"Stratagem" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... make a good countenance without the help of good will." And can there be freedom with this perpetual constraint? What is it but a kind of rack that forces men to say what they have no mind to? I have wondered at the extravagant and barbarous stratagem of Zopirus, and more at the praises which I find of so deformed an action; who, though he was one of the seven grandees of Persia, and the son of Megabises, who had freed before his country from an ignoble servitude, ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... Stratagem should have been tried, if persuasion failed. I would have come to the kitchen door; the servants should have let me in, and I would have walked straight upstairs. In fact, it was far more the fear of intrusion—the fear of yourself—that ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... resolved to procure the election of our saint to the patriarchate of that city. He therefore dispatched a secret order to the count of the East, enjoining him to send John to Constantinople, but by some stratagem; lest his intended removal, if known at Antioch, should cause a sedition, and be rendered impracticable. The count repaired to Antioch, and desiring the saint to accompany him out of the city to the tombs of the martyrs, on the pretence of devotion, he there delivered him into ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... he understood the human character so perfectly; knew so well all its strength and all its weaknesses, together with every path and by-way which winds around the citadel of the best fortified heart and mind, that he never failed to take them, either by stratagem or storm."[429] ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... upon that or any other matter, since the large numbers of the negroes had rendered them bold, and they seemed determined, now they were partially foiled in their purpose as to entering the place by stratagem, to carry the house, at all hazards, by actual storm, while they rendered the ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... stratagem succeeds. The alarm of fire spreads to the street and a hundred men rush, in, while a crowd throngs the streets. Some are neighbors, some friends, some strangers. One is M. Montreuil, the gentleman who has so long been watching his chance to bring the law upon the house and its mistress. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... outbreak of the Boxer movement Rex Bateman, by a daring stratagem, rescues some relatives from an outlying village, and conducts them into Pekin. Then he makes his way down to Tien-tsin and joins Admiral Seymour's column. When the advance of this force is checked he pushes on alone ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... permission to quit the mine. Two of his confederates who helped him out, assisted him in concealing the treasure. The polvorilla, a dark powdery kind of ore, very full of silver, used to be abstracted from the mines by the following stratagem. The workmen would strip off their clothes, and having moistened the whole of their bodies with water, would roll themselves in the polvorilla which stuck to them. On their return home they washed off the silver-dust and sold it for several dollars. But this ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... great, therefore, was his horror when he met his foster-brother and heard how the news of his death had been brought to the glen. He heard also how his wife had reluctantly promised to marry the Baron MacCorquodale, and had delayed her wedding by stratagem, and he vowed that he would return to Glenurchy in time to spoil the ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... they held out against the overwhelming force that was thirsting for their blood. Their chief had anticipated no such resistance, and he was impatient at the delay in finishing the butchery. He resorted to an infamous stratagem, proposing to General Wheeler, who was in command of the British troops, to grant him all the honors of war if he would surrender, with boats and abundant provisions to enable him and all his people to ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... Washington. Being a first-class misdemeanant, he was allowed to patrol the streets, which, however, were closely watched, and it seemed an impossibility for him to pass the sentinels. But John had knocked about the world a good deal, and had had his wits sharpened, and by a "theatrical stratagem" he managed to evade the outposts and to make his escape. He stopped at a dye-house some distance out of Washington, and was fortunate enough there to meet with a friend from his native district—Sam Brook, a theatrical amateur, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... His stratagem had succeeded beautifully. The stinking coat had landed on the top of a small bush, about ten feet in front of the jeep and ten feet from the ground. The nighthound, erect on its haunches, was reaching out with its front paws to drag it down, and slashing angrily at ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... larger species of Central Asia employs a stratagem that is remarkable. Like their cousins of Africa, they live in a great underground city which is a perfect network of burrows which end in a large central chamber. From this chamber a long winding tunnel terminates very near the surface of the ground, and it is a long distance ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... more is generally required than a simple observance of the rule of reciprocity, and were it possible for the states-men of one nation by stratagem and management to obtain from the weakness or ignorance of another an over-reaching treaty, such a compact would prove an incentive to war rather than a bond ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... It is next to impossible to kill a wood-chuck with shot so quickly that he will not, after being hit, succeed in running into his hole, and thus defeat the evidence that he is a dead wood-chuck. Addison, however, hit upon a stratagem for shooting them at short range. He could imitate their peculiar "whistle" quite cleverly, and having observed that when one wood-chuck whistles, all the others within hearing are apt to exhibit some little curiosity as to what is going on, he turned the circumstance to ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... between them had been revived, and had ended fatally to the Count. Sometimes she was inclined to hope, that weariness, or disgust at her firm rejection of his suit had induced him to relinquish it; and, at others, she suspected that he had now recourse to stratagem, and forbore his visits, and prevailed with Montoni to forbear the repetition of his name, in the expectation that gratitude and generosity would prevail with her to give him the consent, which he could not ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... commands here in the room of my late father, forced Father Garasim to hand me over to him by threatening him with Pugatchef. I live under his guardianship in our house. Alexey Ivanytch tries to oblige me to marry him. He avers that he saved my life by not exposing Akoulina Pamphilovna's stratagem when she spoke of me to the robbers as her niece, but it would be easier to me to die than to become the wife of a man like Chvabrine. He treats me with great cruelty, and threatens, if I do not change my mind, to bring me to the robber camp, where ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... they are no longer despoiled? By no means; they are robbed as much as ever, and, what is more, they despoil one another. The agent alone is changed; it is no longer by violence, but by stratagem, that the public wealth ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... together with many others of a similar nature, Lin Yi suddenly leapt to his feet with a variety of highly objectionable remarks concerning the ancestors of all those who were present, and declaring that the story of Ling was merely a well-considered stratagem to cause them to forget the expedition which they had determined upon, for by that time it should have been completely carried out. It was undoubtedly a fact that the hour spoken of for the undertaking had long passed, Lin Yi having completely overlooked the speed of time in his benevolent ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... the young operator stood panting, but half believing the witness of his own eyes to the success of the stratagem. Then at the top of his voice he cried: "Mr. Jones! Mr. Jones! Muskoka! Wake up! ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... marched with the regiment of these mountaineers, who carried tomahawks and scalping-knives, the people of Williamsburg trembled for their lives. At that time, the country near Harper's Ferry was the Far West. In a very little while, these mountaineers, by mingled stratagem and system, defeated Lord Dunmore, very much as Andrew Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans thirty-five years later. Marshall then went with the army to the vicinity of Philadelphia; was in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the prisoner had forsaken him in the hour of need, and left him single-handed and alone to meet the stern rigours of the law. There was no remedy unless in his own stratagem, which was now being matured. It was as follows. His brother was to remain in prison as an evidence against Taylor, mentioned in the previous chapter, while he was to assume all the responsibility of the counterfeit money, plates, &c., as well as all the other villanies which ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... descended upon the Peninsula, they employed—so says the native tradition—the time-worn stratagem of the Pious Aeneas; and, having obtained, by purchase, as much land as could be enclosed by the hide of a bull, from the Sultan of Malacca, they cut the skin up into such cunning strips that a space large enough to build a ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... reinforcements, the English force entrenched itself on the hill of Sautlache and awaited attack. The Normans were unable to penetrate the abattis, but they gained the victory which changed the whole history of the English race by the stratagem of a feigned retreat. Harold's undisciplined auxiliaries, contrary to direct orders (which were obeyed by the "regular" troops in the centre), swarmed out of the palisades in pursuit of the fleeing Normans, who suddenly turned about and penetrated ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... other side, Mr. Andrews, counsel for Henrietta, maintained that while his learned brother assumed the one half of the case as proved, and repudiated the other as a lie or a myth, he had a right to embrace the other half, and pronounce the first a stratagem or trick. The proceedings in the back-room into which Jean Graham introduced Mrs. Hislop were more completely substantiated than those in the bedroom where Mrs. Napier lay; for while the one were sworn to by Mrs. Hislop herself, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... had better not. If we are able to do any good, we must do it by stratagem. Let us watch their movements, and act with ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... in the city, the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and the horn'd herd buzz in the Exchange at two. Husbands and wives will drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the cropt prentice that sweeps his master's shop in the morning, may, ten to one, dirty his sheets before night. But there are two things, that you will see very strange; which are, wanton wives with their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... unmistakable delight that expanded the old woman's mouth was so convincing that it might have given Brice a tinge of remorse over the success of his stratagem, had he not been utterly absorbed in his purpose. "Hiram!" ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... mode of governing a conquered city, he replied only by beating down with his staff all the tallest poppies in his garden. This is exactly what Herodotus, in the passage to which reference has already been made, relates of the counsel given to Periander, the son of Cypselus. The stratagem by which the town of Gabii is brought under the power of the Tarquins is, again, obviously copied from Herodotus. The embassy of the young Tarquins to the oracle at Delphi is just such a story as would ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that, seeing his fortune threatened by the Revolution of 1848, he hit upon the following stratagem: "I am quite willing to admit," said he, "that my fortune has been accumulated at the expense of others; but if it were divided to-morrow among the millions of Europe, the share of each would only amount to four shillings. Very well, then, I undertake to render to each his ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... Byzantine chroniclers, reporters and travellers who described Slavs they had met or heard of. This would be some time ago, say sixth or seventh century. These Slavs had a wonderful idea of lying in ambush—I cannot call it a military stratagem, it is so amphibious. They lay down in shallow pools, showing only the end of a blow-pipe to breathe through, and so waylaid the enemy. The Byzantines must have been up against the Czechs, who seem to me distinctly amphibious ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... some lovers, who show their love by their affected indifference, and appear smitten by any woman except the one whom they are devoted to. This is an ingenious stratagem; but in general it is so badly managed, that it is more easily seen through than a cobweb. Lastly, there are a select few, who evince their tender regard by perpetual bickerings and quarrels. This method will frequently mislead inquisitive aunts and guardians; but it should only be attempted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... existing words are adjusted. As a single illustration of the various quarters from which the English has thus been augmented and enriched, I would instance the words 'wile,' 'trick,' device,' finesse,' 'artifice,' and 'stratagem.' and remind you of the various sources from which we have drawn them. Here 'wile,' is Old-English, 'trick' is Dutch, 'devise' is Old-French, 'finesse' is French, 'artificium' is Latin, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... Wright discovered that his stratagem of keeping his grandson late Sunday evenings had not checked the boy's acquaintance with Mrs. Richie, he tried a more direct method. "You young ass! Can't you keep away from that house? She thinks you ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... maintained that the very words, "Sursum corda" in the church service, pointed Him out as to be found at the right hand of God in heaven. Indeed, the eloquent preacher had nearly convinced his royal listener, when the Cardinals of Tournon and Lorraine, by a skilful stratagem, succeeded in destroying the impression he had received, and, it is said, in inducing Le Coq to make a retraction.[312] But the opposition to the public proclamation of the reformed doctrines was too formidable ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... choose another husband until after this robe was finished. Day after day she industriously wove, spending patient hours at her loom, but each night secretly ravelled out the product of her day's labour. By this stratagem Penelope restrained the crowd of ardent suitors up to the very ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... end? That he was anxious for concealment was evident. Had he courted observation, I might have supposed him actuated by some far-sighted scheme of policy; and yet his rash and straightforward temperament rendered him incapable of any stratagem whatever. No, no—look at the thing as I would, there was no accounting for this most perplexing anomaly except on the ground of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... Wherever there was danger, wherever there was carnage, wherever there was despair, thither strode the undaunted priest, inspiring the bold, succouring the wounded, reanimating the feeble. Blinded by no stratagem, wearied by no fatigue, there was something almost demoniac in his activity for destruction, in his determination under defeat. The besiegers marked his course round the temple by the calamities that befell them at his every step. If the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... after two days is the passover, and the Son of man is delivered up to be crucified. [26:3]Then the chief priests and the elders of the people were assembled in the court of the chief priest, who was called Caiaphas, [26:4]and they took counsel to seize Jesus by stratagem, and kill him. [26:5]But they said, Not at the feast, lest there be ...
— The New Testament • Various
... without a qualm to win over the old woman for my purpose. Had I tried to steal a march on her by tutoring a witness for the trial, that would have been a different matter. Tactics must be met by tactics. But stratagem at the expense of orthodoxy is more than he ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... in with some straggling pursuers of the preceding night, we moved forward with caution. The sub-chief was an old warrior, whose scars and grizzled hair betokened experience of many a hostile encounter, and no doubt many a cunning stratagem. Scouts were sent in advance; and these, returning from time to time, signalled that the path was clear. Advancing in this fashion, we at length reached the embouchure of the canon, and halted within ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... co-brothers with assassins and midnight robbers, yet God forbid that we should add to our crimes by staining our hands with the blood of the innocent. To be brief, I promised that, with the aid of a few of my companions, I would drive you from the castle by the same stratagem I have before made use of to others, or, if that did not succeed, to secure and conduct you by force. Thus have I explained the cause of your present detention. The regaining your liberty must entirely depend on your acquiescence with our proposals; and there is a way I can point ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... France!" but "Oh, if only he is noble, and he surely must be——" Without finishing her thought, she suddenly rose, and followed by her brother the General, she made her way towards the column, affecting to watch the merry quadrille; but by a stratagem of the eye, familiar to women, she lost not a gesture of the young man as she went towards him. The stranger politely moved to make way for the newcomers, and went to lean against another pillar. Emilie, as much nettled by his politeness ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... rescue me from him!" A fierce dialogue immediately ensued between the captain and these two men, who, being both armed with pistols, and the chariot which they attended being now arrived, the captain saw both force and stratagem were vain, and endeavoured to make his escape, in which however he could not succeed. The gentleman who rode in the chariot ordered it to stop, and with an air of authority examined into the merits of the cause; of which ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... they stand habitually; and the insecurity of savage life, by making it impossible to forego any sort of advantages, obliterates the very idea of honor. Hence, with all savages alike, the point of honor lies in treachery—in stratagem—and the utmost excess of what is dishonorable, according to the estimate of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... legal stratagem to allow the tobacco fleet to sail without the required stamps. Here the agreement of governor, gentry, merchants, and ship captains was essential. Once Mercer had resigned and stated he had no stamps for the ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... certain quantity of flour into pound loaves, to be distributed daily among the sick, as it was not in their power to prepare it themselves. Wine and other necessaries being given judiciously among those whose situations required such comforts, many of the wretches had recourse to stratagem to obtain more than their share by presenting themselves, under different names and appearances, to those who had the delivery of them, or by exciting the compassion of those ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... come to the pinch. When Alexander perceived them he stopped to wait, and marks which way those who are returning to the castle take until he sees them enter. Then he begins to meditate on a very hazardous venture and on a very wondrous stratagem. And when he had finished all his thinking, he turns towards his comrades, and thus has related and said to them: "Lords," quoth he, "without gainsaying me, if ye wish to have my love, whether it be prompted ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... was yet living, and yet wished to be thought an honorable, pious man, as St. Mark also testifies of him. But such an example, I trust, will not occur among us, because in the New Testament those who are married are forbidden to be divorced, except in such a case where one [shrewdly] by some stratagem takes away a rich bride from another. But it is not a rare thing with us that one estranges or alienates another's man-servant or maid-servant, or entices them away by flattering ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... the squadron which had been attacked by Admiral Kempenfelt on the 12th December, and which had been detached by Comte de Guichen to Martinique. These ships immediately gave chase; but, night coming on, Captain Saumarez had recourse to stratagem in order to effect his escape, which would otherwise have been impossible in consequence of the Tisiphone having carried away her fore-top-mast in a squall, an accident which was fortunately not observed by his pursuers: he now made night-signals by hoisting lights and burning false ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... last, although the most formidable, who undertook to revenge the disgrace his country had suffered. He entered the Roman territories at the head of twenty-five thousand men, and not content with a superiority of forces, he added stratagem also. 13. Tarpe'ia, who was daughter to the commander of the Capit'oline hill, happened to fall into his hands, as she went without the walls of the city to fetch water. Upon her he prevailed, by means of large promises, to betray one ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... first refused to let them go to the defence of their homes, disbelieving the existence of the conspiracy until he was shown the names of seven hundred of those engaged in it. Then he hesitated to weaken his forces against the French; but a stratagem happily relieved him of his embarrassment, though eventually he lost his command for his humanity, while none of the conspirators were punished! Instead of this a Vaudois captain, Davit, was executed, and ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... pleasure-loving king—all floated before his eyes like the figment of a dream. How mocking the pomp and glitter! For the princess, what an awakening was to ensue! The free baron must have known the emperor was in Spain, and had met the fool's stratagem with a final masterly manoeuver. The bout was over; the first great bout; but in the next—would there be a next? Jacqueline's ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... was some difficulty experienced in bringing him to the office, as he did not much relish going any distance from where the firemen are usually to be found, except in cases of attending with them at a conflagration, and then distance was of no consequence. It was found necessary to use stratagem for the purpose. A fireman commenced running. Tyke, accustomed to follow upon such occasions, set out after him; but this person, having slackened his pace on the way, the sagacious animal, knowing there was no fire, turned back, and it ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... Castle of Mors,—look at it, reader, though in the dark; we may see it again, or the shadow of it, perhaps by moonlight. A very gaunt old Castle; next to nothing living in it, since the old Dessauer (by stratagem, and without shot fired) flung out the Dutch, in the Treaty-of-Utrecht time; Mors Castle and Territory being indisputably ours, though always withheld from us on pretexts. [Narrative of the march thither (Night of 7th ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... details obtain some idea of the theatre of the war and of the men who were its instruments. The flowering hedges of the beautiful valleys concealed the combatants. Each field was a fortress, every tree an ambush; the hollow trunk of each old willow hid a stratagem. The place for a fight was everywhere. Sharpshooters were lurking at every turn for the Blues, whom laughing young girls, unmindful of their perfidy, attracted within range,—for had they not made pilgrimages with their fathers and their brothers, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... had behaved with such gallantry on the occasion. From this bold yeoman the Binnies of West Lothian are proud to trace their descent; and most, if not all of them, bear in their arms something connected with the wagon, which was the instrument of his stratagem. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... there was a suspicion in her mind that Mrs. Strangeways had a plot against her, though of its nature she could form no idea. It might be true that Redgrave was purposely holding aloof, whether out of real jealousy, or simply as a stratagem, a new move in the game. She would not write to him; she knew the danger of letters, and had been careful never to write him even the simplest note. If she must remain in uncertainty about his attitude towards her, the approaching ordeal would be intensified with a new agitation: ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... a coincidence that a man so strongly resembling Ravengar, a man posing as a doctor, and buying nearly a sovereign's worth of chloroform, should be occupying rooms in the same house as Camilla. The tremendous revelation of Ravengar's genius for stratagem and intrigue afforded by the recital of the two brothers came upon Hugo with a dazing shock. This man, whom he knew from Camilla's own story to be curiously deficient in ordinary human sentiments, had arranged a sham suicide for the benefit of the general public. He had let Hugo into ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... Sindibad this is the "Story of the Prince who went out to hunt and the stratagem which ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... who had long represented the folly of this method of trial, without any success, had recourse to the following stratagem:—Be went into the stable at night, and having taken away two of his own horses, he had them removed to distance. In the morning his coachman came trembling to inform him of the theft. He immediately had him confined. He was put to the torture, and, unable to bear the agony, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... in solitude, that this should happen to minds morbidly meditative,—that when we stretch out our arms in darkness, vainly striving to draw back the sweet faces that have vanished, slowly arises a new stratagem of grief, and we say, 'Be it that they no more come back to us, yet what hinders but we should go to them?' Perilous is that crisis for the young. In its effect perfectly the same as the ignoble witchcraft of the poor African Obeah, his sublimer witchcraft of grief will, ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... at home, congratulating himself on his campaign, which seemed to him, not without reason, to have been a masterpiece of stratagem. By a clever mingling of frankness and cunning he had quickly enlisted Madame de Tecle in his interest. From that moment the realization of his ambitious dreams seemed assured, for he was not ignorant ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... affirmative, and the man that was designed by this stratagem to be destroyed was one Mr. Resistance, otherwise called Captain Resistance. And a great man in Mansoul this Captain Resistance was; and a man that the giant Diabolus and his band more feared than they feared the whole town of Mansoul besides.[29] Now who should be the actor to do the murder, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... carefully arranged that he should bring up the rear—were very much astonished to see Mr Haredale come down without a scratch, call for his horse, and ride away thoughtfully at a footpace. After some consideration, it was decided that he had left the gentleman above, for dead, and had adopted this stratagem to divert suspicion ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... take from me the will, which Tom probably supposed I carried in my pocket, and the other papers which would enable me to find my mother. Force and violence had failed, and Tom had resorted to cunning and stratagem. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... enemies, asserted that the Communion of St. Jerome was little more than a copy of the same subject by Agostino Caracci, at the Certosa at Bologna, and he employed Perrier, one of his pupils, to make an etching from the picture by Agostino. But this stratagem, instead of confirming the plagiarism, discovered the calumny, as it proved that there was no more resemblance between the two works than must necessarily result in two artists treating the same subject, and that every essential ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... her mind every revengeful sentiment against her father's enemies; to distrust her filial sensibility, and to make this sacrifice for her father's own sake. This done, he marched downstairs, and having by an artful stratagem thrown Madame Vernet off her guard, he went out at ten o'clock in the morning imperfectly disguised into the street. This was the fifth of April 1794. By three in the afternoon, exhausted by fatigue which ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... money with which to make my escape. In the spring of 1838, when Master Thomas came to Baltimore to purchase his spring goods, I got an opportunity, and applied to him to allow me to hire my time. He unhesitatingly refused my request, and told me this was another stratagem by which to escape. He told me I could go nowhere but that he could get me; and that, in the event of my running away, he should spare no pains in his efforts to catch me. He exhorted me to content myself, and be obedient. ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... manner of agitation. What, then, was I to do? I might have taken my hat-box with me in the carriage? That, indeed, is what I always did. But, unless a thing is to go in the van, it receives no label at all. So I had to use a mild stratagem. 'Yes,' I would say, 'everything in the van!' The labels would be duly affixed. 'Oh,' I would cry, seizing the hat-box quickly, 'I forgot. I want this with me in the carriage.' (I learned to seize it quickly, because some porters are such martinets that they will whisk the label off and confiscate ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... whites and three hundred Indians and negroes. But this insult did not remain long unrevenged, for the troops in which Weaver served arriving immediately after from Europe, the army (who before they had done any considerable mischief to the people against whom they marched, had learnt the stratagem by which they had been deceived by Ouranaquoy) returned suddenly into his country, and exercised such severities upon the people thereof that to appease and make peace with the English the chiefs sent them the scalps of Ouranaquoy, his three brothers ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... carried on openly; they preferred stratagem and artifice; and the conquerors practised the greatest cruelties on the conquered. If a party was so beleaguered as to lose all hope of effectual resistance, or of securing their safety by flight, knowing ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... employer, in point of fact; and it was by his suggestion, and in compliance with his request, that I invented that harmless fiction about Dorking. I don't think there was any dishonourable dealing in the matter. We were soldiers of fortune both; and the stratagem with which I protected myself against you was a very innocent one. You would have employed any stratagem or invented any fiction under the same circumstances. It was a ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... and stratagem practiced in manufacturing "de luxe" editions, some of our bibliophiles have taken matters of bookmaking into their own hands, with the result that they have organized clubs and societies, the members of which take much pleasure in introducing to their library companions each year one or two ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... have perished, if Zipporah had not devised a stratagem to save his life. She said to her father: "Would it were thy will to hearken unto my counsel. Thou hast no wife, but only seven daughters. Dost thou desire my six sisters to preside over thy household? Then shall I go abroad with the sheep. If not, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... of real efficient gunnery. There is no doubt the enemy had intended to make an effort to cross the river at Runovka and that his artillery had been placed with a view to protecting the passage of his troops. The young Czech gunnery lieutenant by his stratagem with one solitary field-piece had made this plan appear impossible to the enemy commander. Never ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... and he begged his friend, for the sake of the lady, to give his personal and inimitable touch to the frescoes of Cupid and Psyche, and to other decorations in the villa which he was preparing for his bride. Although he also confessed the stratagem by which he had secured the presence of Margherita, it was the news of Chigi's approaching marriage which determined Raphael to accede to his request. Though Agostino had worded his allusions to his betrothed so skilfully ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... starvation. The constable had recourse to a time-honoured ruse. "With great prudence he caused four hogs which still remained to be cut into small pieces and thrown down among the enemy. The next day he had recourse to a more refined stratagem: he contrived that a letter from him should fall into the hands of the enemy stating that there was no need for assistance for the next four months." The besiegers were taken in ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... Bavarian infantry battalion under the command of Colonel Baeraklau, who retreated to a table-land named Sterzinger Moos, where, drawn up in a square, he resisted every effort of the Tyrolese to dislodge him. Finally Hofer broke his lines by a stratagem. A wagon loaded with hay, and driven by a girl, was pushed towards the square, the brave girl shouting, as the balls flew around her, "On with ye! Who cares for Bavarian dumplings!" Under its shelter the Tyrolese advanced, broke the square, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... poor, helpless maid be able to resist the pleadings of Nick Tresidder, backed up as they would be by the cunning and stratagem of the woman who had caused my grandfather to disinherit his own son? These questions, as may be imagined, greatly exercised my mind, so much so that I forgot all about my plans to travel through the night to Fowey and to try ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... city stood, Whose flanks immense the sage Ulysses hold, Brave Diomed, and Ajax fierce and bold, Whom, with their myrmidons, the huge machine Would bear within the fated town unseen, To wreak upon its very gods their rage— Unheard-of stratagem, in any age. Which well its crafty authors did repay.... 'Enough, enough,' our critic folks will say; 'Your period excites alarm, Lest you should do your lungs some harm; And then your monstrous wooden horse, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... and maintained by a small force under Colonel Cotymore. It was in this neighborhood, and, as it were in defiance of this force, that the war was begun. Fourteen whites were massacred at a blow, within a mile of this station. This was followed up by a stratagem, by which Occonostota, one of the principal warriors, aimed to obtain possession of the fort. Pretending to have something of importance to communicate to the commander, he dispatched a woman who had usually obtained access to the station, to ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... filled the woods with an out-gush of melody; the rainbow, as ever, spanned the abyss of waters, while below, drifting in eddies, were fragments of canoes, and still more ghastly fragments telling of the night's destruction. The stratagem of the girl had been entirely successful—deluded by the false beacon, the unhappy savages had drifted on with the tide, unconscious of danger, till the one terrible pang of danger, and the terrible plunge of death came at the one and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... was of Lancashire. Swift calls him "of Herefordshire," because he had been appointed governor of the city of Hereford, after he had captured it by a stratagem, in 1654. Devotedly attached to Presbyterian principles, Birch was a man of shrewd business abilities and remarkable oratorical gifts. On the restoration of Charles II., in which he took a prominent part on account of Charles's championship ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... contiguous to these settlements, if such they might be called, were not inclined to enter into friendly relations with them, and therefore they were unable to supply themselves with wives in the usual manner; consequently, they had recourse to other means. Sometimes women were procured by stratagem; sometimes bands of marauders sallied forth, and stole, or in some other equally exceptionable way took possession of, the women of the neighboring or of ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... considers it inferior in speed to the jackal and fox. It hunts chiefly by day. Six or eight, or more, unite to hunt down their victim, maintaining the chase more by power of smell than by the eye, and usually overcome by force and perseverance, though occasionally mixing stratagem with direct violence. He asserts that in hunting they bark like hounds, but their barking is in such a voice as no language can express. "Hawkeye," however, states that the wild dog does not throw his tongue when in chase; ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... Christiania, 1847) ingeniously identified the old man with Odin, come in person to conduct Sinfjoetli to Valhalla, since he would otherwise have gone to Hel, not having fallen in battle; a stratagem quite in harmony ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... President's journey to the States, during which M. Clemenceau and his European colleagues hoped to get through a deal of work on their own lines and to present Mr. Wilson with the decisions ready for ratification on his return. But the stratagem was not merely apparent; it was bruited abroad with indiscreet details, whereupon the first American delegate on his return broke the tables of their laws—one of which separated the Treaty from the Covenant—and obliged them to begin anew. It is fair to add that M. Clemenceau was ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... their head. But the wary impostor was not to be entrapped so easily. He declined to trust himself in the hands of the well-disciplined bands which expressed so much readiness to follow him to death or victory; and the Kentish troops, despairing of success in their stratagem, fell upon such of his retainers as had already landed, and took 150 of them prisoners. These were tried, sentenced, and executed by order of the king, who was determined to show no lenity to the rebels. Perkin being an eye-witness of the capture of his people, immediately weighed ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... of the ways he took to add to his own fame, and take away from that of others, were mean and tortuous to the last degree. Deceit and crooked ways seemed necessary to him. It has been said that he hardly drank tea without a stratagem, and that he played the politician ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... be many persons living who remember these circumstances. They happened two or three and twenty years ago, in the neighbourhood of Bristol. The woman's name was Bees. The stratagem by which she preserved her husband from ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... truce and cessation of hostilities for two years had been agreed upon: but the Romans themselves gave them a pretext for breaking the truce, by a proclamation which was made at the public games, that all Volscians should quit the city before sunset. Some say this was effected by a stratagem of Marcius, who sent a false accusation against the Volscians to the magistrates at Rome, saying that during the public games they meant to attack the Romans and burn the city. This proclamation made them yet ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... adventure-loving character, left Naples at the head of three thousand horse and a considerable number of foot, and took up his post on the banks of the Voltorno, there to contest the enemy's passage; but the King of Hungary foresaw the stratagem, and while his adversary was waiting for him at Capua, he arrived at Beneventum by the mountains of Alife and Morcone, and on the same day received Neapolitan envoys: they in a magnificent display of eloquence congratulated him on his entrance, offered the keys of the town, and swore obedience ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... was unusually grave; it was even sad. "So young—so beautiful," he muttered. "If ever I loved woman, I do believe I loved her:—that love must be my excuse.... I repent of what I have done—but I could not foresee that a mere lover's stratagem was to end in such effects—the metaphysician was very right when he said, 'We only sympathise with feelings we know ourselves.' A little disappointment in love could not have hurt me much—it is d——d odd it should hurt her so. I am altogether out of luck: old Templeton—I beg his pardon, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... expected that the enemy would endeavor to sow tares between us, that they might divide us and our friends. Every consideration satisfies me you will be on your guard against this, as I assure you I am strongly. I hear of one stratagem so imposing and so base, that it is proper I should notice it to you. Mr. Munford, who is here, says he saw at New York before he left it, an original letter of mine to Judge Breckenridge, in which ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... had never, so far as I knew, had a word to say against me. At every turn the cunning of Manderson had forestalled me. His careful concealment of such a hatred was a characteristic feature of the stratagem; only a man of his iron self-restraint could have done it. You can see for yourselves how every fact in my statement would appear, in the shadow of Manderson's death, a clumsy lie. I tried to imagine myself telling ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... man" had gone to bed, but in reality he had simply passed down to the terrace, and would sit there smoking till the other conspirators saw the moment to go down and fetch him. 'I fear it was by this stratagem that he had helped me to defeat Ayrton's Bill for throwing a piece of the Park into the Kensington Road ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... Pontiff Snorre heard of the result of Arngrim Styr's stratagem, he came over and married the Lady Asdisa. Traces of the road made by the unhappy champions can yet be detected at Biarnarhaf, and tradition still identifies the grave of ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... he did not stir out, awaiting the close of the open inquiry as to the cause of the soldiers' deaths; but, on the fifth day, he started out again, and by a similar stratagem killed ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... and useless. He therefore commanded Gideon to send away all who were frightened, and ten thousand only were left. These ten thousand were still too many, for most of them were impatient, not able to restrain themselves, and likely to fail, either through fear or foolhardiness, in the stratagem the Lord designed. He therefore commanded Gideon, when they were all thirsty, to bring them down to the water. Nine thousand seven hundred were in such a hurry to reach it that they dropped on their knees to drink, but three hundred were collected and ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... the scale against the envy excited by this advancement of my brother's fortune. Accordingly, every delay was used to hinder him from collecting his forces together, and stop his expedition to Flanders. Bussi and his other dependents were offered a thousand indignities. Every stratagem was tried, by day as well as by night, to pick quarrels with Bussi,—now by Quelus, at another time by Grammont, with the hope that my brother would engage in them. This was unknown to the King; but Maugiron, who ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... he serves within Bounds, with relation to any one of those Virtues. But both in great and ordinary Affairs, all Superiority, which is not founded on Merit and Virtue, is supported only by Artifice and Stratagem. Thus you see Flatterers are the Agents in Families of Humourists, and those who govern themselves by any thing but Reason. Make-Bates, distant Relations, poor Kinsmen, and indigent Followers, are the Fry which support the Oeconomy of an humoursome rich Man. He ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... wiles of logic and the pretexts of state, was more likely to use an advantage in which there is a certain grim humour, and to take the adversary in his own toils, than such an inexperienced politician as young Mar, or any of the undistinguished nobles who carried out that stratagem. Whether Buchanan supported his old pupil, Mar, in his attempt to seize the governorship of the castle and the King's person out of the hands of his uncle, or in what aspect he was regarded when Morton returned to the head of ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... Bonnechose, was well calculated to reconcile the Catholic world to the stay of Pius IX. at Rome, even although he was there as a prisoner of the victorious king. And a prisoner he really was; for he could not have removed to any other country except by a successful stratagem, so closely guarded were all the approaches to the city by the myrmidons of the conqueror. Taking the cardinal aside, he informed him that he wished to present him with a memorial. "The object in itself is of little value. The intention with which ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... should be his, and in 882 made his way to its vicinity. But it was easier to reach than to take. Its rulers were brave, their Varangian followers were courageous, the city was strong. Oleg, doubting his power to win it by force of arms, determined to try what could be done by stratagem and treachery. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was drawn in for Cakes and Ale, And by a fly Stratagem lost his Tail. 'Tis no Matter, says Reynard, by Dint of Persuasion, } I'll make all my Brethren believe 'tis the Fashion, } Though at the same Time, he was in ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... party, sent some of the strongest men forward, with orders, when they got to a certain distance, to pass the word back that the water was getting shallow, and when getting near the woods to cry out, 'Land!' This stratagem had its desired effect. The men, encouraged by it, exerted themselves almost beyond their abilities; the weak holding ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the doctor, in a sorrowful tone; "always this unfortunate delusion, that you are not in want of our care!—that I am playing a part, when I talk to you of the sad state in which you were when we were obliged to bring you hither by stratagem. Still, with the exception of this little sign of rebellious insanity, your condition has marvellously improved. You are on the high-road to a complete cure. By-and-by, your excellent heart will render me ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... spells his name) declined to produce the sergeant, who, he said, was a deserter, or to give any explanation as to his whereabouts. Now Truffet, as his companions can testify, had not the remotest intention to desert. He was a good and steady soldier. He became a prisoner, through a most odious stratagem, and a Prussian general, although the facts have been officially brought before him, has refused to release him. The Germans are exceedingly fond of trumping up charges against the French, but they have no right to expect to be believed, until they restore to us our ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... shadow seemed to have fallen over him, not deep enough to create remark, but felt by himself. His feelings, always ardent, had been all excited, and were all concentrated, on a subject so wrapt in mystery, that the wish to solve it engrossed his whole being. Except when engaged in the weary stratagem, the rapid march, and actual conflict, necessary for Ferdinand's interest, but one thought, composed of many, occupied his mind, and in solitude so distractingly, that he could never rest; he would traverse ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... tell you, because, as you are seeing a good deal of him just now, I think it right that you should know on what sort of a footing he stands." It's all fair, they say, in love and war, and this small breach of confidence was, we must presume, a love stratagem on the part of Mr Cheesacre. He was at this time smitten with the charms both of the widow and of the niece, and he constantly found that the captain was interfering with him on whichever side he turned himself. On the present occasion he had desired to take the ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... before the incounter farre differing from the Normans deuout demenour; duke Williams speech vpon occasion of wrong putting on his armour, the battell betwixt him and king Harold is valiantlie tried, the English by duke Williams politike stratagem are deceiued, king Harold slaine, his armie put to flight and manie of them slaine after a long and bloudie incounter, manie of the Normans pursuing the English ouerhastilie procure their owne death, they take the spoile of the ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (8 of 8) - The Eight Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... You need not witness it; it is a stratagem of war which you could not learn from me. Go back to the ship ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... packet.—Would we were there!' I smiled at my idle fears, as the natural effect of continual alarm; and I scarcely owned to myself that I dreaded Mr. Venables's cunning, or was conscious of the horrid delight he would feel, at forming stratagem after stratagem to circumvent me. I was already in the snare—I never reached the packet—I never saw thee more.—I grow breathless. I have scarcely patience to write down the details. The maid—the plausible woman I had hired—put, doubtless, some stupifying potion in what I ate or drank, the morning ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... expedition against the Titans, to deliver his parents, who had been imprisoned by these princes, because Saturn, instead of observing an oath he had sworn, to destroy his male children, permitted his son Jupiter, by a stratagem of Rhea, to be educated. Jupiter, for this purpose, raised a gallant army of Cretans, and engaged the Cecr{)o}pes as auxiliaries in this expedition; but these, after taking his money, having refused their services, he changed into apes. The ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... hurried on. The pantry door was locked. Martha, the cook, kept it in that condition generally on account of his own sinful propensities for making away with her tarts and cakes; it was only by skilful stratagem he could ever get in, as ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... The stratagem succeeded admirably. Jefferson gave the door a vigorous pull and John Ryder stood quiet, waiting for the girl to emerge from sanctuary. He did not have to wait long. The door soon opened and Shirley came out slowly. She had ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... worldly wisdom which derives all its strength from the weaknesses of mankind. Everything was to be obtained by stratagem; and it was his maxim, that to grasp our object the faster, we must go a little round about it. His life is said to have been one of intricacies and mysteries, using indirect means in all things; but if he walked in a labyrinth, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... had been amongst the casks legitimately opened. For it seems that old Mrs. Cicero's housewifely plan was to seal up all alike, empty and not empty. Consequently with her no such excuse could avail. Which proves that often it did avail, since her stratagem is mentioned as a very notable artifice. What follows? Why, that the slave was doubly tempted: 1st, by the luxury he witnessed; 2ndly, by the impunity on which he might calculate. Often he escaped by sheer weight of metal in lying. Like Chaucer's ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... prepared for battle. The King of France clothed himself in his royal armor, and nineteen of his knights were armed in the same manner, in order to prevent the enemy from being able to single out the king on the field. This was a common stratagem employed on such occasions. The English were strongly posted on a hill side, among vineyards and groves. The approach to their position was through a sort of lane bordered by hedges. The English archers were posted along these hedges, and when the French troops attempted to advance, the ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... who came to tell them that the Greeks had gone away. The whole fleet, he said, had sailed off to the southward, and abandoned those seas altogether. The Persians did not, at first, believe this intelligence. They suspected some ambuscade or stratagem. They advanced slowly and cautiously down the channel. When they had gone half down to Thermopylae, they stopped at a place called Histiaea, where, upon the rocks on the shore, they found an inscription addressed ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... countenance. But, although he could have easily overcome the Indian, he knew that he would be instantly missed; and, from what he had seen of the powers of the savages in tracking wild animals to their dens in the mountains, he felt that he could not possibly elude them except by stratagem. ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... their Noblemen came forth to meet us, whom the Captain contrary to his Faith given, would have expos'd to the Flames, alledging that it was expedient they should be put to Death, who were, at any time, capacitated to use any Stratagem against us, but with great difficulty and much adoe, I snatcht them out ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... and improve all around them by mental refinements, is serving his country as much by founding peaceful villages and pleasant homesteads in the trackless wilds, as ever he did by personal courage, or military stratagem, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... not yet to be said that she is already yours!" said Stephano, shrugging his shoulders. "As you will not employ force, your excellency, you must have recourse to stratagem. I have hit upon a plan, of which I think you will approve. They describe this so-called little princess as exceedingly innocent and confiding. Let us take advantage of her confiding innocence—that will be best! ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Elizabeth, and Bannan, peered triumphant. "My dear," said Jack, "I was merely waiting for my cue. You would not have had me spoil your entrance, you know you would not. Uncle John—I may say Uncle John? thanks!—I hope you will forgive Rita's little stratagem for the sake of the pleasure it ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... advanced to and occupied the strait, whilst 305 Athenian galleys, anchored in the bay of Mulia, were ready to operate upon the flank of the enemy. In his approach to this position, the Brenn had to pass the river Sperchius, to defend which Calippus had detached a small force: the Brenn, by a stratagem, directed their attention from the real point of attack, and crossed the river without loss. He then advanced to Heraclea, and laid waste the surrounding country. The day after his arrival at this place, he marched upon Thermopylae. Hardly had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... one joyful outcry; and now Wilfrid retreated, questioning within himself whether he should have remained so long. But, as he argued, if he was convinced that the rascally Greek fellow meant mischief to her, was he not bound to employ every stratagem to be her safeguard? The influence of Mr. Pericles already exercised over her was immense and mysterious. Within ten minutes she was singing triumphantly indoors. Wilfrid could hear that her voice was firm and assured. She ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... spoken of to Romola as yet to be done was a second interview with that personage, a sequence of the visit he had paid at San Marco. Tito, by a long-preconcerted plan, had been the bearer of letters to Savonarola—carefully-forged letters; one of them, by a stratagem, bearing the very signature and seal of the Cardinal of Naples, who of all the Sacred College had most exerted his influence at Rome in favour of the Frate. The purport of the letters was to state that the Cardinal was on his progress from Pisa, and, unwilling for strong reasons to enter Florence, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... securing a comfortable home for several years. But her grand scheme was that of making herself so necessary to the Baronet, that she could, in time, undermine the defences, carry the Citadel by stratagem, and finally become the envied mistress of Vellenaux. But a few months residence under the same roof served to convince her of the fallacy of the project; for there were two grand difficulties that she could not overcome; his strong objection to matrimony, and his affection for ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... alarmed at the competition which this threatened, cunningly devised a stratagem for nipping it in the bud. They freighted a large worn-out ship with an enormous quantity of pipes of their own make, sent it to Ostend, and wrecked it there. By the municipal laws of that city the wreck became public property; the pipes were sold ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... firm in their Saddles, gave each other such Rebuffs with their Lances, that all the Spectators (the Queen only excepted) wish'd for two Kings of Babylon. At last, their Horses being tired, and both their Lances broke, Zadig made use of the following Stratagem, which his Antagonist wasn't any ways appriz'd of. He got artfully behind him, and shooting with a Spring on his Horses Buttocks, grasp'd him close, threw him headlong on the Sand, then jump'd into his Seat, and wheel'd round Prince ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... seers prophetic ask "T' atchieve the fall of Troy, dispatch not me; "Ajax will better go, will better soothe "With eloquence of tongue, a man who burns "With raging choler, and with smarting pains: "Or with some stratagem him thence allure. "But Simois' stream shall sooner backward flow; "Ida unwooded stand: Achaia aid "The Trojan power, than Ajax' stupid soul "Shall help the Greeks, when first my anxious mind "Striving to aid you, has been found to fail. "O, stubborn Philoctetes! though enrag'd ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... a body of armed men, mounted on horses, rode up to our house and surrounded it. Knowing what they had come for, and seeing that there would be but little chance for him in an encounter with them, father determined to make his escape by a little stratagem. Hastily disguising himself in mother's bonnet and shawl, he boldly walked out of the house and proceeded towards the corn-field. The darkness proved a great protection, as the horsemen, between ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... the Tartar tribes on the north, against whom the Great Wall proved to be a somewhat ineffectual barrier. Also with the Huns, the forbears of the Turks, who once succeeded in shutting up the founder of the dynasty in one of his own cities, from which he only escaped by a stratagem to be related in another connexion. There were in addition wars with Korea, the ultimate conquest of which led to the discovery of Japan, then at a low level of civilization and unable to enter into official relations with China until A.D. 57, when an embassy ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... proved, this was only a stratagem of theirs, for this light was put out a second time at one of their barques' topmast head, and then she went to leeward, which deceived us. In the morning, therefore, contrary to our expectations, we found they had got the weather-gauge of us, and were ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... and noblest in our past, and let no one think but that it was noble. Leaving aside that mystic sense of union with another world and looking only at the tales of battle, when we read of heroes whose knightly vows forbade the use of stratagem in war, and all but the equal strife with equals in opportunity; when we hear of the reverence for truth among the Fianna, "We the Fianna of Erin never lied, falsehood was never attributed to us"—a reverence for truth carried ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... without offence or jest! You cannot quickly, I protest, In winning this sweet child succeed. By storm we cannot take the fort, To stratagem we must resort. ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... year 1763, Detroit, then indeed the far west, and containing a garrison of 300 men, was nearly captured by stratagem by Pontiac, the celebrated Indian chief of that day, who waged war against the British, and whose alliance, before the capture of Quebec by Wolfe, in 1759, was anxiously courted by both the ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... rest with the user of force or with the mind that accommodates itself to force by gaining its ends by stratagem ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... stolen a bit of flesh, perched in a tree, and held it in her beak. A Fox, seeing her, longed to possess himself of the flesh, and by a wily stratagem succeeded. "How handsome is the Crow," he exclaimed, "in the beauty of her shape and in the fairness of her complexion! Oh, if her voice were only equal to her beauty, she would deservedly be considered the Queen of Birds!" This he said deceitfully, having greater admiration for the meat than ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... and ninety-four. The governor, being supposed to have betrayed it, was afterwards beheaded by the emperor's command. The counts of Swartzenburg; and Palsi retook it by surprise, 1598; since which time it has remained in the hands of the Germans, though the Turks once more attempted to gain it by stratagem in 1642. The cathedral is large and well built, which is all I saw remarkable in the town. Leaving Comora on the other side the river, we went the eighteenth to Nosmuhl, a small village, where however, we made shift to find tolerable accommodation. We continued two days ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... fate, and, through the intervention of the same French friends, the Indians were dissuaded from executing their sanguinary purpose. Lieutenant Jenkins and several of his men were made prisoners by stratagem; the remainder of the garrison ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... might be able to surmount, and which a single false step would make insurmountable. His only chance of obtaining the splendid prize was not to seize it rudely, but to wait till, without any appearance of exertion or stratagem on his part, his secret wish should be accomplished by the force of circumstances, by the blunders of his opponents, and by the free choice of the Estates of the Realm. Those who ventured to interrogate him learned nothing, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... war, yet thought a surrender of their women little better than mere captivity. Being in this doubt, a servant-maid called Philotis (or, as some say, Tutola), advised them to do neither, but, by a stratagem, avoid both fighting and the giving up of such pledges. The stratagem was this, that they should send herself, with other well-looking servant-maids, to the enemy, in the dress of free-born virgins, and she should in the night light up a fire-signal, at which the Romans should come ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... power of assisting my investigation, or he had not: if not, neither could he much impede it, and therefore, it mattered little whether he was in my confidence or not; if he had the power, the doubt was, whether it would be better for me to benefit by it openly, or by stratagem; that is—whether it were wiser to state the whole case to him, or continue to gain whatever I was able by dint of a blind examination. Now, the disadvantage of candour was, that if it were his wish ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
