"Trick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... without any good reason, rather sceptical about Prof. Buckman's experiment, and I afterwards heard that a most wicked and cruel trick had been played on him by some of the agricultural students at Cirencester, who had sown seeds unknown to him in his experimental beds. Whether he ever knew this I did ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... but I should like to tell you one thing. When a man plans a startling trick of this kind and has the courage to accomplish it entirely of his own accord, he must have the courage to accept the sole responsibility of the blunders he may commit. You are too clever; you want to discover some ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... bird is in her manner. There's something tranquilly alert in her manner that's like a bird; like a bird that lingers on its perch, looking at you over its shoulder, if you come up behind. That trick of the heavily lifted, half lifted eyelids,—I wonder if it's a trick. The long lashes can't be; she can't make them curl up at the edges. Blood,—Lurella Blood. And she wants to ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... how it was done, he preferred-just like Manabozho-to deceive his grandmother, in order to learn what he wanted by a trick. "Noko," said he, "while I take my drum and rattle, and sing my war songs, do you go and try to get me some larger heads, for these you have brought me are all of the same size. Go and see whether the old man is not willing to ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... hopeless place wherein to seek a wife, and Richard had no such thought. But who shall tell how and when and where his fate will overtake him? Who is to know when Satan—or a more benevolent spirit—will be hiding behind the hedge to play good folk a marriage trick? And Richard had been warned. Once, in Calcutta, price one rupee, a necromancer after fullest reading of the signs informed him that when he met the woman who should make a wife to him, she would come upon him suddenly. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the Red Sea. And I do not suppose I shall be able to look seriously at either "Animal Kingdom" or "Anthropology" before the address is done with. And all depends on the centre of my microcosm—intestinum colon—which plays me a trick ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... saved Francis from being thrown (I've turned that trick many a time in pictures) I felt that I had in a way repaid Mrs. Kingdon for her hospitality. You were so homey and nice that night, I almost 'fessed up. I did my best to make you care more—and I thought I had succeeded; but ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... principle of selection which has been already insisted upon. He will depend upon this for removing what would otherwise be painful or disgusting in the passion; he will feel that there is no necessity to trick out or to elevate nature: and, the more industriously he applies this principle, the deeper will be his faith that no words, which his fancy or imagination can suggest, will be to be compared with those which are the emanations of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... Constitutional Convention adopted this provision. But the members had scarcely gone to their homes before the people discovered how they had been duped. The amendment barred the State from giving loans, but (and here was the trick) it did not forbid counties and municipalities from doing so. Thereupon the railroad capitalists proceeded to have laws passed, and bribe county and municipal officials all over the State to issue bonds and to give them terminal sites and other valuable privileges for nothing. In every ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... in these respects. And as this is usually not given for the purpose, very few demonstrations, so-called, in Strategy, effect the object for which they are designed. In fact, it is dangerous to detach large forces for any length of time merely for a trick, because there is always the risk of its being done in vain, and then these forces are wanted at the ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... she detect horror or loathing. He had tried to save her from being further humiliated before his mother, but there was no hatred or contempt in his eyes, when he realised that she had been unmasked by a trick. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... again. This time we did not heave to, as on the night before, but endeavored to beat to windward under close-reefed topsails, balance-reefed trysail, and fore top-mast staysail. This night it was my turn to steer, or, as the sailors say, my trick at the helm, for two hours. Inexperienced as I was, I made out to steer to the satisfaction of the officer, and neither Stimson nor I gave up our tricks, all the time that we were off the Cape. This ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... I," replied Mr. Kerrigan. "Say, we know a trick that beats that next-year business ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... admiration, who, having concealed their master in the house, took the body of one of the slain, cut off the head, put a gold ring on the finger, and showed it to Marius's guards, and buried it with the same solemnity as if it had been their own master. This trick was perceived by nobody, and so Cornutus escaped, and was conveyed by his domestics ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... wife, after that his third visit was o'er, and speaking to Keren as she sat spinning i' th' door-way, "Happuch," saith she, "thou art serving thy cousin Ruth a very jade's trick." ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... may yet be broken off. Oh, Lonny, I never thought your uncle was so artful. His trip to Florida was only a trick to put us ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... any rate, they teach in brief lessons. Each flight for instruction is limited to about five minutes. At first the student operates in a "penguin"—a machine which will run swiftly along the ground but cannot rise. It is no easy trick at first, to control the "penguin" and keep its course direct. Then he will try the "jumps" in a machine that leaps into the air and descends automatically after a twenty to forty yards' flight. As Darius Green expressed it so long ago, the trouble about flying comes when you want to alight. ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... after his arrest Nick Ellhorn was released on bail. He came out thoroughly sobered, and when he learned what had been the result of his drunken trick his vocabulary of abusive epithets ran dry in his ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... "It's a woman's trick, that," he muttered to himself, "staring into the water when trying to see the country of the Sidhe, and unworthy of a warrior. And to think of him doing it, who used to have the clearest sight, and had more power for wonder-working than anyone ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... a grateful, happy woman she might be! Was it possible (if she made the confession) to trust to her own good conduct to plead her excuse? No! Her calmer sense warned her that it was hopeless. The place she had won—honestly won—in Lady Janet's estimation had been obtained by a trick. Nothing could alter, nothing could excuse, that. She took out her handkerchief and dashed away the useless tears that had gathered in her eyes, and tried to turn her thoughts some other way. What was it Lady Janet had ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... is!" laconically answered the carpenter, whose trick it was at the wheel, obeying the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... In dislodging the offending garment from the chimney they nearly wrecked that ornamental structure. As soon as Shank saw what was the matter, he at once announced that "that —— —— had done it. He had played that trick on him once before, when he was getting dinner." From this and other remarks that were made, I thought it prudent to withhold all further co-operation. Toward evening the entertainment came to a close. This was hastened by unfavorable rumors from regimental headquarters. After ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... good sense to an extraordinary degree. All great points in fact, were settled rather by sober appeals to reason than by intrigue or lobbying; and one cannot help thinking that an Athenian of the time of Perikles would have regarded with pitying contempt the trick of the "previous question." And this explains the undoubted pre-eminence of Athenian oratory. This accounts for the fact that we find in the forensic annals of a single city, and within the compass of a single century, such names as Lysias, Isokrates, Andokides, Hypereides, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Although the Hollanders had not yet disembarrassed their minds of the supernatural theory of government, and felt still the reverence of habit for regal divinity, they naturally considered themselves outraged by the trick now played before them. The man who had violated all his oaths, trampled upon all their constitutional liberties, burned and sacked their cities, confiscated their wealth, hanged, beheaded, burned, and buried alive their innocent brethren, now ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... long time. Then he shrugged and gave it up. He'd repeated to absolute tedium the facts that any Darians—blueskins—on Orede ought to know. There'd been no answer. And it was all too likely that if he'd been received, that those who heard him took his message for a trick to discover ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... escape would be impossible. Being much acquainted with the people of that part of the town, I was invited to join the company, and accordingly drove in seasonably for the purpose. Certainly, most sober people believed the whole was but some trick, which it only needed reasonable pains to discover and defeat. The mysterious figure, it seemed, continued to walk, ignorant of or indifferent to ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... 'It was a silly trick, girls,' said Mrs Macintyre when the tale had come to an end, 'and Hollyhock suffered, because the daughter of the Earl of Crossways very nearly broke her jaw. Well, I 'm here to do my duty. Leucha has had to explain. Another girl would have taken what occurred simply as ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... deceptive power of the art is really felt to be a source of interest and amusement. This is the case with a large number of the collectors of Dutch pictures. They enjoy seeing what is flat made to look round, exactly as a child enjoys a trick of legerdemain: they rejoice in flies which the spectator vainly attempts to brush away,[46] and in dew which he endeavours to dry by putting the picture in the sun. They take it for the greatest compliment to ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... did me a great service. I met the lady after all, but if I had received the note I would not have gone, and she would have waited for me. Do you mind telling me the name of the individual who tried to play me the trick?" ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... the flow and continuity of his measure, offers, as has been said, the greatest contrast to Pope's system of versification; yet wherever he seeks to be nervous, his modulation reminds one more of Pope's antithetical trick than of Shakspere's or Milton's freer structure. For instance ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the richer parts of the middle and south, is so desperately unprosperous as to endanger a political constitution. Under our stupidily [Transcriber: sic] centralized system, Irishmen have no doubt acquired the enervating trick of attributing every misfortune, great or small, public or private, to the Government. When they learn the lessons of responsibility, they will unlearn this ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... into a terrible passion. "Cheated for once in my life! sold, if ever a fellow was! it's a regular trick that was played! They wanted to get rid of their beggar's brat, and palmed her off upon me, with that humbug story of the nabob of an uncle. I'll nabob her! And there's her ticket, which I was fool enough to pay for, and the ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... theist: I think it is unworthy of the Eternal to make our obedience to his will, depend on what M. Coue calls a trick or mechanical ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... reconcile this new dream of mine with my college projects. I was again performing the trick of eating the cake and having it. I would picture myself building up a great cloak business and somehow contriving, at the same time, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... cure some trivial bad habit, some trick of your fingers, for instance? You know what infinite pains and patience and time it took you to do that, and do you think that you would find it easier if you once set yourself to cure that lust, say, or that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... trick of coming to the manse on plausible errands to Mrs. Danby and lingering until it was so dark that Alan was in courtesy bound to see her home. The ruse was a little too patent and amused Alan, although he carefully hid his amusement ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... mean a trick, and as big a shame as I've ever seen," she said, hotly. "You know I was brought up with this, and I never looked at it with the eyes of a stranger before. If ever I get my fingers on those deeds, I'll make ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... would play "Old Kentucky Home" on the piano till the china shepherdesses danced with the vibrations, and the genial captain, growing reminiscent, would recall the story of the man he had arrested in old Mexico, or even condescend to do a new trick with a handkerchief. There was a curious picture from Japan in a gilt frame that had the place of honor over the piano. It was painted on a plaque of china, robin's-egg blue, inlaid with bits of pearl,—which represented boats or something on the Inland Sea, while ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... parliamentary power. It is different in an Empire like Russia, with its murderous dynastic antecedents. There, the personal character of the princely personages is of the utmost importance; for a youthful freak or hideous trick may point to a coming horrible event. In olden times, previous to the Tatar dominion, Russia passed through the so-called Appanage Period of Separate Principalities, when the Empire was actually partitioned. The feuds which then tore the various branches of the Rurik family greatly facilitated ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... himself; so he contrived to button a leathern bag inside his coat, and slipped the hasty-pudding into this bag, while he seemed to put it into his mouth. When breakfast was over, he said to the giant, "Now I will show you a fine trick; I can cure all wounds with a touch; I could cut off my head one minute, and the next put it sound again on my shoulders: you shall see an example." He then took hold of the knife, ripped up the leathern bag, and all the hasty-pudding tumbled ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... now familiar in England, but which he certainly performed in a wonderful way: because, you see, he had not the advantage of doing his tricks on a stage fitted up by himself, he did them in the street, or in my courtyard, with very little apparatus, and naked to the waist. For instance, the common trick of bringing a glass bowl full of water and fish out of a seemingly empty shawl is not so marvellous if the conjurer has a well-draped table near him from behind which he can get such things, or even good wide sleeves to hide them in. But my poor conjurer ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Prince, in rather an injured tone, "you keep me waiting long enough, I hope, when I only came to teach you a droll trick." ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... Nor murdering hate, can enter in. All is now secure and fast; Not the gods can shake the Past; Flies-to the adamantine door Bolted down forevermore. None can reenter there,— No thief so politic, No Satan with a royal trick Steal in by window, chink, or hole, To bind or unbind, add what lacked, Insert a leaf, or forge a name, New-face or finish what is packed, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... write, and they was to be pulled up agin. Hank, he says all right, and they done it. But jest as Hank was making his mark on the leaf of the book, that preacher done what I has always thought was a mean trick. He was lying on the floor with his head and shoulders into that hole as fur as he could, holding a lantern way down into it, so as Hank could see. And jest as Hank made that mark he spoke some words over ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... swept over him as he listened. Every taunt witnessed to his power, every reproach to her love. He played a trick indeed and a part, but there was no trick and no acting in so far as he was her lover. If that truth could not redeem his deception, it stifled all sense ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... think that his eyes must be playing him some curious trick, for the figure at which he was staring remained strangely still and motionless. Was it possible that his mind, dwelling constantly on Flossy, had evoked her wraith? But, no, looking up in startled silence at the still figure standing ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... here and there. These efforts of hers seemed to him at first random and isolated, and he watched with interested expectancy for the light-giving result as a child might watch the preparations for an elaborate conjuring trick. Eventually he began to see, with a pleased sort of surprise, that the floating set of relations entered into by Cleo was assuming recognisable shape as ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the door after him which leads up the winding staircase, he met Mansouri in the street. He did not wait to be questioned respecting the fate of the horrid object, but at once attacked the slave concerning the trick, as he called it, which had been put ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... "Here's the trick they played me at the last town," said Lyaeus agitating his bag of figs. "Let's eat some. I'm sure the Spartans ate figs on the road. Will Rosinante,—I mean will your horse eat them?" He put his hand with some figs on it under the horse's mouth. ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... Then, wildly, "Oh, man! why did you let me? This trick of yours—it's the knowledge of good and evil; it's the forbidden fruit. Why ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... weary of her vigils; they did not prove satisfactory. She changed her tactics. She now tried the trick of accusing my master of crime, in my presence, and gave my name as the author of the accusation. To my utter astonishment, he replied, "I don't believe it; but if she did acknowledge it, you tortured her into exposing me." Tortured into exposing ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... attempt which little Mozart made at the special request of the emperor, to play with the keys covered by a piece of cloth, was also a brilliant success. It was, perhaps, owing to the imperial fancy that this species of artistic trick obtained considerable celebrity, and played a not unimportant part in the little 'sorcerer's' repertoire on all his long journeys. Wolfgang entered readily into any joke that was made with him, but sometimes ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... Stewart, as is talked; and that he [the Duke] by a wile did fetch her to the Beare, at the Bridge-foot, where a coach was ready, and they are stole away into Kent, without the King's leave; and that the King hath said he will never see her more; but people do think that it is only a trick. This day I saw Prince Rupert abroad in the Vane-room, pretty well as he used to be, and looks as well, only something appears to be under his periwigg on the crown of his head. So home by water, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... wall behind him, and he turned and touched it almost caressingly. "I ain't let go like this since he was killed, Sinnet. It don't do. I got to keep myself stiddy to do the trick when the minute comes. At first I usen't to sleep at nights, thinkin' of Clint, an' missin' him, an' I got shaky and no good. So I put a cinch on myself, an' got to sleepin' again—from the full dusk to dawn, for Greevy wouldn't take the trail at night. I've kept stiddy." He ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... the Brazilian diamond, although it is now well known to be equal in every respect to its Indian brother. The Dutch, who then farmed the Brazilian diamond-mines from the crown of Portugal, met this trick of trade by another. They dug their diamonds in Brazil, brought them to Holland, and cut them, then sent them to India, from whence they returned to Europe as true Oriental jewels. We may add, that the anticipations of the dealers were not verified ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... fellow no feeling of his business—he sings at grave-making!" He made no allusion to the evidence which had been adduced, but he spoke of INFORMALITY. I trembled with alarm and anger. I had often heard and read of justice defeated by such a trick of trade; but I prayed that such dishonour and public shame might not await her now. Informality! Surely we had heard of the cold-blooded cruelty, the slow and exquisite torture, the final deathblow; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... astonishing stage-trick is not to be found. And yet his conduct is seen, upon a nearer examination, to be grounded both in reason and in kindness. He was now about to embark on a solid worldly career; he had taken a farm; the affair with Clarinda, however gratifying to his heart, was too contingent to offer any great ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... once heard the phenomenon of the vanishing rope trick discussed at some length between a number of clever people. She had paid very little attention to what had been said at the time, but she now strained her memory to recapture the sense of the words which had been uttered. One of the men present, a distinguished scientist, had actually seen the trick ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... ahead next day. The Wabash River could scarcely soothe his ruffled complacence. And never an inch of the Wabash River have I seen that was not beautiful and restful to the eye. It flows limpidly between varying banks, and has a trick of throwing up bars and islands, wooded to the very edges—captivating places for any tiny Crusoe to be wrecked upon. Skiffs lay along the shore, and small steamers felt their way in the channel. ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... which we lay, and plucking it off again with an oath. "I tell you it's 'ot," says he; and I was amazed at the clipping tones and the odd sing-song in which he spoke, and no less at that strange trick of dropping out the letter "h." To be sure, I had heard Ransome; but he had taken his ways from all sorts of people, and spoke so imperfectly at the best, that I set down the most of it to childishness. My surprise was ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... than I knew how to think of, for the truth of it was, that thinking of it sometimes almost distracted me, for want of knowing how to dispose of it, and for fear of losing it all again by some cheat or trick, not knowing anybody that I could commit the trust of ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... down next time you stop," said Bobbie, firmly, though her heart beat fiercely against her arm as she clasped her hands, "and lend me the money for a third-class ticket, I'll pay you back—honour bright. I'm not a confidence trick like in ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... the ubiquitous Grafton went on as though the little trick of thought-reading were too unimportant ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... them, if the civil war, as Angelica called it, was being waged as actively as ever between herself and Evadne upon the all-important point—and that made me think of Evadne herself. I had banished her name from my mind for weeks, but now some inexplicable trick of the brain suddenly set her before me as I oftenest saw her, sitting at work in the wide west window overlooking the road, and glancing up brightly at the sound of my horse's hoofs or carriage wheels as I rode or drove past, to salute me. A lady ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... glory, to be made a curse, And that in sinners' room, 8. If nothing should by us be had When we are gone from hence, But vanities, while here? O mad And foolish confidence. 9. Again, shall God, who is the truth, Say there is heaven and hell And shall men play that trick of youth To say, But who can tell? 10. Shall he that keeps his promise sure In things both low and small, Yet break it like a man impure, In matters great'st of all? 11. O, let all tremble at that thought, That puts on God ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Miss; maybe he bites," warned the anxious conductor. "I wager this is some boy's trick to ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... originally began. One or two newspapers with an ethical turn, which had borrowed from the pulpit a trick of improving the sensational events of the day for the edification of their readers, and which possessed a happy knack of writing about anything and anybody without perpetrating a libel or incurring a charge of contempt of court, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... not unlike Loo, but with this difference, the winner of one trick has to put in a double stake, the winner of two tricks a triple stake, and so on. Thus, if six persons are playing, and the general stake is 1s., suppose A gains the three tricks, he gains 6s., ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... retired from the stage of her own accord. At the age of thirty she saw that she was growing somewhat stouter, and she had tried pantomime without success. Her whole art consisted in the trick of raising her skirts, after Noblet's manner, in a pirouette which inflated them balloon-fashion and exhibited the smallest possible quantity of clothing to the pit. The aged Vestris had told her at the very beginning that ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... these were sinister incidents; but they were trifles compared to what Jurgis saw with his own eyes before long. One curious thing he had noticed, the very first day, in his profession of shoveler of guts; which was the sharp trick of the floor bosses whenever there chanced to come a "slunk" calf. Any man who knows anything about butchering knows that the flesh of a cow that is about to calve, or has just calved, is not fit for food. A good many of these came every day to the packing houses—and, of course, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... this country, when the majority of the people will be ready to introduce substantial reform and take away the privileges of the profiteering class by constitutional, legal methods, these self-same profiteering interests will take offense and try to play some trick upon the people, and in that case it is possible—as a matter of prophecy, not as a matter of program, so far as we are concerned—that the people of this country will be compelled to supplement their political action ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... not succeed in this ambition. There really was not time for him to learn the trick, for the next morning, very early, the Bunker family started for the boat. The snowstorm had long since ceased, and the streets had been cleaned. William had recovered from his attack of neuralgia and drove them in the big closed car to the dock ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile—her look—her way Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"— For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
... as this that Dayson really lived, with all the force of his mediocrity. George Cannon was not a journalist; he could compose a letter, but he had not the trick of composing an article. He felt, indeed, a negligent disdain for the people who possessed this trick, as for performers in a circus; he certainly did not envy them, for he knew that he could buy them, as a carpenter buys tools. His attitude was that of the genuine ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... was simply to gain money upon false pretences—by exciting more pity than would otherwise have been bestowed on her had she begged for herself alone, without a child in her arms. At first she had carried the baby about to serve as a mere trick of her trade, but the warm feel of its little helpless body against her bosom day after day had softened her heart toward its innocence and pitiful weakness, and at last she had grown to love it with a strange, intense passion—so much that ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... you odds you'll be back here year after next," grinned the Captain. "You'll want to visit your pal—that trick ostrich." ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... at the remarkable change in the condition of business and the feelings of the people, and at the evidences of prosperity not only in the workshops but on the farms. It was jokingly said that the revival of industries and peace and happiness was a shrewd political trick of the Republicans to carry the state. As I rode through the country I saw for miles and miles luxuriant crops of thousands of acres of wheat, corn, oats and barley. It was said that this was merely a part of the campaign strategy of the Republicans, that really the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... sight, what is a trick, no trick is mountainous and the color, all the rush is in ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... in, his strong, determined, finely cut features illumined by a cheery smile. He had squared things with himself while he had been dressing: "Hard lines, Henry, isn't it?" he had asked of himself, a trick of his when he faced any disaster like the present. "Better get Ruth off somewhere, Henry, don't you think so? Yes, get her off to-morrow. The little girl can't stand everything, plucky as she is." It was this last thought of his daughter ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... it was time for Myles to go. He lingered for a while before he took his final leave, leaning against the door-post, and laughingly telling how he and some of his brother squires had made a figure of straw dressed in men's clothes, and had played a trick with it one night upon a watchman against whom they ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... wherefore. Any fool can a put down his five nothings; but a's a clever kinchin an a can place a so much as a I afore 'em. Whereof the first frost that brings a white crow may, in sitch a case, behappen to shew him his betters. For why? A's a got wherewithall to get more: and a knows the trick on't too, or a would a never a got so much. Whereby an it comes to a huff an a gruff, a may not chuse to be arm a kimbo'd, any more nur another; for a may be happen to have a Rowland for an Oliver. A may behappen to be no Jack-a-farthin weazle-faced whipster. A may ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... sheriff gents is two weeks squanderin' about gettin' witnesses; an' all to as much trouble an' loss of time an' dinero as would suffice to round-up the cattle of Cochise county. Enright an' the Stranglers would have turned the trick in twenty minutes an' never left the New York Store ontil with Silver Phil an' a lariat they reepairs to the windmill to put the finishin' ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... shafts, as was natural, faced the wrong way, but provided all the front line shelter in this sector. At one end, its left, the trench ran into chalk (as well as some chalk and plenty of mud into it!) and its flank disappeared, by a military conjuring trick, into the air. About 600 yards away the Germans were supposed to be consolidating, which meant that they were feverishly scraping, digging and fitting timbers in their next lot of dug-outs. To get below ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... she bought her paper and crayons, and who lived at the corner of the Rue de Clery. She gave him two children's heads which she had drawn from fancy, to ask their value. Buvat undertook the commission without suspecting any trick, and executed it with his ordinary naivete. The dealer, accustomed to such propositions, turned them round and round with a disdainful air, and, criticising them severely, said that he could only offer fifteen francs each ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... snapped Smith. "If you will consult your recollections of the habits of wild-fowl you will see that this particular specimen was a RARA AVIS. It's an old trick, Petrie, but a good one, for it is used in decoying. A dacoit's head was concealed in that wild-fowl! It's useless. He has certainly made ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... its use in the writings of the contemporaries of Caffarelli and Farinelli and that master singers of their day were praised for the steadiness of their tones and the perfect smoothness of their style. He asserts also that vibrato is a trick invented after that day and out of place in ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... moment when he believed himself perfectly secure. Oh! His ruses were not of very great finesse and required very little talent; but by dint of considering and reconsidering the case, by dint of waiting patiently for the propitious opportunity to present itself, he finally would play some evil trick upon his comrades. So that ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... throw some day, friend," he was saying. "Had I not known the trick of it, you had mauled me sadly. I had liefer grapple ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... themselves at the trick Trouble had played, Janet, Teddy and Mr. Martin started for the home of Mr. Newton, which was three or four long streets away, toward ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... the search, looking under the seats in every nook and corner of the cars. If he was inside the train, it seemed that he must have the trick of invisibility to escape. At that moment, an idea came into Jim's mind suggested by ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... true himself, did not think that any trick was going to be played him. The other men joined him and his sons, with seeming goodwill, in getting out warps, and in heaving overboard some of the cargo. Thus they worked on till night stopped them. There was a promise of a ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... murmured the justice, as they seated themselves together in the pew, "that there is an order to-day. Whenever the assistant is so delighted and friendly, there is something wrong. They are certainly meditating some villanous trick against Frederick, and therefore our good ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... frequently hear of the tricks of the London cheats, and I daresay you have often enough witnessed those of mountebanks and gypsies. But, Jack, all the tricks of these deceivers and cheaters, if the trickery of them all were put together, would fall far short of the trick now playing off under the name of Savings Banks. And seeing that it is possible that you may be exposed to the danger of having a few pounds picked out of your pocket by this trick, I think it right to put you on your guard against ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... horsecoursers, and hostlers; for such is the subtle knavery of a great sort of them (without exception of any of them be it spoken which deal for private gain) that an honest-meaning man shall have very good luck among them if he be not deceived by some false trick or other. ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... her. She looked as if she were going to box her ears. Perhaps she was. Her trick of pretending things was the joy of her life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not fond of. Her new "pretend" about being a princess was very near to her heart, and she was shy and sensitive about it. She had meant it to be rather a secret, and here was Lavinia deriding ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... about the defiant resolve not to utter the prescribed "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," whatever the refusal might cost. Nothing was so repulsive to him as singing the praises of the sacrifice of one's life. It was a juggler's trick to cry out that some one was dying while inside the booth murder was ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... insolence. Yet it would have been difficult to refuse forgiveness to those two feminine failings in her; for the lines that came out in her forehead whenever her face was not in repose, like her upward glances (that pathetic trick of manner), told unmistakably of unhappiness, of a passion that had all but cost her her life. A woman, sitting in the great, silent salon, a woman cut off from the rest of the world in this remote little valley, alone, with the memories of her brilliant, happy, and impassioned youth, ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... another cutout. He would then experiment with that second one, without endangering Gault. He'd be careful not to make this one thin and tall, so as not to resemble the Professor in outline. Perhaps with it, he could trick the Entity into releasing the missing ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer
... talked, the helmsman suddenly laughed and prodded Mr. Falk in the ribs with his thumb. Like a flash it came over me that it was Kipping's trick at the wheel. Here was absolute proof that, when the second mate and the mild man thought no one was spying upon them, they were on uncommonly friendly terms. Yet I did not dream that I had stumbled on anything graver than to confirm one ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... was all my smooth work that did the trick, for MacGregor had bought the place at a bargain first off, and now he was anxious to unload. Still, he hadn't been born north of Glasgow for nothing. But the figures Mr. Robert said would be about right I managed to shade by twenty ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... eyes. What a home-coming! Lucy, grown into a tall beautiful girl who had never forgotten him. He was shaken to his depths by the revelation that now came to him. He had always loved Lucy! Never anyone else, never knowing until this precious moment! What a glorious trick for life to play him. He held her, wrapped her closer, bent his face to her fragrant hair. It was dull gold now. Once it had been bright, shiny, light as the color of grass on the hill. He kissed it, conscious ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... who had led these lovers thus along, Played them a trick one windy night and cold: For Eginardus, as his wont had been, Crossing the quadrangle, and under dark,— No faint moonshine, nor sign of any star,— Seeking the Princess' door, such welcome found, The knight forgot his prudence in his love; For lying at her feet, her hands ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... people. I need every man-jack of the help and somebody says that Tommy has gone off with your lads. Tommy is small but he's the best bell-boy in the house and—I'll trounce him well when he gets back for serving me such a trick. Best get your dinner now, Judge, or I'll not promise you'll be able to later. Excuse me for urging, it's in your own interest, and—There comes another load from somewhere! and I haven't a room to give them. Cots in the parlor, if they choose, ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... "You go 'way from me you painted critter," and that clown he jist up and yelled to beat thunder—sed Nancy stuck a pin in him. Wall, everybody laffed, and Nancy she jist sot and giggled right out. Wall, they brought a trick mule into the ring, and the ring master sed he'd give any one five dollars what could ride the mule; and Ruben Hoskins alowed he could ride anything with four legs what had hair on. So he got into the ring, and that mule he took after Ruben and chased ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... the confusion of the one with empty word-spinning and of the other with hide-bound pedantry. Again, much of the modern rhythmical complexity strongly resembles, in essence, the machine-made experiments of mediaeval times; and the peculiarly fashionable trick of shifting identical chords up and down the scale—the clothes'-peg conception of harmony, so to speak—is a mere throw-back still farther, to Hucbald and the diaphony of a thousand years ago. And the insistence, ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... too, as well," he said lightly. "But never mind that. What I want to ask is: Why shouldn't I do, sir? I don't say but you could take a steamer about the world as well as any of us sailors. I don't pretend to tell you that it is a very great trick . . ." He emitted a short, hollow guffaw, familiarly . . . "I didn't make the law—but there it is; and I am an active young fellow! I quite hold with your ideas; I know your ways by this time, Mr. Massy. I wouldn't try to give myself airs ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... oysters," quoth old Dick; "and pray was it an honest trick of you to cabbage my young friend, Lieutenant Cringle there, as if you had been slavers kidnapping the Bungoes in the Bight of Biafra, and then to fire on and murder my people when sent in to ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... de Voltaire had reported, in his rallying manner, that the invitation was merely a trick which he had put upon Rousseau. Paoli told me that when he understood this, he himself wrote to Rousseau, enforcing the invitation. Of this affair I shall give a full account in an after ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... de Vincennes; or some other infernal nest of Gallic inventions to put down the just ascendency of old England! No—no—Dick Bluewater, your excellent, loyal, true-hearted English mother, never bore you to be a dupe of Bourbon perfidy and trick. I dare say she sickened at ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Lindorf started—every nerve was wrung with anguish. "Impossible," said he in a fright, "it cannot be; yet the voice appears the same." Here his tongue faltering, he ceased to speak. When he had somewhat recovered his recollection, he ejaculated, "In the name of God, do tell me who you are? Is it a trick, or do I dream?" "Neither," replied the unknown; and continued, in the same tone of voice, to describe several particulars relative to his family, and in what manner many things were placed in the drawers belonging to his deceased wife, which none but himself and the departed knew of. At length ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... was then in England, sent him a letter of consolation. He had been entertained by Pope at his table, where he talked with so much grossness that Mrs. Pope was driven from the room. Pope discovered, by a trick, that he was a spy for the Court, and never considered him as a man worthy of confidence. He soon afterwards (1727) joined with Swift, who was then in England, to publish three volumes of "Miscellanies," in ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... sooner be a hobo th'n anythin' else I know. In the first place, I'm not like 'Hatchet Ben,' I don't like work an' I don't do any unless I have to, an' then besides, there's more exercise for my talents in this business. If you think it isn't a trick to rustle grub for three hungry men, just you try it. An' while I've been on the road for nearly six years, I've never had a ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was landlord, and that if she would retire to her room and remain there quietly, all would come out right. The Doctor said I knew less about running a hotel than I did about medicine, or I never would have done such a trick as that. ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... little distance, she found herself at the edge of a bare, deep, dry ravine, steep on each side, almost so as to be impassable. The path only ran on the other side. There was another shout of exultation and laughter at the English girls' consternation. At this evident trick of the surly peasants, Maria shook all over, and burst into tears, and Bertha, gathering courage, turned to expostulate and offer a reward, but her horrible stammer coming on worse than ever, produced nothing ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by any reduction or analysis of Beowulf, to get rid of its stateliness of narrative; it would be impossible by any fusion or aggregation of the Eddic lays to get rid of their essential brevity. No accumulation of lays can alter the style from its trick of detached and abrupt suggestions to the slower and more ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... childish face and those of the old worldly scribes is well conceived, it is in reality so violent as to be grotesque, and the play of hands produces the effect of a diagram explanatory of a conjuring trick, or a deaf and dumb alphabet, instead of conveying the inner sense of the scene represented after Rossetti's fashion, who so often succeeded in making hands speak. Another work, which dates from Venice, is the little Crucifixion (at Dresden.) Perhaps the landscape and suffering body ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... thought of those helpless women being borne off into the horrors of captivity among the Indians, had conspired to rouse the paymaster to unlooked-for assertion of himself and his authority. In vain had Feeny begged him to think of his money, to remember that outlaws would resort to any trick to rob him of his guard, and might have even overpowered Wing and his party and then lighted the beacon. The chain of evidence, the straight story told by his morning visitor, the awful news contained in the pencilled note brought in by Mullan, were considerations ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... to have succeeded well in your case, anyhow," Herrara laughed. "Perhaps if it had not been for your playing that trick at the picnic you would never have taken command of that mob, and we should never have gone to Oporto, and my friends and your cousin would be there now—that is, if they had ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... spring like the wire eend of a bran' new pair of trouser galluses. One said, 'That's a plaguy nice lookin' colt that old feller has arter all.' 'That horse will show play for it yet,' says a third; and I heard one feller say, 'I guess that's a regular Yankee trick, a complete take in.' They had a fair start for it, and off they sot; father took the lead and kept it, and won the race, though it was a pretty tight scratch, for father was too old to ride colt, he was near about the matter of seventy ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... at which he stopped with an unheard-of luxury. On his departure, he paid the hosts in a princely manner; but scarcely was he out of sight, when the gold in the receiver's hand was changed to straw, or to round slices of gilded horn,—a shabby trick indeed, as he could have as much ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... addition to this, he wished to strike a blow to save the ladies from captivity, even if his blow should be unavailing. Even if he had known how matters were, he would probably have acted in precisely the same way. As for Dacres, he had but one idea. He was sure it was some trick concocted by his wife and the Italian, though why they should do so he did not stop, in his mad mood, to inquire. A vague idea that a communication had passed between them on the preceding evening with reference to this was now in his mind, ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... understand Giotto's drawing, and Botticelli's; Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if you see nothing in this sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, of theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern trick with marble—(and they often do)—whatever, in a word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but what is Florentine, and for ever great—unless you can see also the beauty of this old man in his ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... to teach me a trick or two," the old man said laughing boisterously. "I surely must guard my tongue, or the days of my earthly pilgrimage ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... moved him, when he became aware, as from age to age inquisitive youth by good luck does become aware, of the literature of his own day, confirming—more than confirming— [54] anticipation! Here was a poetry which boldly assumed the dress, the words, the habits, the very trick, of contemporary life, and turned them into gold. It took possession of the lily in one's hand, and projecting it into a visionary distance, shed upon the body of the flower the soul of its beauty. Things ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... of arguing for the existence of something about which there is often no dispute, and then introducing as the product of the argument something that has never been argued for at all. It is the philosophic analogue of the hat and omelette trick. ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... dangerous criminals. A form of crime favoured by the Takari, in common with many other criminal classes, is that of decoying into a secluded spot outside the village the would-be receiver of stolen property and robbing him of his cash—a trick which carries a wholesome lesson with it." [258] The chisel with which they chip the grindstones furnishes, as stated by Mr. D. A. Smyth, D.S.P., an excellent implement for breaking a hole through the mud ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... Bab was hoeing in a field and got in a squabble about something with a young gal name Polly, same name as his wife. After while he git so mad he reach up with his fingers and wet them on his tongue and point straight up and say, "Now you got a trick on you! Dere's a heavy trick on you now! Iffen you don't change your mind you going pass on before de sun ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... had any clubs. HER MAJESTY uttered in reply the one dreadful word, "Treason," thus avoiding with true statesmanship any direct answer to the question, and indicating clearly her opinion of his two-diamond call. The Keeper of the Privy Purse shot out a lean hand and gathered in the trick. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... many prisoners in this second fight of Toulgas. It was a trick of the Bolos to sham death until a searching party, bent on examining the bodies for information, would approach them, when suddenly they would spring to life and deliver themselves up. These said that only by this method could they escape the tyranny of the Bolsheviki. ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... "But why should you play such a cruel, and—and ungentlemanly trick on poor dad? If you had ever ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... passion is infinite, the hearts are finite. The deepest love must suffer this doom of isolation: plunged as they may be in one another, body and soul, in the very rapture is the sentence. The good minute goes. It shall be theirs again—again they shall trust it, again the thread be lost: "the old trick!" ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... falls, wounded apparently to death. Then Vittoria turns and tramples on him with her feet and tongue, taunting him in his death agony with the enumeration of his crimes. Her malice and her energy are equally infernal. Soon, however, it appears that the whole device was but a trick of Flamineo's to test his sister. The pistol was not loaded. He now produces a pair which are properly charged, and proceeds in good earnest to the assassination of Vittoria. But at this critical moment Lodovico and his masquers appear; brother and sister both die unrepentant, defiant to the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... ... and by seeking its destruction, thereby admits his not unwillingness that a similar fate should be visited on the Union, perhaps, to subserve his selfish purpose."[642] These attacks roused Douglas to vehement defiance. More emphatically than ever, he declared the Lecompton constitution "a trick, a fraud upon the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... pretend you don't know you've got it. I don't really like charm myself; too much of a trick about it. But whether or not, you've ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... lengthening line that lay prone on the stone flooring beside the train. There was not a jar, not an unnecessary motion. One great officer, very young, took the weight of the end as it came toward him, and lowered it with marvellous gentleness as the others took hold. He had a trick of the wrist that enabled him to reach up, take hold and lower the stretcher, without freeing his hands. He was marvellously strong, ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mystery of expression. Can she tell me anything? Is her life a complement of mine, with the missing element in it which I have been groping after through so many friendships that I have tired of, and through—Hush! Is the door fast? Talking loud is a bad trick in these curious boarding-houses. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... looked at him as though he was going to spring upon him in deadly combat—but that was only a peculiar facial trick of his. What he did do was to pour that last swallow of hot, black coffee down his throat and then laugh his big haw-haw-haw that could be ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... meeting. It is only necessary to add that when I arrived at Green Fancy I met Prince Ugo,—and understood! I had carefully covered my tracks after leaving Boston. My real friends were, and still are, completely in the dark as to my movements, so skilfully was the trick managed. I shall ask you directly, Mr. Barnes, to wire my friends in New York and in Halifax, acquainting them with my present whereabouts and safety. Now, that we know the jewels have been stolen again, that ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon |
