"Intrigue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... electropathically, or by any other path, run a muck through many heathen hospitals. The field of politics is full of charms for him, the church invites his taste and talents, and the army tempts him with opportunities for intrigue; but whether in the shape of Machiavelisms, miracles, or mutinies, he is forever making mischief. Whether as messenger, dancing-master, conjurer, fortune-teller, speculator, mountebank, politician, priest, or Sepoy, he is ever the same Asirvadam the Brahmin,—sleekest of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... has well enough preserved the unity of action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled: he does not endeavour to hide his design only to discover it, for this is seldom the order of real events, and Shakespeare is the poet of nature: But his plan has commonly what Aristotle requires, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... trail and the heavy loads, in the comfortable stalls, with their deep bedding of clean straw; and here also, James Crocks himself was able to find the cheerful company, who ate their meals in quietude of heart, asking no questions, imputing no motives, knowing nothing of human intrigue, and above all, never, never insisting that he tell them what he thought about anything! Most of his waking hours were spent here, where he found the gentle sounds of feeding horses, the honest smell of prairie hay and the blessed ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... betrothed to the sister of Charles V., his passion for Dyveke did not pass away. He erected a palace at Opslo, and lived there with his mistress until recalled to Copenhagen, when he took her with him. The most singular feature in this whole intrigue is that the royal voluptuary was from the outset under the absolute sway, not of the fair Dyveke, but of her mother, Sigbrit, a low, cunning, intriguing woman of Dutch origin, who followed the couple to the ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... Italian opera of Handel's days is a story about some ancient or mediaeval hero whose very name is often to most people unknown; if he happens to be someone as famous as Julius Caesar, the familiar episodes of his life are sacrificed to some imaginary and complicated intrigue presented in the form of long and elaborate songs, thinly accompanied, and separated by stretches of dreary recitative. But in those days persons of culture, in England as well as in Italy, were perhaps more interested in ancient history and in the history of the later ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... instinct of what might follow Kit had thrust the two children into the bed-room. Females are strange and cunning animals; even at an early age, cunt is always ready, always inciting, and preparing them for cock; knowing or unknowingly, whether for intrigue, or objectless, or for the delight of doing what is forbidden; cunt is always inciting the female to help the male, for "cock and cunt must come ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... arrogance to appear, and speedily infected his colleagues with the same spirit; who, to overawe the people and the senate, instead of twelve lictors, appointed one hundred and twenty. For a time their measures were directed against high and low alike; but presently they began to intrigue with the senate, and to attack the commons; and if any of the latter, on being harshly used by one decemvir, ventured to appeal to another, he was worse handled on the appeal than in the first instance. The commons, on discovering their error, began in their despair to ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... friend pityingly. "My wonder is, amico," he replied seriously, "that they did not declare him immortal as well. When you read the true history of those exciting days and learn something of the political intrigue with which the Church was then connected, you will see certain excellent reasons why the Holy Father should have been declared infallible. But let me ask you, amico, if you have such doubts, why ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... divide the people, partly by intimidating them for which purpose a fleet of Ships lies within gun Shot of the Town & the Capital Fort within three miles of it is garrisond by the Kings Troops, and partly by Arts & Intrigue; by flattering those who are pleasd with Flattery; forming Connections with them, introducing Levity Luxury & Indolence & assuring them that if they are quiet the Ministry will alter their Measures. I fear some of the Southern Colonies are taken ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... agreeable to witness; process of disillusioning her, little by little, until he had undermined himself sufficiently to make the final break with her very easy—for her. Of course it interested him; all intrigue did where skill ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... might now be secured by the restoration of Hanover to England. Suddenly, however, on the thirteenth of September, 1806, Fox died, and by the incoming of Lauderdale the whole complexion was changed. Toryism again ran rampant. The Anglo-Russo-Prussian intrigue was renewed, and the rash Frederick William sent a peremptory challenge to Napoleon to ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... and his wife who waited on the ladies had been spirited away by some intrigue on the part of Benoist, and the king would have to pass the night alone in the ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... then, that Bertram Cope, when he began to intrigue the little group which dwelt among the quadruple avenues of elms that led to the campus in Churchton, was but about twenty-four,—certainly not a day more than twenty-five. If twenty-eight is ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... and intrigue from without further hastened the fall of the Administration. Godolphin, a moderate, had, after the General Election of 1708, found himself allied with the "Junto" of five powerful Whig Lords—Wharton, Sommers, Halifax, Orford, and Sunderland—but it was, at best, an uneasy alliance. Throughout ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... suffering the psychological as well as the material effects of defeat. In Paris and London the possibility of having to go on with the war without the Russian's assistance had become a serious consideration. In short, the fate of Europe was then in the hands of diplomatic and court intrigue. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... equanimity of soul: 'The approbation,' he observes, in a letter to Dr. Thatcher, 'of one judicious and virtuous man relative to the conduct of the negotiations, affords me more satisfaction than clamor and intrigue ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... one of those charming bodies who knows everybody's business, and manages it. She lives in a world of intrigue, but without a thought of intriguing for her own benefit. She has always a match to make, a disconsolate lover to comfort, a young artist to bring forward, a refugee to conceal, a spendthrift to get out of a scrape; and, like David in the mountains, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... service? He would have remained at the present day a major or a colonel but for the friendship of Cordova, who, amongst other things, was a courtier, and who was raised to the command of the armies of Spain by a court intrigue—which command he resigned into the hands of Espartero when the revolution of the Granja and the downfall of his friends, the Moderados, compelled him to take refuge in France. The friendship of Cordova and Espartero had been so well known that for a long time it was ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... a woman loves a man and loves him with all her heart, as Marian loved John, and when she loses him, not because she has done a single unworthy thing herself, but because he is so rubber spined that he will let another woman successfully intrigue him, a lot of comfort she is going to get from ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... supposed to be a sister of a Courtesan, an Andrian by birth; and she having become pregnant, he gives his word that she shall be his wife; but his father has engaged for him another, the daughter of Chremes; and when he discovers the intrigue he pretends that the nuptials are about to take place, desiring to learn what intentions his son may have. By the advice of Davus, Pamphilus does not resist; but Chremes, as soon as he has seen the little child born ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... and drink the waters and I think I'll leave Daniel Chopin behind in Paris. Chopin—Chopin, I wonder how much Chopin is in him? Pooh! what nonsense. Chopin only loved Sand and before that Constantia Gladowska. He never stooped to commonplace intrigue. But the resemblance, the extraordinary resemblance! After all, nature plays queer pranks. A thunderstorm may alarm a Mozart into existence, and why not a second Chopin? Ah, if I had that fellow's face and figure or he had ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... pipes, and drinking the largest quantity of ale: these were qualifications of too gross a nature to captivate his refined ambition. He piqued himself on his talent for raillery, his genius and taste, his personal accomplishments, and his success at intrigue. Nor were his excursions confined to the small villages in the neighbourhood, which are commonly visited once a week by the students for the sake of carnal recreation. He kept his own horses, traversed the whole country in parties of pleasure, attended all the races within fifty miles of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... future. Do not stay in Washington. Halleck is better qualified than you are to stand the buffets of intrigue and policy. Come out West; take to yourself the whole Mississippi Valley; let us make it dead-sure, and I tell you the Atlantic slope and Pacific shores will follow its destiny as sure as the limbs of a tree live or die with the main trunk! We have done much; still much remains to be done. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... relates. By means of his labor and his art we can sit at the council board of Philip and Elizabeth, we can read their most private dispatches. Guided by his demonstration, we are enabled to dissect out to their ultimate issues the minutest ramifications of intrigue. We join in the amusement of the popular lampoon; we visit the prison-house; we stand by the scaffold; we are present at the battle and the siege. We can scan the inmost characters of men and can view them in their habits as ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... which retains a strong flavour of its American origin (it can hardly be dated earlier than Bret Harte), may be reckoned to be peculiar to the light literature of the English language. We are not aware that it prevails to any extent in other countries; for although the short story of love, intrigue, and manners in general has flourished from mediaeval times, and at this moment is almost exclusively confined to these subjects in France, the class of works to which we are now referring differs entirely ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... and education had produced in her an extraordinary mixture of unworldliness, with knowledge of the world's evil, and even this knowledge was a strange blending of direct observation with the effects of reading and theatrical study. Her memory was furnished with abundant passionate situation and intrigue, which she never made emotionally her own, but felt a repelled aloofness from, as she had done from the actual life around her. Some of that imaginative knowledge began now to weave itself around Mrs. Grandcourt; and though Mirah would admit no position likely to affect her reverence for ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... There, he will be in his own bat's nest, so to speak. These fakirs are the only men who know the windings of all the secret passages. They are the rats of religion and intrigue. At any step he might lead us into an ambush, and we might be overwhelmed before we knew that we were attacked. If we go the other way, though, I can lead the way myself, and we need only take the fakir to show us how to ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... finally conquered, 't will not be by defeat in the field, but by the dirty politics with which this nation is riddled, and which makes a man general because he comes from the right State, and knows how to wire-pull and intrigue. Faugh!" ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... and she must not have all the pleasure for herself. My lord gave them a drive with a very good grace, though, I dare say, with rage and disappointment inwardly—not that his heart was very seriously engaged in his designs upon this simple lady: but the life of such men is often one of intrigue, and they can no more go through the day without a woman to pursue, than a fox-hunter without his ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... would not have it otherwise. Two days she showed herself as usual in Newport, and carried herself bravely. The sympathy looked or expressed was wormwood to her, but she met it with a reassuring smile. To be sure it was very hard to bear such a blow, the result of a stock intrigue, but it would soon pass over—it was a temporary ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... all the members of the governing body, whether few or many, were on a perfect equality in every sense of the word. (2) To the pious mind it appeared to be a choice made, not by man, but by heaven (compare Laws). (3) It afforded a protection against corruption and intrigue...It must also be remembered that, although elected by lot, the persons so elected were subject to a scrutiny before they entered on their office, and were therefore liable, after election, if disqualified, to be rejected (Laws). They were, moreover, liable to be called to account ...
— Laws • Plato
... mortal woman, but a wood-spirit in the guise of the beloved. The result would be his death within three days, and, as a matter of fact, he died. This is the groundwork of the old Breton ballad of Le Sieur Nan, who dies after his intrigue with the forest spectre.(1) A tale more like a common modern ghost-story is vouched for by Mr. C. J. Du Ve, in Australia. In the year 1860, a Maneroo black fellow died in the service of Mr. Du Ve. "The day before he died, having ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... restricting the exportation of arms and munitions by the joint resolution of last March. It is still a regrettable fact that certain American ports are made the rendezvous of professional revolutionists and others engaged in intrigue against the peace of those Republics. It must be admitted that occasionally a revolution in this region is justified as a real popular movement to throw off the shackles of a vicious and tyrannical government. Such was the Nicaraguan revolution against the Zelaya regime. A nation ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... from the court on account of a quarrel, he withdrew to his mother's estate in Volhynia, and there, to beguile the time, made love to the wife of a neighbouring magnate, the pane or Lord Falbowski. The intrigue was discovered, and to avenge his wrongs the outraged husband caused Mazeppa to be stripped to the skin, and bound to his own steed. The horse, lashed into madness, and terror-stricken by the discharge of a pistol, started off at a gallop, and rushing "thorough bush, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... least, on him exclusively, but on the whole body to which he belongs. That thing which he and they call by the pompous name of statesmanship, but which is, in fact, statescraft— the art of political intrigue—deals (like the opera) with ideas so few in number, and so little adapted to associate themselves with other ideas, that, possibly, in the one case equally as in the other, six hundred words are sufficient to meet ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... inclinations. Lord Peter she detested, nor did Martin stand much better in her good graces; but Jack had found the way to her heart. I have often admired what charms she discovered in that awkward booby, till I talked with a person that was acquainted with the intrigue, who gave me the following ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... informed her that was because, for once, he was dancing with an angel. She laughed and blushed. He flattered deliciously, and it cost him little; for he fell in love with her that night, deeper than he had ever been in his whole life of intrigue. He asked leave to call on her: she looked a little shy at that, and did not respond. He instantly withdrew his proposal, with an apology and a sigh that raised her pity. However, she was not a forward girl, even when ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... artful manner, at council, where, I was told, that some of the wisest appeared, at least by their silence, to be of my opinion; but others, who were my secret enemies, could not forbear some expressions, which by a side-wind reflected on me. And, from this time began an intrigue between his majesty and a junto[28] of ministers maliciously bent against me, which broke out in less than two months, and had like to have ended in my utter destruction. Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... aggression. Germany has also bent Turkey to her purpose, and has dragged the Turks into the war. An alliance with America! Well, to have gained the help of America in crushing France and crippling England, and ravaging and conquering Belgium was quite beyond the power of German diplomacy and intrigue! Still Germany's attempts to win at least America's moral support in this war are ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... astounded the general public as much as it disappointed the Liberal leaders. Bowles called the result "a fate above logic and superior to reason,"[1369] but the Evening Post thought it due to "commonplace chicanery, intrigue, bargaining, and compromise."[1370] Stanley Matthews, who was temporary chairman of the convention, declared himself greatly chagrined at the whole matter. "I have concluded," he said, "that as a politician and a President ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... they are worth a short description. They are interesting, if from nothing else, from the fact that they are the men who appear on the page of history one day steeped in the enervating luxury and intrigue of Versailles and Marly, the next fighting and dying with the courage of the lionhearted Henri de la Rochejaquelin in Vendee, leaving as an epitaph on their whole generation the words of the Chouan chief, "Allons chercher l'ennemi! Si je recule, tuez moi; si j'avance, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... significant part of the story. Of the thirty-one ratifications twenty-four have taken place in special sessions. These mean extra cost to the State, opportunity for other legislation and the chance of political intrigue for or against the Governor who calls them. These obstacles have been difficult to overcome, far more difficult than most of you will ever know, and in a few instances well-nigh insurmountable, but the point to emphasize to-day ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... his uncle appeared at Elanchovi and claimed his nephew's fortune and titles. All was given up to him, and I, who believed that I had only sold my services to favour an intrigue or an affair of smuggling, found that I had been the accomplice ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... to the end of its second year, and by land the United States had done no more than to regain what Hull lost at Detroit. The conquest of Canada was a shattered illusion, a sorry tale of wasted energy, misdirected armies, sordid intrigue, lack of organization. A few worthless generals had been swept into the rubbish heap where they belonged, and this was the chief item on the credit side of the ledger. The state militia system had been found wanting; raw levies, defying authority and miserably cared for, ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... of Paris had opened like magic before the "sesame" of Thermidor and the prospects of settled order under the Directory. There were visiting, dining, and dancing; dressing, flirtation, and intrigue; walking, driving, and riding—all the avocations of a people soured with the cruel and bloody past, and reasserting its native passion for pleasure and refinement. All classes indulged in the wildest speculation, securities public and corporate ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... manifesto protesting against the assumption of the executive authority by Juarez. The protest had little effect, however, and his next proceeding was to come to New Orleans, get into correspondence with other disaffected Mexicans, and thus perfect his plans. When he thought his intrigue ripe enough for action, he sailed for Brazos, intending to cross the Rio Grande and assert his claims with arms. While he was scheming in New Orleans, however, I had learned what he was up to, and in advance of his departure had sent instructions to have him arrested on American soil. Colonel ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... the Court of Versailles he left the platform in disgust because the noisy entrance of a distinguished guest interrupted his concerto. In London, after his means had been crippled by the French Revolution, he was accused of political intrigue. ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... pursued long, nor with much success. From the nature of our government, popularity is the instrument of foreign influence. Without it, all is labor and disappointment. With that auxiliary, foreign intrigue finds agents, not only volunteers, but competitors for employment, and anything like reluctance is understood to be a crime. Has Britain this means of influence? Certainly not. If her gold could buy adherents, their becoming such ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... were apparently in full and disastrous retreat, a commercial traveller left the field, and arriving, after a rapid journey, in Paris, announced that Buonaparte had been utterly defeated by Melas. It is said that the ill-wishers of the First Consul immediately set on foot an intrigue for removing him from the government, and investing Carnot with the chief authority. It is not doubtful that many schemes of hostility had been agitated during Napoleon's absence; or that, amidst all the clamour and splendour of his triumphant ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... creed. To say the least, they were too wise to attempt, thus to fill the church with hypocrites and secret enemies. Of such there were already too many in those societies which shun the light, and in the new world as actively as in the old intrigue and manoeuvre in order to overthrow every regular and legitimately established government. Even the republic of New Granada, which had been fashioned so much according to their will, was far from perfect ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... then seem that, in dealing with such a man as Andrew Johnson, it is the part of wisdom to suspect the worst. Without any special knowledge of the treasonable intrigue now going on in Washington, it is still possible to fathom the President's designs, and to understand the resources on which he relies. In the first place, his conceit makes him believe that he is the first man in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... knowing it will be to their advantage. If they hear of a feud raging between two tribes, they collect at the shore and try to pick up fugitives; if there is no war, they do their best to occasion one, by intrigue, alcohol, or agents provocateurs. They intoxicate men and women, and make them enlist in that condition; young men are shown pretty women, and promised all the joys of Paradise in the plantations. If these tricks fail, the recruiters simply ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... assurance of Lady Dashfort's genius for intrigue gave her an air of frank imprudence, which prevented Lord Colambre from suspecting that more was meant than met the ear. The count and he took leave of one another with mutual regard; and Lady Dashfort rejoiced to have got our hero out of ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... within his grasp. Nevertheless she was positive, she was absolutely certain as a girl can be about such a thing, that he wanted and had long wanted her. He had waited because mingled with his man's desire for her there had been the other desire. He might have rushed at an intrigue. Such a man could have no real delicacies. He was too wise to rush at a marriage. And he must have had marriage in his mind almost ever since he had met her. He must have made inquiries, have found out all about her, and then laid ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... could not be settled by the sword. Want of union, with them as with the Baglioni and many other of the minor noble families in Italy, prevented their founding a substantial dynasty. Their power, based on force, was maintained by craft and crime, and transmitted through tortuous channels by intrigue. While false in their dealings with the world at large, they were diabolical in the perfidy with which they treated one another. No feudal custom, no standard of hereditary right, ruled the succession in their family. Therefore the ablest Malatesta for the moment clutched ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... an intrigue," protested Dorothy, her eyes flashing, "than was your marriage to papa, or the marriage of Aunt Dorothy with Uncle Pat. Oh, mamma," she cried appealingly, "can't you see we ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... one of his father's last letters where Mr. Gould had expressed the conviction that "God looked wrathfully at these countries, or else He would let some ray of hope fall through a rift in the appalling darkness of intrigue, bloodshed, and crime that hung over ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... army officers look out expectantly for the arrival of the transport that is to bring them their promotions, or to take them home, Geronimo de Silva was confined for not pursuing the Dutch vessels after the sea fight off Corregidor. The crumbling walls still whisper of intrigue and secrecy. The fort was built in 1587, and became the base of operations, not only against the pirate fleets of the Chinese, the Moros, and the Dutch, but also in the riots of the Chinese and the Japanese that broke out frequently ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... cause Keith to determine he would uncover this rascality,—his desire to repay Hawley, and his interest in the girl rescued on the Salt Fork. This gossamer web of intrigue into which he had stumbled unwittingly was nothing to him personally; had it not involved both Hawley and Miss Hope, he would have left it unsolved without another thought. But under the circumstances it became his own battle. There ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... was an early disciple of Clinton. Though he broke with his political chief in 1813, he had remained long enough in the Clinton school to learn every trick; and he possessed such native talent for intrigue, so smooth a manner, and such a wonderful memory for names, that he soon found himself at the head of a much more perfect and far-reaching machine than Clinton had ever dreamed of. The Empire State has never produced the ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... simple-hearted that he hardly knew where to begin and where to leave off. He let slip in a rather unguarded way, too, that Yulia Mihailovna knew the whole secret of Stavrogin and that she had been at the bottom of the whole intrigue. She had taken him in too, for he, Pyotr Stepanovitch, had also been in love with this unhappy Liza, yet he had been so hoodwinked that he had almost taken her to Stavrogin himself in the carriage. "Yes, yes, it's all very well for you to laugh, gentlemen, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "young man's affair" at the bottom of it, an intrigue. But he was mistaken. Leon was after no love-making. He was sadder than ever, as Madame Lefrancois saw from the amount of food he left on his plate. To find out more about it she questioned the tax-collector. Binet answered roughly that he ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... with a shade of vexation. "That wouldn't do. You couldn't have a scene, or, at least, not a whole act, without women. Of course I understand that. Even if you could keep the attention of the audience without them, through the importance of the intrigue, still you would have to have them for the sake of the stage-picture. The drama is literature that makes a double appeal; it appeals to the sense as well as the intellect, and the stage is half the time merely a picture-frame. I had to think that ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... my puzzled expression, and his hand clapped upon my shoulder with a firm, friendly pressure. "Strange things happen in this ship, eh, Jack?" said he, in a kindly voice. "No wonder you are stumped, you are too young and straightforward to be alert to intrigue. You do not understand, yet you are eager to risk your skin in another man's quarrel? And you believe ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... bring Blondel into the plot which was to transfer Geneva to Savoy and strike the heaviest blow at the Reformed that had been struck in that generation, was another thing and one remote. The Syndic was a trifle discontented and inclined to intrigue; that was true, Grio knew it. But to parley with the Grand Duke's emissaries, and strive to get and give not, that was one thing; while to betray the town and deliver it tied and bound into the hands of its arch-enemy, was another and a far more weighty matter. One, too, to which in Grio's judgment—and ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... the first of the Incas. He was connected with the old royal family, but did not stand in the direct line of succession. The story of his rise to power is told as follows: "A princess of royal blood, named Mama-Ciboca, contrived, by artifice and intrigue, to raise to the throne her son called Rocca, a youth of twenty years, and so handsome and valiant that his admirers called him Inca, which means lord. This title of Inca began with him, and was adopted by all his successors." He ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... Chili, where the government had bought the ship, and had appointed them to command her. They, and an American captain named Worcester, had obtained a considerable influence over Admiral Encalada, and seeing that this influence would be shaken by Lord Cochrane's ascendency, they formed an intrigue to persuade the Chilian admiral to insist upon retaining the chief command, or upon dividing it with ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... air of truth, of thorough belief in her guilt, that Dora is dazed, bewildered, and, falling back from him, covers her face with her hands. The fear of publicity, of having her late intrigue brought into the glare of day, fills her with consternation. And then, what will she gain by it? Nothing; she has no evidence on which to convict this man; all is mere supposition. She bitterly feels the weakness of her position, and her inability to ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... by the cold light of day and that night he appealed to Mrs. Hardesty. She was a woman herself, and wise in the ways of jealousy, intrigue and love. A single word from her and this impenetrable mystery might be cleared up like mist before the sun. And she ought to help him because it was through her, indirectly, that all this trouble had occurred. Until her arrival there ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... tour I remained some time at Venice. The romantic character of the place delighted me; I was very much amused by the air of adventure and intrigue that prevailed in this region of masks and gondolas; and I was exceedingly smitten by a pair of languishing black eyes, that played upon my heart from under an Italian mantle. So I persuaded myself that I was lingering at Venice to study men ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... not let yourselves suppose for a moment that the uneasiness in the populations of Europe is due entirely to economic causes and economic motives; something very much deeper underlies it all than that. They see that their governments have never been able to defend them against intrigue or aggression, and that there is no force of foresight or of prudence in any modern cabinet to stop war." (New ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit; to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue; to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism, this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... a whole people (without partiality, as well as without hypocrisy), like the rays of the sun; and the administration of infinite wisdom and justice, and truth and purity. But when government becomes the mere agency of party, and its highest gifts the prizes of party zeal and intrigue, it loses its moral prestige and power; and from the corrupt fountain would flow polluted streams into every Department of the public service, which would corrupt the whole mass of society, were it not for the counteracting and refining influences which are exerted upon ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... been concerned in intrigue before, and it did not agree with our simple lives. I could feel myself deteriorating, morally and intellectually. I had a desire to beat the Precious Ones (who were certainly well behaved for children shut up in two stuffy rooms) or better still to set ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the first steps of the transaction; and I believe they show that, if ever there was an instance in which the king acted with honesty and fairness towards his servants, and if ever there was an instance in which public men, opposed to those servants, kept aloof from intrigue, and from the adoption of all means except the most honourable, in promoting their own views of the public weal, this was that individual instance; and I will add with reference to myself, that these ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... threads of intrigue, how frail they are, and how much depends upon every one of them, be it in the warp or the woof of a scheme! We have seen that in this case, one of them gave way under the rough handling of Sir Philip Hastings, and the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... bachelors to marry the widows of the soldiers who were slain. 6. Fu'rius Camil'lus was now created dictator, and to him was entrusted the sole power of managing the long protracted war. 7. Camil'lus, who, without intrigue or solicitation, had raised himself to the first eminence in the state, had been made one of the censors some time before, and was considered as the head of that office; he was afterwards made a military tribune, and had, in this post, gained several ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... he said. "I fully appreciate the position. The scoundrel has learnt how to give an English sound to his name. Probably my daughter taught him. Hard though it is for a father to say such a thing, she is the real brain behind this sordid story of intrigue and wrong-doing." ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... The one and safer for the operator is the suggestive, in which appearances are made by consummate tact and artful flattery to excite the imagination of the buyer so that he is led to believe what he desires without compromising the agent. The other is positive intrigue and absolute lying, so nicely done that the wealthy amateur is fleeced often in a fashion that confers a pleasure, and which, though he may subsequently detect it, gives him but a lame chance at redress. In most instances he deserves none. For, stimulated by vanity or fashion, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... infantile debauchery, recalling the cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his nostrils. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... can perceive your position, and how, so unhappily, you have been able to reconcile insidious intrigue with sentiments of honour and purity. But I have much to tell you, for I would warn you against enemies on all sides. Rajah Lal, for some reason your mortal foe, has convinced Golab Singh that you connived at his death ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... "play fair." Corporations are sometimes unjust. Politics are liable to become corrupt. In the various associations of home and community life indifference, cruelty, unchastity, and crime add to the burdens of poverty, disease, and wretchedness. A yellow press mirrors a scandalous amount of intrigue, immorality, and misdemeanor. Government abuses its power; public opinion is intolerant and unjust; fashion is tyrannical; law is uncompromising. In times like our own economic interests frequently overshadow cultural interests. In college estimation athletics appear to bulk larger than ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... hilarity of the spectators, who laugh at the ready invention of the knave as well as at the gullibility of the old man, Before this comedy appeared the French stage was chiefly filled with plays full of intrigue, but with scarcely any attempt to delineate character or manners. In this piece the plot is carried on, partly in imitation of the Spanish taste, by a servant, Mascarille, who is the first original personage Moliere has created; he is not a mere imitation of the valets of the Italian or classical ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... her fidelity had now inevitably developed into the conviction that she was false. He could place but one interpretation on her open disavowal of him, and on her taking the name under which he had secretly married her. Her conduct forced the conclusion on him that she was engaged in some infamous intrigue; and that she had basely secured herself beforehand in the position of all others in which she knew it would be most odious and most repellent to him to claim his authority over her. With that conviction he was now watching Mr. Bashwood, firmly persuaded that his wife's hiding-place was known ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... patriotism, any one noble motive or fine instinct to prompt him to public life? The mere suggestion was a sneer. It seemed to me, simply, that Stanley Lake was a lively, amusing, and even intelligent man, without any internal resource; vacant, peevish, with an unmeaning passion for corruption and intrigue, and the sort of egotism which craves distinction. So ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... suggested to me. It seemed to me that I was not merely restoring Cyril Graham to his proper place in literary history, but rescuing the honour of Shakespeare himself from the tedious memory of a commonplace intrigue. I put into the letter all my enthusiasm. I put into the ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... any legal retribution on his "Man of the World." Godwin wrote "Caleb Williams" to show with what impunity man preyed on man, how powerless the tenant and the dependent woman lay before the violence or the intrigue of the rich. And it is not only that a crime should be committed with perfect security which would now receive a severe sentence at the hands of an ordinary judge and jury which surprises the reader of to-day, but that scenes which would now shock any person of common ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... some cool-headed coxcomb, some self-possessed calculator would perhaps have had an advantage over me. She was so vain and sophisticated, that the language of vanity would appeal to her; she would have allowed herself to be taken in the toils of an intrigue; a hard, cold nature would have gained a complete ascendency over her. Keen grief had pierced me to my very soul, as she unconsciously revealed her absolute love of self. I seemed to see her as she one day would be, alone in the world, with no one to whom she ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... I was to become a soldier of France, yet I could not but feel that I was a foreigner, and almost friendless—unlucky, indeed, in the choice of the few friends I possessed. Chief of them was the Marquis de Beauvais, concerning whom I soon made two discoveries—that he was in the thick of an intrigue against the republic I served, and its First Consul, and that he was in love with Marie de Meudon, my dead ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... which these political scandals have had is due partly to the Latin love of excitement, also to the Latin frankness about washing dirty political linen in public. To the foreigner it has seemed strange that a republic could endure with such abysses of intrigue and personal corruption beneath its political life as have been shown in the Panama and Dreyfus scandals. The Germans probably have been misled by them into considering the French nation wholly despicable and degenerate. But France has not only ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... she was called by the fashion of the day Mistress) Elizabeth Culling, of Hertingfordbury Park. But little is known of this woman. Her age is an affair of uncertainty, and all the minor circumstances of her intrigue with young William Cowper are open to doubt and conjecture; but the few known facts justify the inference that she neither merited nor found much pity in her disgrace, and that William erred through boyish indiscretion rather than from vicious propensity. She bore him two children, and he neither ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... regard for his own safety, as to induce him to divulge the whole scheme, and to give up his employer and whomsoever else he could implicate. That, all this had been skilfully done; but that Snawley, who was well practised in the arts of low cunning and intrigue, had successfully baffled all their attempts, until an unexpected circumstance had brought him, last night, upon ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... convicted was made plain by my Lord Howard turning King's evidence, I left London with my man James. And before we were at Dover the news came to us that my Lord Essex, in despair, had cut his throat in the Tower. As for myself, I was glad enough to leave; for I was both sick and weary of intrigue. It would be of a very different sort in France; and of a kind that a gentleman may undertake without misgivings: so, though I was loth to leave the land where Dolly was, the balance altogether left me refreshed ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... which lies sweetly in the valley of the Jonte, at its confluence with the Butezon, long leagues remote from railroads and the world they stitch together—that world of unrest, uncertainty and intrigue which in those days seemed ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... certain Fernan Perez, the tool and favourite of the powerful Duke of Villena. The ambition and selfish passion of these two men are enlisted against her. Perez is determined to marry her; her father is determined to sweep Macias out of the path of his own political advancement. The intrigue devised between the two is perfectly successful. Macias is enticed away; Elvira, forced to believe that she is deserted and betrayed, is half driven, half entrapped, into a marriage with Perez; and Macias, returning to claim ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... contested against him. He may not have been his equal, he was certainly his rival. Nay, on not a few occasions—I am almost ashamed to mention it—he actually defeated him. However this may be, you will certainly find his works full of humour: the plots are full of wittily contrived intrigue, the denouements clear, the characters suited to the situations, the words true to life, the jests never unworthy of true comedy, the serious passages never quite on the level of tragedy. Seductions are rare in his plays; if he introduces love affairs, it is as a concession to human weakness. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... Empire had been founded on the shattered remnants of the First, the nobles of the Imperium had come slowly to realize that the empire was not to be judged by the examples of its predecessor. The First Empire had conquered most of the known universe by political intrigue and sheer military strength; it had fallen because that same propensity for political intrigue had gained over every other strength of the Empire, and the various branches and sectors of the First Empire had begun to use it against ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Admit receiving that letter? Of course! Did he think she could help other men writing silly letters to her? Did he not think she could keep out of a mess? And she smiled the self-satisfied smile of a woman conscious of many admirers and of her own powers of intrigue. ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... of the appeal of the absolute honesty of purpose after listening to Allen's unconsciously irresistible testimony. In words made pregnant by the simplicity of their utterance, he described Gorham the man and Gorham the Colossus of the business world; he pictured the waves of avarice and intrigue and discontent which he thought he saw beating against the feet of this towering figure, unheeded and unrecognized because so far beneath it; he told of his own puny efforts to warn this giant of the storm which he thought ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... musician's wife, and was not at all inclined to encourage it, judging that there was more political advantage to be gained by his young kinsman's continued intimacy with the ex-Queen than by a love-affair with Ortensia. For Christina was almost always engaged in some intrigue, if not in actual conspiracy, and though her dealings of this kind were as futile as her whole life had been, it was as well that the Papal Government should know what she was ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by the love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and pursue; and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, [a transitory state;] every excursion shall serve but the more to endear thee to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... a relation of that ffrenchman before I goe farther, and what a thing it is to have an intrigue. The next day they see a boat of their ennemys, as we heard since. They presently landed. The wild men runned away; the ffrenchman alsoe, as he went along the watter side for fear of loosing himselfe. He finds there an harbour very thick, layes himselfe downe and falls asleepe. The night ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... might have been seduced and carried off by some gallant son of a local Governor, who feared his intrigue might be discovered ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... this out at once,' she said, and hailing a taxi she bundled the other woman into it and drove home. Charles was out. She ordered tea, and quickly had the whole story out—the lodgings in Birmingham, the intrigue, the ultimatum, Charles's catastrophic collapse and inertia, years of poverty in London going from studio to studio, lodging to lodging: his flight—with another woman: her struggles, her present hand to mouth existence on the outskirts ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... last hundred and fifty years Assyrian history—a record of black oppression abroad and blacker intrigue at home—has recalled the rapid gathering and slower passing away of some great storm. A lull marks the first half of the ninth century. Then almost without warning the full fury of the cloud bursts and rages for nearly a hundred years. Then the gloom brightens till all is over. The dynasty ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... puente de Alvarado, formerly the Teolticalli, or Toltec canal; here the street of the Indio triste, or that of the Nino perdido; the "sad Indian" and the "lost child" respectively. Redolent of the Mexico of the viceroys, of political intrigue, of love and liasons, of the cloak and the dagger, are some of the old streets, balconies, and portals of Mexico. Here the Spanish cavalier, with sword and muffling cape, stalked through the gloom to some intrigue of love or villainy, and ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... houses, taking his rest; and like his mother, he is always in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and the good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a hunter of men, always at some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, and never wanting resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist; for as he is neither mortal nor immortal, he is alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... had a bad fall when riding to join in the Rising in the North. Nor could there now be any doubt that he was an ardent partisan of the imprisoned Mary, while Richard had always known his inclination to intrigue. She could only agree with her husband's opinion, and ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that in such ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... of Bently Brown unfold, scene by scene; unfold in violence and malevolent intrigue and zip and much fighting. Also unfolded something of which Bently Brown had never dreamed; something which the audience, though greeting it with laughter, failed at first to recognize for what it was worth, because every one knew all about the Bently-Brown Western dramas, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... suspicious royal fancy? Or were the secretary of Philip II. and the monarch of Spain rivals in the affections of a one-eyed widow of rank? and did the secretary, Perez, induce Philip to give orders for Escovedo's death, because Escovedo threatened to reveal to the King their guilty intrigue? Sir William Stirling-Maxwell and Monsieur Mignet accepted, with shades of difference, this explanation. Mr. Froude, on the other hand, held that Philip acted for political reasons, and with the full approval of his very ill-informed conscience. There was no lady as a motive ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... adherents, to whom he shewed how easily we might all be destroyed, and was very active in forming a party and collecting an army for this purpose. Although severely reproached by his father for this treacherous design, he persevered in his plan; but the intrigue was discovered by Chichimecatl, his determined enemy, who immediately communicated the intelligence to the council of Tlascala, before whom Xicotencatl was brought prisoner to answer for his treacherous intentions. Maxicatzin made a long speech in our favour, representing the prosperity which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... usually falls to the lot of roguery," continued Carlton, "Petard delighted in outwitting his enemies of the law, and in leading those whom he desired to fleece into his net. Thus practised in intrigue, he plumed himself in detecting any trick that was attempted against him; and thus on the constant qui vive, he was enabled to avoid detection and arrest. Every effort, however ingenious, that the officers of the ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... formed early London were fought for over and over again, as wolves wrangle round a carcass. On Cornhill there probably dwelt petty kings who warred with the kings of Ludgate; and in Southwark there lurked or burrowed other chiefs who, perhaps by intrigue or force, struggled for centuries to get a foothold in Thames Street. But of such infusoria History (glorying only in offenders, criminals, and robbers on the largest scale) justly pays no heed. This alone we know, that the early rulers of London ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... to Angelina and Lana an exceedingly quick intimacy between Lois and me sentimentally interested the former, and, as I have said, aroused the mischievous, yet not unkindly, curiosity of the latter. Like all people who are deep in intrigue themselves, any hint of it in others excited her sophisticated curiosity. So when we concluded it might be safe to call each other Lois and Euan, Lana's curiosity leaped over all bounds ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... question had been countermanded. Various explanations were given for this action, and I shall recur to it again. But it is believed by those who were interested in General Smith, and had confidence in his unusual capacity for high command, that his relief was largely, if not altogether, due to intrigue, on the part of General Butler, aided perhaps by an exaggerated estimate on the part of General Grant of that officer's political importance, which General Smith could easily have defeated had he been on the ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... an under-plot of the Prophet, whose object was indeed far beyond that of becoming the paltry instrument of a rusty intrigue. It was a custom with Dick o' the Grange, for a few years previous to the date of our story, to sleep during the assizes, in the head inn of the town, attended by Jemmy Branigan. This was rendered in some degree necessary, by the condition of his bad leg, and his ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... now in its old age this dark business should have cast its shadow upon the venerable walls! And yet those strange, peaked roofs and quaint, overhung gables were a fitting covering to grim and terrible intrigue. As I looked at the deep-set windows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured, water-lapped front, I felt that no more fitting scene could be set for ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... still pending questions upon satisfactory and honorable terms. The dealings of this Government with other states have been and should always be marked by frankness and sincerity, our purposes avowed, and our methods free from intrigue. This course has borne rich fruit in the past, and it is our duty as a nation to preserve the heritage of good repute which a century of right dealing with foreign governments ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Again, perhaps the black diplomatist feared to overstock the market with Njinas, or to offend some regular customer for the sake of an "interloper." In these African lands they waste over a monkey's skin or a bottle of rum as much intrigue as is devoted to ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... and wrung the heart of Clelia Alba. She knew that Adone was not in the house, Did he, the soul of purity and honour, seduce a girl who dwelt under his own roof? — carry on an intrigue with a little beggar, to his own shame and the outrage of his mother? Was this the true cause of his frequent absence, his many nights abroad? Her dark brows contracted, her black ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... deep down a voice kept telling him that if it came to fighting they three, Pierre, Jeanne, and himself, would rise or fall together. A few hours had transformed him into Gregson's old appreciation of the fighting man. Long and tedious months of diplomacy, of political intrigue, of bribery and dishonest financiering, in which he had played but the part of a helpless machine, were gone. Now he held the whip-hand; Brokaw had acknowledged his own surrender. He was to fight—a clean, fair fight on his part, and his blood ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... not know how to pull these ropes of intrigue. I have heard all about them. I couldn't help that, you know, and be a young ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the eyes of portrait-painters. The counts upon which whites have been deported are mainly four: cheating Tembinok', meddling overmuch with copra, which is the source of his wealth and one of the sinews of his power, 'peaking, and political intrigue. I felt guiltless upon all; but how to show it? I would not have taken copra in a gift: how to express that quality by my dinner-table bearing? The rest of the party shared my innocence and my embarrassment. They shared also in my mortification when after two whole meal-times and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dare say, read it; but, fortunately, every district is now so admirably supplied with local newspapers, that I trust in all time to come the people of England will drink of purer streams nearer home, and not of those streams which are muddled by party feeling and political intrigue, and by many motives that tend to anything rather than the enlightenment and advantage of the people. It is said,—that very paper has said over and over again,—'Why this war? Why not separate peaceably? Why this fratricidal strife ?' I hope it is equally averse to fratricidal ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... Oroonoko, and presume him less: What though we wrong him? Isabella's woe Waters those bays that shall for ever grow. Our foes confess, nor we the praise refuse, The drama glories in the British muse. The French are delicate, and nicely lead Of close intrigue the labyrinthian thread; Our genius more affects the grand, than fine, Our strength can make the great plain action shine: They raise a great curiosity indeed, From his dark maze to see the hero freed; We rouse th' affections, and that hero show Gasping beneath some formidable blow: They sigh; ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... is divided into two parts, one dealing with Lady Jane Grey, and the other with Mary Tudor as Queen, introducing other notable characters of the era. Throughout the story holds the interest of the reader in the midst of intrigue and conspiracy, extending considerably ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... ever busy to track out the meandering paths of his foes, to destroy the nets wherein they wished to entangle his feet. She had even braved the jealous wrath of Bonaparte when it was necessary to ferret out some intrigue of the Directory. The special spy, whom Barras had sent to Italy to watch the movements of Bonaparte, and to give him early reports of every word, Botot, had been received by Josephine with a friendly smile and with great attention; she manifested ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... Lord Altringham, though his manner was airy and almost indifferent, was in truth most anxious that his friend should be put upon his feet by the marriage; and the Countess was so keen about it, that there was nothing in the way of innocent intrigue which she would not have done to accomplish it. She knew that George Hotspur was a rake, was a gambler, was in debt, was hampered by other difficulties, and all the rest of it; but she liked the man, and was therefore willing ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... substitution of the supremacy of the crowned Bluebeard, Henry VIII., for that of the Pope, in the English Church. It had little in common with the revolution of 1642. The field of its action was the closet of selfish intrigue,—the stalls of discontented prelates,—the chambers of the wanton and adulteress,—the confessional of a weak prince, whose mind, originally narrow, had been cramped closer still by the strait- jacket of religious bigotry and superstition. The age of nobility and heroism had well-nigh ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... measured terms." Still, as it is the unexpected that always happens, I knew there might yet come a day when I should be called upon to break a lance with Aunt Hannah, and I must say I devoutly hoped that in the event of so deplorable an occurrence, heaven would vouchsafe me the victory. Steeped in intrigue up to her old ears, Aunt Hannah had, I believed, several times laid deep plans touching her niece's future—plans mysterious to the last degree, which seemed to afford her the liveliest satisfaction. ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... days now had experienced no real desire to meet Lieutenant D'Hubert arms in hand, chafed at the systematic injustice of fate. "Does he think he will escape me in that way?" he thought indignantly. He saw in it an intrigue, a conspiracy, a cowardly manoeuvre. That colonel knew what he was doing. He had hastened to recommend his pet for promotion. It was outrageous that a man should be able to avoid the consequences of his acts in such a ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... conjugal fidelity; hence, while the men riot in unlimited variety, the women are in great numbers confined to share among them the scanty favors of one man only. This unnatural and impolitic conduct induces them to seek by art and intrigue, what they are denied by the laws of their prophet. As polygamy prevails over all Asia, this art and intrigue follow as the consequence of it; some have imagined, that it is the result of climate, but it rather appears to be the result of the injustice ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... adopted towards vassal states a policy of conciliation, and did much to secure peace within the empire by his magnanimous treatment of rebel kings who had been intimidated by their neighbours and forced to entwine themselves in the meshes of intrigue. His wars were directed mainly to secure the protection of outlying provinces against ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... writing of the "Life of Washington," on which he was then fairly launched. But from the beginning he found the situation in Spain unexpectedly absorbing. It was the usual Spanish situation, to be sure: a designing pretender, a child monarch, a court honeycombed with intrigue, and a people ready for anything spectacular. When Irving was presented to the young queen, she was closely guarded. "On ascending the grand staircase, we found the portal at the head of it, opening into the royal suite of ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... pretty women,—- a mode of love-making which Scott certainly contrived to render into verse, in painting Arthur's love-making to Lucy in that poem. It seems that some absolutely false accusation brought against Lord Kinnedder, of an intrigue with a lady with whom he had been thus philandering, broke poor Erskine's heart, during his first year as a Judge. "The Counsellor (as Scott always called him) was," says Mr. Lockhart, "a little man of feeble make, who seemed unhappy when his pony got beyond ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... their voices were drowned amidst groans and hissings. It was shortly after carried; and it had not been signed more than half an hour, before it was within the walls of the House of Commons. The reason of this extraordinary despatch was, that it had been kept back by intrigue so late, that the very hour in which it was delivered to the House, was that in which Mr. Wilberforce was to make his ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power, catch them in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry, and disturb their own affairs with influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with the same purpose, all act in the common interest and ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... her composedly for a moment without answering: "You always erred, Charlotte, in ascribing your own skill in intrigue to me. It was a flattering mistake. What I am to others ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... stories, the scenes laid in the Malay Peninsula and nearby islands. They describe the strange life of these regions, and show how it reacts in various ways upon white men who live there. The Green Half Moon is a story of mystery and diplomatic intrigue, the scene partly in ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... dumb. How many a pretty gentleman's knowledge lies all within the verge of the court! He will tell you the names of the principal favorites, repeat the shrewd sayings of a man of quality, whisper an intrigue that is not yet blown upon by common fame; or, if the sphere of his observation is a little larger than ordinary, will perhaps enter into all the incidents, turns, and revolutions in a game of ombre. When he has gone thus far, he has shown you the whole circle of his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... upon some mission; and, during his absence, my mother, flattered by the attentions, and won by the assiduities, of this nobleman yielded to his wishes. It so happened that my father returned very unexpectedly, and discovered the intrigue. The evidence of my mother's shame was positive; he surprised her in the company of her seducer! Carried away by the impetuosity of his feelings, he watched the opportunity of a meeting taking place between them, and murdered both his wife and ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... humble birth, but of great genius, Mirza-Taki Khan, rose to occupy, next to the Shah, the highest political position in his country, and attempted to place the Government of Persia on a firm basis, and to eradicate intrigue and corruption. To this day his popularity is proverbial among the lower classes, by whom he is still revered and respected for his uprightness. The Shah gave him his only sister in marriage, but unhappily one ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... identity of the King with the wandering knight, Fitz-James, when he winds his bugle to summon his attendants. He was probably thinking of the lively, but somewhat licentious, old ballad, in which the denouement of a royal intrigue takes place ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... returned to the king's face. He knew that all this was but a preamble to something of deeper significance. He anticipated what was forming in the other's mind, but he wished to avoid a verbal declaration. O, he knew that there was a net of intrigue enmeshing him, but it was so very fine that he could not pick up the smallest thread whereby to unravel it. Down in his soul he felt the shame of the knowledge that he dared not. A dreamer, rushing ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... facts is associated with a certain confusion of mind. Mr. Parton does not appear to have the power of distinguishing between conflicting statements of the same thing. He describes Hamilton as honest and generous, and then accuses him of malignity and dishonorable intrigue. He says that Wilkinson, at that time a general in the United States service, may have thought of hastening the dissolution of the Union "without being in any sense a traitor." How an officer can meditate the destruction ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... promise. I'm not bound by it and this is business—blacker business than you seem to realise, Davy. You're bent on jumping blindfold and with your hands tied into the seething pool of infamy and intrigue that is India. And I won't stand for it. Don't think for an instant that I'm going to let you go without doing everything I can to make things as pleasant as possible for you.... No; Labertouche ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance |
