"Artifice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it from the artifice, and humors, and passions of sects; to render it an instrument whereby mankind may obtain a dominion over Things, and not only ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... into greater beauty. This corner of the palace has an ever-increasing fascination for me, and at all hours of the day and night this strong column below and the slenderer one above it hold the light—whether of sun or moon or artifice—with a ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... Thus imitating the artifice, while unable to catch the spirit of the Grecian painter, I describe sorrow as personified in a faithful attendant, and leave the reader's imagination to picture the frantic father and the fainting mistress of Eustace—affliction wearing the form of a ministering angel in Isabel, and that ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... of it. They have a right to complain of such treatment. It is mean, and wicked, and dishonorable. Let us rather treat our Southern friends as intelligent and high-minded men, who, whatever may be their faults, despise unmanly artifice, and loathe cant, and abhor hypocrisy. Connected with them, not by political ties alone, but by common sacrifices and mutual benefits, let us seek to expostulate with them earnestly and openly, to gain at least their confidence in our sincerity, to appeal to their consciences, reason, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... way doubtless, whereby one may arrive at his end; for when as falshood and truth are confounded by a dexterous hand, wit hath much adoe to disintangle them, and is not easily carried to destroy that which pleaseth it; contrarily, whenas invention doth not make use of this artifice, and that falshood is produced openly, this gross untruth makes no impression in the soul, nor gives any delight: As indeed how should I be touched with the misfortunes of the Queen of Gundaya, ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... tribute, and that the pirate ships should be delivered up, the queen endeavoured to procrastinate till such time as she knew it would be necessary for the governor to retire with his armament to Cochin. But being aware of this artifice, the governor landed with 1200 men in two battalions, and ordered twenty light vessels to go up the river to attack the city on that side, while he assailed it on the land side. While marching through a wood, the governor was opposed by a body of musqueteers; but his troops drove them to the gates ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... in that," she admitted, with a laugh. "What a diverting piece of artifice this Wintergarten is, to be sure. Fancy arranging the electric lights to shine through a dome of purple glass, and look like stars. They do look like stars, don't they? Slightly overdressed, showy ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... farmer had planted there for that end. The Cock, at a distance, saw what happened, and, hardly yet daring to trust himself too near so dangerous a foe, approached him cautiously, and peeped at him. Reynard addressed himself to him, with all the designing artifice imaginable. "Dear cousin," says he, "you see what an unfortunate accident has befallen me here, and all upon your account: for, as I was creeping through yonder hedge, in my way homeward, I heard you crow, and was resolved to ask you how you did before I went any ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... that my youth may be made (as it never fails to be in executions) a case of compassion. That I was never so concerned about my works as to vindicate them in print; believing, if any thing was good, it would defend itself, and what was bad could never be defended. That I used no artifice to raise or continue a reputation, depreciated no dead author I was obliged to, bribed no living one with unjust praise, insulted no adversary with ill language: or, when I could not attack a rival's ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... certain physical gifts are also needed by the opera-singer, according to the requirements of the line of roles to which he is inevitably assigned by the nature and type of his particular voice. It is true that stage artifice has now reached great perfection; but it has its limits, and ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... are all true works of Art: in them (if thou know a Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity looking through Time; the Godlike rendered visible. Here too may an extrinsic value gradually superadd itself: thus certain Iliads, and the like, have, in three-thousand years, attained quite new significance. But nobler than all in ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... me with the idea of the sort of feudal power I should possess in my vast territory, over tenants who were almost vassals, and amongst a numerous train of dependents. We resist the efforts made by those who, we think, exert authority or employ artifice to change our determinations; whilst the perverse mind insensibly yields to those who appear not to have power, or reason, or address, sufficient to obtain a victory. I should not have heard any human being with patience try to persuade me to go to Ireland, except this ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Christ to render testimony to the truth, and you will find that you meet with no better treatment there than Jesus Christ. To be well received there, you must have pomp and splendor. To keep your station there, you must have artifice and intrigue. To be favorably heard there, you must have complaisance and flattery. Then all this is opposed to Jesus Christ; and the court being what it is—that is to say, the kingdom of the prince of ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... (six species) lay their eggs among the tinkling coral chips, and discarding all attempts at concealment, practise artistic deception. So perfect is the artifice that the eggs are frequently the least conspicuous of the elements of the banks of drift, broken coral and bleached shells. Not until each square yard is steadfastly inspected can they be detected, though there may be dozens around one's feet, the colours—creamy ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... reestablished, and some feeble and ostensible regulations were made to relieve the weavers who might suffer by it. The Directors imagined that the reestablishment of their coercive system would remove the evil which fraud and artifice had grafted upon one more rational and liberal. But they were mistaken; for it only varied, if it did so much as vary, the abuse. The servants might as essentially injure their interest by a direct exercise of their power as by pretexts drawn from ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... tended with a loving care, the vicissitudes in its growth were observed, and its reproduction was facilitated by the process of shaking the flowers of the male palm over those of the female: the gods themselves had taught this artifice to men, and they were frequently represented with a bunch of flowers in their right hand, in the attitude assumed by a peasant in fertilizing a palm tree. Fruit trees were everywhere mingled with ornamental trees—the fig, apple, almond, walnut, apricot, pistachio, vine, with the plane tree, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... certainly go to shed tears upon her grave; and perhaps," added the old woman, "he will not believe she is really dead. He may, possibly, suspect you have turned her out of the palace through jealousy, and look upon all the mourning as an artifice to deceive him, and prevent his making inquiries after her. It is likely he will cause the coffin to be taken up and opened, and it is certain he will be convinced of her death, as soon as he shall see the figure of a dead body buried. He will be pleased with all you shall have done, and express ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... sufficiently roused the angry passions of his vast audience, and having alarmed their fears by this pretended scheme against their firstborn (an artifice which was indispensable to his purpose, because it met 30 beforehand every form of amendment to his proposal coming from the more moderate nobles, who would not otherwise have failed to insist upon trying the effect of bold addresses to the ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... Stanton into saying more than he intended, and thus the girl's artifice became successful. Hearing about Van berg and all that related to him was like looking out of a desert into a fruitful oasis; and yet cruel as was the fascination, ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... it must have been he. It certainly looks like his handiwork—now, what artifice can he have used? We know how he managed to have an interview with the Widow Chupin, but how has he succeeded in getting at Polyte, who ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... throne; and they have been reproached by his Majesty's ministers under the cover of a sophism, which, if our anxiety to interpret favourably words sanctioned by the First Magistrate—makes us unwilling to think it a deliberate artifice meant for the delusion of the people, must however (on the most charitable comment) be pronounced an evidence of no little heedlessness and self-delusion on the part of those who ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... opened he the letter, and found nothing written in it, nor otherwise enclosed, but only a gold ring, with a square table diamond. Wondering at this, he called Panurge to him, and showed him the case. Whereupon Panurge told him that the leaf of paper was written upon, but with such cunning and artifice that no man could see the writing at the first sight. Therefore, to find it out, he set it by the fire to see if it was made with sal ammoniac soaked in water. Then put he it into the water, to see if the letter was written with the juice of tithymalle. After that he held it up ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... his work; and the world—looking at these with a constant admiration, and with a great and lenient love for their author—is not anxious to know what he did with his guineas, or whether the milkman was ever paid. "He had raised money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. BUT LET NOT HIS FRAILTIES BE REMEMBERED: HE WAS A VERY GREAT MAN." This is Johnson's wise summing up; and with it we may here take leave of ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... them; nay, he was pleased that those who remembered her living should see her in the still beauty of death. Helen and those with her arrayed her for this farewell-view. All was ready for the sad or curious eyes which were to look upon her. There 'was no painful change to be concealed by any artifice. Even her round neck was left uncovered, that she might be more like one who slept. Only the golden cord was left in its place: some searching eye might detect a trace of that birthmark which it was whispered she had always worn ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... consistent with inquiring into all the limitations of this doctrine. It requires many of which M. Comte's theory takes no account. There is one, in particular, dependent on a scientific artifice familiar to students of science, especially of the applications of mathematics to the study of nature. When an effect depends on several variable conditions, some of which change less, or more slowly, than others, we are often able to determine, either by reasoning ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... carried himself with a certain jauntiness, and he had need of what assistance artifice could lend him, for he was singularly unprepossessing. He was a man who might as well have been sixty as fifty. His clothes soiled, torn and greasy, were of good cut. The shirt was filthy, but it was attached to a frayed collar, and the crumpled ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... goat, which carried water for his service; and to this the animal was taught, not by any artifice but rather by a miracle. And a certain thief stole the goat, and eat, and swallowed it. And the author or instigator of the theft is enquired: and one who by evident tokens had incurred suspicion, is accused; but not only denieth he the fact, ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... invisible power, by presenting no distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still deeper sense of religious horror; [63] and the priests, rude and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the use of every artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions so well suited to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... tell your worships, that this was done with so much cunning and artifice—that the great Locke, who was seldom outwitted by false sounds—was nevertheless bubbled here. The cry, it seems, was so deep and solemn a one, and what with the help of great wigs, grave faces, and other implements of deceit, was rendered so general a one ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... I had heard of such poisons, and here, in very truth, was one of them at work. His vengeance on her for her indifference to his suit was not so clumsy and primitive as that of simply slaying her. He had, by his infernal artifice, intended, secretly, to bear her off. To-morrow when men found a broken church-door and a violated bier, they would set the sacrilege down to some wizard who had need of the body for his ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... Arrogance serves them sometimes, as a politick Artifice to hide their own Failings: For Example, certain Singers would not be unconcern'd, under the Shame of not being able to sing a few Barrs at Sight, if with Shrugs, scornful Glances, and malicious shaking of their Heads, they did not give the Auditors to understand that those gross ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... fine lines about the corners of his firm lips, and set his face to such a look of dominant strength as made the high spirited American girl muse thoughtfully and brought a touch of colour to the face of the pseudo Countess which was not due to the artifice of her maid. ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... will receive forgiveness, but the severer punishment which befalls the obstinate unbelievers will, it may be hoped, not be the conclusion of their history."[1] But can we suppose that such a sincere, such a truthful and such a holy Being as the Son of God would stoop to any such artifice as this? that He who called Himself The Truth would employ a lie, either directly or indirectly, even to promote the spiritual welfare of men? He never spake for mere sensation. The fact, then, that in this solemn passage of ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... every bit of brisk living, and, above all, when it is healthful, is just so much gained upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the less in our pockets, the more in our stomach, when he cries stand and deliver. A swift stream is a favourite artifice of his, and one that brings him in a comfortable thing per annum; but when he and I come to settle our accounts, I shall whistle in his face for these hours ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... exacting mistress, reading to her through long nights of wakeful restlessness, and assisting to entertain her guests. The one thing upon which Mme. du Deffand most prided herself was frankness. She hated finesse, and had stipulated that she would not tolerate artifice in any form. It was her habit to lie awake all night and sleep all day, and as she did not receive her guests until six o'clock, Mlle. de Lespinasse, whose amiable character and conversational charm had endeared ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... certain peculiarities of temperament which are well known to the villagers in the neighbourhood. They will tell you that such a one is daring and rash; another is cunning and not to be taken by any artifice; that one is savage and morose; another is mild and harmless. There are few villages in the wilder parts of the Seonee and Mandla districts without an attendant tiger, which undoubtedly does great damage in ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... they did favour, counterfeiting their handwriting, intercepting their letters, disconcerting their rendezvous; in one word, disturbing their amours by everything which a rival, prodigal, indefatigable, and full of artifice, can be imagined to do. The straitest ties of blood could not secure any one from his detraction. His nephew, the Count de Guiche, was a victim: he had in truth, offended the Count de Grammont, by having supplanted him in the affection of the Countess de Fiesque, whom he loved afterwards for ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Quin, forget thee there. His words bore sterling weight; nervous and strong, In manly tides of sense they roll'd along: Happy in art, he chiefly had pretence To keep up numbers, yet not forfeit sense; No actor ever greater heights could reach In all the labour'd artifice of speech. 950 Speech! is that all? And shall an actor found An universal fame on partial ground? Parrots themselves speak properly by rote, And, in six months, my dog shall howl by note. I laugh at those who, when the stage they tread, Neglect the heart, to compliment the head; With ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... this peaceful attitude of prayer falls into a mystic sleep, in which all its natural powers are silenced, until that which had been temporary becomes its permanent condition. You see that the soul is thus led, without effort, without study, without artifice. ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... the fact that there has been offered the public many spectacular exhibitions of pseudo mind-reading, that is to say, imitation or counterfeit mind-reading, in which the result has been obtained by trickery, collusion, or clever artifice. But, notwithstanding this fact, genuine mind-reading is actually ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... induced to apply to this nation, by the reputation which our merchants have deservedly gained for probity and punctuality superiour to that of any other traders. Our merchants, sir, bargain without artifice, pay without subterfuges, and are ready on all occasions to preserve their character at ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... fort a prey to the fury of the flames." [Footnote: "Je passay la nuit a conduire l'ouvrage auquel j'avois destine le jour precedent, resolu a faire ouvrir la tranchee deux heures avant le lever du soleil, et de la pousser jusqu'au pied de la palissade, pour y placer les fascines, y appliquer l'artifice, et livrer le fort en proye a la fureur du feu." Journal de Rigaud. He mistakes in calling the log wall of the fort a palisade.] It began to rain, and he determined to wait till morning. That the commander of seven hundred French and Indians ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... dead conventions, and is trying to beat up against the gale by help of all sorts of jury-masts and extemporised try-sails of other new conventions that are mostly blowing out of the bolt-ropes. We said that Crebillon's world was an artificial one, and one of not very respectable artifice. But it worked after a fashion; it was founded on some real, however unrespectable, facts of humanity; and it was at least amusing to the naughty players on its stage to begin with, and long afterwards to the guiltless spectators of the commonty. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... claim had been transferred to the state, at a time when the state alone possessed the means of payment. By the injured and neglected creditor, such an arrangement might justly be considered as a disreputable artifice. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... yourself—or being made a fool of—which you please," he assured me; and his face wore for the moment an almost friendly look. I saw clearly that he believed he had won the day. The old lady had managed to make him think that—by what artifice I knew not. But what I did know was that I believed not a jot of the insinuation he was conveying to me, and had not a doubt of the truth, and sincerity ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... to admit, in addition, an intentional deception in this case, or whether only a logical process takes place, I can not decide. In the whole earlier and later behavior of the child there is no ground for the first assumption, and the fact that he employs this artifice while in his carriage, immediately after he has been waited on, is directly ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... under these circumstances, when he was apparently a hopeless prisoner in the hands of the Indians, was not influenced by artifice alone. He had real sympathy for the savages, being fully conscious of the wrongs which were often inflicted upon them, and which goaded their untamed natures to fearful barbarities. He had always treated them not only kindly, but with fraternal respect. The generous ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... Duke of Alencon, the magistrates received letters beginning thus: "To you, Provost of Paris and Provost of the Merchants and Aldermen...." He named them by name and greeted them in eloquent language. These letters were regarded as an artifice intended to render the townsfolk suspicious of the aldermen and to incite one class of the populace against the other. The only answer sent to the Duke was a request that he would not spoil any more paper with such ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... to talk whole evenings of him and of General Elliott; the bombarding of Tunis, and defence of Gibraltar. The news-papers spoke of some fireworks exhibited in England in honour of their hero; they were "vrayment feux de joye" said an agreeable Venetian, they were not feux d'artifice. ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... she shou'd stay above five or six Lines speaking, since after she saw her Cheat had taken, she cou'dn't keep her countenance within Doors, and was so eager to revenge her self by laughing at the Fool without. Besides here's an excellent Artifice of the Poets, for had she tarry'd longer, Parmeno might ha' been gone, and her Mirth qualified when she saw the good Fortune Chaerea had met withal. His other Exception is, that our Author's Scenes are several times broken. ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... aghast. The very mirror of truth herself, she could not imagine that any one—least of all any woman—could be so false and cruel as to practice the artifice to which the milliner had resorted; and, here, just as she saw a way opened by which she might support both her grandmother and herself until the handkerchief was completed, a change threatened her, by which ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... us. At this time in the morning over there, the sun would be burning the life out of the air, and the flies would be swarming on every table. At nine A. M. the mosquitoes would be eating us up in such a grove as this. So we have to use artifice, and lift our Posthof above the fly-line and the mosquito-line into the night air. I haven't seen a fly since I came to Europe. I really miss them; it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is the clay of the potter: which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains clay, separated by artifice, and not by nature, from the ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... editor rose with a slight increase of color. "Look here," said the girl, whose dimples had deepened as she keenly surveyed him, as if detecting some amorous artifice under his show of interest for her brother. "Dad's gone down to the sheepfold and won't be back for an hour. ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... was one whose face had ever shone as her mother's shone to-day? The overdressed, idle dowagers; the matrons, with their too-gay frocks, their too-full days, their too-rich food; the girls, all crudeness, artifice, all scheming openly for their own advantage,—where among them all was happiness? Where among them was one whom Margaret had heard say—as she had heard her mother say so many, many times,—"Children, this is a happy day,"—"Thank God for another lovely Sunday all together,"—"Isn't it lovely ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... play because the violent struggle between good and evil woke up many responsive memories in his mind. The hero of the play had been shown feeling precisely as Julian had often felt. That was enough. He did not very much care for the brilliant artifice, which Valentine had remarked with so much pleasure. He did not specially note the peculiar effect of nature produced by the simplicity and thoughtful directness of the dialogue. He only knew that he had seen somebody whose nature was akin to his own nature, although placed ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... tooth-brushes—the effect of the sight may be imagined. You don't suppose that he is a creature who has those odious, simpering wax figures in his window, that are called by the vulgar dummies? He is above such a wretched artifice; and it is my belief that he would as soon have his own head chopped off, and placed as a trunkless decoration to his shop-window, as allow a dummy to figure there. On one pane you read in elegant gold letters "Eglantinia"—'tis ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be wayward indeed," said De Valette, "if such is its nature or artifice; but my hopes are not so desperate yet, and if my memory serves me truly, I have more smiles than ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... glad welcome "The prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his enemies And there was Brutus, ay, and others as memorable who have descended to such artifice." ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... she hadn't meant to, she would never do it again. He did not for a moment suspect that it referred to the scene at Lady Halifax's, and was more than half real. It was not easy to know that even genuine feeling, with Elfrida, required a cloak of artifice. He put it down as a pretty pose, and found it as objectionable as the one he had painted. He was more curious, perhaps, but less disturbed than either of the Cardiffs as the days went by and Elfrida made no sign. He felt, however, ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... that winter walk taken by the writer and certain officer-boys of his unit to the Cistercian Monastery, and what Chutney said by the way; and what happened afterwards. For the sake of such sincere and memorable sketches as this I am more than ready to forgive what seemed like a touch of artifice elsewhere. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... affecting a simplicity in subject and diction that was sometimes simply ludicrous. It was an affected simplicity: he was simple with a purpose; he wrote his poems to suit his canons, and in that way his simplicity became artifice. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... power, and not very scrupulous as to the manner in which they obtain it. She was hardhearted, and capable of pursuing an object without much regard to the injury she might do. She would not flatter wealth or fawn before a title, but she was not above any artifice by which she might ingratiate herself with those whom it suited her purpose to conciliate. She thought evil rather than good. She was herself untrue in action, if not absolutely in word. I do not say that she would coin lies, but she would ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... up the two papers and put them into my pocket. I did not then feel, nor have I since been able to understand, all the indignation which has been poured on Lord Clive's head for this artifice, by which a treacherous, overreaching scoundrel was robbed of the blackmail he had tried to extort. As to the charge which has been made against that great man of having caused Admiral Watson's name to be forged to the second treaty, I can only say that it was the general ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... artifice obtained as much water as they wanted, the besieged felt better able to endure their irksome situation. They were resigning themselves with as much philosophy as they could command to bear it a little longer, when to their great astonishment they were treated to more water than they wanted, ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... heart and the richness of his mind, and out of a lively sense of community with the myriads of German-speaking men and women seeks entrance into the world of letters, he faces in painful amazement the dilemma: People or literature? Human being or artist? Personality or artifice? ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... greatly desired to excel in maritime enterprise, but it was otherwise during the Plantagenet period. Henry the Second possessed a most formidable fleet, numbering some five hundred vessels of war. During the reign of his successor a novel artifice in naval warfare was resorted to by the English which merits notice. The English admiral caused a number of barrels of unslaked lime to be placed in his ships. Having brought his fleet to windward of the enemy—the French—he ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... character have demonstrated that Mrs. Methuen regards with implacable antipathy the volumes upon which my learned and ingenious friend would fain lavish the superabundance of his affection. Many years ago the Judge was compelled to resort to every kind of artifice in order to sneak new books into his house, and had he not been imbued with the true afflatus of bibliomania he would long ago have broken down under the heartless tyranny of his ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... American Oregon are, therefore, excluded from the gold district, except such, as resorting to the artifice of denying their country, succeed in passing for British subjects. The persons at present engaged in the search of gold are chiefly of British origin, and retired servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, being well acquainted ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... laugh or be frightened at this width of error; nor, indeed, whether it was not all some artifice to draw me out, from pique, into some recital: at all events I thought it best to say nothing, for she was too affronting to deserve to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... for the classics, especially for Plutarch's "Lives." He also read much of the literature of the French Revolution. He was a very impressive orator; his addresses and proclamations show much emphasis, and the rhetorical artifice is apparent, as it is in all literature of this kind. In his letters he uses a very simple and naturally witty style. He was a great coiner of sentences, many of which can be found in his proclamations and addresses. His political perspicacity was remarkable. He could and did ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... that poor English lad whom she drags about with her, to play propriety," continued she; "but do you suppose the world is blinded by so shallow an artifice?" ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... as usual, exaggerated by the British Ambassador and his emissaries. In a word, without remittances, or even intelligence from Congress, and under all these disagreeable circumstances, I had to oppose the artifice, the influence, and the power of Great Britain; yet I have the pleasing reflection that before the first of December following, I procured thirty thousand stand of arms, thirty thousand suits of clothes, more than two hundred and fifty ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... number of bars is decided upon, a counter, or pebble, &c. is put down, representing every bar of merchandize, until the whole is exhausted, when the palaver is finished; and, as they have very little idea of the value of time, they will use every artifice of delay and chicane to ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... genuine feeling: they were proud of their private game, had been cut to the quick by the want of interest shown in it by others, and expanded under the flattery of my attention. Tembinok' puts up a double stake, and receives in return two hands to choose from: a shallow artifice which the wives (in all these years) have not yet fathomed. He himself, when talking with me privately, made not the least secret that he was secure of winning; and it was thus he explained his recent liberality on board the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wherefore he admired her intelligence and inclined to her and preserved her life. That King had also a Kahramanah (nurse and duenna, not entremetteuse), hight Dinarzad (Dunyazad?), who aided the wife in this (artifice). It is also said that this book was composed for (or, by) Humai daughter of Bahman[FN146] and in it were included other matters. Mohammed bin Is'hak adds: —And the truth is, Inshallah,[FN147] that the first who solaced himself ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... truths related to, but far removed from, each other. Logicians carry the surveyor's chain over the track of which these are the true explorers. I value a man mainly for his primary relations with truth, as I understand truth,—not for any secondary artifice in handling his ideas. Some of the sharpest men in argument are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should not trust the counsel of a smart debater, any more than that of a good chess- player. Either may of course ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... intention been to seek the world's favor, I should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties. I desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice; for it is myself I paint. My defects are therein to be read to the life, and my imperfections and my natural form, so far as public reverence hath permitted me. If I had lived among those nations which (they say) yet ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... Molina, is "oficial de arte mecanica o maestro," (Vocabulario de la Lengua Mexicana, s.v.). This is a secondary meaning. Veitia justly says, "Toltecatl quiere decir artifice, porque en Thollan comenzaron a ensenar, aunque a Thollan llamaron Tula, y por decir Toltecatl dicen Tuloteca" ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... presents some idea, illustrated by a fact told without artifice, but with an elective sureness of knowledge. The story of Tukang Burok's love, related in the old man's own words, conveys the very breath of Malay thought and speech. In "His Little Bill," the coolie, Lim Teng Wah, facing his debtor, ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... of Luther began to spread itself in Europe: and it was an artifice of those sectaries, to procure proselytes in the Catholic universities, who, by little and little, might insinuate their new opinions into the scholars, and their masters. Many knowing men of Germany were come on that design to Paris, though under the pretence of seconding the intentions ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... guilt, becoming in one who stoops to unworthy artifice, P. Sybarite walked slowly on up Broadway a little way, then doubled on his trail, going softly until a swift and stealthy survey westward from the corner of Thirty-eighth Street assured him that George was not skulking thereabouts to spy upon him. Then mending his pace, he held briskly ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... teach. Anna returned from Henley so greatly changed that her altered appearance rarely escaped remark. Defiant, reckless, almost hysterical, her unnatural gaiety could not cloak her anxiety nor all her artifice disguise it. If she had told the truth, it would have been to admit a position, not only of humiliation but of danger. A whim, by which she would have amused herself, had created a situation from which she could not escape. She loved Alban and had ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... lettre Aujourdhui et comme le jour prochaine est mon jour de naisance je vous ecrit ce lettre. Ma grande gatteaux est arrive il leve 12 livres et demi le prix etait 17 shillings. Sur la soiree de Monseigneur Faux il y etait quelques belles feux d'artifice. Mais les polissons entrent dans notre champ et nos feux d'artifice et handkerchiefs disappeared quickly, but we charged them out of the field. Je suis presque driven mad par une bruit terrible tous les garcons kik up comme grand un bruit qu'il est possible. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are good, and who acquire fame, who have never felt this divine afilatus. The intellect of the audience appreciates them for their declamation, for the art and artifice which they manifest; but the humblest and most illiterate of that assembly know well that this studied eloquence does ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... is seen in her wild and primitive condition, telling us of growth and decay, and of the land's submission to eternal laws unchecked by the hand of man. Yet we also feel a certain pleasure in the contemplation of those scenes which combine natural beauty with human artifice, and attest to the ability with which architectural science has developed Nature's virtues and concealed ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... in advance of its contemporaries—or at least never behind them—is the end and aim of the American paper which I serve, and to attain these desirable objects, every artifice must be employed and 'no ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... the Lord of the Isles, he would naturally find allies in that warlike race. His precocious prowess and talents began to be noised abroad, and stimulated Perrott to the employment of an elaborate artifice, which, however, proved quite successful. A ship, commanded by one Bermingham, was sent round to Donegal, under pretence of being direct from Spain. She carried some casks of Spanish wine, and had a crew of 50 armed men. This ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... his advice—it would be easier to crush the cohorts if they were separated—and also that Civilis, not Brinno, was at the head of this war. Evidence of this gradually leaked out, as the Germans loved war too well to keep the secret for long. Finding his artifice unsuccessful, Civilis tried force instead, forming the Canninefates, Frisii and Batavi into three separate columns.[283] The Roman line faced them in position near the Rhine bank.[284] They had brought their ships there after the ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... and healthful life. Vine-covered, overshadowed by the pine, with the olive standing in friendly neighbourhood, our home in Arden seemed at the same time part of the Forest and part of ourselves. If it had grown out of the soil, it could not have fitted into the landscape with less suggestion of artifice and construction; indeed, Nature had furnished all the materials, and when the simple structure was complete she claimed it again and made it her own with endless device of moss and vine. Without, it seemed part of the Forest; within, it seemed the visible history of our life ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... no longer any difficulty in straightway filling up from another quarter every legally vacant governorship, and so, in the case in question, bringing about for the Gallic provinces the change of command on the 1st March 705, instead of the 1st Jan. 706. The pitiful dissimulation and procrastinating artifice of Pompeius are after a remarkable manner mixed up, in these arrangements, with the wily formalism and the constitutional erudition of the republican party. Years before these weapons of state-law could be employed, they had them duly prepared, and put themselves in a condition ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... very pretty manner and a most winsome expression; but she is extremely subtle and fully accomplished in all manner of artifice. She was far too clever ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... contemplation of all that is grand, romantic, and picturesque in natural scenery, or attached to the study of man in that state, in which civilization and knowledge have brought with them the least intermixture of artifice, luxury, and dissoluteness—in Switzerland, he will find an ample and rich feast. It does not often happen that one and the same country attracts to it the abstract and cold man of science, the ardent imagination ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... harm in their saying so. It was an artifice of benevolence. You saw the bull, and had not seen the sheep. So is the superior man affected towards animals, that, having seen them alive, he cannot bear to see them die, and, having heard their dying cries, he cannot bear to eat their flesh. On this account he keeps away ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... done, unless one be driven to it by actual want. Why, even when positively suffering for want of food and fuel, I have known some to conceal or disguise the fact of their working for others by all sorts of artifice. To suffer in secret was genteel enough, but to work openly was disgraceful! A girl of my acquaintance was accidentally discovered to be selling her work at a public depository, and forthwith went to apologizing for doing so, as if she had been guilty of a crime, instead of having nobly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... freely in apart of your country, and striving to bring everything into confusion, which would be, in a word, preparing the way for the ruin of everything to the injury of your state. To this end your subjects have employed every conceivable artifice and all possible means which they thought could injure us. But all these efforts have been thwarted by your Majesty, assisted by your prudent council, who have given us the authority of your name, and supported us by your decrees rendered in our favor. This is an occasion for increasing ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... old man ran a race with one of these children, and contrived, by an artifice, to win it. She got before him; when, fearing he would hurt himself, she stopped to look after him; he came up to her; and then, just pushing her back a little, got before her to the goal, which was very near them. How he did shout, ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... ignorance of the genius of our language, which does not admit of such an expression as "full score," but would require the insertion of the particle "a," which cannot be, on account of the metre. And this is another great artifice of the Poet: by leaving the quantity of beating indeterminate, he gives every reader the liberty to administer it, in exact proportion to the sum of indignation which he may have conceived against his Hero; that by thus amply satisfying ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse[1391].' Innumerable have been the melancholy instances of men once distinguished for firmness, resolution, and spirit, who in their latter days have been governed like children, by interested female artifice. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... man, from knees unused to bend, Or to another ear petition send! This artifice befits nor me nor thee, To beg of one twice threatened!—Mockery! First, by thy hand Nearchus felt the flame, Then love, forsooth, thy plea—(profaned name!) The path of Christian neophyte hast thou trod, And, in God's name, hast mocked Almighty God! Earth, heaven, and hell in turn have been thy ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... burst into a violent passion. He had afterward dissembled. Promising, at last, that they should all be sent from the country within three or four months after his departure, he had determined to use every artifice to detain them in the provinces. He had succeeded, by various subterfuges, in keeping them there fourteen months; but it was at last evident that their presence would no longer be tolerated. Towards the close of 1560 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... display the symbol of the letters S.A. upon their necks. With this admission I was content to leave the matter, in no way accusing them of actual duplicity, yet so withdrawing that any of unprejudiced standing could not fail to carry away the impression that I had been the victim of an unworthy artifice, and had been lured into their society by the pretext that they were other than what they ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... up the thread of history beyond the point at which documentary evidence fails us, could have no existence, except for our well grounded confidence that monuments and works of art or artifice, have never been produced by causes different in kind from those to which they now owe their origin. And geology, which traces back the course of history beyond the limits of archaeology, could tell us nothing except for the assumption that, millions ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... them all in his wigwam, lest their Gentile eyes should profane the mysteries. Here, immured in darkness, they listened to the howls, yelpings, and lugubrious songs that resounded from without. One of them, however, by some artifice, contrived to escape, hid behind a bush, and saw the whole solemnity,—the procession of the medicinemen and the bedaubed and befeathered warriors; the drumming, dancing, and stamping; the wild lamentation of ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... to say that to equivocate was, in his opinion, to canonize lying, and that simplicity was, after all, the best kind of shrewdness. The children of darkness, he said, use cunning and artifice in their dealings with one another, but the children of God should take for their motto the words: He ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... well-simulated nervousness drew a loose match from his waistcoat pocket, struck it, applied it to his cigar, then flipped the still burning match halfway across the floor. No need for him again to look—he knew the artifice had succeeded. ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... condense it and keep its clearness of thought. Briefly, it amounts to this, that the formulation of the doctrine of Parallelism rests on an ambiguity in the terms employed in its statement, that it contains a subtle dialectical artifice by which we pass surreptitiously from one system of notation to another ignoring the substitution: logically, we ought to keep to one system of notation throughout. The two systems are: Idealism and Realism. ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... these numerous conquests to the infinite charm of his person and his speech. A penetrating word, a look falling upon a simple conscience, which only wanted awakening, gave him an ardent disciple. Sometimes Jesus employed an innocent artifice, which Joan of Arc also used: he affected to know something intimate respecting him whom he wished to gain, or he would perhaps recall to him some circumstance dear to his heart. It was thus that he attracted Nathanael,[1] Peter,[2] and the Samaritan woman.[3] ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... was, as soon as the object had been gained, infringed by Mr. Hastings, who, in a letter to his colleagues in the government, honestly confesses that the concession of that article was only a fraudulent artifice of diplomacy, and never intended to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... in Italy and which he, like the others, thought more dangerous than in reality it was. On the other hand, with a dynastic marriage, he was able to secure for himself all the advantages of effective possession, without running the risks of annexation; so he resolved upon this artifice, which, I repeat, had probably been imagined by Caesar. As to Cleopatra, her government was menaced by a strong internal opposition, the causes for which are ill known; marrying Antony, she gathered about her throne, to protect it, ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... maid and her elderly innocence became, in his eyes, a fresh manifestation of that artificial, malicious little world. It was a paltry device, a clumsy artifice, a piece of priest's or woman's craft. Was the duel a myth, or did they merely want to frighten him? But these petty creatures, impudent and teasing as flies, had succeeded in wounding his vanity, in rousing his pride, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... invite a greedy reader than an unlooked-for subject. And what more unlooked-for than to see a person of an unblamed life made ridiculous or odious by the artifice of lying? But it is the disease of the age; and no wonder if the world, growing old, begin to be infirm: old age itself is a disease. It is long since the sick world began to dote and talk idly: would she had but doted still! but her dotage is now broke forth into ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... wild state, intermediate productions between the Hare and the Rabbit, between the Stag and the Doe, or between the Martin and the Weasel. Human artifice contrives to produce all these intermixtures of which the various species are susceptible, but which they would never produce if ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... conception, my friend," replied Mirandolet. "Unless I very much mistake your physiognomy, you yourself come of an ancient race which is not without cunning and artifice—but in such matters as you refer to, you are children, compared ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... entered his house now he saw upon a Spanish table in the big hall a solitary bunch of white roses—a touch of simplicity in an area of fine artifice. Regarding it a moment, black thoughts receded, and choosing a flower from the vase he went slowly up the stairs to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is no confessional, no shrine Haunted with presaged gloom. I should be gay To look at thee and listen to thy voice; For if fair pictures and sweet sounds enchant The soul of man, that are but artifice, How then am I entranced, this living picture Bright by my side, and listening to this music That nature gave thee. What's eternal life To this inspired mortality! Let priests And pontiffs thunder, still I feel that here Is ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... describes, and which is, in fact, inspiration of the very loftiest kind. The few who enjoy the glorious privilege, not often felt, nor long conferred, of surrendering themselves to the magic of that spell, cease for the time to be artists; they take no thought of ornament, or of any rhetorical artifice, but throw themselves headlong into their subject, trusting to nature for that language which is at once the shortest and the most appropriate to the occasion; spurning all far-fetched metaphors aside, and ringing out their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... which he sauntered, and the walk that coiled itself through the depths of the plantations; all knew him, and from them and from the winter neglect which was upon the place distilled a subtle influence, a charm, an appeal belonging to that combination of artifice and nature which is perfect only in an Italian garden under an Italian sky. He was right in the name which he mockingly gave the effect before he felt it; it was a debauch, delicate, refined, of unserious pensiveness, a smiling melancholy, in which he walked emancipated from his harassing ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... companions out of difficulty, though even then, such tricks are departures from honorable dealing. But especially when there is no purpose to be served but that of appearing to know more than you do, it certainly must be considered a very mean kind of artifice. I think I have sometimes observed an individual to be prompted, where evidently the assistance was not desired, and even where it was not needed. To whisper to an individual the answer to a question, is sometimes to pay her rather a poor compliment, at least; for it is the same as saying, ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... epic poem. The epic must embrace a number of events to suspend the course of the narrative; which, only taking in a part of the life of the hero, would terminate too soon to display the skill of the poet. Without this artifice, the charm of uniting the greater part of the episodes to the principal subject of the romance would be lost. Mademoiselle de Scudery has so well treated them, and so aptly introduced a variety of beautiful passages, that nothing in this kind is comparable to her productions. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... difficulty; one of them is acutely aware of it, and takes very deep-laid precautions to circumvent it; the other, I suppose, does not trouble about the theory of his procedure, but he too adopts a certain artifice which carries him past the particular problem, though at the same time it involves him in several more. Little as Richardson may suspect it, he—and whoever else has the idea of making a story out of a series of letters, or a running diary written from day ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... brother think of her absence? what would Fernand conjecture? And what perils might not at that moment envelop her lover, while she was not near to succor him by means of her artifice, her machinations, or her gold. Ten thousand-thousand maledictions upon Stephano, who was the cause of all her present misery! Ten thousand-thousand maledictions on her own folly for not having exerted all her energies and all her faculties to escape ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... emblazoned shields, Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights At joust and tournament; then marshalled feast Served up in hall with sewers and seneshals: The skill of artifice and office mean; Not that which justly gives heroic name To person or to poem! Me, of these Nor skilled nor studious, higher argument Remains, sufficient of itself to raise That name, unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp my intended wing Depressed; ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... I fear in his presence? This was unlike an artifice intended to betray me into his hands. If it were an artifice, what purpose would it serve? The freedom of my mind was untouched, and that freedom would defy the assaults of blandishments or magic. Force was ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... Prettyman paused. Hitherto she had undoubtedly been playing her fish cautiously, or rather her young friend's fish,—perhaps I may say cunningly. She had descended to artifice on behalf of the girl whom she loved, admired, and pitied. She had seen some way into the man's mind, and had been partly aware of his purpose,—of his infirmity of purpose, of his double purpose. She had perceived that a word from her might help Grace's chance, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... heart, she would not suffer the Princess to be present at any of the following interviews: the first sight of so much beauty had so triumphant an effect, that she would not permit a second. But her scheme, however finely drawn, was observed by Henry; and, indignant at the artifice, he became more inflexible than ever, and insisted more firmly than before on his first proposals; assuring the Duke of Burgundy that he was resolved to have the Princess with all his other demands, or force the King of France ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... determining and thus acting, you will pursue the plain and direct road to the attainment of your wishes; you will defeat the insidious designs of your enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice; you will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings; and you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... Compromise had not been repealed merely to exhibit unity in the scope of the United-States statutes respecting slavery in the Territories. This was the euphuistic plea of those Northern senators and representatives who had given dire offense to their constituents by voting for it. It was the clever artifice of Douglas which suggested that construction. It was a deception, and it was contradicted and exposed by the logic of argument in the North and by the logic of action in the South. No double- dealing was attempted by the Southern men. They understood the question perfectly and left the apologies ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... her giddiness and frivolity, the girl pronounced these last words so decisively, that Rudolph felt, to his great regret, that he would never obtain from her the desired information about Germain; and he felt a repugnance to employ artifice in surprising her confidence. He paused a moment, and then resumed: "Do not let us speak of it again, neighbor. Upon my soul, you keep so well the secrets of others, that I am no longer surprised ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... lords, to war, to war! And ladies not as heretofore Embroider wimples for your wear But banners for the knights to bear. 355 For thus amid the wars of Troy I and my sisters did employ Our time and all our artifice: Standards, with many a fair device Embroidered, did we weave for them; 360 And on them lavished many a gem And gaily with glad songs of joy Our necklaces we freely gave, Tiara and diadem. Then leave your points and hem-stitch leave, ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... as much and as well as some, we would have had the fates in our own keeping. Had it not been for that artifice of the Romans at Antioch, we, had now been rather in Rome than here, and it was a woman—or girl rather, as I am told—the daughter of Gracchus, who first detected the cheat, and strove to save the army, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... naturalness beyond praise. . . . It must rank with 'Greifenstein' as the best work the author has produced. It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest."—New ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... establishes the theory of these narratives, and relates how, at the court, it had been decided to write a series of them, but to exclude from the number of their authors "those who should have studied and be men of letters; for Monseigneur the Dauphin did not wish their artifice to be introduced into them, and was also afraid lest the beauty of rhetoric should in some place injure ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... the ordinary height. Possibly from the dignity of her person, assisted by the dignity of her movements, a stranger would have been disposed to call her at a distance a woman of commanding presence; but never after he had approached near enough to behold her face. Every thought of artifice—of practised effect—or of haughty pretension, fled before the childlike innocence—the sweet feminine timidity—and the more than cherub loveliness of that countenance, which yet in its lineaments was noble, whilst its expression was purely ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... of St. Moden," exclaimed Sir Hugh de Fortibus when this puzzle was brought up, "my poor wit hath never shaped a more cunning artifice or any more bewitching to look upon. It came to me as in a vision, and ofttimes have I marvelled at the thing, seeing its exceeding difficulty. My masters and kinsmen, it is ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... of course this was merely an artifice to recover the Garuda Stone, and Marmaduke was not playing him false after all—he waited ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... them, that I was determined to make myself acquainted with their whole history; for I found by report that they were not only personally ill-treated, as I have already painfully described, but that they were robbed by artifice of those wages, which had been held up to them as so superior in this service. All persons were obliged to sign articles that, in case they should die or be discharged during the voyage, the wages then due to them ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... most desirable. By allowing the Hurons to waste their time and strength in making arrangements for an assault that was foreseen, and which might be met and defeated, a great advantage was obtained; whereas, by driving them prematurely from an artifice they were known to be engaged in, they would have recourse to another, and the difficulty of discovery would be added to our other disadvantages. So Susquesus reasoned, as was said at the time; and it is certain ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... (with Engravings). 4. Jacques van Artevelde. 5. Literary Relics of James Thomson and Allan Ramsey. 6. A Word upon Wigs. 7. The Income Tax. 8. Paris after Waterloo. 9. Correspondence of Sylvanus Urban: Concealed Lands; Richard of Cirencester; Artifice of a Condemned Malefactor; Billingsgate and Whittington's Conduit. With Notes of the Month; Review of New Publications; Reports of Archaeological Societies, Historical Chronicle, and OBITUARY; including Memoirs of the Earl of Belfast, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... many good qualities sacrificed for sake of an effect which can never be fully realized in sculpture. To so dispose the various masses, great and small, that they fall easily into groups, each having some relation to, and share of the background, is a true carver's artifice. A skilful use of this arrangement makes it quite unnecessary to encroach upon the domain of another art in the imitation of an effect which may be successfully rendered with the pencil, but only so to a very limited ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... reason to believe, that the Teton partisan was one of those bold spirits, who overstep the limits which use and education fix to the opinions of man, in every state of society, and he now saw plainly that he must adopt some artifice to deceive him, different from that which had succeeded so well with his followers. The sudden appearance of the rock, however, which hove up, a bleak and ragged mass, out of the darkness ahead, put an end for ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... baritones can be trained to reach the high notes of the male vocal compass in falsetto, but as natural facility to produce these notes is lacking in such voices and their production is due wholly to artifice, the reversion to the boy quality of voice is so complete and it predominates to such a degree that these voices are known as ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... let the artifice pass, nor let him remain in his error, which did you good service, and which pretty nearly extinguished his passion. No, honest soul, he cannot bear dissimulation. I cunningly get a footing at his rival's, who, like a dolt, was going to place his mistress in my hands, ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... profoundest conviction, here in exile, and precisely when monarchical reaction appears most insolently secure. What matters the triumph of an hour? What matters it that by concentrating all your means of action, availing yourselves of every artifice, turning to your account those prejudices and jealousies of race which yet for a while endure, and spreading distrust, egotism, and corruption, you have repulsed our forces and restored the former order of ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... the siege was not a little indebted to several valuable bets of his own, he well knowing at the time, and from information which himself alone possessed, that he should certainly lose them. Yet this artifice had a considerable effect in suspending the impatience of the officers, and in supplying topics for dispute and conversation. At length, however, the two French frigates, the sailing of which had been the subject of these wagers, left the great ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... as she listened to the duenna's consoling words, but scarcely had Petronilla ceased speaking than she suspected the artifice. ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... Capraja could explain to you, this appeal to heaven is accompanied by brass instruments only; it is that which gives it such a solemn, religious cast. And not merely is the artifice fine in its place; note how fertile in resource is genius. Rossini has derived fresh beauty from the difficulty he himself created. He has the strings in reserve to express daylight when it succeeds to the darkness, ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... ministers were victorious, put the adverse mob to the rout, and cudgelled Colt himself into a muddy ditch. The poll was taken in Westminster Hall. From the first there was no doubt of the result. But Colt tried to prolong the contest by bringing up a voter an hour. When it became clear that this artifice was employed for the purpose of causing delay, the returning officer took on himself the responsibility of closing the books, and of declaring ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he gained this office has been ascribed by some to artifice as well as the force of his eloquence. Col. Stone says, that "aspiring to the rank of chief, he not only wrought upon the minds of his people, by the exertion of that faculty which was ever with them a high standard of merit, but he succeeded ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... making his bow when the door opened and a man came in. He was tall, erect, and good-looking. Both air and manner were youthful, although perhaps with a trace of artifice; he would pass for thirty-five on a casual glance, but not ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... understand, that the place which it nominally occupies in our reasonings, properly belongs to the individual facts or observations of which it expresses the general result; the major itself being no real part of the argument, but an intermediate halting-place for the mind, interposed by an artifice of language between the real premises and the conclusion, by way of a security, which it is in a most material degree, for the correctness of the process. The minor, however, being an indispensable part of the syllogistic expression of an argument, without ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... it you shall wound race after race. You will be preserved by those who wish to destroy you, and you shall not perish. In evil days you shall not suffer, and when a tyrant thinks to uproot you, you shall shine forth the more in brighter glory."[146] The passage is typical also of the rhetorical artifice with which Philo, following the taste of the time, recommended the ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... yourself up from me, to make my search more curious? Or is this pretty artifice contrived, to signify that here the chase must end, and my pursuit be crowned, for you can fly ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... festivities was a natural amphitheater in the beautiful pine-woods. Here was a little hollow, clear of trees which served admirably well as an auditorium, and a bank at one end, leveled down with very little artifice, made a spacious stage, or, if required, a suitable rostrum. Here we had plays worth seeing and concerts worth hearing. Here, too, Sunday services were sometimes held, to the scandalizing of our Puritan neighbors, though when Dr. ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... was probably a mile square, and was surrounded by a high wall, on the top of which were little guard-houses and several masked cannon. In all their travels the Americans had not seen a more delightful bit of artifice, and they wandered about with a serene content that would have appealed to anyone but their voiceless guide. He led them about the place, allowing them to form their own conclusions, draw their own inferences and make their own calculations. His only acts were to salute the guards ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... tout de ses vapeurs funbres, 35 Sur les yeux les plus saints a jet ses tnbres. Lui seul, invariable et fond sur la foi, Ne cherche, ne regarde et n'coute que toi; Et bravant du demon l'impuissant artifice, De la religion soutient tout l'difice. 40 Grand Dieu, juge ta cause, et dploie aujourd'hui Ce bras, ce mme bras qui combattait pour lui, Lorsque des nations sa perte animes Le Rhin vit tant de fois disperser les armes. Des mmes ennemis je reconnais l'orgueil; 45 Ils viennent se briser contre ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... cunning artifice of his enemies beneath this unmistakable offer of escape on the part of the fair Peritana, the Indian was sternly silent; though the tones which truth assumes are so powerful and expressive, that ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... the case may be, until the judicial auspices appear most favorable. A lawyer who has a weak defence seeks to bring the case before a weak judge, or, if public clamor is loud against his client, makes use of every technical artifice to secure delay, by claiming that there are flaws in the indictment, or by moving for commissions to take testimony in distant points of the country. The opportunities for legal procrastination are so numerous that in a complicated case the ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... of complete illumination had come to me, and I saw that the darkness had hidden no landscape from me, but only a blank prosaic wall: from that evening forth, through the sickening years which followed, I saw all round the narrow room of this woman's soul—saw petty artifice and mere negation where I had delighted to believe in coy sensibilities and in wit at war with latent feeling—saw the light floating vanities of the girl defining themselves into the systematic coquetry, the scheming selfishness, ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot |
