'and despises them—a mistake to which his countrymen are singularly liable. He has gone off on this foolish quest without preparation or precaution. Toledo is, as you know, a hotbed of intrigue and dissatisfaction. All the malcontents in Spain congregate there, and Conyngham would do well to avoid their company. Who lies down with dogs ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... lady's slipper meddled in the onslaught: he felt the dainty thing wander and frisk about over his heavy hunting boots like a tiny red mouse. What could he do? Answer the glance and the pressure, of course. Ay, but what about the consequences? A loving intrigue in the East is a terrible matter! With his romantic southern nature, the honest Tarasconian saw himself already falling into the grip of the eunuchs, to be decapitated, or better—we mean, worse—than that, ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... the gravity of the rebellion and its connection with German intrigue propaganda, and in view of the great loss of life and destruction of property resulting therefrom, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief has found it imperative to inflict the most severe sentences on ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... villas, and gay mansions, the robber chief covered his face with a black mask—a mode of disguise so common at that period, not only amongst ladies, but also with cavaliers and nobles, that it was not considered at all suspicious, save as a proof of amatory intrigue, with which the sbirri had no right ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... diligent eye on the situation. Spain had the nominal control, at least, of the lands west of the Mississippi. She had designs on the western territory of the United States, and was about to open up an intrigue with James Wilkinson and other treasonable conspirators in Kentucky, who had in mind a separation from the eastern states. To hold the posts within the American territory, was to be on the ground and ready to act, either in the event of a dissolution of the old confederation, ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... potency of the spirit of the beloved and departed woman. The unity of effect is absolute, the workmanship consummate. So with the theme of revenge in "The Cask of Amontillado," the theme of mysterious intrigue in "The Assignation." In Poe's detective stories, or tales of ratiocination as he preferred to call them, he takes to pieces for our amusement a puzzle which he has cunningly put together. "The Gold Bug" is ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... would have undertaken the task of teaching me the perils of every path, who would have formed my manners, counseled me without wounding my vanity, and introduced me everywhere where I was likely to make friends who would be useful to me in my future career. In my despair, an intrigue of the most dangerous kind would perhaps have had its attractions for me; but even peril was out of my reach. My inexperience sent me back again to my solitude, where I dwelt face to ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... situations are usually bestowed on military men. This is a good or a bad regulation, as the patronage is used. In a nation of extensive military operations it might prove a commendable and a delicate way of rewarding services; but, as the tendency of mankind is to defer to intrigue, and to augment power rather than to reward merit, the probability is, that these places are rarely bestowed, except in the way ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... though with difficulty, a second edition of the "Times" as they approached London, and favoured his fellow-travellers with the news of the change of ministry. There was much excitement, and the purchaser of the paper gave it as his opinion, "that it was an intrigue of the Court and the Tories, and would never do." Another modestly intimated that he thought there was a decided reaction. A third announced that England would never submit to be governed ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... lights of another. Happily we now demand in a statesman a desire for other aims than his own advancement; but at that period ambition was almost universally selfish—the Statesman was yet a Courtier—a man whose very destiny it was to intrigue, to plot, to glitter, to deceive. It is in proportion as politics have ceased to be a secret science, in proportion as courts are less to be flattered and tools to be managed, that politicians have become useful and ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 'solid' French-Canadian party of Lower Canada into a compact parliamentary phalanx of forty which would, of course, take charge of the House. Baldwin was skilfully approached and played upon until he supported this intrigue. The sequel is best ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... put forth its attractions; and which, as Evelyn says, became "the only place of refreshment about the town for persons of the best quality to be exceedingly cheated at." The plays of the period abound with intrigue and adventure carried on at both places. The Mall ceased to be the resort of royalty at the death of Charles, but it continued to be the fashionable promenade until the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... was terribly reduced in numbers, the men who remained were strong and healthy. I did not despair; but I determined that this reduction of military force should NOT paralyze the activity of the expedition, and that in spite of every intrigue, I would succeed in the main objects of the enterprise; the slave trade should be suppressed, and the territory should ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... said. "Thou art a striker of straight blows, and hast no cunning save when the foe is in gunshot. The sea breeze is life to thee, but some of us would choke with too much of it. We must breathe ever and anon of the scented atmosphere of courts. The turns and twists of intrigue attract us; we love to ruffle it in silk as well as in mail or in homespun. The voices and faces of fair women make music and beauty for our ears and our eyes; we love the harp and the lute as well as the mavis and throstle in the hedgerow, and we pore as diligently over ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... the country in all directions, while watch-towers are seen perched on peaks and points of vantage, the whole scene speaking eloquently of the extraordinary precautions these poor people were compelled to adopt for the preservation of their lives and property. No wonder Russian intrigue makes headway in Khorassan and all along the Turco-inan-Perso frontier, for the people can scarcely help being favorably impressed by the stoppage of Turcoman deviltry in their midst, and the wholesale liberation of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Entente had been opened in the winter of 1903, but owing to the war with Japan and the revolutionary outbreak in Russia the Tsar's views on the subject had changed. Worked on by the German Emperor, he imagined himself a victim of English intrigue, and he concluded with the Kaiser at Bjoerkoeon July 23, 1905, the bases of a new Triple Alliance to consist of Russia, Germany, and France. While the Treaty was still unratified certain reactionaries in Russia seized the opportunity ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... lobby, he would pull and haul from within. The returns were surer; also it was easier to knead and mold and bake one's loaf of legislation as a member, with a seat in Senate or Assembly, than as some unassigned John Smith, who, with a handful of bribes and a heart full of cheap intrigue, must do his work from the corridor. A legislative seat was a two-edged sword to cut both ways. You could trade with it, using it as a bribe, bartering vote for vote; that was one edge. Or you could threaten ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... morning came into Manila Fray Bartolome Marron (who went about secretly), and Fathers Juan de Santo Domingo and Juan de Vargas, who were the lecturers exiled to Cagayan; the latter went publicly through the city, scorning the royal authority by which they were exiled. Immediately began the intrigue—which, according to report, came already ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... illustrate the irrational and incongruous origin of many folkways. In civilized history also we know that customs have owed their origin to "historical accident,"—the vanity of a princess, the deformity of a king, the whim of a democracy, the love intrigue of a statesman or prelate. By the institutions of another age it may be provided that no one of these things can affect decisions, acts, or interests, but then the power to decide the ways may have passed to clubs, trades unions, trusts, commercial rivals, wire-pullers, politicians, and political ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... I knew. He would know it too, once his exultation sobered. I had outgrown my love for intrigue, and I had the feeling this was Rakhal's last adventure. It was going to take him, as he said, years to work out the equations for the transmitter. And I had a feeling my own solid, ordinary desk was going to look good ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... never to have seen the wrath and turbulence of the Ineffable, nor to have heard the thrilling bleakness of the winds of Eternity, when they pine, and long, and whimper, and when they vociferate and blaspheme, and when they expostulate and intrigue and implore, and when they despair and die, which ear of man should never hear. For they mean to eat me up, I know, these Titanic darknesses: and soon like a whiff I shall pass away, and leave the world to ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... 'phone, while I sat down again and looked at the cabinet in a kind of stupefaction. What was the intrigue, of which it seemed to be the centre? Who was this man, that Godfrey should consider him so formidable? Why should he have chosen Philip Vantine for ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... office reached Addington in the last days of December, than he opened negotiations with Pitt with a view to effecting this object. Pitt did not receive his overtures very warmly. He doubtless wished to be brought back because he was felt to be indispensable, without any appearance of intrigue. Time was in his favour, and he allowed the negotiations to proceed slowly. As the proposals took shape, it became clear that Addington did not wish to be openly superseded by Pitt, but preferred that they should serve ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... himself again if she were carrying on an intrigue with Bosinney. He did not believe that she was; he could not afford to believe such a reason for her conduct—the thought was not to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... election was taking place in the House of Representatives, amid scenes of great excitement, strife and intrigue, which was to decide whether Jefferson or Burr should be the chief magistrate of the nation, Jefferson was stopped one day, as he was coming out of the Senate chamber, by Gouverneur Morris, a prominent leader ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... was sufficiently powerful to contest every inch of ground with the party of Livia; for they had public opinion in their favor, they enjoyed the support of the senate, and they played upon the weakness of Augustus. In the year 2 A.D., after four years of exhaustive efforts spent in struggle and intrigue, all that Livia had been able to obtain was the mere permission that Tiberius might return to Rome, under the conditions, however, that he retire to private life, that he give himself up to the education of his son, and that he in no wise mingle in public affairs. The condition of the ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... thicket, leads a calm and sedentary life, requiring no other elements of happiness than moonlight, rest, and a few worms. Its tastes are so humble, its wants so few; it mixes so little with the world, and is so ignorant of all intrigue, that nothing can exceed its innocence. Like those honest country-folks who can never manage to shake off their native simplicity, its instinct never puts it on its guard against a snare, and consequently it falls into the first that is set ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... this pretty intrigue gone? now was the question. Mr. Will said, that at her age, Maria would be for conducting matters as rapidly as possible, not having much time to lose. There was not a great deal of love lost between ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the Valcours than fifty Unions, a hundred Dixies and heaven beside. It was that fact, more than any other, save one, which lent intrepidity to Flora's perpetual, ever quickening dance on the tight-rope of intrigue; a performance in which her bonny face had begun to betray her discovery that she could neither slow down nor dance backward. However, every face had come to betray some cruel strain; Constance's, Anna's, even Victorine's almond eyes ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... about this town, in relation to that prince. I knew her intimately well, and I believe she would not have concealed any love affair from me, being one of her own sex, whose friendship and secrecy she had experienced, which makes me assure the world that there was no intrigue between that Prince and Astraea. She had a general value for his uncommon virtues, and when he related the story of his woes, she might with the Desdemona of Shakespear, cry out, That it was pitiful, wondrous pitiful, which ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... had not heard wheels in the drive, so they were startled by Vessons' intrigue insertion of himself into a small opening of the door, his firm shutting of it as if in face of a beleaguering host, and his ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... They knew she would not let them down. She would not intrigue into marriage, or try and make use of them in any way. She didn't care about them. And so, because of her isolate self-sufficiency in the fray, her wild, overweening backbone, they were ready to attend on ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... at the last by Mackenzie was preferable to the double-dealing of his more astute colleague. Dr. Rolph came again into prominence as one of the founders of the Clear Grits, who formed in 1849 an extreme branch of the Reform party. Dr. Rolph's qualities ensured him success in political intrigue, and he soon became a member of the Hincks-Morin government, which was formed on the reconstruction of the Lafontaine-Baldwin ministry in 1851, when its two moderate leaders were practically pushed aside by men more in harmony with the aggressive elements of the Reform party. But ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... Look at your old romances, and what is the system of education—of youthful pursuits—which they in general inculcate? Intrigue and bloodshed.[214] Examine your favourite new edition of the Fabliaux et Contes of the middle ages, collected by Barbazan! However the editor may say that "though some of these pieces are a little too free, others breathe a spirit of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... day Aunt Annie, up early, scored one over her sister by noticing the same rash at the roots of his still curly hair. It was the second rash, together with Henry's emphatic and positive statement that he was perfectly well, which had finally urged his relatives to a desperate step—a step involving intrigue and prevarication. And to justify this step had come the crowning symptom of peevishness—peevishness in Henry! It wanted ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... Dr. Papencordt's work, and in Rienzi's own words, his claim to be a bastard son of the emperor Henry the Seventh, whose intrigue with his mother Rienzi relates with a sort of proud shamelessness. Compare account by the editor of Dr. Papencordt's work in Quarterly Review ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon |
