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Allusion   /əlˈuʒən/   Listen
Allusion

noun
1.
Passing reference or indirect mention.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Allusion" Quotes from Famous Books



... the tourney, must, if I am to take the author's word for it, have made the glaciers ring. There is a great deal in the way of philosophy and psychology that is very baffling in this book, but of one thing I feel certain, and that is that the Elemental Spirits of the Heights, to whom frequent allusion is made, must find the winter sports of a later age a sorry substitute for the rare old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various

... this confirmation of Graham's theory. There was a projection of cold fear, moreover, in its sly allusion. It gave to his memory of Paredes, with his tall, graceful figure, his lack of emotion, his inscrutable eyes, and his pointed beard, a suggestion nearly satanic. For the stealthy scraping had come from behind the closed door of the private staircase. Howells had gone up that staircase. ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp

... ladies and children may visit at all times unattended, without danger of encountering anything of an objectionable nature. The dramas introduced in the Lecture Room will never contain a profane expression or a vulgar allusion; on the contrary, their tendency will always be to encourage virtue and frown ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... history which is the occasion of this allusion is given in the quaint old English of Sir Thomas More, who thus describes the entrance to the Council of the terrible "Protector," from whom nothing good or sacred could be protected. He came "fyrste about IX of the clocke, saluting them curtesly, and excusing himself that he had been from ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... well discussed heere whether his hatred or her love exceeded. Her fayre long hayre did much offend the wanton's glancing eye." In this record we have no additional fact except the mention of "high noone day" as the time of the journey; for the allusion to "the wanton's glancing eye" is too vague to be interpreted of Peeping Tom, and the writer does not refer to any commemorative procession. It has been supposed, therefore, that the carnival times of Charles the Second both begot the procession ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... and a suit was begun against him. He replied with 'Areopagitica,' an, eloquent and noble argument against the licensing system and in favor of freedom of publication within the widest possible limits. (The name is an allusion to the condemnation of the works of Protagoras by the Athenian Areopagus.) In the stress of public affairs the attack on him was dropped, but the book remains, a ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... vary long spich," went on the orator, "as I know dat you all rather have de dance. Den I see, too, dat my friend Magloire Meloche, down dare, he look many time at de fiddle he brought and hang on de wall." This bantering allusion to the veteran fiddle-player of the district caused a hearty outburst ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... and made some allusion to the lateness of the hour. Somehow it seemed to her that her devoted friend was trying to hide his innermost thoughts from her. She watched him ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... The set smile of amiability was still fixed on the priest's smooth, shiny face; the cigar ashes had left grey streaks on the front of his cassock. He avoided Annixter, fearing, no doubt, an allusion to his game cocks, and took up his position back of the second rank of chairs by the musicians' stand, beaming encouragingly upon every one ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... from the armpits downward;—waists making us think of the short lady (in this set) with a very long one—Miss Price, only child of Alderman Price, chandler and dry-salter, of Candlewick ward—daughter and hair, as Mr. Lark jocosely observed, in allusion to the luxuriant red tresses of that lady;—saying her papa was the great crony of Sir Rich. Big, the free vintner, late of Portsoken ward, who was found, or rather not found—having evaporated of spontaneous combustion, before he could ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... prose and literalness are more tolerable in comedy than in tragedy; any violent passion, any overwhelming pain, if it is not to make us think of a demonstration in pathology, and bring back the smell of ether, must be rendered in the most exalted style. Metre, rhyme, melody, the widest nights of allusion, the highest reaches of fancy, are there in place. For these enable the mind swept by the deepest cosmic harmonies, to endure and absorb the shrill notes which would be ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... offered Miriam an escort when he found she was without a protector, in the most fatherly way; he must be a good man. She thanked him, but said "she felt perfectly safe on that road." He bit his lip, understanding the allusion, and did not insist. She was to deliver a message from parties in town to the first guerrillas they met, concerning the safest roads, and presently six met them, and entered into conversation. She ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... altered form of the epitaph, not only this passage, but every other containing an allusion to the low rank of his young companion, is omitted; while, in the added parts, the introduction of such ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... possession of his church and rectory all through the war, and went on with the service till he died, no man daring to meddle with him. But Otterbourne was sure to follow the fate of Hursley. The King's Head Inn at Hursley is thought to have been so called in allusion to the death of King Charles I. A strange ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Allusion has been made to what lawyers understand very well—the "conflict of laws." We are told that nothing but the Mississippi River runs between Saint Louis and Alton; and the conflict of laws somehow or other gives the citizens of the former a right to find fault with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... caught more and more the ear of a wide public, and in which, in casual-seeming parentheses and obiter dicta, Christianity and all practical religion were condemned by sly innuendo and half-respectful allusion by which he might "without sneering teach the rest to sneer." In 1838 he was still so far recognized in the ministry as to be invited to address the graduating class of the Harvard Divinity School. The blank pantheism which he ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... suggests some allusion to that large and annually increasing number of persons who visit the country. Their residence in Japan is usually of very limited duration, but, however short it may be, it is apparently quite long enough to enable them to form pronounced views upon many and varied matters connected with ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... moment, Isaac arrived, breathless with running, at the spot. When she saw him, the widow ceased speaking, and made no further allusion to the quarrel while he remained. However, she gladly accepted his offered assistance in lifting James, who lay gasping, and wellnigh dead. As they turned towards the house, John rose, sullenly, and wrapping a handkerchief ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... official notice of the slaughter. Percy Anderson was absolutely ignorant of what had happened, when he came to me on the following day. The fact, too, is significant, that the Washington journals, for whose net no incident is generally too small, made no allusion to the tragedy, till the Thursday morning; I presume silence was considered useless, when a member of our Legation must have been ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... the question to be decided by voting in some way or other. But the Missourians are awake, too. They are within a stone's-throw of the contested ground. They hold meetings and pass resolutions, in which not the slightest allusion to voting is made. They resolve that slavery already exists in the Territory; that more shall go there; that they, remaining in Missouri, will protect it, and that abolitionists shall be hung or driven away. Through all this bowie knives and six-shooters are seen plainly enough, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... tell that you are a very 'happy circumstance' yourself, and that I am quite satisfied with you as you are," answered the Colonel, bending another loving look upon the rosy, glowing face upturned to his, and which broke into dimples at the allusion to ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... day. I contrived to play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found the one subject to avoid was Fairyland. On everything else he was open and amiable in a commonplace sort of way, but on that he had been worried—it was a manifest taboo. Only once in the room did I hear the slightest allusion to his experience in his presence, and that was by a cross-grained farm hand who was losing to him. Skelmersdale had run a break into double figures, which, by the Bignor standards, was uncommonly good play. "Steady on!" said his adversary. "None of ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... This passion for matrimony (for with her it had so become, if not a disease) occupied her whole thoughts; but she attempted to veil them by always pre tending to be extremely sensitive and refined; to be shocked at any thing which had the slightest allusion to the "increase and multiply;" and constantly lamented the extreme fragility of her constitution; to which her athletic bony frame gave so determined a lie, that her hearers were struck dumb with the barefaced assertion. Miss Tavistock had kept up a correspondence ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... serve the interests of Greece without endangering her territorial integrity.[1] And as the Entente representatives at Athens expressed a certain disappointment at not finding in the communique any allusion to the Entente Powers,[2] M. Zographos, Minister for Foreign Affairs, in order to remove all uneasiness on that score, instructed the Greek representatives in London, Paris, and Petrograd to assure the respective Governments categorically ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... of claim upon the relations of my late brother; nor will I hurt your feelings by those moral reflections which at this season of sorrow cannot, I hope, fail involuntarily to force themselves upon you. Without more than this mere allusion to your peculiar connection with my brother, I may, however, be permitted to add that that connection tended very materially to separate him from the legitimate branches of his family; and in consulting with ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the younger sister soon fell asleep, after some light confidential chat, such as sisters only can have, there being in that connection the sensation of perfect safety, of the fellow-feeling of youth, and of that entire understanding of every thought and allusion, resulting from intimate intercourse from birth. But Clara was wakeful; she thought over the strange events of the preceding night, and the more she reflected, the more convinced she was of some plan on the part of the castellan, for she connected together ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... meaning of the term in later times. Nothing is yet said about the transformation of witches into other shapes, and there is no mention of a compact, implicit or otherwise, with the Devil; there is no allusion to the nocturnal meetings of the Devil's worshippers and to the orgies that took place upon those occasions; there is no elaborate and systematic theological explanation of human ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... in water": an allusion to Keats' request that the words "Here lies one whose name was writ in water" be his epitaph. The words are inscribed on his tomb in the Protestant Cemetery ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... upon you the force and sinew of the athletic Nicostratus [f]; do you imagine that I could look tamely on, and see that amazing vigour waste itself away in nothing better than the frivolous art of darting the javelin, or throwing the coit? To drop the allusion, I summon you from the theatre and public recitals to the business of the forum, to the tribunals of justice, to scenes of real contention, to a conflict worthy of your abilities. You cannot decline the challenge, for you are left without an excuse. You cannot say, with a number ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... in about equal parts, of classical allusion, quotation from the stable, simper from the scullery, cant from the clubs, and the technical slang of heraldry. We boasted much of ancestry, and admired the whiteness of our hands whenever the skin was visible through a fault in the grease and tar. Next to love, the vegetable kingdom, murder, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... not a single personal note in the whole thing, no reference to their flirtation of the early summer except the one allusion to the accident, no attempt to revive such frail ties as had existed between them, no reproaches to Ted for having broken these off so summarily. It was simply and exclusively a plea for help from one ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... should hold a Chair of Anatomy—though I do not for one moment say that he would not be a better teacher if he did not devote himself to practice. (Applause.) Yes, I know exactly what that cheer means, but I am keeping as carefully as possible from any sort of allusion to Professor Ellis. But the fact is, that even human anatomy has now grown to be so large a matter, that it takes the whole devotion of a man's life to put the great mass of knowledge upon that subject into such a shape that it can be teachable to the mind of ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... allusion to his former residence or occupation. He desired to be regarded as a soldier of fortune, who had fought with every nation that had a quarrel with its neighbors. Where he was born, where he had lived, or how he obtained his commission, were secrets locked up in his ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... beast sniggered away and grinned at Mr Fosset as if he had said something uncommonly smart at my expense. I saw, however, where the shoe pinched. He was angry at my having kept him waiting for his tea, and hence his spiteful allusion to my being late coming on watch; so I was just going to give him a sharp rejoinder, referring to his love for his little stomach, a weak point with him and a common joke with us all below at meal-times, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... acquired it when teaching French; and he was perhaps more proud of it than of his poems. Mr. Moore says he wished to translate Tennyson. He read aloud a poem he had just written in celebration of his own fiftieth birthday. There was an allusion to a "crystal goblet." "Ce verre-la!" he interpolated, with a humorous smile, pointing to a cheap glass with the dregs of absinthe that stood on the table. There was also an allusion to a "blue-bird," a sort of symbol of the magic of spring, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... entered the drawing-room, the baronet received him with marked coldness, and made no allusion to his having been absent. The young captain could not help feeling that Sir Ralph did not regard him ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... only his blue eyes, of themselves extremely keen and glaring, were rendered all the more forbidding and terrible by the complexion of his face, in which white was mixed with rough blotches of fiery red. Hence, it is said, he was surnamed Sylla, and in allusion to it one of the scurrilous jesters at Athens made the verse ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible you may have been reserved for one, destined, after a protracted struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a complicated nature. I understand your allusion, my love. I regret it, but I can ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... At this allusion to Yanguitlan, which will be understood in the sequel, Regules bit his lips with suppressed chagrin, at the same time darting a look of concentrated ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... ask whether such and such payments had been made by the Prime Minister. In his meditations Mr. Slide went so far as to arrange the very words which the indignant gentleman should utter, among which words was a graceful allusion to a certain public-spirited newspaper. He did even go so far as to arrange a compliment to the editor,—but in doing so he knew that he was thinking only of that which ought to be, and not of that which would be. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... footmen; and also a little worldly coquetry, so as to be able to entertain foreign travellers. But yet that Sunday they did look upon me as hopeless. Only Dasha's an angel. I'm awfully afraid they may wound him by some careless allusion ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... it would have been reassuringly if Verrian had wished not to be known as an author. The secret in which he lived in that regard was apparently safe from that young, amiable, good- looking real-estate broker. He inferred, from the absence of any allusion to the superstition of the women as to his profession, that it had not spread to Bushwick at least, and this inclined him the more to like him. They sat up talking pleasantly together about impersonal affairs till Bushwick finished his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... as to the way in which Bobus would receive the tidings of Esther's engagement; and his mother had written it to him with much tenderness and sympathy. But instead of replying to her letter, he had written only to Lucas, so entirely ignoring the whole matter that except for some casual allusion to some other subject, it would have been supposed that he had not received it. He desired his brother to send him out the rest of his books and other possessions which he had left provisionally in England; and he likewise sent a manuscript with orders to him to get it published ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... prompted this gush of feeling; but it was strange, for in all the past months the poor child's sorrow and shame had been coldly, hardly, silently borne. The new scenes had thrust it into abeyance, and spirits and strength had forced trouble aside, but this was the only allusion to it since her conversation with Miss Charlecote on her sick bed, and the first sign of softening. Phoebe durst not enter into the subject, but soothed and composed her by caresses and cheerfulness; but either the tears, or perhaps their original cause—the fatigue and terror of the previous ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... faltering steps she turned away from the warm stretch of garden, brilliant with blossom, and entered the house. There was a sense of outrage and insult upon her, and though in her soul she treated Mr. Dyceworthy's observations with the contempt they deserved, his coarse allusion to Sir Philip Errington had wounded her more than she cared to admit to herself. Once in the quiet sitting-room, she threw herself on her knees by her father's arm-chair, and laying her proud little golden head ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... But the allusion was so indefinite to the colored boy that he thought himself insulted. He did not appear to be a very amiable boy, for his fist was doubled up, and with sundry big oaths, he threatened to annihilate the little merchant for ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic

... her—kind beyond anything that she had expected. He had never made any reference to her fight or to the death of the horse that he had valued so highly; in that he had been generous. The episode over, he wished no further allusion to it. But there was nothing beyond kindness. The passion that smouldered in his dark eyes often was not the love she craved, it was only the desire that her uncommon type and her utter dissimilarity from all ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... while Mrs. Brooks was residing at Fort Columbus, in the bay of New York,—a military post at which her son, Captain Horace Brooks, was stationed several years—she had printed for private circulation the remarkable little work to which allusion has already been made, entitled "Idomen, or the Vale of the Yumuri." It is in the style of a romance, but contains little that is fictitious except the names of the characters. The account which Idomen gives of her own history is literally ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... trading habit in boys. Early examples of trade. Abraham's purchase of a burying-ground from Ephron the Hittite. Solomon's trade with Hiram of Tyre. Herodotus, the first historian, opens his history with an allusion to trade. Trade is based on specialization, and is at once a cause of unity and of disunion. Its extension from individuals to communities. Foreign trade stimulated by variations of value in different communities. ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... the wise-headed girl, whose manners and mental ways were such a contrast to her own, that her husband considered her fit to be put in charge of his darling invention. But Dorothy kept silence concerning the trust to all but her mistress, who, on her part, was prudent enough to avoid any allusion which might raise yet higher the jealousy of her associates, by whom she was already regarded as supplanting them in the favour of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... easily-moved to tears, though, perhaps, his facile transition from the condition presented in the foregoing allusion, into a positively lachrymose state, will be readily conceived of, without proclaiming specially, the fact. He will maintain a mien, which shall consist eminently with the atmosphere of the house of mourning; in truth, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... to be a home-maker. She continued with something to the effect that the woman who forms the character of her children in the sanctity of the home-life rules the destinies of the world. Then she made a fetching allusion to the "Mother of the Gracchi," and said something about jewels. Nobody knew who the "Gracchi" were, but they supposed that they must be some relatives of Virginia's who lived ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... on county business, with an occasional allusion to the war with France. Politics were entirely eschewed, for party feeling ran too high for so dangerous a subject to be broached at a gathering at which both whigs and tories ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... That allusion to the Captain, now on his return trip, made Mrs. Jessie sob in her napkin, and set the boys cheering. Then, as if that was not sensation enough, Archie suddenly dashed out of the room, as if ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... of the most learned works ever written; yet in the summary of the opinions which you give, not one single allusion is made to the learning which pervades the book, no more than if it contained none at all. It is treated just as if all the philological and historical facts were mere inventions, and the book a common novel ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... of tobacco. He will speak more fully of confidential evenings, however, and write ardently and frankly about that which he is shy of saying. The thoughts and experience of his travel will come forth in his writings; as the learning, which he never displays in talk, enriches his style with pregnant allusion and brilliant illustration, colours his generous eloquence, and points ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... considerations on character is obvious. When the greatness of God is spoken of, allusion may be made to our pride, and to the importance of humility; his goodness may suggest the evil of unkindness, and the importance of benevolence; and his truth may lead to remarks on its necessity, and the ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... allusion, and turned away abruptly. He had no wish to pay up the money which he owed Harry, and for this reason was sorry to see him in the village. He feared, if the conversation were continued, Harry would be asking for the money, ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... scene in the story of St. George; and sometimes symbolical, as the representation of fish, serpents, and chimerae on the north doorway of Stoneleigh Church, Warwickshire. The figure of our Saviour in a sitting attitude, holding in his left hand a book, and with his right arm and hand upheld, in allusion to the saying, I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and circumscribed by that mystical figure the Vesica piscis, appears over Norman doorways at Ely Cathedral; Rochester Cathedral; Malmesbury Abbey Church; Elstow Church, Bedfordshire; Water Stratford Church, Buckinghamshire; ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam

... she shrugged at the boredom of literary allusion. "I don't see what all that has to do with Andre. I shall see, Mademoiselle, that ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... the allusion to "protection from undue severity by the Law of the land." There had been no change in the law, and undue severity to slaves was prevented only by public opinion. It is practically certain that no such bill as that of 1798 would have been promoted with Simcoe at the head of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... she avoided every allusion to home, I drifted into telling her a bit of the garden's history—its unknown age, the real princes and princesses who in the long ago had trodden its crooked paths. Legend said that so great was their love for it their spirits refused ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... of the listeners, who were hanging on every word, involuntarily turned in the direction of Senator Roberts, but the latter, at that moment busily engaged in rummaging among a lot of papers, seemed to have missed this significant allusion to the road's expenses in the District ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... calmness of his style, we see the agency of that beneficent law in our system, by which we are preserved ignorant of the evils that every hour and moment of our time may bring over us. Nor ought we to omit remarking as something peculiar, that Cook's allusion to the present comfortable opinion and feelings of his associates on the failure of their labours in the northern hemisphere, founded, no doubt, on the general expression of satisfaction, serves as a material aggravation, in the way of contrast, to our conceptions of their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... The allusion to his age visibly stings Slyunka. He clears his throat, wrinkles up his forehead, and remains silent ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... heaven," Matt. xviii. 17, 18: where he showeth, that, in the Christian church (which he was to plant by the ministry of the apostles), excommunication was to be used as the last remedy for curing of the most deadly and desperate evils; which excommunication he setteth forth by allusion unto the order and custom of the Jews in his time, among whom they who were cast out, and excommunicate from the synagogue, were accounted as heathens and publicans. And so when he saith, "Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican," he presupposeth that the church hath excommunicated ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... energy and jurisprudence, the latter of which is the basis of all modern law. A strong and an abiding faith subsisted between the Roman State and each of her citizens. "I am a Roman citizen," was the proudest allusion a man could make to himself, for he knew that the great Roman power was behind him to protect him in his rights. The children of the Romans were educated to be of use to the state. Cicero says: "The fatherland ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... a corruption of the name Oneyotka-ono or "people of Stone," in allusion to the Oneida stone, a granite boulder near Oneida Castle which was held sacred by this tribe of the Iroquois. An early traveler who visited the castle in 1677 wrote that the "Onyades have but one town, doubly stockaded, of about one hundred ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous

... no allusion to any of this with the other three men. But for the rest of the day, he had a return of his gentle good humor. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... parcel was soon delivered, and Robin officiated at the opening of it, also at the preparing and consuming of some of its contents. Of course he chatted vigorously, as was his wont, but was particularly careful to make not the most distant allusion to the Slogger or his reports, being anxious not to arouse her hopes until he should have some evidence that they were on a true scent. Indeed, he was so fearful of letting slip some word or remark on the subject and thereby awakening ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne

... the cheese and cake meant as a symbol of the Groaning Cake & Cheese (so called in allusion to the mother's complaints at her delivery) mentioned by Brand, Pop. Ant. ii. 44, ed. 1841, or was the ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... was startled at the crudeness of the allusion. "I didn't suppose David ever condescended to be spoony," he said, and at the same instant, to his absolute amazement, she caught his arm and pulled ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... you can about Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Theodore Parker, and other eminent orators. Before attempting to read this selection aloud, read it silently and try to understand every statement or allusion contained in it. Call to mind all that you have learned in your histories or elsewhere concerning the Indians and their treatment by the American colonists. Now read with energy and feeling each paragraph of this extract from Mr. Everett's oration. Try to make your hearers understand and appreciate ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... recognizes two species of numbers, the odd and even; and since one, or unity, must be at once both odd and even, it must be the very essence of number, and the ground of all other numbers; hence the meaning of the Pythagorean expression, "All comes from one;" which also took form in the mystical allusion, "God embraces all and actuates all, and is but one." To the number ten extraordinary importance was imputed, since it contains in itself, or arises from the addition of, 1, 2, 3, 4—that is, of even and odd numbers together; ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... listen to the people, when they complained of their lords, and yet at the holding of assizes he hanged this same people on the flimsiest pretexts, and had them executed wholesale. In one of his dispatches to the home government, he makes complacent allusion to the countless executions which accompanied his triumphant progress through Munster: "I wrote not," he says, "the name of each particular varlet that has died since I arrived, as well by the ordinary course of the law, and the martial law, as flat ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... and too often careless contemporary. As might have been expected, every one who excites their ridicule or contempt is treated and (in their letterpress descriptions) spoken of in the broadest manner. Bonaparte is mentioned by both artists (in allusion to his supposed sanguinary propensities) as "Boney, the carcase butcher;" Josephine is represented by Gillray as a coarse fat woman, with the sensual habits of a Drury Lane strumpet; Talleyrand, by right of his club foot and limping gait, is invariably dubbed ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... to understand this allusion to the policy of Prussia, and, turning to the emperor, she requested him to take a seat on the sofa. Napoleon offered her his hand and conducted her to it. "Let us sit down," he said, with a tinge of irony. Turning to her, he added: "You have hated me so long that you ought to give me ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... fluctuations, and in 1691 were only 31s. Many, too, were discouraged by the fact 'they are the most of any plant that grows subject to the various mutations of the air, mildews sometimes totally destroying them,' no doubt an allusion to the aphis blight. Hop yards were often protected at this early date by hedges of tall trees, usually ash or poplar, the elm being disapproved of as contracting mildews. Markham[343] says that Hertfordshire then contained as good hops as he had seen anywhere, and ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... lady did not catch the allusion, and dived deep into thought. She supposed that Agatha had met and danced with other rich Spaniards, and could have any one of them by the mere raising of her little finger. Her attitude towards her daughter was that of an old campaigner ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... Eugen was beyond question. He seemed to have withdrawn within himself. Despite the extraordinary experiences through which he had recently passed, events which called aloud for explanations and confidence between the nephew and the uncle, he would say scarcely a word to Prince Aribert. Any allusion, however direct, to the days at Ostend, was ignored by him with more or less ingenuity, and Prince Aribert was really no nearer a full solution of the mystery of Jules' plot than he had been on the night when he and Racksole visited ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

... never became familiar to what is called the reading public. A year ago obituary paragraphs in the literary papers gave such account of him as was thought needful: the date and place of his birth, the names of certain books he had written, an allusion to his work in the periodicals, the manner of his death. At the time it sufficed. Even those few who knew the man, and in a measure understood him, must have felt that his name called for no further celebration; like ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... utterly mysterious allusion to the necessity for peculiar domestic arrangements. Though my curiosity was excited I did not want to hear any of his confidences. I feared he might give me a piece of information that would make my assumed role of match-maker odious—however ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... mislead the reader in respect to the real owner of any one of them: for, in the statistical view of life and manners which I occasionally present, my clerical profession has taught me how extremely improper it would be, by any allusion, however slight, to give any uneasiness, however trivial, to any ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... residing near Stamford, on an estate called Holywell Park, and that his acquaintance might be of the greatest benefit for the success of his book, if not for himself, Clare consented to pay the desired visit. The allusion to his published poems by Mr. Drury was pleasant to his ears, and Clare eagerly sat down to examine his book. It was not by any means a handsome volume in outward appearance, being bound in thick blue cardboard, with a small piece of coarse linen ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... a couple of stuffed birds which had been sent to him by the Emperor of Brazil, after reading his Cry of a Lost Soul, in allusion to the bird in South American forests which has so intensely mournful a note that the Indians give it a name which signifies a lost soul. The first birds which were sent did not reach him, and the Emperor on hearing it sent two more. The bird is larger than a mocking ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... have had the good sense to persevere in your suspicions. Any other than yourself would have considered the disclosure of M. de Villefort insignificant, or else dictated by venal ambition," These words were an allusion to the sentiments which the minister of police had uttered with so much confidence an ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... dinner at which for the first time allusion had been made to Eugenie's marriage, Nanon went to fetch a bottle of black-currant ratafia from Monsieur Grandet's bed-chamber, and nearly fell as she ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... morrow she seated herself at the work-frame and embroidered as she was wont to do. She took up her usual routine of daily work, and did not appear to suffer. Moreover, no allusion was made to the past; she no longer looked from time to time out of the window into the garden, and gradually losing her paleness, the natural colour came back to her cheeks. The sacrifice ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... somewhere worried him,—moreover he was troubled by the latent feeling that presently his uncle would be sure to ask if all was "settled" between himself and Innocent. Strangely enough, however, the old man made no allusion to the subject. He seemed to have forgotten it, though it had been the chief matter on which he had laid so much stress that morning. Each minute Innocent expected him to turn upon her with the dreaded question—to which she would have had to reply ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... to his mother, and what was just then of more importance, to Effie, who, it was but natural, should find some fault with a definition which seemed to throw anything like discredit on her new favourite. Any further allusion to the subject was, however, prevented by the entrance of Mr Maurice, who, as he had been out all day, making charitable and professional instead of fashionable calls, had some very interesting stories to relate. But there was one so strange, ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester

... married the brewer's widow, and to have married her for her money. It is farther said that Ann Hyde, the mother of Queen Mary and Queen Ann, was the only issue of this marriage; whereas Ann Hyde had four brothers and a sister. No allusion is made in this account to Sir Thomas Ailesbury. Your correspondent MR. WARDEN says, that "the story has usually been told of the wife of Sir Thomas Ailesbury," and that it may be true of her. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various

... may say that she was perfectly satisfied," said Sir Philip, courteously. "But it was not in allusion to your singing that she spoke of wishing ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... readers have followed us with due attention, as we have incidentally, and at various intervals, made our brief allusion to the gradual change of character, wrought on Delme, by the eventful scenes in which he so lately played ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... a hat, but flung freely over her bare head. He frowned as he met her eyes through this disguising gauze. This attempt at an incognito for which there seemed to be no adequate reason, had a theatrical look wholly out of keeping with the situation. But he made no allusion to it, nor was the bow with which he acknowledged her presence and ushered her into the room, other than courteous. Nevertheless, she was ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... the bell an ancient serving-man appeared in the doorway, and the old gentleman, after waiting a little to see from the countenances of those present (he could observe them in the mirror opposite) whether his allusion to his will had produced any effect, and finding no notice taken of it whatever, said in a sharp, ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... a year had elapsed. Mr. Tymperley had seen his friends perhaps half a dozen times, his enjoyment of their society pathetically intense, but troubled by any slightest allusion to his mode of life. It had come to be understood that he made it a matter of principle to hide his light under a bushel, so he seldom had to take a new step in positive falsehood. Of course he regretted ceaselessly the original deceit, for Mrs. Charman, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... The only other allusion to poetry or literature that night was a story I told him of a Mr. Thomas Wrightson, a Yorkshire banker, and a fanatical Swedenborgian. Tommy Wrightson, who was one of the most amiable and benevolent of men, spent ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... remark how these Christian people, who profess to believe that their great man has conquered death, and all that rubbish—did you never observe the way they look if the least allusion is made to death, or the eternity they say they expect beyond it? Do they not stare as if you had committed a breach of manners? Religion itself is the same way: as much as you like about the church, but don't ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... allusion to the past. He loved his father; he cannot dwell on those years when they were estranged. My dear," continued old Uncle Jasper. "I am glad you came with this tale to me—it would have done your father harm. The doctors hope soon to make him much better, but at present he must hear nothing likely ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade

... in your coat of arms," shouted Podhajski; "that is a covert allusion to the fact that a baptised Jew was ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... to the now obsolete use of nets for the capture of these birds when "roding." The cock-shuts, as they were called, were spread so as to do their work after sundown, and this is the meaning of Shakespeare's allusion to "cock-shut time." This "roding" is a curious performance on the part of the males only, and it bears some analogy to the "drumming" of snipe. It is accompanied indeed by the same vibrating noise, which may be produced from the throat as well, but is more probably made only by the beating of the ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo

... 1-4) is separated from the title (Aa. 1) and placed at the end of the volume. Name of Joh[e]s Coningesby written in a sixteenth century hand on the first page of both text and index. The device is the fourth of Pynson's seven devices and was in use 1496-1513. Allusion is made in the colophon to an earlier edition, no copy of which appears to be known. The work was reprinted by Henry Smythe, ...
— Catalogue of the William Loring Andrews Collection of Early Books in the Library of Yale University • Anonymous

... Reynolds that he was going to bed when it came, but was so much pleased with it, that he sat up till he had read it through[1033], and found in it such an air of truth, that he could not doubt of its authenticity[1034]; adding, with a smile, (in allusion to Lord Eliot's having recently been raised to the peerage,) 'I did not think a young Lord could have mentioned to me a book in the English history that was ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... I ever knew you to, and yet salt will get into cakes and puddings, and sugar into potatoes. Just here I'm conscience smitten. I beg you will not construe one of the above sentences as having the remotest allusion to your being sadly missed at home. Mother said I was not even to hint such a thing, and I'm sure I haven't. I'm a remarkable housekeeper. The fall term at the academy opened week before last. I have hidden my school-books behind that old barrel in the north-east corner of the attic. ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... of interest, its elevation of taste, its disclosure of ideas, its constant appeal to the highest in the reader by its revelation of the highest in the writer. Many of the noblest works of literature are intensely local in colour, atmosphere, material, and allusion; but in every case that which is of universal interest is touched, evoked, and expressed. The artist makes the figure he paints stand out with the greatest distinctness by the accuracy of the details introduced and by the skill ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... stepmother completely, but tormented his sister Maud in a thousand impish ways. He disarranged her neatly combed hair. He threw mud on her dress and put carriage grease on her white stockings on picnic day. He called her "chiny-thing," in allusion to her pretty round cheeks and clear complexion, and yet he loved her and would instantly fight for her, and no one else dared tease her or utter a word to annoy her. She was fourteen years of age when Mr. Excell came to town, and at sixteen considered herself ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... the coming of the New Year, it became undeniable there was that in the aspect of affairs at Brockhurst which might very well provoke curious comment. For the rigour of Richard Calmady's self-imposed seclusion, to which Miss St. Quentin had made allusion in her conversation with Dr. Knott, was not relaxed. Rather, indeed, did it threaten to pass from the accident of a first return, after long absence and illness, into a matter of fixed and accepted habit. For those years of lonely wandering and spasmodic rage ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... spoke: He conversed only on indifferent topics, and Matilda answered him in the same tone. She seemed anxious to make him forget that the Person who sat by him was any other than Rosario. Neither of them dared, or indeed wished to make an allusion, to the subject which was most at the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... Frequent allusion has been made in the previous chapter to discovered results. It is necessary to understand more clearly the process by which such results have been obtained. Some astronomical instruments are of the simplest character, some most delicate and complex. When a man smokes ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... savage of torch and tomahawk. The continent was as yet unexplored. In uncertainty as to motives for man's action the French magistrate always searches for the woman,—"cherchez la femme!" One single allusion in a letter written to Badollet, in 1783, shows that there was a woman in Gallatin's horoscope. Who she was, what her relation to him, or what influence she had upon his actions, nowhere appears. He only says that besides Mademoiselle Pictet there was one friend, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... up very stiff and straight on the end of the sofa, and Eloquent, still standing with the table between them, felt rather like a naughty boy in the presence of an accusing governess. The allusion to his youth rankled. He did not sit down, but stood where he was, staring darkly at his guest. After a very perceptible ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... Sundays and principal festivals of the year to persons of different religious persuasions who crowded it to excess when it was known that he was to appear in the pulpit. His sermons were chiefly remarkable for a happy train of strong moral reasoning, bold figure, and scriptural allusion. ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... forests of the Amazons valley, but is not found, I believe, in the Ygapo, or flooded lands. The Brazilians call the species the Tamandua bandeira, or the Banner Anteater, the term banner being applied in allusion to the curious colouration of the animal, each side of the body having a broad oblique stripe, half grey and half black, which gives it some resemblance to a heraldic banner. It has an excessively long slender muzzle, and a wormlike extensile tongue. Its jaws are destitute of teeth. The claws ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... CANNIBALS has been recognised by all the commentators since Capell (1767), who detected the transcript from a reading of the French only, not having compared the translation. The first thought of students was to connect the passage with Ben Johnson's allusion in VOLPONE[2] to frequent "stealings from Montaigne" by contemporary writers; and though VOLPONE dates from 1605, and the TEMPEST from 1610-1613, there has been no systematic attempt to apply the clue chronologically. Still, it has been recognised or surmised by a series of writers that the ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... kindly by Mr. and Mrs. Burnside the next morning, when we met at the breakfast table. The aunt, being somewhat of an invalid, did not usually take her morning meal with the family. The only allusion to my circumstances was made by Mr. Burnside, who said I had better defer any conversation upon the subject for the present, and that, in the meantime, he wished me to consider ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... followed by John Jay, who seems to have closed the debate, and whose allusion to what his immediate predecessor had said gives us some hint of the variations in Revolutionary opinion then prevailing among the members, as well as of the advanced position always ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... a periphrasis for woman that bears gold on her arm. (2) "Skates that skim." etc.. a periphrasis for ships. (3) "Odin's mocking cup," mocking songs. (4) An allusion to the Beast Epic, where the cunning fox laughs at the flayed condition of his stupid foes, the wolf and bear. We should say, "Don't stop to speak with him, but rather beat him ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... the name of the "United Church of England and Ireland," as if neither England nor Ireland had any other Church. The corporation, accordingly aspires to an ell. But this the nation will only give with the aspiration prefixed. To illustrate my allusion in a delicate way to polite ears, I will relate what happened in a Johnian lecture-room at Cambridge, some fifty years ago, my informant being present. A youth of undue aspirations was giving a proposition, and at last said, "Let E F be produced ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... more serious than it had ever been before. A published letter to Mr. Richard Taylor, dated March 11, 1843, contains an allusion to his previous condition. 'You are aware,' he says, 'that considerations regarding health have prevented me from working or reading on science for the last two years.' This, at one period or another of ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... thing. So, alack, did she! An instant agone she was biting her pretty red lips for letting the word escape her, but his fatuity gave her all the advantage in spite of herself. It was the play to see nothing that called for reply in his allusion. So ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... have heard used in my own house and before my own native servants, he would be highly justified in keeping clear of Apia and the whites. One gentleman whose opinion I respect, and am so bold as to hope I may in some points modify, will understand the allusion and appreciate my reserve. About the same time there occurred an incident, upon which I must be more particular. A was a gentleman who had long been an intimate of Mataafa's, and had recently (upon account, indeed, of the secession to Malie) more or less wholly broken ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... rose and pleaded for the "City Beautiful," castigating the Philistine the while, and looking forward to a time when "the pomp, and chronicle of our time should be splendidly committed to illumined window and pictured wall," with some slight allusion to "those ancient webs through which the Middle Ages still ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... The first allusion we know of to an Americanism is that of Gill, in 1621,—"Sed et ab Americanis nonnulla mutuamur, ut MAIZ et KANOA." Since then, English literature, not without many previous wry faces, has adopted or taken back many words from this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... He told his story in as few words as possible, being careful to omit nothing, and laying a slight stress on his own rambling in the neighborhood of the house. He was very careful to confine himself to the matter of the apparition, avoiding all allusion to the further happenings of the night. When he had finished, which he did without any interruption from the other, Jake spoke ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... shows a sympathy with the poetic nature. Also, the manner in which Ion is affected by his own recitations affords a lively illustration of the power which, in the Republic, Socrates attributes to dramatic performances over the mind of the performer. His allusion to his embellishments of Homer, in which he declares himself to have surpassed Metrodorus of Lampsacus and Stesimbrotus of Thasos, seems to show that, like them, he belonged to the allegorical school of interpreters. The circumstance that nothing more is known of him may be ...
— Ion • Plato

... bring its readers grave disappointment. March made indignant gestures in obvious allusion to distant absentees. Now they began to move apart; Fair stepped farther away, March drew nearer the house, still making gestures as if he might ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... the nonsense that had been written about them in the dawn of inquiry. He should be read in a corresponding spirit. One should often stop to appreciate the full flavour of some quaint allusion, or lay down the book to follow out some diverging line of thought. So read in a retired study, or beneath the dusty shelves of an ancient library, a page of Sir Thomas seems to revive the echoes as of ancient chants in college chapels, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... room, and read a chapter from the New Testament. Then, standing up behind his arm-chair, he made a hurried prayer, which was evidently one he had got by heart; for when he endeavored to interpolate an apt allusion to the young "stranger within his gates," he made such a piece of work of it, that everybody but the dowager had to bite his lips to keep from smiling. The brief remainder of the evening was spent in sober conversation. Soon after nine o'clock the little black girl showed Mr. Talcott ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... most ready to give my services to conduct an expedition should your Excellency decide upon fitting one out, and confide to me that responsible and honourable duty. In September last I met with a printed copy of a letter addressed by your Excellency to Lord John Russell, in which some allusion was made to your wish to send an expedition to explore the interior, and I at once wrote to the Colonial Secretary of Sydney to volunteer my services, but, from various causes, I am induced to believe that my communication must have miscarried, and I now therefore ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... contour of person and outline of feature. I was galled, too, by the rumor touching a relationship which had grown current in the upper forms. In a word, nothing could more seriously disturb me (although I scrupulously concealed such disturbance) than any allusion to a similarity of mind, person, or condition existing between us. But, in truth, I had no reason to believe that (with the exception of the matter of relationship, and in the case of Wilson himself) this similarity had ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... what they believed to be a fact, His clear utterance. Then follows a conviction which has allusion to His previous words. 'Now', say they, 'we know that Thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee.' He had said to them, 'In that day ye shall ask Me nothing'; and from the fact that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... I'll take it on trust. Any time will do," said Brian, shrinking a little from the allusion to his own story that ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... her; but Baptista did not care to dwell on the subject; so that allusion to it was very infrequent between them. Nevertheless, among other things, she repeated to the widow from time to time in monosyllabic remarks that the wedding was really impending; that it was arranged for the summer, and that she had given notice of leaving the school ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.



Words linked to "Allusion" :   allude, mention, reference



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