"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intended as a warning to rash novices against the sin of slovenliness in composition; but the poem must be of solid fibre to resist this disenchanting test. The unveiling of hidden mysteries, the disclosure of trap doors, ropes, and pulleys, may assist in the general dissemination of knowledge; but in behalf of those who prefer to be ignorant that they may be happy, we protest against the innovation. In this dangerous experiment of Poe's, however, we are forced to do what he would ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... testimony. As he can not examine every thing himself, he is constantly liable to be imposed upon by taking for granted that which is every where affirmed. Humboldt for once, with all his caution, seems to have fallen into the common trap, and credited, without examination, the story of the ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... movements of a couple by a laugh, a nod, or a wink which, though not intended to reach them, gives frequent rise to unpleasant situations. Her friends should guard against anything savouring of a husband-trap; his friends should avoid any indication that they look upon ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... instant retreat, so they retired towards Ners, intending to cross the Gardon below that town: just as M. de Villars had foreseen, the Camisards did everything necessary for the success of his plans, and ended by walking right into the trap set for them. ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... conversation. The matters seemed to be very important, and the conversation was animated: it was about so-and-so who was expected, or was or was not engaged, or the last evening at the Casino, or the new trap on the Avenue—the delightful little chit-chat by means of which those who are in society exchange good understandings, but which excludes one not in the circle. The young gentleman next to Irene threw in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to obey, and soon returned with a report that there was a trap-door leading into the loft under the roof, and that they could draw the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... they have us in a trap," he said; "but the tree will still serve our purpose and those who approach will ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... Road, Peckham, and none was more sensible than he how well the address became his provincial refinement. There he installed himself with his wife and Mrs. Thompson. His drawing-room suite was the envy of the neighbourhood; his pony-trap proclaimed him a man of substance; his gentle manners won the respect of all Peckham. Hither he would invite his friends to such entertainments as the suburb expected. His musical evenings were recorded in the local paper, while on Sundays he chanted the songs of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... fingers, a mass of rotten mortar threatening each moment to break below his grasp, and he realised with a spasm of the diaphragm that now there was no retreat. What—this was his thought—what if this was the mouth of a well? Or a mediaeval trap for fools? He had seen such things in French castles. In the pitch darkness he could not guess whether he hung above an abyss or had the ground within an inch of ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... solely from consideration for the poor! By and by, as we grow more hardened, we laugh at these boyish dreams,—peasant or prince fares equally at our impartial hands; we grasp at the bucket, but we scorn not the thimbleful; we use the word 'glory' only as a trap for proselytes and apprentices; our fingers, like an office-door, are open for all that can possibly come into them; we consider the wealthy as our salary, the poor as our perquisites. What is this, but a picture of your member of parliament ripening into a minister, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and slobbery, every hole was a pitfall to trap the unwary; boulders and sandbags which had fallen in waited to trip the careless foot. I met a party of soldiers, a ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... to look into her mouse-trap, where she found six mice all alive, and ordered Cinderilla to lift up a little the trap-door, when giving each mouse, as it went out, a little tap with her wand, the mouse was at that moment turned into a fair horse, which altogether made a very ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... upon these was raised a sort of low hut or sentry-box, just large enough to contain a man, who, when the proper moment arrived, peeped forth from his concealment and cautiously raised the front of the trap, which was a kind of drop-door working in a groove. [PLATE CXIX., Fig. 2.] The trap being thus opened, the lion stole out, looking somewhat ashamed of his confinement, but doubtless anxious to vent his spleen ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... head to heel. He could voice his own praises by the hour when necessary, but now he side-stepped her little trap to make him ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... we were almost criminally wrong in all our calculations. Shamefacedly we continued to drive nails into the impossible hull, knowing full well—poor misguided heroes—that we were only fashioning a death trap! There could be no doubt about it. The free information bureau was unanimous. It was all very pathetic. Nothing but the tonic of an habitual morning swim in the clear cold river kept us game in the face ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... mouse species was thus caught in the net, the mouse Palita came out of his hole and began to rove about fearlessly. While trustfully roving through the forest in search of food, the mouse after a little while saw the meat (that the Chandala had spread there as lure). Getting upon the trap, the little animal began to eat the flesh. Laughing mentally, he even got upon his enemy entangled helplessly in the net. Intent on eating the flesh, he did not mark his own danger, for as he suddenly cast his eyes he saw a terrible foe of his arrived at that spot. That foe was none else than a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Moise laughed light-heartedly. "If she'll don' hont on this land, she'll starve sure. A man he'll mus' walk, he'll mus' hont, he'll mus' portage, he'll mus' trap, he'll mus' walk on the track-line, an' know how for paddle an' pole, else ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... waking her up—she was dreaming about her beautiful shell—"wife, there are those eternal rats again, gnawing, gnawing at that door; we must set the trap for them to-night." ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... the hills in its vicinity—some portion of the Sinjar range—with his archers. It is uncertain whether, in making these dispositions, he was merely providing for his own safety, or whether he was laying a trap into which he hoped to entice the Roman army. Perhaps his mind was wide enough to embrace both contingencies. At any rate, having thus established a point d'appui in his rear, he advanced boldly and challenged the legions to an encounter. The challenge ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... talk on flat-fish we shall notice how they are caught, near the bed of the sea, in the trawl-net. Now this net is of no use for the capture of Herrings. They swim in the open water, near the surface, and so another kind of trap, the drift-net, ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it. Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is wonderful. Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered syllable and the ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... are the real shoplifter, after all. You fell into the trap which Drummond laid for you. I take pleasure, Mr. Drummond, in presenting you with better evidence than even your own stool pigeon could possibly have given ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... challenge of Morok," continued the Jesuit, without answering Dagobert's question, "and so fell into a trap, or else refused it, and were then arrested for want of papers, and thrown into prison as a vagabond, with these poor children. Now, do you know the object of this violence? It was to prevent your being here on the 13th ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... held for his loan to the Erie. In the twinkling of an eye his $3,000,000 in Erie bonds was converted into Erie stock, which he proceeded to dump in Wall Street. Eric quotations fell from 90 to 50. Every one at last realized the trap—but not before Daniel Drew had pocketed a few ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... immediately after man in the matter of intelligence, the apes and elephants, are those that can use an artificial instrument occasionally. Below, but not very far from them, come those that recognize a constructed object: for example, the fox, which knows quite well that a trap is a trap. No doubt, there is intelligence wherever there is inference; but inference, which consists in an inflection of past experience in the direction of present experience, is already a beginning of ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... the leisurely reverse current below the great bar of Island No. 6 and had drifted out into the main current again, almost under the Hickman lights once more, was he able in his ignorance to escape from the time-trap into ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... sleek bird of Paradise had been donated by Miss Caron, of the adjoining chateau. There was also a newly-patented bird- trap, sent by a New York firm, in the days of Boss Tweed, Conolly, Field and other birds of prey I noticed boxes for sparrows to build in, designed by Col W Rhodes. On the floor lay a curious sample of an ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... struggle for existence; and, the more perfect the action of the mechanism, the greater the advantage. Thus the way lay open for the operation of natural selection in gradually perfecting the flower as a fertilisation-trap. Analogous reasoning applies to the fertilising insect. The better its structure is adapted to that of the trap, the more will it be able to profit by the bait, whether of honey or of pollen, to the exclusion of its competitors. Thus, by a sort ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... his call for assistance had been heard—that Frank and his football comrades had reached the spot, and were in the act of practicing their gridiron tactics upon the unfortunates who had fallen into the very trap they had ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... Caesar might receive with pleasure. He was dictator, emperor, lord of all things—king. Cicero should have remained away, as Marcellus had done, were he not prepared to speak after this fashion. He had long held aloof from speech. At length the time had come when he was, as it were, caught in a trap, and ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... night, when the rat-catcher set a trap, the gnome went and got himself caught in it. There in the morning, when the rat-catcher came, he found a funny little fellow, all bright and golden, wriggling and beating to ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... ladies were up, the wagonette and a trap for the shooting party were at the door, and Laska, aware since early morning that they were going shooting, after much whining and darting to and fro, had sat herself down in the wagonette beside the coachman, and, disapproving of the delay, was excitedly watching ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... star, And struck on sight, when quick with dews, Like music of the very Muse. Great artists pass our single sense; We hear in seeing, strung to tense; Then haply marvel, groan mayhap, To think such beauty means a trap. But Nature's genius, even man's At best, is practical in plans; Subservient to the needy thought, However rare the weapon wrought. As long as Nature holds it good To urge her creatures' quest for food ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... glen road leads to many parts, but in the night only to the doctor's. Then the gallop of a horse makes farmers start up in bed and cry, "Who's ill?" I went to my door and listened to the trap coming swiftly down the lonely glen, but I could not see it, for there was a trailing scarf of mist between the school-house and the road. Presently I heard the swish of the wheels in water, and so learned that they were crossing the ford to come to ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... before morning, I guess," said Joe. "Looks to me as if, if she is the Follow Me, they've run themselves into a trap!" ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... discuss the next step which it might be advisable to take, for the militia was closing in around them, and to remain longer in Lyme would be to be caught there as in a trap. It was Grey who advanced the first suggestion, his assurance no whit abated by the shameful thing that had befallen, by the cowardice which ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... and so Frankie he climed out of his high chair and ran out into the kitchen and bimeby he came in with 3 little peaces of chese and father he asked him where he got them and he brought in the rat trap. you had just aught to ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... you shall not go back to Gloucester College tonight," spoke Fitzjames eagerly. "They shall not take you there, like a rat in a trap. Come to your old lodging for the night. It may be we shall have thought out a plan by the morning. We will not let you go without a struggle, Anthony. Come with me as of old, and we will watch what betides in ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... With this, in a marvellously brief space, he could bind his man at elbows and wrists, at knees and ankles, so that in less time almost than it would take to describe the process, the latter stood upon the trap, as a shape deprived of motion, fully caparisoned for the end. He fitted the inner side of the crosspiece of the gallows with pegs upon which the rope rested, entirely out of sight of him upon ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... mineral belt of the Far West, where volcanic emanations are so abundant, and where they have certainly played an important part in the formation of ore deposits, the great majority of veins are not in immediate contact with trap rocks, and they could not, therefore, have furnished ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... he said. "Oh! could none of you see that the men of Hassan had all walked into a trap? Did none of you know that fire burns thatched houses, and that a strong wind drives it fast and far? While you sat there upon the hill with your heads together, like sheep waiting to be killed, I crept away among the bushes ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... became wide awake. It was high time. The Prussians were almost on them. They had them in a trap. They held the higher grounds and hemmed the French in. All night long the tents were being struck, and the army was in commotion. No one knew just why it was. Some said they were about to be attacked; some said they were surrounded. Uncertainty gave ...
— "A Soldier Of The Empire" - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... will, sir," said Harry, having, as he hoped, caught his father in a trap, "when May ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... came to Duke Otho with a present of a war-horse of great price, and said, "You have in your keeping a dastard knight by name Sir Thierry, who has done me much despite, and I would fain be avenged upon him." Then Duke Otho, falling into the trap, appointed him jailor of ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... "I won't be long driving you to the Rectory. It is rather important for you to be there, and as the trap only holds two, perhaps ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... It cannot be more than five feet wide and eight feet long, with an open loophole to the wind. If a man were here for forty days and then pardoned his life would be worth very little. A bitter eyrie from which to watch the city one had risked all to reform. What thoughts must have been his in that trap! What reviews of policy! What illuminations as ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... pebbles in the gravel are less likely to crush under loads than smaller pebbles of the same sort of rock, but if the rock is of some of the tougher varieties such as trap, there is very little likelihood of even the smaller pebbles crushing. If the pebbles are of rock of medium toughness, the smaller pebbles might be crushed under the heavier loads. It is the usual practice ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... and make sure there are thieves, and then see what is best to be done. The door at the top of the kitchen stairs is locked, so they must be down there; and perhaps if we could get the watchman to come in quietly, we might catch them in a trap, by letting him through the drawing-room, and into the conservatory. He could get into the garden from there, and as they must have got in that way from the mews, over the stable wall, and through the garden, they would try to escape the same ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... perform the duties of a miller. As Captain Lemuel Gulliver had not yet discovered the island of Lilliput, Isaac did not know that there were little men in the world whose size was just suited to his windmill. It so happened, however, that a mouse had just been caught in the trap; and, as no other miller could be found, Mr. Mouse was appointed to that important office. The new miller made a very respectable appearance in his dark gray coat. To be sure, he had not a very good character for ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the trap that had been set for him, Art attended his business as usual, till towards evening, when Harte took an opportunity, when he got him for a few minutes by himself, of speaking to him apparently in a careless ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... broke in his friend, "but I send them to Marie and she feeds them—nothing more. They can not trap me with any of their foolish tales. It is not charity to give to them. I am hard of heart about such ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... must not be precipitate. I was very near falling into a terrible trap. If I were to marry the girl, and only, by so doing, settle away her inheritance on Peschiera!—how hard it is to be ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this trial on the morrow—the excitement of it all, the trap laid for Deroulede, the pleasure of seeing him take the first step towards his own downfall. Everyone there was eager and enthusiastic for the fray. Lenoir, having spoken at such length, had now become silent, but everyone else talked, and drank brandy, and hugged his ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... because if I hadn't she would have walked right into a trap—she and Zara. Maybe it was too late, but I hope not. And our staying behind here was a mighty lucky thing. If we hadn't had some warning of what Mr. Holmes and the others were planning, I don't know what would have happened! Zara and I would have ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... "The keddah, or trap, as it may be called, consists of three enclosures, each formed of strong stockades on the outside of deep ditches; the innermost one being the strongest, because by the time they arrive in it, the elephants are generally in a state of great excitement, ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... contagion. Now, his people insisting on war, he has the air of making it with a good grace; but should he be worsted, probably he will know some loophole by which to steal out. The rat will get out and leave the lion in the trap. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... picture not sold, Cooper's head of Oliver Cromwell, an unfinished miniature; they asked me four hundred pounds for it! But pictures do not monopolize extravagance; I have seen a little ugly shell called a Ventle-trap sold for twenty-seven guineas. However, to do us justice, we have magnificence too that is well judged. The Palmyra and Balbec are noble works to be undertaken and executed by private men.(867) There is now established a Society for the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... did I do so," replied Monte-Cristo, seeing the brigand chief's trap and adroitly avoiding being caught in it. "However, suffice it to say that I can and will make good all I have asserted! Even Annunziata Solara herself shall ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... stretched and dried for painting. At his other hand a brush slanted sidewise from a bowl of liquid ink. The boy's pulses leaped toward these things even while his lips curled in disdain at the shallow decoy. "So they expect to trap me, these geese and jailers who have temporary dominance over my life," thought he, in scorn. No, even though he now desired it of himself, he would not paint! Let him but gain his bride—then nothing ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... the axe of the pioneer. An English traveller of note who happened to encounter him about this time has left an interesting account of the meeting. It was on the Ohio, and Boone was in a canoe, alone with his dog and gun, setting forth on a solitary trip into the wilderness to trap beaver. He would not even join himself to the other travellers for a night, preferring to plunge at once into the wild, lonely life he so loved. His strong character and keen mind struck the Englishman, who yet saw that the old hunter belonged ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... concerned with is to show, that if such a state of things is due to "omnipotent design," the omnipotent designer must be concluded, so far as reason can infer, to be non-beneficent. And this it is not difficult to show. When I see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a spring-trap, I abhor the devilish nature of the being who, with full powers of realising what pain means, can deliberately employ his noble faculties of invention in contriving a thing so hideously cruel. But if I could believe that there is a being who, with yet higher faculties of thought and knowledge, ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... under the very nose of a stout and much younger gentleman, who had already assumed it to be his own. His route lay through Pall Mall, and at the corner, instead of going through the Green Park, the cabman turned to drive up St. James's Street. Old Jolyon put his hand through the trap (he could not bear being taken out of his way); in turning, however, he found himself opposite the 'Hotch Potch,' and the yearning that had been secretly with him the whole evening prevailed. He called to the driver to stop. He would go in and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to his sorrow. Mehe had skilfully concealed his real strength for the purpose of drawing the emperor into a trap, and now, by a well-directed movement, cut off the rash leader from his main army and forced him to take refuge in the city of Pingching. Here, vastly outnumbered and short of provisions, the emperor found himself in a desperate ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... all knew that their refuge was more like a trap than a fortress. Ambrose wished to abandon the house for the Catholic church ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... triumphant. The stiles that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury, and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds an excessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for the thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage of the smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... head. What he really wanted was to have his existence left intact, for his own cherishing and pride. It was a moral aspiration, but in his alarm the native grossness of his nature came clattering out like a devil out of a trap. He would blow the gaff, split, give away the whole show, he would back up honest people, kiss the book, say what he thought, let all the world know . . . and when he paused to draw breath, all around him was silent and ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... as being very pleased that England has refused to be present at the meeting. They insist that we were setting a trap for England, and trying to get her to say or do something at the conference which would let us out of paying the $425,000 ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 51, October 28, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... fine days I saw the scene of Davies's original adventure by daylight with the banks dry and the channels manifest. The reader has seen it on the chart, and can, up to a point, form his opinion; I can only add that I realized by ocular proof that no more fatal trap could have been devised for an innocent stranger; for approaching it from the north-west under the easiest conditions it was hard enough to verify our true course. In a period so full of new excitements it is not easy for me to say when we were hardest put to it, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... flushed with excitement and timidity, and I came quickly to the conclusion that she knew nothing of what was intended by her family, who, having made the one sister the means of gratifying their avarice, were now baiting the trap of their revenge ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... the thieves lay on a knoll between the brook and the swamp. There was not space enough on either side for two horses to pass abreast without stepping over or on their sleeping forms; but there was no other way for us to get out of the trap. The horses might pass singly, and I decided ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... you've got us both into, with your 'taking it for granted,'" snorted the old miserly financier of Sandy Beach. "It looks as if we'd got ourselves in a trap now." ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... got you." Ernest's jaw snapped like a trap. "Let me show you. Here is a man who works on the ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... the Count de Carojac pile so many sneers and insults on this British officer, and on the whole British nation, that I verily believe a London audience would have mobbed him if he hadn't tried to kill him. The English public walked straight into the trap, although they abhor nothing on earth more than the duelling system. I said that the comic characters were not affected by the changes made in America; the change of nationality did affect them to a certain extent. A young girl, Florence St. Vincent, afterward ...
— The Autobiography of a Play - Papers on Play-Making, II • Bronson Howard
... a narrow rope ladder. The opening of the trap-door framed a piece of leaden sky. It was daylight, but the autumn weather was gray ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... choice," he replied bluntly. "If there were any possible way of getting you back to Villa Mon Reve to-night, I'd move heaven and earth to do it. But there isn't. We've no more chance of getting away from here than rats in a trap." ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... ever saw in one God-forsaken country. He says they're of every nationality, but without squeam of any kind—hang or shoot you as soon as look at you! He says if there's any ivory buried in those parts they've either got it and sold it, or else they buried it themselves and spread the story for a trap to fetch greenhorns over ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... plug; block up, stop up, fill up, bung up, cork up, button up, stuff up, shut up, dam up; blockade, obstruct &c (hinder) 706; bar, bolt, stop, seal, plumb; choke, throttle; ram down, dam, cram; trap, clinch; put to the door, shut the door. Adj. closed &c v.; shut, operculated^; unopened. unpierced^, imporous^, caecal [Med.]; closable; imperforate, impervious, impermeable; impenetrable; impassable, unpassable^; invious^; pathless, wayless^; untrodden, untrod. unventilated; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... vouchsafed him knowledge of the way of salvation in his tender youth, so that he never prostrated himself to idols." Quoth he, "Tell me which is the more excellent, Ali or Abbs?" Now she knew that, in propounding this question, Ibrahim was laying a trap for her; for if she said, "Ali is more excellent than Abbas," she would lack excuse with the Caliph for undervaluing his ancestor; so she bowed her head awhile, now reddening, then paling, and lastly said, "Thou askest me ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... sect did they attach themselves; But from all sects drew all the truth they could In charity; believing that when Christ Said of the pure in heart, 'They shall see God,' He meant it; spoke no fragment of a truth; Deferred no saying, qualifying that; Set no word-trap for unsuspecting souls; Spoke no oracular, ambiguous phrase, Intending merely the vicarious pure; Reserved no strange or mystical condition To breed fine points of doctrine, or confound The simple-minded and the slow of faith. Heart-purity and singleness and love, Fertile in loving acts, ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... was to see her well off (and I felt like one who had just sprung from an iron trap which was closing upon him), I had yet a feeling of regret at taking the last look at the old craft in which I had spent a year, and the first year, of my sailor's life, which had been my first ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... looked out of the window to catch inspiration for the particular frame of words with which she should begin. And as she looked an old gentleman suddenly appeared beyond the iron gate, shook it gently, glanced up in vain for a name on the stone posts, and stood irresolute. It was an old trap, that of the front gate; there was no bell, and it was necessary for visitors to come straight in to ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... I held the towel for Archie, and a spectacled girl with a mouth like a rat-trap, who was something to do with the Woman's Movement, saw fair play for Eunice. And then they went off to Scotland for their honeymoon. I wondered how the Doughnuts were going to get on in old Archie's absence, but it seemed that he had buckled down to it and turned out three months' supply in ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... was trying to pass the apron-string around him. For the fraction of an instant he was a savage, dominated by the wave of fear and murder that rose up in him. For that infinitesimal space of time he was to all purposes a frightened tiger filled with rage and terror at the apprehension of the trap. Had he been no more than a savage, he would have leapt wildly from the place or else sprung upon her and destroyed her. But in that same instant there stirred in him the generations of discipline by which man had become an inadequate social animal. Tact and sympathy strove ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... trap it was a most skillfully set one. For there must be an answer, and either no or yes ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... winter, and on the expedition of 1905-06 we had been obliged to melt ice for a month or two; but this year the Eskimos sounded the ponds, and about fifteen feet of water was found in one a mile inland from the Roosevelt. Over the hole in the ice they built a snow igloo with a light wooden trap-door, so as to keep the water in the hole from freezing too quickly. The water was brought to the ships in barrels on sledges drawn by ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... long; he decided only when his freedman, Anicetus, the commander of the fleet, proposed a plan that seemed to guarantee secrecy for the crime: to have a ship built with a concealed trap. It was the spring of the year 59 A.D.; the Court had moved to Baiae, on the Gulf of Naples. If Nero succeeded in getting his mother on board the vessel, Anicetus would take upon himself the task of burying ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... soul and fell easily into the trap. In half an hour Mr. Ransom was ensconced in a pleasant room over the porch, a room which he soon learned possessed many advantages. For it not only overlooked the main entrance, but was so placed as to command a view of all the rooms ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... such as the "booby-trap" loaded with a millstone, which slays a hateful and despised tyrant, imposed by a foreign conqueror; evasion by secret passages, and concealment in underground vaults or earth-houses. The feigning of madness to escape death occurs, as well as ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... it came upon botanists as a surprise when our countryman Ellis first discovered that some plants catch and devour insects. This he observed in a North American plant, Dionsea, the leaves of which are formed something like a rat-trap, with a hinge in the middle, and a formidable row of spines round the edge. On the surface are a few very sensitive hairs, and the moment any small insect alights on the leaf and touches one of these hairs the two halves of the ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... feeble water-coloured drawing of the trio, in nankeen frocks, and long white trowsers, with bare necks and arms, the latter twined together, and with the free hands, Griffith holding a bat, Clarence a trap, and I a ball. I remember the emulation we felt at Griffith's privilege of eldest in ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... And at that moment Mrs. Anketell did catch sight of the stockings, lying inside out and rolled up anyhow, on the floor, and instinctively she picked one up and began to straighten it, while Paul watched her actions with feelings such as an animal must suffer when caught in a trap. ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... was christened Rogues' Lane, and, in spite of all the dukes and lords of the Kit-Kat, it never grew very respectable. In 1724 that incomparable young rascal, Jack Sheppard, used to frequent the "Bible" public-house—a printers' house of call—at No. 13. There was a trap in one of the rooms by which Jack could drop into a subterraneous passage leading to Bell Yard. Tyburn gibbet cured Jack of this trick. In 1738 the lane went on even worse, for there Thomas Carr (a low attorney, of Elm ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... have tossed up my cap and leapt in the air. Having received the bread and cheese, for he permitted me to have the latter on this occasion I went out and enjoyed my meal, delighted with Mr O'Gallagher's having fallen into the trap I had laid ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... happened to take their dinners at such erratic and extraordinary hours, for we never called at a time when an exemplary Christian would be in the least likely to be abroad on such an errand. The truth was, it was a base fraud—a snare to trap the unwary—chaff to catch fledglings with. They had no English-murdering clerk. They trusted to the sign to inveigle foreigners into their lairs, and trusted to their own blandishments to keep them there till they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of entrance reappears in the more artistic house of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, where the rooms are entered by means of a trap-door in the roof, the descent being made by a ladder. The "immense aboriginal population" of California, claimed by Mr. Powers, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... than their share, especially when the millionaire shirks his duty by paying his taxes elsewhere. What can the man with limited income do but avoid the responsibility of a family? Has he a moral right to bring unhappiness to his wife and two children? Having been caught in the trap, why give him all the blame if he tries to increase his ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... withering fire of chain-shot from cannon and culverin, of slighter missiles from falcon and bastard and saker, caliver and harquebus. The trench, dug in a half-circle, either end touching the tunal, made with the space it enclosed, and which was now crowded by the English, an iron trap, into which with thunder and flame the Spanish ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... lord lieutenant is taking some notice of the Hamleys at last. The election is coming on, is it? But I can tell him we're not to be got so easily. I suppose this trap is set for you, Osborne? What's this you've been writing that the French mounseer is so ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Jane and hers next, and Shefford last. They followed the Indian, picking their steps swiftly, looking nowhere except at the stone under their feet. The right side of the chasm was rimmed, the curve at the head crossed, and then the real peril of this trap had to be faced. It was a narrow slant of ledge, doubling back parallel with ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... myself now in my own trap. Now what shall I do about the letter? If I were to run off?—but then I might just as well not have come. Shall I show it to him? If I could only warn Rosina beforehand! To show ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... me a countryman?—we may boast that we have fought out our preferment, and gained that by the sword which we had not money to compass otherwise. The English are a wise people. While they praise themselves, and affect to undervalue all other nations, they leave us, luckily, trap-doors and back-doors open, by which we strangers, less favoured by nature, may arrive at a share of their advantages. And thus they are in some respects like a boastful landlord, who exalts the value and flavour of his six-years-old mutton, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a grave celerity, leads the way up the stone steps on to the quay, and as speedily disappears down a sort of trap which gapes in the open street, in the immediate vicinity of the landing-place. Let him alone; Tom knows the way. We follow him down an almost perpendicular flight of stairs into a spirit kellar, and gratify Tom's little ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... horch! ging's trap trap trap, Als wie von Rosses Hufen; Und klirrend stieg ein Reiter ab, An des Gelnders Stufen. 100 Und horch! und horch! den Pfortenring Ganz lose, leise, klinglingling! Dann kamen durch ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... this one shall be a third-rate affair, just to get the Sunday over; and thus accumulate material for use in days when thoughts will not come so readily, and when the hand must write tremblingly and slow. Don't be misled by any clap-trap about the finer thing being to have the mental machine always equal to its task. You cannot have that. The mind is a wayward, capricious thing. The engine which did its sixty miles an hour to-day, may be depended on (barring accident) to do as much to-morrow. But it is by no means certain that ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... in vain endeavour to escape, being prevented by the hairs pointing inwards; and thus perish in the flower, whence its name of fly-eater. P. 411. in the Dypsacus is another contrivance for this purpose, a bason of water is placed round each joint of the stem. In the Drosera is another kind of fly-trap. See Dypsacus and Drosera; the flowers of Silene and Cucubalus are closed all day, but are open and give an agreeable odour in the night. See Cerea. See additional notes at ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... and murderers, and a good part of the other half by their helpers and confederates, all on the look-out for the good people from the country. To catch their victims with the greater certainty, there were trap-doors in the pavement of the most frequented streets, which, when touched, let the wayfarer down into a deep cellar, and into a kettle of boiling water, surrounded by cut-throats who made all escape from the kettle impossible. The assassins, having killed the unhappy victim, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... not a creature was to be seen in the streets. To reach up to the bell was what he did not like; to cry aloud for help would have availed him little; besides, how ashamed would he have been to be found caught in a trap, like an outwitted fox! How was he to twist himself through! He saw clearly that it was his irrevocable destiny to remain a prisoner till dawn, or, perhaps, even late in the morning; then the smith ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... be made a snare, and a trap, And a stumbling-block, and a recompense to them; (10)Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, And bow down ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... was a second time taken up into Heaven by Jupiter, when for his Entertainment he lifted up a Trap-Door that was placed by his Foot-stool. At its rising, there issued through it such a Din of Cries as astonished the Philosopher. Upon his asking what they meant, Jupiter told him they were the Prayers that were sent up to him from the Earth. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... keep him safely this time, so clapped him into a mouse-trap. There he was shut up for a whole week, when the King sent for him, forgave him for throwing down the furmenty, and ordered him new clothes, gave him a spirited mouse for a ...
— The History Of Tom Thumb and Other Stories. • Anonymous
... words, his parting charge! 'My son and daughter, me ye see no more; The happy hunting-grounds await me, green With change of spring and summer through the year: But, for remembrance, after I am gone, Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake: Weakling he is and young, and knows not yet To set the trap, or draw the seasoned bow; 10 Therefore of both your loves he hath more need, And he, who needeth love, to love hath right; It is not like our furs and stores of corn, Whereto we claim sole title by our toil, But the Great ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... most unworldly people to visit, we fancy some of our Protestant friends will say; but we saw nothing very agonising or dreadful—not even in the confessionals. Like other folk we had heard grim tales about, such places—about trap doors, whips, manacles, and all sorts of cruel oddities; but in the confessionals visited we beheld nothing of any of them. Number one is a very small apartment, perhaps two yards square, with a seat and a couple of sacred pictures in it. In front there ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... revelled in anything venturesome or bizarre. The Camellia Buds did as she decreed, and resigned the courts that afternoon to Bertha, Mabel, Elsie, Ruth, Rosamonde, Winnie, Monica, and Callie, who fell readily into the trap prepared for them. Leaving this double set busy at tennis they fled to the opposite end ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Think only that if some single law enacted by God were at once repealed, that of attraction or affinity or cohesion, for example, the whole material world, with its solid granite and adamant, its veins of gold and silver, its trap and porphyry, its huge beds of coal, our own frames and the very ribs and bones of this apparently indestructible earth, would instantaneously dissolve, with all Suns and Stars and Worlds throughout all ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... whisper; and he looked at Joan with incredulity and hatred. "You——" he used some Spanish word which Joan did not catch. It would have told her little if she had caught it. It was "Cabron," a harmless, inoffensive word which has become in Spain the ultimate low word of abuse. "You have laid a trap for me." ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... are the bait which will catch many trusting boys in the examination trap. Remember my answers, and you ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... quietly over to Central Park West, and flagged a taxi heading downtown. He'd expected to run into one of the roving muggers who still made the Park a trap for the unwary—he'd almost looked forward to it, in a way—but nobody appeared. It was unusual, but he didn't have time to ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... quietly settled in Venice he "meant to write." Already nascent in her breast was the fierce resolve of the author's wife to defend her husband's privacy and facilitate his encounters with the Muse. It was abominable, simply abominable, that Ellie Vanderlyn should have drawn her into such a trap! ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... Knottingly. From Knottingly we did not see clearly how to reach Featherstone, and were greatly embarrassed, when a coachman, who had just driven his master to the station, foresaw the possibility of a handsome tip, and offered to take us—without luggage—in his trap. It was pitch dark, he had no lamps, the road was all ruts, and the horse flew along like mad. We only held to our seats—or rather kept resuming them, in a succession of bumps, now on one side, now on the other, and up in the air—by grasping the sides of the trap ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... most astonishing!) nothing happened. The net outcome of all this fuss and fluster was precisely nil. With the collapse of the flimsy structure of prejudice and suspicion in which Manvers had sought to trap Iff, the interest of all concerned seemed to simmer off into apathy. Nobody did anything helpful, offered any useful suggestion or brought to light anything illuminating. Staff couldn't understand it, for the life ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... tail in escaping from a steel trap. When he began to go about again, he found that every one looked down upon or laughed at him. Not liking this, he thought to himself that if he could persuade the other foxes to cut off their tails, his own loss would not be ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... feelings towards Larssen, returned hurriedly in order to trap her? What did he know? ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... ballast, from such impossibilities as destroy every illusion as to the life import of a play, they would still be entitled to our gratitude and the gratitude of posterity. But they have done more. Out of the confusion of trap doors, secret passages, folding screens, they have led us into the light of day, of undisguised events, with their simple distinct outlines. In this light, the man of the heap gains in life force, importance and depth. The stage no longer offers ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... won't kill 'em, an' I don't think it hurts 'em much," said the captain, thoughtfully. "Maybe we can rig up some sort of trap that will do the work without killin' 'em. It's time for bed, now, lads, but think it over and, perhaps, we can hit on some scheme. Had we better take turns at keeping ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Ishmael. "I think he is entitled to heavy damages. It was criminal carelessness in Sarsfield & Company to leave their cellar grating in that unsafe condition for weeks, to the great peril of the passers-by. It was a regular trap for lives and limbs. And this poor laborer, passing over it, has fallen and lamed himself for life! And he has a large family depending upon him for support. I have laid the damages at ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... guerillo leaders was a Catholic priest called Padre Juarata. He seemed to be everywhere at once, and notwithstanding his party was frequently met by the Americans, sometimes surrounded and always beaten, yet the Padre adroitly managed to get out of every trap and escape. Being a priest, he was always ready and willing to administer the last rites of the Church ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... had reached the outskirts of the wood, he heard from a thicket a cry as of some one in pain. And forgetting his own sorrow he ran back to the place, and saw there a little Hare caught in a trap that some hunter had ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... of my heart effectually prevented any articulation. The window had been closed on account of a high wind blowing, or I fancy I should have gone out that way. However, I grabbed up a rifle, and then opening a trap door, dropped down into a little cubbyhole under the floor, where we used to keep our batteries. What I brought the rifle along for I can't say, unless it was to blow the top of my own head off. The place was like a bake-oven and all the ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the carriage door. But what of that?—PESTE! I am heavy with sleep. The same obscurity also hides the old familiar indecencies of the statues on the terrace; but there is a door, and it opens and shuts behind me smartly. Then I find myself in a trap, in the presence of the brigand who has quietly gagged poor Andre and conducted the carriage thither. There is nothing for me to do, as a gallant French Marquis, but to say, "PARBLEU!" draw my rapier, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... of Thames Darrell lying where he had left it; but, on examining it, he remarked that the pockets were turned inside out, and had evidently been rifled. Startled by this circumstance, he looked around, and perceived that the trap-door,—which has been mentioned as communicating with a secret staircase,—was open. He, next, discovered that Blueskin was gone; and, pursuing his scrutiny, found that he had carried off all the banknotes, gold, and letters,—including, what Jonathan himself was not aware ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... English and their allies, and to appeal once more to the God of Battles ere they accepted the inevitable. When the whole truth flashed across the mind of Mr. Parkes, the army of Sir Hope Grant might be, and indeed was, marching into the trap prepared for it, with such military precautions perhaps as a wise general never neglected, but still wholly unprepared for the extensive and well-arranged opposition planned for its reception by a numerous army established in ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... was fully ripe. Sir Giles, however, had no apprehensions of any such result in his case. Like a sly fox, or rather like a crafty wolf, he was too confident in his own cunning and resources to fear being caught in such a trap. ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... life no single detail of it would ever be forgotten. Its characteristics had been stamped upon her as familiarly as if the hours passed in it had been years. And yesterday was years ago, when the poor silly fool that had been Diana Mayo had ridden blindly into the trap from which her boasted independence had not been able to save her. She had paid heavily for the determination to ignore the restrictions of her sex laid upon her and the payment was not yet over. Her tired body shrank from the struggle that must recommence so soon. If he would only ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... citadels of the earth, where the great battles of freedom and civilisation have been fought, were all untold ages previously the centres of violent plutonic disturbances. Edinburgh Castle, enthroned on its trap-rock, once the centre of a volcano, is associated with the most stirring and important events in the history of Scotland; Stirling Castle rises on its trap-rock erupted by volcanic action above a vast plain, across which a hundred battles have ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... Algebraical category, are quite easy. Yet some of those examples that look the simplest should not be passed over without a little consideration, for now and again it will be found that there is some more or less subtle pitfall or trap into which the reader may be apt to fall. It is good exercise to cultivate the habit of being very wary over the exact wording of a puzzle. It teaches exactitude and caution. But some of the problems are very ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... twelve more were aboard one of the vessels of which the gun-brigs were in chase. "Of the remainder, monsieur," he said, "there are but fourteen, beside myself, who are fit for duty. The others, including Captain Le Mesurier, have either been killed outright or severely wounded in the murder-trap which that dastardly transport of yours set for us. It was a base, cowardly act of theirs to permit us to approach them within biscuit-toss, and then shoot us ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... my brother, generous and noble as he seemed, when your trials were over, was a strange wicked young fellow; and happy it was for you both, that he was so cleverly caught in the trap he had laid for ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson |
