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Overt   Listen
adjective
overt  adj.  
1.
Open to view; public; apparent; manifest. Opposite of hidden. "Overt and apparent virtues bring forth praise."
2.
(Law) Not covert; open; public; manifest; as, an overt act of treason. "No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court." Note: In criminal law, an overt act is an open act done in pursuance and manifestation of a criminal design; the mere design or intent not being punishable without such act. In English law, market overt is an open market; a pound overt is an open, uncovered pound.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overt" Quotes from Famous Books



... Georgia. Bonfires were kindled, guns were fired, and people seemed to be wild with enthusiasm. Georgia did not secede until Jan. 19, 1861; but Governor Brown did not wait for that event. He committed the first overt act of the war. He seized Fort Pulaski, on ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... official pardon, unsolicited, for all acts committed by the "Mormons" in opposing the entrance of the army. The people asked what they had done that needed pardon; they had not robbed, they had not killed. But a critical analysis of these troublous events revealed at least one overt act—some "Mormon" scouts had challenged a supply train; and, being opposed, they had destroyed some of the wagons and provisions; and for this they accepted the ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... constitution also prescribes the proof necessary for the conviction of treason. "No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court." No evidence less than this should be considered sufficient to convict a person of a crime for which he is to ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... war at once; not overt yet, For still the Child, unwilling, would not break The new acquaintanceship, nor quite forget The pleasant past; while, for his treasure's sake, The boding smith with clumsy efforts tried To win the laughing ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... her lover the moment he appeared; and Clarissa saw the statuesque face light up with a faint flush of pleasure that brightened it wonderfully. But however pleased she might be, Lady Geraldine Challoner was the last of women to demonstrate her pleasure in her lover's arrival by any overt act. She received him with the tranquil grace of an empress, who sees only one courtier more approach the steps of her throne. They shook hands placidly, after Mr. Fairfax had shaken hands and ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... it is believed, was the first woman in America who performed any work directly tending to the aid and comfort of the soldiers of the nation in the late war. In truth, her labors commenced before any overt acts of hostility had taken place, even so long before as December, 1860. Hostility enough there undoubtedly was in feeling, but the fires of secession as yet only smouldered, not bursting into the lurid flames of ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... from the Missouri Fur Company. Their first outbreak was in 1823, when they made a raid upon some boats of the last-mentioned company, killing and wounding a number of their men. In consequence of this overt act, an expedition under Colonel Leavenworth, in conjunction with six hundred friendly Dakotas, was organized at Council Bluffs, and sent against them. In August of that same year a treaty of peace was made with them, but nine years afterward Catlin found them so hostile that it was dangerous ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... is time enough for the rightful purposes of Civil Government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order, and that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, and that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate: ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... weakness is dangerous only so far that it exposes one to the risk of becoming a bore; for the world generally is not interested in the motives of any overt act but in its consequences. Man may smile and smile but he is not an investigating animal. He loves the obvious. He shrinks from explanations. Yet I will go on with mine. It's obvious that I need not have written that book. I was under no necessity to deal with that subject; using ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad

... strenuous exertion, the ministers were successful in persuading their flocks to refrain from overt acts tending to provoke outbursts of hostility. At Troyes, in Champagne, a thousand persons convened by day or by night, not summoned by the sound of bells, but quietly notified by an "advertisseur" ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... filibustering expedition against Mexico, he was favored by circumstances. Spanish troops had taken up a position east of the Sabine River, on what was American soil; and only an overt act was needed to precipitate war. Every frontiersman was preparing for a tussle with the hated Spaniard. In the event of war Burr knew well enough that an expedition against Mexico would be countenanced by the government at Washington. ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... his own meaning, Milton, says, "I shall not instance an abstruse author, wherein the King might be less conversant, but one whom we well know was the closet companion of these his solitudes, William Shakespeare." Though not an overt gibe, there certainly lurks an insinuation to Milton's Puritan readers, to whom stage plays were an abomination—an unworthy device of rhetoric, as appealing to a superstition in others which the ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... his own county. As it was essential to have one or two men who were thoroughly versed in the processes of the manufacture, Mr. Chaloner induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavy bribes to come to England. The risks attending this overt act were terrible, for the alum-works brought in a large revenue to His Holiness, and the discovery of such a design would have meant capital punishment to the offender. The workmen were therefore induced to get into large casks, which were secretly conveyed on board ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home

... leukin' for ye noo, John Paul." With that some of the men on the thwarts, perceiving that matters were likely to go ill with the captain, began to chaff with their friends above. The respect with which he had inspired them, however, prevented any overt insult on their part. As for me, my temper had flared up like the burning of a loose charge of powder, and by instinct my right hand sought the handle of the mate's hanger. The beldame saw ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... in and leaven your whole nature? You are exhibiting an utter disregard of circumstances in your determination to carry your point. Heretofore you have looked to but one end—self; but you have committed no overt act. Have a care, Hiram Meeker; Satan is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... corroborate the other. It is a well-known fact that these informers speak to each other, go over the evidence, and what is more likely thin that they should make their evidence to agree—say, "I will corroborate your story, you corroborate mine." By this means was it that the overt acts of the 5th of March, which took place at Stepaside, Glencullen, and Tallaght, were brought home to Costello—a man who was 4,000 miles away, and living—and I say it on the word of a man, a Christian man—peaceably, not belonging ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... members of the I.W.W. were tried for conspiracy under the Federal espionage act. In January, 1919, a trial jury in Sacramento found 46 defendants guilty. The offense in the majority of these cases consisted in opposing military service rather than in overt acts against the Government. But in May and June, 1919, the country was startled by a series of bomb outrages aimed at the United States Attorney-General, certain Federal district judges, and other leading public personages, which were evidently the result of centralized planning and were ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... were about to commit an overt act. Gen. Hawley, president of the centennial commission and manager of the programme, had peremptorily forbidden its presentation. Yet in the face of this—in the face of the assembled nation and representatives from the crowned ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... additional evidence has become simply cumulative; that the election of Abraham Lincoln was not the cause, but only marked the culmination of the treason, and furnished the shallow pretext for its first overt acts. That you are not prepared to admit all this is, I am forced to believe, mainly because you dislike the conclusions which must inevitably follow from such an admission. I say this, because, passing over for the present the undoubted fact, that this nation would have elected a Democratic President ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... punishment to the "brawlers" as the strikers were called, humbled the city government, deprived it of all local privileges, suppressed all independent corporations, asserted the royal prerogative of nominating aldermen, and erected a fortress to overawe the burghers. Thus the only overt attempt to resist the authority of Charles V, apart from one or two ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... heard it, mediately or immediately, from Southampton, who, it is alleged, saw the scene with his own eyes. It is very different when we are concerned with evidence as to an intention necessarily kept secret, and only exhibited by overt acts in such form as tampering with documents, suggesting false explanation of evidence, and so forth. A rumor that Salisbury got up the plot is absolutely worthless; a rumor that he forged a particular instrument would be ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... range of the adornments and artifacts. I venture that these items will prove popular among you who can well afford such rare treasures. However, subtlety in acquiring them is suggested. While common clamor for Public ownership is under control, overt provocation is not recommended. Here ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro

... only to threaten its destruction altogether but also to place the emancipated workers in a position where they could dictate terms and conditions to capital, to employers, to government and to the general public; while even now in many parts of Europe and America, besides Russia, overt attempts are being made to bring back the old slavery, only with the former bondsmen in supreme dictatorship, the former employers and the "bourgeoisie" in ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... justify herself—the knowledge of something which would give her both authority and excuse. The latter was all that was lacking, however, to give a solid foundation to what, in a way, seemed groundless discontent. The clear proof of one overt deed was the cold breath needed to convert the lowering clouds of suspicion into a rain ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... or obscure, do not cause ambassadors to demand their passports. The declaration of war awaits the overt act. Behold, then, how great a matter is kindled by a little fire! The casus belli between France and England in the Seven Years' War—the war which humbled France in Europe and lost her India and Canada—had to do with a small log ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... only quickened my laggard heart, and that was the all prevalent talk of war. The debates of Lincoln and Douglas, the consequences of Lincoln's possible election, the growing dissensions in the Army over Buchanan's practically overt acts of war—these made the sole topics of conversation. I heard my own section, my own State, criticised bitterly, and all Southerners called traitors to that flag I had seen flying over the frontiers of the West. At times, I say, these things caused my blood to stir once more, though ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... had received from Spain, confirmatory of his worst fears. Louis of Nassau voted for open and instant rebellion; William recommended a cautious observance of the projects of government, not doubting but a fair pretext would be soon given to justify the most vigorous overt acts of revolt; but Egmont at once struck a death-blow to the energetic project of one brother, and the cautious amendment of the other, by declaring his present resolution to devote himself wholly to the service of ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... and to establish an empire there. He failed. Before his standard was raised, the government was made aware of his designs, and he was brought to trial, at Richmond, on a charge of treason, committed within the district of Virginia. It was not proved, however, that he had been guilty of any overt act, within the State, and he was released. It was probably to find employment for that restless and desperate class of persons, with which the United States even then abounded, that the government of America sought cause of quarrel with Great Britain, as well as to produce that spurious activity ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... been left to guard her. It was the work of the cunning Usanga, but would not his woman suspect something of his intentions? She was no fool and, further, being imbued with insane jealousy she was ever looking for some overt act upon the part of her ebon lord. Bertha Kircher felt that only she might save her and that she would save her if word could be but gotten to her. ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... before the Sanhedrim; but his father Antipater, and his brother [Phasaelus], met him, and hindered him from assaulting Jerusalem. They also pacified his vehement temper, and persuaded him to do no overt action, but only to affright them with threatenings, and to proceed no further against one who had given him the dignity he had: they also desired him not only to be angry that he was summoned, and obliged to come ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... an undeniable overt act," he muttered, seeing what he considered an opportunity to neutralise the suppositious complaint which Birnier had sent to Washington; and taking up his pen began a formal accusation against Birnier, as an American ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... produce prejudices irreconcilable to the late exercise of our authority, but that the spirit infallibly will continue, and, continuing, will produce such effects as now embarrass us,—the second mode under consideration is, to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts, as criminal. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... been among platitudes. There is less of overt platitude in the doctrine that it is precisely this physical frailty that has given women their peculiar nimbleness and effectiveness on the intellectual side. Nevertheless, it is equally true. What they have ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... The first overt result of his kindled interest in Miss Power was his saying to his sister the day after the surreptitious sight of Paula: 'I am sorry, Charlotte, for a word or two I said the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... accepts his grumblings and his tyranny. His children frequently threaten rebellion, but their feelings smolder until the situation is brought into sharp focus by the arrival of son Jim from college with a bride. This overt act of Jim's gives courage to his brother George to bring home a radio, banned as a nuisance by the head of the family, and to sister Amy to blossom out in a low-backed evening gown and plan to step out dancing. Mr. Hunter is only brought ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden

... to fever heat, and the actions of the patriots were sharply resented by the conservatives who upheld the government, while the radicals were fighting for the rights of the people. In all the acts of overt rebellion with which John Hancock's name was constantly connected he was loyally and proudly upheld by his Dorothy, who, despite her inborn coquetry, daily became better fitted to be the wife of a ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... softened by the emotion of this wonderful hour, had made a movement to grasp his brother's hand, but had checked himself with a passionate movement of anger, instantly restrained, as the overt impertinence of the first words fell on his ears, here looked with a shadowing anxiety at ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... be sent to his majesty. Unless this lawless spirit is speedily checked, trouble will follow. The fathers of these young scoundrels may prudently contrive to keep themselves from publicly committing any overt act against the laws; but they can be taught a lesson through ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis

... who was afterwards tossed in a blanket on a moonless night, by an association of stout yeomen, for his officiousness. Nay, it was even said, that at the arrest of Sir William Wyndham, the leader of the Tory party, a letter from Sir Everard was found in the pocket of his night-gown. But there was no overt act which an attainder could be founded on; and government, contented with suppressing the insurrection of 1715, felt it neither prudent nor safe to push their vengeance further than against those unfortunate gentlemen who actually ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... natives did not wholly subside upon the rear-admiral's departure, no overt act of violence immediately followed. The queen had fled to Imeeo; and the dissensions among the chiefs, together with the ill-advised conduct of the missionaries, prevented a union upon some common plan of ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... Reinhardt. "Someone in that company, presumably someone at the top, is a Controller. And he's a very subtle, very dangerous man. Unlike the others, there is nothing hasty or overt in his plans. But within a few years, if this goes on, he will have more power than the others ...
— The Penal Cluster • Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)

... of Cos had been taken by the loyal inhabitants as a mere preliminary to the real fight. They were very little disturbed by it. It was the overt act which was necessary to convince Mexico that her clemency to Americans was a mistake, and that the ungrateful and impious race must be wiped out of existence. The newspapers not only reiterated ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... to assure himself that the landscape held no overt signs of danger. Then he brought back his eyes to the girl's face, and he stroked his thin, brown cheek reflectively. He recalled the scene in the bog, Colonel John's courage, and his thought for his servant. And ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... piece with the doing of this job in South Africa was the disposal of another overt enemy against our authority at the other extremity of the Dark Continent—in the person of the Khedive, Abbas II., who has now been replaced by Prince Hussein Kamel Pasha as the nominal Sultan of Egypt—under ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 21, Dec. 30, 1914 • Various

... brief. When the Burgomaster handed over his scarf it was handed back to him and he was thus intrusted for the time being with the civil control of the citizens. The Germans gave him plainly to understand that he would be held responsible for any overt act on the part of the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... the warmth of her surroundings stole through her. I also felt, even in this strangely awakening position, the influence of the quiet; and sleep began to steal over me. Several times I tried to fend it off, but, as I could not make any overt movement without alarming my strange and beautiful companion, I had to yield myself to drowsiness. I was still in such an overwhelming stupor of surprise that I could not even think freely. There was nothing for me but ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... underestimated the brute courage of the fellow, the violent, desperate courage that is distilled of anger in men of his kind. Despising him, deeming him incapable of any overt act of villainy, Kirkwood had been a little less wary than he would have been with Calendar or Mulready. Hobbs had seemed more of the craven type which Stryker graced so conspicuously. But now the American was to be taught discrimination, to learn that if Stryker's nature was like ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... unspeakable scorn. But presently he opened a suitcase and drew out a repeating pistol which he cocked carefully and stowed beneath his pillow; not at all a contemptible move, because the Indian railway thief is the most resourceful specialist in the world. But King took no overt precautions of ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... yet been graduated from his student days when the Synagogue thought him a fit object for official censure and threat. It seems Spinoza was betrayed into overt indiscretion by two fellow-students from the Synagogue, who asked for his opinion regarding the existence of angels, the corporeality of God and the immortality of the soul. Spinoza's answers were not complete, but incomplete ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... are considered, in the existing regime, as illegal. In time of peace "pure agitation" was to be carried on by means of organised bands which should frighten the Government and the privileged classes, draw away the attention of the authorities from less overt kinds of revolutionary action, raise the spirit of the people and thereby render it more accessible to revolutionary ideas, obtain pecuniary means for further activity, and liberate political prisoners. In time of insurrection the members should give to all movements every assistance in their ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... though Dowdeswell and Burke spoke against it. In the lords, Rockingham and Shelburne opposed it, Chatham was absent through ill-health, and Mansfield strongly advocated it, declaring that Boston had committed "the last overt act of treason," and that it was a lucky event, for if the bill passed we should have crossed the Rubicon, the Americans would see that we would temporise no longer, and if it passed unanimously, Boston would ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... unconstitutional law, even supposing them to have been the will of the people (of which we will speak hereafter), to be set aside by a competent tribunal, if brought to the test at all. Their paper treason, then (to commit a solecism), amounting only to so much waste of paper and ink, did the overt act of firing upon the flag of the United States operate more effectually to destroy the State identity? If they are incapable of separating themselves from the nation, and if, as is clearly the case, there is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of the Atlantic Ocean. These immigrants, and the migrants from the Eastern States, have profited enormously by their change of residence. Their material well-being has already been admitted, and, with rare exceptions, they have displayed no overt symptoms of ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett

... and excited in her profound apprehensions whose very nature she would scarcely admit to herself, the main occupation of her mind was still her own quarrel with Louis. The quarrel was now over, for they had conversed in quite sincere tones of friendliness, but she had desired and expected an overt, tangible proof and symbol of peace. That proof and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... till the farmers had had time to digest these repeated warnings, and then with what reluctance both officers and men went to carry out the work of destruction, but we never heard of a case where there had not first been some overt act on the part of ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Certainly, as far as overt acts are concerned, women are far "purer" than men. It is only when we leave the sphere of outward acts and enter the sphere of cerebral undercurrents, that all this is changed. There the Biblical story finds its proof, and the daughters of Eve revert to their mother. This is the ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... of the Christian era men demanded overt signs of the favour of God, and the objects of veneration kept in the churches and monasteries were held to be capable of curing disease. The Latin Church had either a saint or a relic of a saint to cure nearly every ill that flesh is heir to. St. Apollonia ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... So, without overt breach, we fall apart, Tacitly sunder—neither you nor I Conscious of one intelligible Why, And both, from severance, winning equal smart. So, with resigned and acquiescent heart, Whene'er your name on some ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... block. Elizabeth herself in numerous instances caused blood to flow on far less certain grounds. But her guilt could not otherwise be brought home, and in her first Parliament Mary had restored the ancient, constitutional law of England, by which overt or spoken acts of treason must be proved, before any English person could be convicted as ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... case we have another instance of the "hypnotic influence of circumstances." Firstly, the picture is deeply impressed on the mind; next the moral sensibilities are hardened, and lastly the overt act is committed. Tropmann who murdered a whole family of eight, confessed that his demoralisation was due to the reading of sensational novels. The publication of the details of crimes and the circulation of inflammatory fiction is ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... Power did not mince matters. It laid violent hands upon the unwilling subject and forced him, nolens volens, to sail its ships, to man its guns, and to fight its battles by sea as he already, under less overt compulsion, did its ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... and had bewitched both Saul's son and his daughter, thus making a painful rift in the family unity. It does not appear how David came to be so sure of Saul's designs. The incident at Ramah might have seemed to augur some improvement in his mood; and certainly there could have been no overt acts, or Jonathan could not have disputed the suspicions. Possibly some whispers may have reached David through his wife Michal, Saul's daughter, or in the course of his attendance on the king, which he had now resumed, his quick eye may have noticed ominous signs. At all ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... they would deceive Europe by a constant use, or rather misuse, of the words "rebel" and "rebellion." By the enactment of new laws they pronounce the simple attachment to the old religion of the country a denial of sovereign right, and consequently an act of overt treason; and the Irish shall be butchered mercilessly for the sake of the religion of Christ without winning the name, though they do the crown, of martyrdom; for Europe is to be so effectually deceived, that ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... differ from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact, that there are evil powers going about continually to take cognizance of our evil thoughts; and, if their Master gives them power, to bring them into overt action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin, of which I dare not disbelieve—as some sceptics would have us do—the sin of witchcraft. Of this deadly sin, you and I are aware Bridget Fitzgerald has been guilty. ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... great magnet of attraction, and all the currents of the universe appeared to flow from the direction where her eyes were shining. When she was out of sight, he needed to make no allowance for her defects, to reproach himself with no overt acts of disloyalty to Hope, to recognize no criticisms of his own intellect or conscience. He could resign himself to his reveries, and pursue them into ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... animosity in the war. The die cast, the several States committed to the side of treason, there was no alternative: fight they must. As the devil is said to betray his victims into situations where they are compelled to advance from bad to worse, so the conspirators adroitly hastened the people into overt acts from which they were told there was no retreat. We believe these facts to have had great influence with our Government; and in this way we can understand the generous but mistaken forbearance of the administration in the earlier stages of the contest,—we say mistaken, because ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... obscene pictures, who is ever ready to pervert the meaning of a harmless word or act into uncleanness, who finds delight in reading vivid portrayals of acts of lewdness,—such a one is not a virtuous man. Though he may never have committed an overt act of unchastity, if he cannot pass a handsome female in the street without, in imagination, approaching the secrets of her person, he is but one grade above the open libertine, and is as truly ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... what in law is termed an "overt act," the boy ranchers and their friends could do nothing against the sheep herders who were there in plain sight, with their woolly charges on the far side of Spur Creek. "Overt act" is a law term, and practically means an open ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker

... building, or that there is any other than a very unblessed out-of-doors beyond its walls. Such are countries where free speech is forbidden, where free thought is racked and thumb-screwed, and where not only a man's overt actions, but his very hopes, his faith, his prayers, are prescribed. Here man is put into his own institutions, as into a box; and a very bad box it proves. Now these blank walls not only encompass society as a mass, but also run between individuals, cutting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... and leanness of limb, his long, white neck, his blue, prominent eyes, and his ingenuous, unconscious absorption in the scene before him. He was not handsome, certainly, but he looked peculiarly amiable and if his overt wonderment savoured a trifle of rurality, it was an agreeable contrast to the hard, inexpressive masks about him. He was the verdant offshoot, I said to myself, of some ancient, rigid stem; he had been brought up in the quietest of homes, and he was having his ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James

... that he was not at the taking of Carlisle as therein specified. His objections were taken into consideration; the Lords retired to their chamber, and there consulted the judges whether it be necessary that an overt act of high treason should be proved to have been committed on the particular day ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... to see them myself before I could express an opinion. You have that tape of Holloway's with you?" When Kellogg nodded, Mallin continued: "Did either of them make any actual, overt ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... with faithfulness, for, instead of waiting until an overt act was committed, as all had been instructed to do, he rushed upon the men in a burst of enthusiasm which knew no ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis

... to an overt act of rebellion. The next piece of lawlessness that called for punishment was of a more serious nature, and gave Nicholson more opportunity to display his mastery. Although the country round Rawal Pindi was apparently tranquil, ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley

... an advantage which they will be able to maintain. But they will find themselves a little mistaken, I fancy; for Patterson says he has now got them in just the spot he wanted. This act both he and Stearns decide to be overt treason, which will justify him in taking the course he intends, unless they yield and scatter, on the first summons. But as they won't do that, and our forces will shortly be here, you can all guess what we shall now soon see follow," he added, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... and that her own affairs were suffering from the cessation of action. She was in the mood to entertain the basest suggestions her craft could put forward for making marriage between Hilda and Otto impossible. But she had not yet reached the stage at which overt acts are deliberately planned upon the ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips

... immediately after the Sussex crisis would have produced a storm of American protests. Then the entrance of Rumania into the war so encouraged the Entente powers that there seemed little chance of winning French and British acceptance of mediation. The presidential election further delayed any overt step towards peace negotiations. Finally the wave of anti-German feeling that swept the United States in November, on account of Belgian deportations, induced Wilson to hold back the note which he had already drafted. But it was important ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... the intellectual machine by which God has ordained that the work shall be done. It has been felt, that, if the State can properly extend its influence anywhere beyond the restrictive limits of evil, or the punishment of overt wrong; if anywhere it may exercise a positive ministration for good; it is here, where it does not interfere on the one hand with those outward pursuits which should be left to individual choice and aptitude, ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... gnomes, peeping up upon human beings from their shady haunts underground, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill—sometimes doing heavy work, sometimes none; teasing and worrying with impish laughter half suppressed, and vanishing directly mortal eyes were bent on them. Separate and distinct from overt existence under the sun, this life could hardly be without its distinctive pleasures, all of them being more or less pervaded by thrills and titillations from games of hazard, and the perpetual risk of ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... Germany, and that determines the matter. The press is shrieking to-day over the Mexican situation, but I hope they will be disappointed. It is not the intention to do anything further for the moment than to blockade the ports, and unless some overt act is made from the North, our troops will not ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... across lots to where Fred Wilson, manager of the general store, slept in a two-room shack belonging to the hotel. The door was locked—Fred being a small man with little trust in Providence or in his overt physical prowess—and so he rapped cautiously upon the window until Fred awoke and wanted to know ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... long a time over the Northern States. The italics in this, as in all other quotations, are your own. It is well for those who circulate your letter here, that the Constitution you denounce requires an overt act to constitute treason. It may be tolerated for an American by birth, to use on his own soil the freedom of speaking and writing which is guaranteed him, and abuse our Constitution, our Union, and our people. But that a foreigner should use such seditious language, in a circular ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... with "fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, utensils for cooking, and liquors, such as beer, cider, and rum." The Assemblies of several States passed resolutions strongly condemning this new imposition; but, as the dissatisfaction did not lead to any overt acts of disturbance, it seems to have been unnoticed in England at the time, or the clause would probably have been repealed by Lord Rockingham; and eventually the Assembly of New York seems to have withdrawn its objections to it, presenting an address ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... roughs it was customarily theirs to handle; but here before them was a bunch not to be trifled with, a quiet group of thirty bronzed faces, some grinning with the anticipated joy of the combat they loved, some grim as death itself, each affectionately twirling a gleaming gun. One overt act on the part of the circus men, and down they would go like ninepins and they knew it—knew it so well that, within two minutes after they had assembled, all dodged into and lost themselves in the throng of onlookers like rabbits darting ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... was in command of the ship during most of the above-mentioned operations. The men were extremely hostile toward me, owing to their fear that I was a Psi Corps officer acting under a special commission in the SCS, but no overt signs of mutiny took place, perhaps because we were still in port. Needless to say, I was very glad when the message arrived informing us of the assignment of Commander Frendon as captain, inasmuch as the situation made clearly evident that I could not expect to be able to assume ...
— Shock Absorber • E.G. von Wald

... an important matter, this choosing a victim. As he passed, a close observer might have noted that each man trembled visibly while the god's eye was upon him, and looked after him askance with a terrified sidelong gaze as he passed on to his neighbor. But not one savage gave any overt sign or token of his terror or his reluctance. On the contrary, as Tu-Kila-Kila passed along the line with lazy, cruel deliberateness, the men kept chanting aloud without one tremor in their voices, "We are all your meat. Choose which one ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... Orlando and Mr. Wilson was fought out in April, and the overt acts which subsequently marked their tense relations were but the practical consequences of that. On the historic day each one set forth his program with a ne varietur attached, and the President of the United States gave utterance to an estimate of Italian public opinion which astonished ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... volumes, which his curious literary taste had got together from the shelves of all the libraries that had been broken up during his long life as a scholar. Classics, theology, especially of the controversial sort, statistics, politics, law, medicine, science, occult and overt, general literature,—almost every branch of knowledge was represented. His learning was very various, and of course mixed up, useful and useless, new and ancient, dogmatic and rational,—like his library, in short; for a library gathered like his is a looking-glass ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... lust of man. Every daily paper heralds some rape on flying, hunted girls; and the pitying eyes of angels see the holocaust of womanhood no journal ever notes. In thought I trace the slender threads that link these hideous, overt acts to creeds and codes that make an aristocracy of sex. When a mighty nation, with a scratch of the pen, frames the base ideas of the lower orders into constitutions and statute laws, and declares ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... of 1581, the same spirit of persecution which had inspired the Catholics to inflict such infinite misery upon those of the Reformed faith in the Netherlands, began to manifest itself in overt acts against the Papists by those who had at last obtained political. ascendency over them. Edicts were published in Antwerp, in Utrecht, and in different cities of Holland, suspending the exercise of the Roman worship. These statutes were certainly a long way removed in horror from those memorable ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... almost without speaking, to the Hyrum Adams fire. Daniel lifted upper lip at me as we entered; his eyes never wandered from my face. I marked his right hand quivering stiffly; and I disregarded him. For if I had challenged him by so much as an overt glance he would ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... copyright > in the work of authorship identified below (the "Work") to the > public domain. > > Dedicator makes this dedication for the benefit of the public at > large and to the detriment of Dedicator's heirs and successors. > Dedicator intends this dedication to be an overt act of > relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights > under copyright law, whether vested or contingent, in the Work. > Dedicator understands that such relinquishment of all rights > includes the relinquishment ...
— Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books • Cory Doctorow

... be likely to vanquish the monster, even in ourselves, unless we make the thoughts our point of attack. So long as they are sensual we are indulging in sexual abuse, and are almost sure, when temptation is presented, to commit the overt acts of sin. If we cannot succeed within, we may pray in vain for help to resist the tempter outwardly. A young man who will indulge in obscene language will be guilty of a worse deed ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... life. In this endeavour he was preceded by Richard Baxter, who had written on the 'Unreasonableness of Infidelity,' and was followed during the eighteenth century by many who in the old Dissenting chapels were leading the way towards an overt Unitarianism. ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant

... by the thrust of two vigorous hands on his shoulders. There was that in Burns's tone—all that and more. His wrath was quite evidently no explosion of the moment, but the culmination of long irritation and distrust, brought to a head by some overt act which had settled the offender's case in the twinkling ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... from the respective characters of these two ladies and of those two kings; which was that the ascendant of the one, taking the form of friendship the most discreet, was lasting, whilst the other, exercising a direct, immediate, and too overt domination, was destined, sooner or later, to end in tiring out a monarch infinitely less capable than Louis the Fourteenth, but quite as jealous of sway. The Princess bore, therefore, rather the semblance of an intriguante, as people ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... bring over the enemy's fleet, might serve, upon the first discontent, to carry it back: that he had good reasons to think you were a Big-endian in your heart; and, as treason begins in the heart, before it appears in overt acts, so he accused you as a traitor on that account, and therefore insisted you should ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... conceal, and only betray themselves when under stress. Then, they become dangerous in the extreme. And there is no really legal way in which they can be handled, since they haven't yet committed any overt act of violence." ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole

... form, and gathering intensity, for the last forty years. It was first for political power, and directed against new States; now it has assumed a social form, is all-prevailing, and has reached the point of revolution and civil war. For it was only last fall that an overt act was committed by men who were sustained by arms and money, raised by extensive combination among the non-slaveholding States, to carry treasonable war against the State of Virginia, because now, as before the Revolution, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... could for their comfort and paid them the highest price justifiable, but gradually he found that his influence was being undermined and that the good-natured lagging which Peter had at first tried to tolerate had turned to loafing on the job, and finally to overt acts of rebellion. More men had been sent away and others with even less conscience had taken their places. Some of them had enunciated Bolshevist doctrines as wild as any of Flynn's or Jacobi's. Jonathan K. McGuire stood as a type which represented the hierarchy of wealth and was therefore their ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... his Eastern operations he made deception a science and used every instrument of cunning at his command. The result was precisely the same as in the West, except that the consequences were not so overt, and the perpetration could not be so easily distinguished. In the West, death marched step by step with Astor's accumulating fortune; so did it in the East, but it was not open and bloody as in the fur country. The mortality thus accompanying Astor's progress ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... existence of one who immediately thereupon passes into a more exalted and eternal life. To the sufferer, the former would seem an immitigable calamity, the latter a benign furtherance; while, in the agent, the overt act is the same. This general moral problem has been more accurately answered by Isaac Taylor, whose lucid statement is as follows: "The creatures of a summer's day might ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... sorrow. He might already have been aware of our friend, might at some previous hour have noticed in him the smooth habit of the scene, with which the state of his own senses so scantly consorted, and might thereby have been stirred as by an overt discord. What Marcher was at all events conscious of was in the first place that the image of scarred passion presented to him was conscious too—of something that profaned the air; and in the second that, roused, startled, ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James

... pursuance of the conspiracy. Where these illegal acts, however, have been done, and can be clearly proved, it is usual—but not necessary—to set them out in the indictment for a conspiracy. This is called setting out the overt acts, (and was done in the present instance,) not as any part of the conspiracy, but only as statements of the evidence by which the charge was to be supported—for the laudable purpose of giving the parties notice of the particular facts from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... lives. The attacking party was small, and apparently there was no reserve, for in all the wide landscape there was no sign of man. Then for no earthly reason the assault was at an end. One by one the men dropped back and disappeared from the plateau. There was no overt signal, no sound; but in a little the annoyed garrison were looking at vacancy ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... my desire has been always to rest the poetry of each Vision on its own intrinsic interest; to write with a straightforward eye to the object alone; not studious of ornament for ornament's sake; allowing the least possible overt intrusion of the writer's personality; and, in accordance with lyrical law, seeking, as a rule, to fix upon some factual picture ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... authorities of bigotry or narrow- mindedness. Only a few years ago I fought my way, with other Popish pilgrims, to the shrine of our patron Saint (as he was, until superseded by Saint George in the thirteenth century), and there I indulged in overt acts of superstition violating Article XXII. of 'the Church of England by law established.' A verger, with some colonial tourists, arrived during our devotions, but his voice was lowered out of regard for our feelings. ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... villains, so that made the slaves good and virtuous innocents. That was your real, fundamental, mistake. You know, Obray, the downtrodden and long-suffering proletariat aren't at all good or innocent or virtuous. They are just incompetent; they lack the abilities necessary for overt villainy. You saw, this afternoon, what they were capable of doing when they were given an opportunity. You know, it's quite all right to give the underdog a hand, but only one hand. Keep the other ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper

... approval of Lord Russell, of course only added to his unpopularity in Germany. The Danish Government, however, refused to accept Bismarck's proposal; they brought in still another Constitution by which the complete incorporation of Schleswig with the Monarchy was decreed. This was an overt breach of their treaty engagements and a declaration of war with Germany. At the beginning of November, it was carried through the Rigsrad by the required majority of two-thirds, and was sent up to the King ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... cheerful, general salutation, and the familiarity of the sight of him was plain in the response he got, equally general and equally cheerful. Lieutenant Da Cruz's smile was even further significant, if he had thought of interpreting it, and there was overt amiability in the manner in which Ensign Sand put her hymn-books together and packed everybody, including her husband, whose arm she ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... that they solemnly declare God's judgment about it, and His sentence on it; but in the sense of real condemnation, or casting out, and depriving sin of its power, they all are impotent. The law may deter from overt acts or lead to isolated acts of obedience; it may stir up antagonism to sin's tyranny, but after that it has no more that it can do. It cannot give the purity which it proclaims to be necessary, nor create the obedience which it enjoins. Its thunders roll terrors, and no fruitful rain follows them ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... the aid of Italy, was to be left naked to all the winds of hostility. The event showed, however, that that great power was now in her element. She declared the action of the German Diet to be not only a menace, but an act of overt hostilities. This was followed by an immediate declaration of war against a foe that had nearly three ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... the bestower of unworthy food a coldly, but always politely, contemptuous stare. Ordinarily, however, his displeasure—in the matter of unsuitable food, or in other matters—was exhibited by no more overt action than his retirement to a corner—he had his choices in corners, governed by the intensity of his feelings—and there seating himself with his back turned scornfully to an offending world. Even in his kindliest corner, on such occasions, the expression of his scornful ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... brought desolation to many American homes. She sank without a pang of conscience the great transatlantic steamship Lusitania, and, while pretending friendship for the United States and pleading no intent to disregard American rights, broke her own pledges and repeated her overt acts, ignoring international law and the rights of all neutrals ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... administered by Colonel Newcome, Mrs. Mackenzie abstained from overt hostilities against any guests of her daughter's father-in-law; and contented herself by assuming grand and princess-like airs in the company of the new ladies. They flattered her and poor little Rosa intensely. The latter liked ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Bainbridge; and the schooner "Enterprise," Lieut.-Commandant Sterrett. Though the fleet in itself was powerful, the commodore was hampered by the timid and vacillating instructions of Congress. War had not been actually declared, and he was therefore to commit no overt act of hostility. The vessels of the fleet were to be employed simply to convoy American merchantmen in and out of the Mediterranean Sea, and to be in readiness to ward off any hostile action on the part of any of the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... people from the terrible gulf of pauperism. He refers to Colquhoun's account of the twenty thousand people who rose every morning in London without knowing how they were to be supported; and observes that 'when indigence does not produce overt acts of vice, it palsies every virtue.'[250] The temptations to which the poor man is exposed, and the sense of injustice due to an ignorance of the true cause of misery, tend to 'sour the disposition, to harden the heart, and deaden the moral sense.' ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... 390. A letter from Hume to Blair, long before the rupture overt, shows the former to have been by no means so phlegmatic on this occasion as he may have seemed. "I hope," he writes, "you have not so bad an opinion of me as to think I was not melted on this occasion; I assure you I kissed ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... too shrewd a politician, now that McGaw's chances were gone, to advise any departure, even by a hair-line, from the strict letter of the law. He was, moreover, too upright as a justice to advise any member of the defeated party to an overt act which might look like unfairness to any bidder concerned. He had had a talk, besides, with his brother over night, and they had accordingly determined to watch events. Should a way be found of rejecting on legal grounds Tom's bid, making a new advertisement necessary, Rowan meant to ignore ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith

... special order of assistants to the clergy, the deaconesses, took care of them. As Christians became more numerous, special hospitals were founded, and these became public institutions just as soon as freedom from persecution allowed the Christians the liberty to give overt expression to their feelings for the poor. While hospitals of limited capacity for such special purposes as the sheltering of slaves or of soldiers and health establishments of various kinds for the wealthy had been erected before Christianity, this was the ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... causes had been in silent progress which were to throw the preponderance into the Christian scale. In the reign of his son, Selim the Second, this crisis was already passed; and the battle of Lepanto, in 1571, which crippled the Turkish navy in a degree never wholly recovered, gave the first overt signal to Europe of a turn in the course of their prosperity. Still, as this blow did not equally affect the principal arm of their military service, and as the strength of the German empire was too much distracted by Christian rivalship, the prestige of the Turkish name ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... to have been seen altogether, including women and children, was between fifty and sixty, and though they had yet actually committed no overt act against us, with the exception of trying to steal upon myself and the native boy as we returned; yet they had established themselves in the close vicinity of our encampment, and repeatedly ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... of adopting a rational or civilized attitude toward this question. It appears that neither of your Excellencies has any intention of abandoning your present war of mutual threats and blackmail until forced to do so by some overt act on the part of one or the other of your Excellencies' Governments, which would result in physical war of pan-Asiatic scope and magnitude. I am further convinced that this deplorable situation arises out of the megalomaniac ambitions of the Federal ...
— Operation R.S.V.P. • Henry Beam Piper

... has throughout been the common good or the public interest. And the desire for this end on the part of the majority of the members of the community, or the majority of those who were able to express their opinions, though its action was until recently not overt nor direct, and was not recognised, has led to the gradual evolution of the whole fabric of law and moral feeling, in order to govern and control the behaviour and conduct of the individual in his relations with his family, neighbours and fellow-citizens ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... announced—but they were mistaken in the last; it was a wild beast that looked upon them through those narrowed lids and steel-gray eyes. With the smell of blood the last vestige of civilization had deserted Tarzan, and now he stood at bay, like a lion surrounded by hunters, awaiting the next overt act, and crouching to charge ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... from the sea. Her father had declined; but M. Nevil wished to be one of the party, and in that case. . . . Renee threw herself beseechingly into the mute interrogation, keeping both of Rosamund's hands. They could slip away only by deciding to, and this rare Englishwoman had no taste for the petty overt hostilities. 'If I can be of use to you,' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... once a fortnight in the cure's ear—he secluded in an edifice of chintz like a shower-bath, they kneeling outside the curtain with the blank eyes of the Holy Mother upon them, and the remote presence of a guardian-teacher out of hearing. But he took an interest in them. No overt act of proselytism was permitted in the school, but if an English girl liked vespers instead of the second service at the Temple, her preference was not discouraged. Bessie attended the Protestant ordinances at stated seasons, and went to vespers and benediction besides. The ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... of overt rebellion, Mrs. Frayling secured some comfort in her life for a few months at least, and taught her husband a little lesson which she ought to have endeavoured to inculcate long before. It was too late then, however, to do him any permanent good; the habit ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... at such places. Impure women of the "higher," that is the more successful class, and gamblers, abound at the hotels. The proprietor cannot turn them out unless they are notorious, until they commit some overt act, for fear of getting himself into trouble. As soon, however, as his attention is called to any improper conduct on their part, they are turned into the street, no matter at what hour of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... they will undoubtedly be more or less influenced by what they find there. And it is because the novelist amuses that he is thus influential. The sermon too often has no such effect, because it is applied with the declared intention of having it. The palpable and overt dose the child rejects; but that which is cunningly insinuated by the aid of jam or honey is accepted unconsciously, and goes on its curative mission. So it is with the novel. It is taken because of its jam and honey. But, unlike the honest, simple ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... benignant touch of fortune still upon his head, and thanked her heartily that Leo had taken the initiative; that no overt act of disloyalty blurred his escutcheon, and above all, that he had been spared the humiliation of acknowledging his inability to resist the strange fascination that dragged him from his allegiance, as Auroras swing the needle from the pole. He did not attempt to underrate the vastness of his loss, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... as was natural, the rich buying the votes of the poor; and votes were bought in various ways—by cheap food as well as by money, by lavish expenditure in games, by promises of land, and other means of bribery more or less overt. This was bad, of course. Every freeman should have given a vote according to his conscience. But in what country—the millennium not having arrived in any—has this been achieved? Though voting in England has not always been pure, we have not wished to do away with the votes of freemen ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... group-associations,—his home or his class or his club, for example,—the conflicts of ambitions, the readiness to shirk one's share of common responsibility, the discordant prides and appetites of one sort and another which lead to overt injustices. All these should be used to throw light upon the living moral problems of group-life in the vocations, in the civic world, in the ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... he sat beside his dying wife, with anger and envy gnawing his heart—anger against fate, envy of Roderick Vawdrey, who had won the prize. If evil wishes could have killed, neither Violet nor her lover would have outlived that summer. Happily the Captain was too cautious a man to be guilty of any overt act of rage or hatred. His rancorous feelings were decently hidden under a gentlemanly iciness of manner, to which no one could ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... belong only to the law-abiding, and hide behind the sympathies of those who are easily taken in. Yet they justify all their misdeeds, and withdraw none of their evil principles, but rather reaffirm them, with subtlety. What does this mean? It means that the old conspirators, whose overt acts have lately crowded our law-courts, hope to fool the American people into letting them continue their propaganda unto lawlessness under a thin mask of conformity to the very laws ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... must come to a conclusion about inward dispositions by presumption from overt acts, arguing serious moral guilt before proceeding to capital punishment. To this extent the State is remotely a judge of sin. But it does not punish sin retributively as sin, nor even medicinally. It punishes the violation of its own laws, to deter future offenders. (Ethics, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... then Secretary of State for the Colonies, "a man that prayed," desired lenient measures, called what passed in Boston "commotion," not open "rebellion." But Lord Mansfield said, "What passed in Boston is the last overt act of high treason, proceeding from our own lenity and want of foresight. It is, however, the luckiest event that could befall this country, for all may now be recovered. Compensation to the East India Company I regard as no object of the Bill. The sword is drawn, and you must ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... another example, displayed not a little of this "sluggish avoidance of needless invention," often preferring to apply his imagination to the transfiguring of what Malory or Miss Mitford, Froude or Freeman had made ready for his hand. This eschewing of overt originality fitted him all the more to be spokesman of his time, and to voice the ideals of his race and of his day. Tennyson, so Sir Leslie Stephen told us, "could express what occurred to everybody in language that could be approached by nobody." Browning, on the other ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... the notion of the Adamites, and they should run naked into the streets, would not the magistrate have a right to flog 'em into their doublets?' MAYO. 'I think the magistrate has no right to interfere till there is some overt act.' BOSWELL. 'So, Sir, though he sees an enemy to the state charging a blunderbuss, he is not to interfere till it is fired off?' MAYO. 'He must be sure of its direction against the state.' JOHNSON. 'The magistrate is ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... the friar, "is our liege lady of the forest, against whom I do apprehend thee in overt act of treason. What ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... will not consider this sketch a flattery or an exaggeration. He was a candidate for the Governorship at the last election, and so powerful was his acknowledged personal prestige, that, in despite of overt intimidation and secret influences, which made a free voting an absurdity, the Black Republicans exulted over his ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... and the second man pulled back the ladies' chairs. Killigrew hurried away to his offices; Kitty and her mother went up-stairs; and Thomas returned to his desk in the library. He was being watched by Kitty; nothing overt, nothing tangible, yet he sensed it: from the first day he had entered this house. It oppressed him, like a presage of disaster. Back of his chair was a fireplace, above this, a mirror. Once—it was but yesterday—while with his back to ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... British party were sincere in their belief that the success of this measure meant the triumph of the French and the reversal of all that had been done to hold the colonies for the Empire against rebels whose avowed purpose was separation. Twelve years had gone by since they had failed in the overt act. Now Papineau was back in the House, about to receive his arrears of salary as Speaker. In Elgin's eyes he was a Guy Fawkes waving flaming brands among all sorts of combustibles. Mackenzie had been granted amnesty by the monarch {119} he ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... say is to be desired. For as it is a sin to betray one's country, to injure one's parents, to plunder temples, which are all sins of commission; so it is likewise a sin to be afraid, to grieve, to be under the dominion of lust, even if no overt act follows these feelings. But, as these are sins, not in their later periods and consequences, but at once from the first moment; so those actions which proceed from virtue are to be considered right ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... door and up the lane. Hannah guessed where he had gone without much difficulty; but her guess only raised her wrath to a white heat. Troublesome brats Sandy's children had always been—Louie more especially—but they had never perpetrated any such overt act of rebellion as this before, and the dour, tyrannical woman was filled with a kind of silent frenzy as she thought of her husband going ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... will speak what I may honestly say,' he answered. 'I am not under your roof, and my tongue is free. Why didst not wait for me, Penelope, or send to me a more overt letter? I would have travelled ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... ties of mercenary interest that bound the army to the state, and there was, probably, but one class of feelings that would have been strong enough to have broken these ties,—those, namely, of religious sympathy or prejudice. The overt ground of the general mutiny was offence to caste feelings, given by the introduction into the army of certain cartridges said to have been prepared with hog's lard and cow's fat. The men must bite off the ends of these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... barred their doors and locked their windows, though it was a hot summer night. Some women were abroad: but they were of the rougher sort, and now and then their shrill voices rose on the air in derision or vituperation. Still there were no overt acts of violence, and at ten everybody began ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... The first overt act of weakness,—the first expression of conscious declension, as regarded the foreign enemies of Rome, occurred in the reign of Hadrian; for it is a very different thing to forbear making conquests, and to renounce them when made. It ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... personality is ultimately explained by the fact that an energetic Life-process is wanting—a Life-process which entertains the question not so much from without as from within. Whenever such a Life-process is found, there is simultaneously found, often in overt contradiction to the formal doctrinal statement, an element of such a personal character of God."[56] But this immanent aspect of the idea of God is accompanied by a transcendent aspect. We have noticed ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones

... to their proper equilibrium. Let us travel back to the impeachment of the DUKE OF YORK, in the case of the celebrated MRS. CLARK. To attempt to palliate the acts of His Royal Highness was to commit an overt act of treason against the sovereign people; to admit his indiscretions, but deny his guilty participation, or even knowledge of the peculations committed in his name, would expose one to the reputation ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... Buckingham; every line adds to or modifies the character, which is, as it were, a-building up to the very last verse; whereas, in Pope's Timon, &c. the first two or three couplets contain all the pith of the character, and the twenty or thirty lines that follow are so much evidence or proof of overt acts of jealousy, or pride, or whatever it may be that is satirized. In like manner compare Charles Lamb's exquisite criticisms on Shakspeare with Hazlitt's round and round imitations ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... you looked rather savage at one point in our discussion, but I do assure you that you committed no overt act of ferocity; and if you had, I think I should have fully deserved it for joining in the ferocious onslaught we all ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley

... But compromises and reconciliation were not as yet possible, and therefore it was necessary that she should choose her part. Her governor declared for secession, and at first also her legislature was inclined to follow the governor. But no overt act of secession by the State was committed, and at last it was decided that Kentucky should be declared to be loyal. It was in fact divided. Those on the southern border joined the secessionists; whereas the greater portion of the State, containing Frankfort, the capital, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... antagonism and rivalry, are too well known for repetition. The general situation is sufficiently understood, yet it is doubtful whether the completeness and rapidity of the revolution which has taken place in men's thoughts about the Pacific are duly appreciated. They are shown not only by overt aggressive demands of various European states, or by the extraordinary change of sentiment on the subject of expansion that has swept over America, but very emphatically by the fact, little noted yet well assured, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... the impact of the Grass was more overt. On the comicpage, Superman daily pushed it back and there was great regret his activities were limited to a fourcolor process, while Terry Lee and Flash Gordon, everinspirited by the sharp outlines of mammaryglands, also saved the country. Even Lil Abner and Snuffy Smith battled ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... it," said Winnington, frowning. "My ward is of age. If Miss Marvell does anything overt—But she has promised to do nothing violent ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... both sides. General Thomas Gage, the British Commander-in-Chief stationed at Boston, had also thrust upon him the civil government of that town. He had some five thousand British troops in Boston, and several men-of-war in the harbor. There were no overt acts, but the speed with which, on more than one occasion, large bodies of Colonial farmers assembled and went swinging through the country to rescue some place, which it was falsely reported the British ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... rifle, the other his duck-gun, the butts of both, resting on the floor. At each moment their anxiety increased, and it seemed an age before the succor they had sent for could arrive. How long, moreover, would these taciturn and forbidding-mannered savages wait before they gave some indication of overt hostility, and even if nothing were done prior to the arrival of the fishing party, would these latter be in sufficient force to awe them into a pacific departure? The Indians were twelve in number, ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... unhappy sufferer sought relief by suicide. And the Colonel was not the first by many a million, that has fled from the very same form of wretchedness, or from its effects upon the genial spirits, to the same gloomy refuge. It should never be forgotten that, although some other more overt vexation is generally assigned as the proximate cause of suicide, and often may be so as regards the immediate occasion, too generally this vexation borrowed its whole power to annoy, from the habitual atmosphere of irritation in which the system had been kept by indigestion. So that indirectly, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey



Words linked to "Overt" :   explicit, raw, undisguised, bald, open, visible, public, covert, unconcealed



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