"Covert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... square, they were still to remain under cover, withdrawn from observation, till the signal was given by the discharge of a gun, when they were to cry their war-cries, to rush out in a body from their covert, and, putting the Peruvians to the sword, bear off the person of the Inca. The arrangements of the immense halls, opening on a level with the plaza, seemed to be contrived on purpose for a coup de theatre. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... Themselves on a new red-hot line! A bit of God's country is stretching As far as the hawk's eye can see, The bushes are leafless, like etching, As all good dream fences should be. There isn't a bitter wind blowing But a soft little southerly breeze, And instead of the grey channel flowing A covert of scrub and young trees. The field of course is just dozens Of people I want to meet so— Old friends, to say nothing of cousins Who've been killed in the war months ago. Three F.A.N.Y.s are riding like fairies Having drifted right into my dreams, And they're riding their favourite "hairies" ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... him within the walls of Saumur. Come and greet the noble fellows of St. Florent, who have set us so loyal an example. Come and meet the brave men of Fontenay, who trampled on the dirty tricolour, and drove out General Coustard from his covert, like a hunted fox. He is now at Saumur; we will turn ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... up her mind to endure it. A little more fragmentary conversation passed, chiefly between herself and me—John uttered scarcely a word. He sat by the window, half shading his face with his hand. Under that covert, the gaze which incessantly followed and dwelt on her face—oh, had ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... import and their sense, for you who look with such tender regard upon the bright heavens, the verdant meadows, the pure air. I know a country instinct with delights of every kind, an unknown paradise, a secluded corner of the world—where alone, unfettered and unknown, in the thick covert of the woods, amidst flowers, and streams of rippling water, you will forget all the misery that human folly has so recently allotted you. Oh! listen to me, my prince. I do not jest. I have a heart, and mind, and soul, and can read your ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of its own. It may be deeply historical, like "Waverly," and "The Tale of Two Cities." It may be a picture of vivid local colouring, like "Ivanhoe," or "Lorna Doone," or "Dr Antonio." It may be full of social hints and glimpses, with many a covert wise suggestion, like Miss Austin's "Emma." It may shew up a vital truth or a life-long mistake, like Miss Edgeworth's "Helen," or open out new natural scenes like the "Adventures of a Phaeton"; or life scenes, like "Oliver Twist"; or be so full of frolic and fun and sharp common sense, ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... down to the credit of filibusters, that we gladly surrendered this old man his horse, and betook ourselves to the rear of the hill which he pointed out to us; and there, after some search, we found, in close covert of tangled and almost impenetrable bushes, a small corral of mules and horses, which the Padre had begrudged the service of General Walker. For my own share in the spoils of this Trojan adventure, I chose a well-legged mule, young, lively, and well enough looking generally; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... grew longer about the arbored gateway where the two she had left stood talking in low tones, looking furtively now and then toward the house, and withdrawing into the covert of the bushes by the walk. But Kate dared not linger long. She could see her father's profile by the candle light in the dining room. She did not wish to receive further rebuke, and so in a very few minutes the two parted ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... joyousness and faith, and the sense of health al fresco, may well enter into the preparation of future noble American authorship. Part of the test of a great literatus shall be the absence in him of the idea of the covert, the lurid, the maleficent, the devil, the grim estimates inherited from the Puritans, hell, natural depravity, and the like. The great literatus will be known, among the rest, by his cheerful simplicity, his adherence to natural standards, his limitless faith in God, his ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... especially in the evening that his mind became blurred by all his wild imaginings. Depressed by his day's work, but shunning sleep from a covert fear—the fear of the annihilation it brought with it—he would remain later than ever at Monsieur Lebigre's, or at the Mehudins'; and on his return home he still refrained from going to bed, and sat up writing and preparing for the great insurrection. By slow degrees he devised ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... with toil, breathless and speechless and almost dead. After some time reviving, he kissed the soil, rejoicing, yet at a loss what course to take. At a short distance he perceived a wood, to which he turned his steps. There finding a covert sheltered by intermingling branches alike from the sun and the rain, he collected a pile of leaves and formed a bed, on which he stretched himself, and heaping the leaves over him, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... purpose. He was intent to play his part out faithfully, with all the ability he could bring to it; but any one else, who could, might win and wear the title of savior. He chiefly cared that the saving should be done. Never once did he manipulate any covert magnet to draw toward himself the credit or the glory of a measure or a move. To his own future he seemed to give no thought. It would be unjust to allow the dread of appearing to utter eulogy rather than historic truth to betray a biographer ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... is quite accomplished," said Fitz, with a covert sneer. "Pretty company Oscar has taken up with!" he thought. "How long were you in the circus business?" ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... were already in the prairie. As he boarded the little vessel at the stern, a raccoon waddled in noiseless haste over the bow, and splashed into the wet covert of reeds beyond. If only to keep from sharing his quarters with all the refuge-hunting vermin of the noisome wilderness, the one human must move on. He turned the lugger's prow towards the lake, and spread her sails to the faint, cool breeze. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... a little grudging pleasure in the sharpness with which he had turned her maneuver, and the way it had detached them from the surrounding crowd. For there, in the dusky center of the room, it was as if they watched from safe covert the rest of their party exposed in the glare of light; though not, as Flora presently noted, quite escaping observation themselves. For an instant Harry turned and peered toward them with a look in his intentness that struck Flora as something new in him, and made her wonder ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... the race to higher planes of thought and action. Two great obstacles to this consummation are apparent: (a) The lack of unity, want of harmony, absence of a self- sacrificing spirit, and no well-defined line of policy seeking definite aims; and (b) The persistent, relentless, at times covert opposition employed to thwart the Negro at every step of his upward struggles to establish the justness of his claim to the highest physical, ...
— The Conservation of Races • W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
... denounce "those enemies of the Church and Society who make covert attacks upon the Bible in the name of Science." He warmed to his theme, and by a specious series of misstatements and various appeals to the prejudices of his audience worked the assemblage up to a high pitch of hilarity and enthusiasm. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... it during the season. The cuckoo comes for the tent-caterpillar, the jay for frozen apples, the ruffed grouse for buds, the crow foraging for birds' eggs, the woodpecker and chickadees for their food, and the high-hole for ants. The red-bird comes too, if only to see what a friendly covert its branches form; and the wood-thrush now and then comes out of the grove near by, and nests alongside of its cousin, the robin. The smaller hawks know that this is a most likely spot for their prey; and in spring the shy northern warblers may be ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... Secretary of Defense Wilson told the President that he wanted to end segregation in all schools on military installations "as swiftly as practicable." He admitted it would be difficult, as a comprehensive and partially covert survey of the school districts by the local commanders had made clear. The commanders found, for example, that the twenty-one school districts involved would not operate the schools as integrated institutions. (p. 492) Wilson also stressed that operating the schools under federal authority ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... says that the governor receives pay for garrisons that do not exist, and keeps it for himself. "Do not tell that I said so," adds the prudent Champigny, "for it would make great trouble, if he knew it." [Footnote: Ibid.,4 Nov., 1693.] Frontenac, perfectly aware of these covert attacks, desires the minister not to heed "the falsehoods and impostures uttered against me by persons who meddle with what does not concern them." [Footnote: Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Sept., 1692.] He alludes to Champigny's ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... so prolonged that a mouse crept from its covert in some corner of the comfortless garret room, and nibbled at the fragments of bread ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... her; the more unintelligible the discussion becomes, the better for the sceptic; you may not only doubt, but doubt whether you even understand your doubts. You may play 'hide and seek' there for ten thousand years." "For all eternity," was his reply. But he said he had no wish to seek any such covert, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... was that?" said Mary, breaking through the slight incrustation that obscured her, and leaping from her covert. ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... false, yet misrepresenting and misleading, has unfortunately survived to injure both the man who wrote it and the man about whom it was written. It is quoted in order to show the sort of covert fire in the rear to which Franklin was subjected throughout his term of service. It is astonishing now, when the evidence is all before us and the truth is attainable, to read such a description of such a patriot as Franklin, a man who went through labors and anxieties ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... across the open park she would see him and understand the reason why—besides, it would be cowardly to fly from a girl, an inferior creature, who probably had lost her way, and would not know how to get back again. This reflection made him withdraw a little deeper into the covert, with the intention of keeping her in sight lest she should wander astray altogether, but yet keeping out of the way, that he might exercise this secret protecting charge of his, which Jock felt was ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... merry words were a covert reproach; and with her usual energy of manner and freedom of speech she tossed "Wilhelm" out of the window, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Public opinion is thoroughly unsettled. Even those who accepted the entente as the most brilliant piece of diplomacy of the generation, are beginning to wonder what really has been gained by it. If I were at Berlin," Estermen continued, with a covert glance up at his master, "now is the time I should choose. To-morrow Le Grand Journal will be silent. To-morrow I should send a polite notification to the English Government that owing to the unsettled condition of the country, and the nervousness of ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... became fixed upon the mysterious shaking and waving of the tops of the reeds, and my hearing was strained to detect the cause of the crackling of the dry rushes over which this unseen creature was moving. A moment later my curiosity was satisfied, for there emerged slowly from the covert an alligator nearly as large as my canoe. The brute's head was as long as a barrel; his rough coat of mail was besmeared with mud, and his dull eyes were fixed steadily upon me. I was so surprised and fascinated by the appearance of this huge reptile ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... that she made no mention of his having come to the Standish home by way of the hidden path. It seemed to him that she gave him a glance of covert appeal, as though beseeching him not to mention it. He nodded, ever so slightly, and took up the narrative, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... are inaugurating a system of covert emancipation to which the South can never submit. We protest against its adoption. The argument upon which you seek to sustain it is a false one. How can the owner receive the full value of his rescued slave ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... so neither could Satan (from whose Management those more happy Assemblies are taken as Copies of a glorious Original) perform the usual and necessary Business of his Profession, if he did not appear wholly in Covert and under needful Disguises; how, but for the Convenience of his Habit, could he call himself into so many Shapes, act on so many different Scenes, and turn so many Wheels of State in the World, as he has done? as a meer profess'd Devil ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... Jackson, pushing the enemy with his little mounted force, himself in advance of all. I rode with him, and we kept on through the darkness. There was not resistance enough to deploy infantry. A flash, a report, and a whistling bullet from some covert met us, but there were few casualties. I quite remember thinking at the time that Jackson was invulnerable, and that persons near him shared that quality. An officer, riding hard, overtook us, who proved to be the chief quartermaster of the army. He reported the wagon trains far ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... flutter of wings to guide my feet, till the sounds vanished into a great tangle of underbrush and fallen trees. I searched here ten minutes or more in vain, then listened in the vast silence for a longer period; but the bird had hidden himself away in some hole or covert where an owl might pass by without finding him. Reluctantly I turned away ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... politely. "My aunt is so forgetful sometimes," he said, and took them with a covert eagerness that did not escape the other's observation. He folded up the sheets and put them carefully in his pocket. On one there was an ink-sketched map, crammed with detail, that might well have referred ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... welcome," said the Indian, with a familiar nod, and a smile so covert that it required all Deerslayer's vigilance to detect, and not a little of his philosophy to detect unmoved; "he is welcome. The Hurons keep a hot fire to dry the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... cried Jacob Cannon, to a man of fine, lean height, who was at the desk—a man a little shorter than Jacob, and not so much of a king in appearance but with the same whitish eyes dancing around the bridge of his nose, and a more covert and thoughtful brow—"Brother Isaac, Captain Van Dorn is chicken-hearted, and wants to settle the debt of the Widow O'Day, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... of news whose tongues are legion, whispered that the Dry Bottom Kicker was to come to life. Wherefore curiosity led many of Dry Bottom's citizens past the door of the Kicker office to steal covert glances at the young man whose figure was bent over the desk inside. Many passed in silence after looking at the young man—he did not see them. Others commented gravely or humorously according to their whim—the young man did not hear them. Seated at the desk he gave his ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... voice had vanished now. After all she had not changed. What he had supposed was a return of the old cameraderie was but another of her covert sneers. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... he shot a covert glance toward the place where Mrs. Spencer and her companion had ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... inactive. After all the dangers he had incurred, and the bruises and scratches he had received, he had accomplished but little. He was still thirty miles from home, hungry and thirsty, and pursued by crafty enemies, who might even then be watching him from some secret covert. ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... of the Conquest of Granada" were well treated by critics, but never very popular. The humor of the mythical Fray Antonio's narrative was too sly and covert; the public was mystified, and had half a notion it was being made game of. But Irving was not yet done with Granada. Presently he went back, and in the course of a solitary two months in the Alhambra, got together the materials for the most characteristic ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... open water and saw me as I dropped out of sight. There was a low, sharp quack which brought every duck out of his hiding, wide awake on the instant. At first they all bunched together at the farther side, looking straight at the bank where I lay. Probably they saw my feet, which were outside the covert as I lay full length. Then they drew gradually nearer till they were again within the fringe of water-grass. Some of them sat quite up on their tails by a vigorous use of their wings, and stretched their necks to look over the low bank. Just keeping still saved me. In five minutes they were ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... tall student, who had a guitar slung around his neck by a broad silk ribbon. I explained to him as quickly as possible that I wished to escape from the garden. He seemed perfectly aware of my wishes, and conducted me by various covert pathways to the lower door in the high garden wall. But when we reached it, it was fast locked! The student, however, seemed to be quite prepared for this; he produced a large key ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... dislike to the Hon. Algernon Fitzclarence. He might be a great traveler, as Hugh told her, and a very amusing companion, but his manners were not to her taste. Fay's innocence instinctively took alarm at the covert admiration conveyed in her guest's looks and words. He was too much a man of the world to pay her open compliments; and indeed her gentle dignity repelled him; but he made her understand that he thought ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... man, who was the heir and occupier of this farm, hid himself in a thicket close to the spot where they used to gambol. Presently they appeared, and when in their merry mood, out he bounced from his covert, and seized one of their females; the rest of the company dispersed themselves, and disappeared in an instant. Disregarding her struggles and screams, he hauled her to his home, where he treated her so very kindly that she became contented to ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson
... does his very best to be serious, and anticipates critics by a passing blow at the utilitarians; but we have a shrewd suspicion that the blow is mere swagger, to keep up his courage, or perhaps a covert hint that though he can at times fool his friends, he is not a man to be trifled with by his enemies. What, we must ask, would Sidonia say to this dreariest of all shams? When Coningsby meets Sidonia in the forest, and expresses a wish to see Athens, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... drew nearer, as if men were walking about and beating the undergrowth as they approached. Blodgett stared from his covert with beady eyes; Neddie gripped my wrist; the cook rubbed his thumb along the blade of the cleaver, and Roger fingered the useless pistol. Still the noises approached. At the sight of something that moved I felt my heart leap and stand ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... grey wig, and newly grown imperial, exchanging greetings with his clients in many languages. The long table was full! Hartwell was there, and Hirsch, and Kauffman, Madame and the others. And always I fancied that when I approached their table their voices dropped a little, and covert glances followed me when I turned away. Had Madame succeeded in making them suspicious, ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... argument, proof, or reason; is as formidable to a true religion as to a false one; to a well-grounded faith as to a chimerical mythology, or fabulous tradition. Neither, let it be observed, is the crime or danger less, because impure ideas are exhibited under a veil, in covert and ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... he stood watching her. She was wearing an extraordinarily masculine garb—a covert-coating riding costume, with breeches and riding boots concealed under a long coat—but she contrived, somehow, to remain altogether feminine. She stood for a moment looking about her, as though wondering whether there were anything else to be done, a capable figure, ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we are quite sure that we rejoice in a nation's strength, then and not before we are justified in judging its weakness. I am quite sure that I rejoice in any democratic success without arriere pensee; and nobody who knows me will credit me with a covert sneer at civic equality. And this being granted, I do think there is a danger in the gregariousness of American society. The danger of democracy is not anarchy; on the contrary, it is monotony. And it is touching this that all my experience has increased my conviction ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... ambition of young French authors; but after the failure of 'Guillery' at the Theatre Francaise and 'Gaetena' at the Odeon, renounced the theatre. Indeed, his power is in odd conceptions, in the covert laugh and humorous suggestion of the phrasing, rather than in plot or characterization. He will always be best known for the tales and novels in that thoroughly French style—clear, concise, and witty—which ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... excitement of city life, the fancy would return; the memory of those soft starlit Virginia evenings would infold him with a subtle spell. In thought he would again sit smoking in the tent door, the gray shadows stealing out from their covert in the woods, reconnoitering all the country ere they swept down and took possession, in the name of their queen—the night. The air would grow cool with the fragrant breath of the ocean and the pines; whip-poor-wills would ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... smoking and sipping the drinks before them, occasionally ogling the barmaid, when both were rather startled at the entrance of Hal and Reg. A covert kick from ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... and still remember some that I have never since heard, that must have long ago died out of the musical world and left no echo but in my memory. Of two of these I think the words pretty enough to be worth preserving, the one for its naive simplicity, and the other for the covert irony of its reflection upon female constancy, to which Mademoiselle Descuilles' delivery, with her final melancholy shrug of the shoulders, gave ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... recovered their surprise, and with a yell like a pack of hounds bursting covert dashed after the pair. The young Hercules made a wonderful effort, but no mortal man could run very fast so weighted. In spite of his start they caught him in about a hundred yards. He heard them close upon him—put the Jew down—and whispered hastily, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... a gasp, her hands twisted together. She wanted to confess not only her hatred for the Aunt Bessies but her covert irritation toward those she best loved: her alienation from Kennicott, her disappointment in Guy Pollock, her uneasiness in the presence of Vida. She had enough self-control to confine herself to, "Yes. Men! The dear blundering souls, we ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... internal matters, but not in regard to those that directly affect the outside world. If two groups are both entirely free as regards their relations to each other, there is no way of averting the danger of an open or covert appeal to force. The relations of a group of men to the outside world ought, whenever possible, to be controlled by a neutral authority. It is here that the state is necessary for adjusting the relations ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... to anticipate and foresee. He felt his heart sinking till he was faint, just as in those distant days when he had heard the hounds scuffling and whining in a covert and he himself had sat shaking upon his horse. He glanced furtively towards the gallows, and foresaw the vultures perched upon his shoulders, fluttering about his eyes. But the man had grown during his years of probation. The fear of physical ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... but, as I must think, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself; I hate it because it deprives our republic of an example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... crystal spout-head: so it did, with touch 90 Most delicate, as though afraid to smutch Even with mealy gold the waters clear. But, at that very touch, to disappear So fairy-quick, was strange! Bewildered, Endymion sought around, and shook each bed Of covert flowers in vain; and then he flung Himself along the grass. What gentle tongue, What whisperer disturb'd his gloomy rest? It was a nymph uprisen to the breast In the fountain's pebbly margin, and she stood 100 'Mong lilies, like the youngest of the brood. To him her dripping hand she softly ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... ruler is not in the way of the heavenly: even the glorious kingdom of the future cannot dispense with him. "Then a king shall reign in righteousness and princes shall rule in judgment; each of them shall be as an hiding-place from the wind and as a covert from the tempest; as rivers of waters in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (xxxii. 1, 2). As the reigning king is in general unsatisfactory, Isaiah hopes for a new one who will answer the pattern of David of old, the Messiah. "There shall come forth a rod out ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... stag that has eluded the chasing dogs rests in safety in the covert of its native mountains, our fugitives at length breathed freely in the beautiful city of Geneva. Wild and grand as had been the scenery they passed through, the excitement of the flight and the fear of seizure had, to them, robbed nature of her ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... stag springs from his covert, and bounds over every obstacle with speed and apparent ease, so sprang the chief of the Nor'-westers down the rugged path which led to the foot of the series of rapids, and the lower end of the portage. There was good grit in the man, morally ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... given occasion to a burst of merriment. Sometimes I drew the conversation up by degrees to a proper point, and produced a conceit which I had treasured up, like sportsmen who boast of killing the foxes which they lodge in the covert. Eminence is, however, in some happy moments, gained at less expense; I have delighted a whole circle at one time with a series of quibbles, and made myself good company at another, by scalding my fingers, or mistaking a lady's ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... one another for two or three hundred yards, creeping from one covert to another, till they had placed the bushes on the plain between them and the herd. They then stopped a little and reconnoitered. The herd of antelopes had left off feeding, and now had all their heads turned ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... implication to the prime mover of the discontent, except it be the system of the patriotic and intrepid Mazzini. Many outbreaks, perhaps—quelled after much loss on both sides, in which the monarchy was only saved by the judicious expenditure of much mitraille—might have been traced to the covert influence ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... the very multitude and swarm and pressure of his thought. Those who plod diligently and narrowly along a country lane may sometimes reach the destination less fatigued than the more conscientious and passionate traveller who quarters the fields and beats the bounds, intent to leave no covert unscrutinized. But in him we see and love and revere something rare and precious, not often found in our present way of life; in matters concerning the happiness of others, a devoted spirit of unrivalled wisdom; in those pertaining to himself, a child's unblemished innocence. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... were Carnarvon, Winchelsea, and Haddington. There was not one word from the Duke (nor from the others) indicative of an intention to secede, which was what the Government expected. His speech contained a sort of covert attack upon Peel; in fact, he could not defend himself without attacking Peel, for if the one was in the right in taking office the other must have been in the wrong in refusing to join him. There was nothing, however, which was meant as a reproach, though ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... necessity; that Denby had become unmanageable; that he had set a dangerous example to the other slaves; and that, without some such prompt measure as that to which he had resorted, were adopted, there would be an end to all rule and order on the plantation. That very convenient covert for all manner of cruelty and outrage that cowardly alarm-cry, that the slaves would "take the place," was pleaded, in extenuation of this revolting crime, just as it had been cited in defense of a thousand similar ones. He argued, that if one ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... causes are woman, land, harsh words, natural incompatibility, and injury.[414] When the person with whom hostility occurs happens to be a man of liberality, he should never be slain, particularly by a Kshatriya, openly or by covert means. In such a case, the man's fault should be properly weighed.[415] When hostility has arisen with even a friend, no further confidence should be reposed upon him. Feelings of animosity lie hid like fire in wood. Like the Aurvya fire within the waters of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... your blarney!" growled out the old sea-lion, pretending to be angry, albeit he looked pleased at Dad's covert allusion to the Napier motto, which he had always endeavoured to act up to. "I'm sick of false compliments, old shipmate. I've had plenty of them and to spare from those mealy-mouthed, false-hearted, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... their shores under whatever pretext, they had a perfect right, nay, it was the duty of the heads of clans, the provincial kings and princes, to protect the whole nation, and the part of it intrusted to their special care in particular, against open or covert foes. The name of "rebels" was given them by the invaders, with no shadow of possible pretext, and the name was as justly resented ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... thick of war, and duty and inclination went cordially together. He was a cool and terrible shot, and had a terribly long and forcibly arguing rifle. The story goes that, when a couple of pursued marauders had escaped from one covert, and in wild terror were making for another, he quietly waited till they chanced to come in line, and then sent one bullet through both. But he had his cautious and adroit way of telling his doings, as he described to us how, in the turmoil of ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... conversation by some adroit remark, or create a laugh at his expense. As for me, I held a discreet if uncomfortable silence, save for the few words which passed between Miss Thorn and me. Once or twice I caught her covert glance on me. But I felt, and strongly, that there could be no friendship between us now, and I did not care to dissimulate merely for the sake of appearances. Besides, I was not a little put out over the senseless piece of gossip which had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the tenderness of man. If He had been the great God alone, you might have been awed at the thought of going to Him. But what says the prophet Isaiah of this true BEZER?—"A MAN shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest."[43] He Himself says in another scripture, "I will turn mine hand ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff
... must have been aware of the covert purpose of Atchison and others to secure the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, though he hoped that they would acquiesce in his mode of doing it. He was evidently not prepared for the bold move which certain of the senators from slave States were contemplating.[451] He was ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... and be calm. To Jerrem alone the cause of this alteration was apparent, and with all the lynx-eyed sharpness of vexed and wounded vanity he tried to thwart and irritate Adam by sneering remarks and covert suggestions that all must now give way to him: it was nothing but "follow my leader" and do and say what he chose—words which were as pitch upon tow to natures so readily inflamed, so headstrong against government and impatient of everything which savored of control. And ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... visitors. There was old Lord Moleyn, like a caricature of an English milord in a French comic paper: a long man, with a long nose and long, drooping moustaches and long teeth of old ivory, and lower down, absurdly, a short covert coat, and below that long, long legs cased in pearl-grey trousers—legs that bent unsteadily at the knee and gave a kind of sideways wobble as he walked. Beside him, short and thick-set, stood Mr. Callamay, the venerable conservative statesman, with a face ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... knowledge of this that drove Walter into the wide, lonely park. "Away from men!" moans the wounded life. Away from the herd flies the wounded deer; away from the flock staggers the sickly sheep—to the solitary covert to die. The man too thinks it is to die; but it is in truth so to return to life—if indeed he be a man, and not an abortion that can console himself with vile consolations. "You can not soothe me, my friends! leave me to my misery," cries the man; and lo his misery is the wind ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... to be Lewis Constance, just return'd from his Travels, whom young Hardyman had never seen before, and therefore could not know him at that Time: Observing therefore that they made to the same Place for which he was design'd, he halted a little, taking Covert under a large Elm-Tree, within a hundred Paces of the House, where he had the unlucky Opportunity to see his Mistress and Sister come out; whom Lewis perceiving at the same Time, alighted, and ran eagerly to embrace her, who ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... subservient. She knew her man, and she was prepared for his becoming proportionately more respectful. He dusted a little heap of ashes from the small table beside him and scattered them with his foot, in a well-meant attempt to cover the traces of his previous untidiness. She watched him with a covert sneer. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... with singing harps. As the householder sitting by his blazing hearth thinks not of the sleet and hail falling on the roof of slate, so the soul abides in peace over which has been reared the castle and covert of God's presence. ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... unfortunately happened to tell him that they had left the run together, and had been seen riding together towards White Lodge, which was the name of the house where these two young men lived. Lumley followed them. He rode into the stable yard, and found there Ruth's mare and Wingrave's covert hack, from which he had not changed when they had left the field. Both animals had evidently been ridden hard, and there was something ominous in the smile with which the head groom told him that Lady Ruth and ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there were gentler processions of peace That I watch'd with my soul in my eyes till their cease, There were women! there men! but to me a third sex I saw them all dots—yet I loved them as specks: And oft to assuage a sad yearning of eyes I stole near the city, but stole covert-wise Like a wild beast of love, and perchance to be smitten By some hand that I rather had wept on than bitten! Oh, I once had a haunt near a cot where a mother Daily sat in the shade with her child, and would smother Its eyelids in kisses, and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain," for which the average politician is "peculiar," the ruse would have succeeded. I remained at headquarters, enduring alike the open attacks of the venal press and the more covert opposition of the saloons and brothels, and, as vigilantly as I could, watched all legislative movements, taking much pains to keep the public mind excited through the columns of the Daily Oregonian ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... now, his blue eyes shining, he began a covert watch of his young companion. He saw the man from prison suddenly catch his breath in inexpressible awe and his eye kindle with a light of unknown source. A great question was shaping itself in Ben's mind, but as yet he could not ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... I, ignoring the covert question; "but I should hardly have thought that Kirkby-Malhouse was a place which offered any great attractions to ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wild along the coast; while a little farther upwards, on the slopes and plateaus, the arbutus, cistus, oleander, myrtle and various kinds of heaths, form a dense coppice, called in the island maqui, supplying an excellent covert for various kinds of game and numerous blackbirds. When the arbutus and myrtle berries are ripe the blackbirds are eagerly hunted, as at that time they are plump and make ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black
... pinions, The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, And the grouse, the Mushkodasa. In the thickets and the meadows Piped the bluebird, the Owaissa, On the summit of the lodges Sang the robin, the Opechee, In the covert of the pine-trees Cooed the pigeon, the Omemee; And the sorrowing Hiawatha, Speechless in his infinite sorrow, Heard their voices calling to him, Went forth from his gloomy doorway, Stood and gazed into the heaven, Gazed upon the earth and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... outside the station which were to take us to the scene of the races. Oddly enough there was no great pressure for these vehicles, or for the more public brakes and char-a-bancs and omnibuses plying to the same destination; and so far from falling victims to covert extortion in the matter of fares, we found the flys conscientiously placarded with the price of the drive. This was about double the ordinary price, and so soon does human nature adjust itself to conditions that I promptly complained to ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... that the two founders of the renaissance eclogue deliberately chose the Vergilian form as that best suited to their purpose. Petrarch calls attention to the advantages offered by the pastoral for covert reference to men and events of the day, since it is characteristic of the form to let its meaning only partially appear. He was therefore perfectly aware of the allegorical nature of the Vergilian eclogue, and adopted it for definite ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... eyes to movements and appearances in earth and sky, which ordinarily escape attention. The constant change of landscape which attends even the slow progress of a loitering gait puts one on the alert for discoveries of all kinds, and prompts one to suspect every leafy covert and to peer into every wooded recess with the expectation of surprising Nature as Actaeon surprised Diana—in the moment of uncovered loveliness. On the other hand, when one lounges by the hour in the depths of the ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... you not to have made good what I said at the beginning of this book. You say that I am far from doing what is worth any one's while; nay, that in real fact I have thrown away all my trouble. Wait, and soon you will be able to say this more truly, for I shall lead you into covert lurking-places, from which when you have escaped, you will have gained nothing except that you will have freed yourself from difficulties with which you need never have hampered yourself. What is the use of laboriously ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... all less than the more pretending citizen of Sparta. Besides all which, amongst us civilized men the rule obtains universally—that the state and duties of peace are to be presumed until war is proclaimed. Whereas, amongst rude nations, war is understood to be the rule—war, open or covert, until suspended by express contract. Bellum inter omnes is the natural state of things for all, except those who view themselves as brothers by natural affinity, by local neighborhood, by common ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... gave her birth Has called her to his dread abode, To meet her Saviour and her God. She lives, to tell how blest Is the everlasting rest Of those who, in the Lamb's blood laved, Are chosen, sanctified, and saved! How fearful is their doom Who drop into the tomb Without a covert from the ire Of Him who is ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... what thief or foe, In the covert of the night, For his prey will work my woe, Or through wicked foul despite? So may I die unredrest Ere ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... it," retorted the machine. "And then that woman's funny column—it was frightful. You never saw such jokes in your life; every one of them contained a covert attack upon man. There was only one good thing in it, and that was a bit of verse called 'Fair Play for the Little Girls.' It went ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... indifference but, as I must think, covert zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... as to hostile signs in Austria.... [He breaks another seal and reads.] Ah,—swords to cross with her some day in spring! Thinking me cornered over here in Spain She speaks without disguise, the covert pact 'Twixt her and England owning now quite frankly, Careless how works its knowledge upon me. She, England, Germany: well—I can front them! That there is no sufficient force of French Between the Elbe and Rhine to prostrate her, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... again. When there was a gap in the mountains, he could hear the querulous, senseless love-quarrel of flickers going on below him; passing a deep ravine, the note of the wood-thrush—that shy lyrist of the hills—might rise to him from a dense covert of maple and beech: or, with a startling call, a red-crested cock of the woods would beat his white-striped wings from spur to spur, as though he were keeping close to the long swells of an unseen sea. Several times, a pert flicker squatting like a knot ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... but wore their hair neatly braided and well-greased. They ate sparingly, and only twice a day. They almost forswore water. And by covert exercise they trained away their flesh. Standing Buffalo and his haughty comrades did not waddle now under a weight of fat. As on the day of their capture, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... in the wide main Discerns it not; and ne'ertheless it is, But hidden through its deepness. Light is none, Save that which cometh from the pure serene Of ne'er disturbed ether: for the rest, 'Tis darkness all, or shadow of the flesh, Or else its poison. Here confess reveal'd That covert, which hath hidden from thy search The living justice, of the which thou mad'st Such frequent question; for thou saidst—'A man Is born on Indus' banks, and none is there Who speaks of Christ, nor who doth read nor write, And all his inclinations and his acts, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... tightest, just as the feathers quivered, and the barb thrilled, about to leap from the terse string, the tall form of the soldier sprang up into the clear moonlight from the underwood, and crying "Hold! hold!" mastered her bowhand, with the speed of light, and dragged her down into the covert. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... glanced about the hall, debating. Lady Allonby meanwhile regarded him, as she might have looked at a frog or a hurtless snake. A small, slim, anxious man, she found him; always fidgeting, always placating some one, but never without a covert sneer. The fellow was venomous; his eyes only were honest, for even while his lips were about their wheedling, these eyes flashed malice at you; and their shifting was so unremittent that afterward you recalled them as an absolute shining which had not any color. On ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... nothing remained of the golden sea of wheat which had covered the wide prairie save the yellow stubble, the bed of an ocean of wealth which had been gathered. Here the yellow level was broken by a dark patch of fallow land, there by a covert of trees also tinged with yellow, or deepening to crimson and mauve—the harbinger of autumn. The sun had not the insistent and intensive strength of more southerly climes; it was buoyant, confident, and heartening, and it shone in a turquoise vault ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... with steady stare. CHAPLIN advanced to table with graceful carriage and confident bearing; produced with imposing flourish a sheaf of notes, foolscap size, stoutly sewn, apparently exceeding a dozen in number; began to read with practised elocutionary art; drew the covert, "so to speak," as T. W. RUSSELL protests he said when telling the men of Manchester that WILLIAM O'BRIEN must be taken by the throat. No draw; went to next covert—I mean turned over another folio. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... multitude Some found their graves where first they stood; While some with hardier struggle died, And still fought on by HAFED'S side, Who fronting to the foe trod back Towards the high towers his gory track; And as a lion swept away By sudden swell of JORDAN'S pride From the wild covert where he lay,[265] Long battles with the o'erwhelming tide, So fought he back with fierce delay And kept both foes and fate ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... thought Gifford, glancing at the dark, rather intriguing face opposite to him, "you don't look a sportsman. More a viveur than a regular open-air man, more at home in London or Paris than in the stubbles or covert." But he merely ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... any circumstances. One of his team was lame, and a great friend of his was sulky and had sent him away, and yet he sat radiantly cheerful, with a large cigar in his mouth and a small terrier by his side, subjecting every lady who passed to a respectful and covert but none the less searching ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... birch, poplar, and cherry, his favorite forage, were abundant, and there had trodden out a maze of deep paths which led to all the choicest browsing, and centred about a cluster of ancient firs so thick as to afford covert from the fiercest storms. The news was what the wise old woodsman had been waiting for. With three of his men, a pair of horses, a logging-sled, axes, and an unlimited supply of rope, he went ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... in England know which covert may be drawn for foxes. Yes; 'tis a royal sport, and we keep it for Maharajahs. I myself never hunt a tiger till some European visitor of distinction comes to Moozuffernuggar, that I may show him good sport. This tiger we shall hunt to-morrow, for example, he is a bad ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... kill. But he did not approach very nearly. His sharp, sensitive nose wrinkled and pointed skyward for a moment, and then, as the breeze gave him Finn's scent, he turned promptly round and trotted back to covert. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... doubt and pain—perhaps dread. Only as year after year passed and Godfrey revealed no tendency toward marriage, her anxiety changed sides, and she began to fear lest with Godfrey the ancient family should come to an end. As yet, however, finding no response to covert suggestion, she had not ventured to speak openly to him on the subject. All the time, I must add, she had never thought of Letty either as thwarting or furthering her desires, for in truth she felt toward her as one on whom ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... condition in life permitted, for overthrowing the tyranny. In the meantime Hipparchus, after a second solicitation of Harmodius, attended with no better success, unwilling to use violence, arranged to insult him in some covert way. Indeed, generally their government was not grievous to the multitude, or in any way odious in practice; and these tyrants cultivated wisdom and virtue as much as any, and without exacting from the Athenians more than a twentieth ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... had made a covert allusion to the fact that if Michael had not failed her, she would, in the event of his death, have had a lover to comfort her. She chose to ignore his meaning, to speak as if Michael had no place in her thoughts. Freddy was not to be worried by things which were ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... wide, over hill, bank, and brae, are spread the flying School! Squads of us, at sore sixes and sevens, are making for the frozen woods. Alas! poor covert now in their naked leaflessness for the stricken deer! Twos and threes in miserable plight floundering in drift-wreaths! And here and there—woefullest sight of all—single boys distractedly ettling at the sanctuaries of distant houses—with their heads all the while insanely twisted back over ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... blinded by no enthusiasm for anybody or anything, which find their sale in that sympathy with ill-nature to which Huet ascribes the popularity of Tacitus, and, always quietly undermining institutions with a covert sneer, never pretend to a spirit of imagination so at variance with common-sense as a conjecture how the institutions should ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they fancied that there was concealed in covert language—a claim for damages, known as "consequential or indirect damages"—in other words, a claim to compensation for the value of American shipping that had been driven from the ocean and made worthless through ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... I've made of myself," he thought savagely, when she broke from him and fled over the mill brook into the Revercombs' pasture beyond. She did not look back, but sped as straight as a frightened hare to the covert; and by this brilliant, though unconscious coquetry, she had wrested the victory from him at the moment when it had appeared to fall ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... There were covert smiles from the other women; but the Englishwoman was frankly gratified by the implication. She was smiling with pleasure ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... loud," Dorsey snarled, catching instantly, as Chuck intended he should, the covert slur at the black Y-Bar stallion. "Maybe your money won't make so damned ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... servants. Often enough the servants wish to do their best, but little irritations, unsalved by sympathy and not to be discussed on terms of equality, lead to sulky, don't-care moods which exasperate the mistress into positive, instead of negative, unkindness. So a vicious circle is formed. The covert enmity between one woman and another simply calls for give and take where both are of the same class, but when one of them is, for payment and all day, at the disposal of the other.... How many homes ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... you speak of natur', I have hopes that the gift of reason has not altogether deserted your brain," returned the old man, with a covert expression playing about the angles of his deep set eyes, which betrayed he was not entirely destitute of humour. "Nay, they may conceive you a remarkable subject for their kindness, and for that matter marry you to five or six. I have known, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... time, for my thoughts were in complete confusion. I wished to gaze on Miss Somerville, but did not dare. Once, indeed, I ventured a glance. She was at that moment darting a similar one from under a covert of ringlets. Our eyes seemed shocked by the rencontre, and fell; hers through the natural modesty of her sex, mine through a bashfulness produced by the previous workings of my imagination. That glance, however, went like a sunbeam ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... not forbear giving a covert glance of triumph at Varick's surprised and annoyed face. "Of course," she said quickly, "we shall be delighted to have Sir Lyon a little longer. I thought by what he said that he was absolutely obliged to go away to-day, by the same train ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... way to the climbing rose at the front of the house, and carefully lifting a branch, motioned to the boys to look under it. There, hidden in the leafy covert, no higher than the young girl's chin, was the daintiest nest ever seen, made of soft cotton from the pussy willows by the brook, interwoven with the finest grasses and green mosses, and embroidered with one shining golden thread. And there was wee mother humming-bird, ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... superstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the living God, and were not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of course, His help, and providence, and calling, in the matters of daily life, which we now, in our covert atheism, term ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... that, with most of its adherents, its chief merit is its tendency to a sort of depreciation, there being at all times abundance of supporters for any mode, either open or covert, of lowering the standard. [But] the advantage without the disadvantages of a double standard seems to be best obtained by those nations with whom one only of the two metals is a legal tender, but the other also is coined, and allowed to pass for whatever ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... rankled. Betty's temper flared up belligerently as she recalled them. He had evidently meant to insinuate that Charley had lied outright when he told her the motive for the attack, and he had followed it up by that covert slur on his character. Charley's devotion was the thing that redeemed the dull monotony of existence. She became suddenly humble and tenderly penitent in her mood toward him; he loved her much better than she deserved, and she suspected that her own attitude had been habitually ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... and Florence joined in a little pleasant teasing of Madeline, and drew her attention to what appeared to be really unnecessary feats of horsemanship all made in her vicinity. The cowboys evinced their interest in covert glances while recoiling a lasso or while passing to and fro. It was all too serious for Madeline to be amused at that moment. She did not care to talk. She sat her ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... her streaked eyes fixed mutinously upon Russell. Mrs. Adams nodded several times, increasing the emphasis of her gesture, while Alice talked briskly; but the brooding waitress continued to brood. A faint snap of the fingers failed to disturb her; nor was a covert hissing whisper of avail, and Mrs. Adams was beginning to show signs of strain ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... and stir of all this,' he observed, 'when I get back to town again.' Holroyd did not appear to have heard him, and, as Caffyn had intended a covert sting, the absence of all response did not improve his temper. 'I can't think why the devil they don't send me the paper,' he went on irritably. 'I ordered it to be sent down here regularly, but it never turns up by any chance. I should think even you must be getting anxious ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... President Garfield set his face sternly against the bad practice of rewarding political adherents by allowing them to nominate officials in the public service—a species of covert corruption sanctioned by long usage in the United States. This honest and independent conduct raised up for him at once a host of enemies among his own party. The talk which they indulged in against the President produced a deep effect upon a half-crazy and wildly egotistic French- ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... moving her fan to and fro and letting her eye wander over the house, was apparently talking of this person and that. No doubt she was saying sharp things; but Pickering was not laughing; his eyes were following her covert indications; his mouth was half open, as it always was when he was interested; he looked intensely serious. I was glad that, having her back to him, she was unable to see how he looked. It seemed the proper moment to present myself and make her my bow; but just as I was about to leave ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... and they walked down the grass path till the sweet closeness of a low pine covert wove a scented silence about ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... said that nothing more surprised him than to see Englishmen, the most learned and intelligent people in the world, visiting a place like Cintra, where there was no literature, science, nor anything of utility (coisa que presta). I suspect that there was some covert satire in the last speech of the worthy priest; I was, however, Jesuit enough to appear to receive it as a high compliment, and, taking off my hat, departed with an infinity ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... outside. Whose hands could have done it? Not those of Coombs, surely, for he could not have passed me and attained the house while I was in the garden unseen. Nor Sally, for she possessed no strength to more than drag the dead man to some near-by covert. With the possibility of this in mind I searched the vacant rooms of that floor, closets and all, thoroughly, but to no result. There was, therefore, but one conclusion possible—unknown parties were involved. We were not alone in the house in ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... cast a covert glance toward Peggy and Roy. In his own country treachery such as he had shown would have been visited with death even if the avenger had to die for it ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... Miss Clary's letter to Lady Drayton pleads for, to be paid to her daughter's youth and inexperience. And will such an admirable young person as Miss Clarissa Harlowe, whose prudence, as we see, qualifies her to be an advisor of persons much older than herself, take shelter under so poor a covert? ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... leafy covert, wrung his hands in despair, and cursed the whole creation in the utter wretchedness of his sore distress. It seemed to him monstrous, almost iniquitous, that this woman, so pure and rigidly inflexible, should yield herself so unresistingly to the prince, ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... stretched his spare frame full length on the fodder where he had slept. With his elbow on the bed of corn stalks he lifted his head on his hand and gazed at Harry King, not dreamily as when he first saw him, but with covert keenness. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... what, on testimony cited by Henry Stevenson (Birds of Norfolk, ii. pp. 1-42), is known to have led to the same result in Norfolk and Suffolk. In the latter the extension of plantations rendered the country unfitted for a bird whose shy nature could not brook the growth of covert that might shelter a foe, and in the former the introduction of improved agricultural implements, notably the corn-drill and the horse-hoe, led to the discovery and generally the destruction of every nest, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... other unclean spirits, it "hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its conflicts with conscience and common sense, denied all quarter, and hunted from every covert, it breaks at last into the sacred enclosure, and courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest, and finding none." THE LAW OF LOVE, streaming from every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and howls ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... anomalous state of affairs existing between us which turned all my attacks upon him (and they were many, either open or covert) into the channel of banter or practical joke (giving pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather than into a more serious and determined hostility. But my endeavors on this head were by no means uniformly successful, even when my plans were the most ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... said Fouquet, as he put aside a few branches, and an excavation of the rock could be observed, which had been entirely concealed by heaths, ivy, and a thick covert ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... same spirit lingers on earth we shall expect this antagonism to thrive and prosper. Not only that, but we shall never expect the religious to get a fair hearing for their cause. The hater, open or covert, of the habit and cowl is whole-souled or nothing in his convictions. And he believes the devil should be fought with his ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... threatened,—on a certain matter touching the horses' backs. A draught of hounds were being sent down to a friend in Scotland. And there was a Committee of Masters to sit on a moot question concerning a neutral covert in the XXX country, of which Committee he was one. But the desire to punish Slide was almost as strong in his indignant mind as those other matters referring more especially to the profession of his life. "Phineas," ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... covert glance—causelessly, for her naivete was flawless. With a feeling of some slight awe he understood this—a sensation of sincere reverence for the unspoiled, candid, child's heart and mind that were hers. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... that Tommy Dudgeon made his perplexity a matter of prayer. He prayed and pondered, night and day; and, at length a thought came to him which seemed to point out the way of which he was in search. Might he not give "Cobbler" Horn some covert hint which would put him on the track of making the great discovery for himself? Surely some such thing, though difficult, might be done! He must indeed be cautious, and not by any means reveal his design. ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... risk of error, that Pope had become too conscious of his own importance to find pleasure or pride in doctoring another man's verses. It must remain uncertain how far he showed this resentment to Wycherley openly, or gratified it by some covert means; and how far, again, he succeeded in calming Wycherley's susceptibility by his compliments, or aroused his wrath by more or less ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... looks betrayed nothing to the uninitiated, though Albinia detected a feverish restlessness and covert impatience, and judged that her sleep had been little. Genevieve's had perhaps been less, for she was very sallow, with sunken eyes, and her face looked half its usual size; but Albinia could not easily have compassion on the poor little unwitting traitress, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge |
