"Pretext" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was. And now ma mere can still hear the voice of Paris calling as did Louise in the first act, and she does not have to curse it as did la pere in the last." And the marquis disguised a fervent hug in the pretext of helping his wife with ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... the Orinoco and the Amazon;" he asserts that "at the period when the Spaniards overthrew the throne of Cuzco, an ancient prophecy was found, which predicted that the dynasty of the Incas would one day owe its restoration to Great Britain;" he advises that "on pretext of defending the territory against external enemies, garrisons of three or four thousand English should be placed in the towns of the Inca, obliging this prince to pay a contribution annually to Queen Elizabeth of three hundred thousand pounds sterling;" finally he adds, like a man ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... communities, whether large or small, a number of persons who really have, or fancy they have, something to gain by disturbance. These people, of course, care not for what pretext the public peace is violated; so long as there is a row, and something like an excuse for running into other people's ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... shown him kindness as he lay helpless on the deck, and he determined finally to confide in him. Although still very weak, Burke was now convalescent, and was sitting alone by the poop-rail gazing upon the coast of Spain with eager eyes, when Geoffrey, under the pretext of coiling down a rope, approached him. The young man ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... themselves, they at least had none towards other nations. They, in the most wanton manner, interfered in every quarrel between strangers; and, whenever it suited their conveniency to make war, they begun without almost being at the pains to search for a pretext. They set themselves up above all opinion, while, at the same time, they required all ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... that idea of going out with Dario, of having a pretext for a complete reconciliation with him, that enchanted her; he himself realised it, and, unable to escape, he tried to treat the matter as a joke. "Ah! cousin," he said, "it will be your fault; I shall have the nightmare for a week. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... compel acquiescence by the force of his knowledge of Raffles's misdeed. Hence, instead of taking his departure immediately, he remained at the Goring- Streatley Inn, taking care each day to encounter Miss Tattersby on one pretext or another, hoping that their acquaintance would ripen into friendship, and then into something warmer. Nor was the hope a vain one, for when the far Marjorie learned that it was the visitor's intention to remain in the neighborhood ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Moors are in greater proportion to the negroes than at Jarra. Assembling round the hut of the negro where I lodged, the Moors treated me with the greatest insolence. They hissed, shouted, and abused me; they even spat in my face, with a view to irritate me and afford a pretext for seizing my baggage. Finding such insults had not the desired effect, they had recourse to the final argument that I was a Christian, and that, of course, my property was lawful plunder to the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... pretext, plausible appearance. The general meaning of this somewhat obscure passage is, Since we have no show or pretext of a cause, no assignable ground or apparent ground of complaint, against Caesar, in what he is, or ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... who has practised the bow and spear from his infancy, longs for nothing so much as an opportunity to display his valour, it is natural to imagine, that wars frequently originate from very frivolous provocation. When one nation is more powerful than another, a pretext is seldom wanting for commencing hostilities. Thus, the war between Kajaaga and Kasson was occasioned by the detention of a fugitive slave:—that between Bambarra and Kaarta by the loss of a few cattle. Other cases of the same nature perpetually ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... Florida, within some eight days' sail of Havana, with a harbor whence privateers might waylay Spanish ships and even attack Spanish colonies, was a rival not to be endured. Moreover, the colonists were not only foreigners but Huguenots, and their heresy served at once as a pretext and stimulus ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... Rabbies say, the reason was, because those Wizzards foretold that David should be King. It is (as Mr. Gaul observes[83]) the Opinion of some learned Protestants, that Saul in his Zeal did over do: And that under the Pretext[84] of Witches he slew the Gibeonites, for which that Judgment followed, 2 Sam. 21.1. Neither (saith Mr. Gaule) want we the storied Examples of God's Judgments upon those that defamed, prosecuted ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... attend, and as we wished to take our part, we offered to lead the singing. I feared an outbreak, and I earnestly implored my friends to keep quiet under any circumstances, and whatever happened, to give no pretext for any excitement. Our singing was finished, when in the place of the expected preacher, suddenly there appeared a blustering, fanatical Capuchin monk. He exhausted himself in denunciations of this God-forsaken, wicked generation, sketched in glaring colours the pains of hell ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... again, perhaps not in good odor on account of his connection with the gentleman I speak of. Some say he tried to carry off a nun from the convent of Santa Croce; how that may be I can't say; but my grandmother declared he had enemies there, and the end of it was that on some pretext or other the Ten banished him to Vicenza. There, of course, the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how he first came ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... studiously dallied in his conduct of the war, that he might continue the longer in office, and that he might have the sole command both at Rome and in the army. Since one of the consuls had fallen in battle, and the other was removed to a distance from Italy, under pretext of pursuing a Carthaginian fleet; and the two praetors were occupied in Sicily and Sardinia, neither of which provinces required a praetor at this time. That Marcus Minucius, the master of the horse, was almost put under a guard, lest he should see ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... carry of such a scheme? Send for De Froilette on some pretext or other and question him, or send to the frontier and spy upon the army that waits there. You have the Queen's token; I have delivered it. Go out and meet the King's army, which lies ready to contest your way to Sturatzberg, if you will, but remember this: if you win your way ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... how I was transferred and fined; but you ought to know not only the reason for the charge, but the pretext for their enmity. For I was a friend of Sostratus before incurring their hatred, knowing that he had materially benefited the state. 14. But although his friend, I never took advantage of his power to punish an enemy nor aid a ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... any goods seized or detained under pretense of securing the duties, or for the nonpayment of duties, or under any process, order, or decree, or other pretext contrary to the intent and meaning of the ordinance may be recovered by the owner or consignee by "an act of replevin;" that in case of refusing to deliver them, or removing them so that the replevin can not be executed, the sheriff may seize the personal estate ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... was now alone with her brother-in-law in the great bare hall of the Court, Lady Sue having retired to her room under pretext of the vapors, and young Lambert been finally dismissed from work ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... was ready for war, and wanted war, and intended war on the first convenient opportunity. But when would that be? Not even the most truculent government could well venture a bald declaration of hostilities without some plausible pretext, some ostensible ground of quarrel. Where was it? There was none in sight. Of course the danger of a homicidal crisis in the insanity of armaments was always there. And of course the ambition of Germany for "a place in the sun" was as coldly fierce as ever. The Pan-Germanists were ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... in most cases the decay of the temporary interests involved has been fatal to their permanence. The speeches are still real speeches, intended to affect the audience addressed, and yet partly intended also for the reporters. When the audience becomes merely the pretext, and the real aim is to address the public, the speech tends to become a pamphlet in disguise and loses its rhetorical character. I may remark in passing that almost the only legal speeches which, so far as my knowledge goes, are still readable, ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... pretext of bending to hunt for a lost pin she hid the sad fear in her eyes—a fear of all the greater world which was beyond Davie, from whom she had not ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Louis with her there, and she is going on to the Dellings for lunch. That will give you several hours in which to carry out your purpose. The maid will be flirting with the chauffeur most of the time, and, anyhow, I can manage to keep her out of the way on some pretext or other." ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... repose in their apartments until the hour of evening promenade should summon them to the excellent band of music, provided by the calculating liberality of the gaming-house keepers, and to loiter round the brunnens of more or less nauseous flavour, the pretext of resort to this rendezvous of idlers and gamblers. The waiters had disappeared to batten on the broken meats from the public table, and to doze away the time till the approach of supper renewed their activity. My interlocutor, with whom I was alone in the deserted apartment, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... present at the party; and he had brought with him his old flame, Pantasilea. When we were at table, she sat between me and Bachiacca; but in the very middle of the banquet she rose, and excused herself upon the pretext of a natural need, saying she would speedily return. We, meanwhile, continued talking very agreeably and supping; but she remained an unaccountably long time absent. It chanced that, keeping my ears open, I thought I heard a sort of subdued tittering in the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... exciting incident of Mr. Sanborn's arrest in 1860 as an accessory before the fact. The United States deputy marshal with his myrmidons drove out from Boston in a hack. They lured the unsuspecting abolitionist outside his door, on some pretext or other, clapped the handcuffs on him, and tried to get him into the hack. But their victim, planting his long legs one on each side of the carriage door, resisted sturdily, and his neighbors assaulted the officers with hue and cry. The town rose upon them. Judge Hoar hastily ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... of Syria, hitherto held by the Sultan of Egypt. On surrendering Tarsus and Adana to Bayazid, Kait Bey was suffered to end his days in peace in A.D. 1495. After many dissensions, the brave and learned El-Ghuri ascended the throne, and Selim I., the Turkish sultan, soon found a pretext for an attack upon the Mamluk power. A long and sanguinary battle was fought near Aleppo, in which El-Ghuri was finally defeated through treachery. He was trampled to death by his own cavalry in ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... be faithfully executed in every part of the country, and that every good citizen should at all times stand ready to put down, with the combined force of the nation, every attempt at unlawful resistance, under whatever pretext it may be made or whatever shape it may assume. Unconstitutional or oppressive laws may no doubt be passed by Congress, either from erroneous views or the want of due consideration; if they are within the reach of judicial authority, the remedy is easy and peaceful; and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... it to me, and disclose the cause of thy laughing even if thou come by thy death!" But he rejoined, "I cannot re veal what beasts and birds say in their lingo for fear I die." Then quoth she, "By Allah, thou liest! this is a mere pretext: thou laughest at none save me, and now thou wouldest hide somewhat from me. But by the Lord of the Heavens! an thou disclose not the cause I will no longer cohabit with thee: I will leave thee at once." And she sat down and cried. Whereupon ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... surely no sacrifice should be too great for a family physician to make for the welfare of his patients. Maria and I would invite Dr. Denbigh to dinner and have Aunt Elizabeth as the only other guest. We could leave them alone on some pretext or other after dinner, and leave the rest to fate—aided and abetted by ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... consolidated the power of the Indian government along the whole line of the Jumna and Ganges. The last and greatest object of the governor-general's ambition was the conquest of the confederate Maratha states, and for this a pretext was not long wanting. His forward policy, it is true, had already excited alarm and criticism at home, while the peace of Amiens had ostensibly removed the chief justification of it—the necessity of combating the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... assisted her in taking possession of her turbulent dominions, as well as in allaying the deadly feuds of the Beaumonts and Agramonts, with which they were rent asunder. They supported her with their arms in resisting her uncle Jean, viscount of Narbonne, who claimed the crown on the groundless pretext of its being limited to male heirs. [2] The alliance with Spain was drawn still closer by the avowed purpose of Louis the Twelfth to support his nephew, Gaston de Foix, in the claims of his deceased father. [3] The death of the young hero, however, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... almost obliged to the accuser, members of the Boule, because he has got up this suit. For I have not had any pretext on which to give an account of my life, but now I have seized this opportunity. And in my speech I will try to show that he is falsifying, and that up to this day I have lived rather to deserve praise than jealousy; for he seems to me to have trumped up this suit ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... increasing jealousy of the Catholic nations of Europe, and especially of her ancient rival France. The question of the Austrian succession, in which these two conspicuous opposites stood for and against Maria Theresa, supplied a pretext for war; yet it hardly concealed the real purpose of each power to destroy the other; and the battles of Fontenoy, Nollwitz, and Dettingen, though fought in the heart of Europe, were as decisive for an Eastern and a Western empire as was the warfare on the frontiers of India, or the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... awful, the hallucination ending in a mortal struggle with the feather bed under which German science is incubated, and passing off with an anguished "Donnerwetter! It cannot be Lombard. It is not possible." His not infrequent Italian trips had, then, an archaeological pretext, and this had been more or less the purpose of the pilgrimage in which Frauelein Linda had become by main force an alluring if ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... nuzzer, though small in each sum, might amount at last to a large tax upon the country, (and it did so in fact,) thought proper to prohibit any sum of money to be taken upon any pretext whatever; and the Company in the year 1775 did expressly explode the whole doctrine of peshcush, nuzzer, and every other private lucrative emolument, under whatever name, to be taken by the Governor-General, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... carried on under the surface, had come to this point, that Charles had made a private treaty with Philip of Burgundy by which that prince pledged himself to give up Paris into the King's hands within fifteen days. This agreement furnished a sufficient pretext for the delay in marching against Paris, delay which was Charles's invariable method, and which but for Jeanne's hardihood and determination, had all but crushed the expedition to Rheims itself. It was never with any will of his or ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... importance, save that he was generally disgusted with the whole thing, and had not found Juarez at all. I am sure this whole movement was got up for the purpose of getting General Grant away from Washington, on the pretext of his known antagonism to the French occupation of Mexico, because he was looming up as a candidate for President, and nobody understood the animus and purpose better than did Mr. Stanton. He himself was not then on good ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... on his sitting down again. She saw that she had made a bad beginning in the fulfilment of her office of examining magistrate, and of gaining the prisoner's confidence. Fearing that Camille, in spite of his promise, would spoil everything by some insult, she found a pretext to send him away; she begged that he would go and examine a pair of horses that were ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... a well-to-do man of the Koeri (cultivating) caste and opposite his house lived a barber who was very poor; and the barber thought that if he carried on his cultivation just as the Koeri did he might get better results; so every day he made some pretext to visit the Koeri's house and hear what work he was going to do the next day, and with the same object he would listen outside his house at night; and he exactly imitated the Koeri: he yoked his cattle and unyoked them, he ploughed and sowed and transplanted ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... well," he wrote, "and while my heart often travels northward, I can find no plausible pretext to follow. I may receive a wound before long which will give me a good excuse, since, for our regiment, there is prospect of much active service while the infantry remain in winter quarters. It is a sad truth that the army is discouraged and depleted to a degree never known before. Homesickness ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... finished his coffee, of course, long before I had finished my dinner; he had squeezed the last drop out of the little coffee-pot, and I wondered with amusement whether he would have the moral courage to remain where he was now that his ostensible pretext was gone and that the waiter was beginning to loiter round his table as a hint that he ought to go. Poor devil, I could see that he was growing uneasy; he shuffled his feet, and the glances he threw at me ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... the money-changers, who made a higher profit on all other kinds of money than the kaldar. They therefore resisted the general introduction of these rupees as long as possible, and when this failed they hit on a device of marking the rupees with a stamp, under pretext of ascertaining whether they were true or false; after which the rupee was not exchangeable without paying an additional batta, and became as valuable to the money-changers as if it were foreign coin. As justification for their action they pretended ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... strangers, but Parramatta was our resort on this Christmas Eve. Nothing came of it, except that I found myself when I got back to the hotel at night, and had bidden good-bye only after there was no further pretext for staying for "another cigar," in the large, bare, cool room which Mr. Deane had hired as a sitting-room in a large house in Sydney. The drive home had been a merry and yet a melancholy—not a sentimental one; there was ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... Easterns of this organization exhale the force; it seems to be an atmosphere surrounding the individual; and I have frequently in common conversation had so strong a perception of it as to withdraw to a distance on any pretext, allowing a current of air to pass from door or window between them and myself. There is no doubt that some strange force or power is at work, trying to thrust itself up in the world, and is well worthy of attention. When I say 'new,' I mean in our hemisphere. ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... and if you find that you have wandered forth from this shelter, recall your heart quietly and simply. Maintain a holy simplicity of mind, and do not smother yourself with a host of cares, wishes, or longings, under any pretext. ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... with a swift, laughing glance at the colonel. There was no response in the older man's pale face, and Philip's fingers dug hard into the palms of his hands. At the table Nome's attentions to Mrs. Becker were even more marked. Once, under pretext of helping her to a dish, he whispered words which brought a deeper flush to her cheeks, and when she looked at the colonel his eyes were fixed upon her in stern reproof. It was abominable! Was Nome mad? Was ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... its force is expended. It fossilizes the second section of that amendment. While the broad language of its first section secures, beyond the abridging hand of the States, the great rights it secures—rights which Congress can not abridge on any pretext, for it can exercise no power not granted, and the Constitution confers on it no power to abridge the "privileges or immunities of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... bowed their acknowledgments of the introduction. The man seemed rather ill at ease in their presence. His host attributed this to the fact that his guest was unaccustomed to the society of cultured women, and so found a pretext to quickly extricate him from his seemingly unpleasant position and lead him away to his study and the brandy and soda which were evidently much less embarrassing to ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... resources exhausted by a long war, that in the midst of profound peace, he was as fully prepared as ever for arms. He wished at the same time, to present a superb spectacle to Madame de Maintenon, under pretext of teaching the young Duc de Bourgogne his first lesson in war. He gave all the necessary orders, therefore, for forming a camp at Compiegne, to be commanded by the Marechal de Boufflers under the young Duke. On Thursday, the 28th of August, all the Court set ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... They have really so little to do with the dramatic intention; but they have been multiplied so since the stage began to make the plays that the actors are always wanting them in. I believe the time will come when the dramatist will avoid the occasion or the pretext for them." ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... cynical philosophy did not lull his conscience, which alternately inspired his manner with an unwonted demonstrativeness and tenderness, and again made him so uncomfortable in her presence that he was fain to tear himself away and escape from her sight on any pretext. Her tender glances and confiding manner made him feel like a brute, and when he kissed her he felt that it was the kiss of a Judas. Such had been his feelings this evening, and such were the reflections tersely summed up in that ejaculation,—"George Hunt, you 're an ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... was after Henry's union with Elizabeth to name any pretender to the throne with even a plausible claim, Bosworth had been in effect a victory for the Lancastrian party, and many of the Yorkists were still prepared to seize any pretext for attempting to overthrow the new dynasty. Not long after the marriage, Henry started on a progress through his dominions; and while he was in the north, Lord Lovel and other adherents of the late king attempted a rising which ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... permanent abolition of all duties on imports, or any other measure unrelated to slavery, would be of the least use in reclaiming the States which had seceded, or in arresting the secession of others. The sole pretext for the Rebellion was and is that the Free States had not been faithful in spirit and letter to their constitutional obligations respecting Slavery, and could not be trusted to do better in the future than they had done in the past. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... post-Homeric versions, the Tyrrhenians endeavor to kidnap Dionysos under pretext of conveying him to Naxos, the circumstances being variously related. Thus in the [Greek: Naxiaca] of Aglaosthenes (apud HYGIN. Poet. Astronom. II. 17), the child Dionysos and his companions are to be taken to the nymphs, his nurses. According to Ovid,[84] ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... doubt respecting these expeditions, which are said to have taken place subsequently to the year 1530.) The Christian religion, which in its origin was so highly favourable to the liberty of mankind, served afterwards as a pretext to the cupidity of Europeans. Every individual, made prisoner before he received the rite of baptism, became a slave. At that period no attempt had yet been made to prove that the blacks were an intermediate race between man and animals. The swarthy Guanche and ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... sent by the Christians at the common charge, to assist and plead for him and comfort him. They exhibit extraordinary activity whenever any such thing occurs affecting their common interest. In short, they are lavish of everything. And what is more, on the pretext of his imprisonment, many contributions of money came from them to Peregrinus at that time, and he made no little income out of it. These poor men have persuaded themselves that they are going to be immortal and live forever; they ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... to the best interests of the country. The people of the North recognize in him an honest man, and they are willing to confide in him, at least until the war has been brought to a close. The Southern people made his election a pretext for rebellion, and now to replace him by some one else, after years of sanguinary war, would look too much like a surrender of the North. So, Mr. Lincoln is certain to be re-elected. He represents a principle, and to maintain this principle the loyal people of the loyal States ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show how it is just or reasonable, that the letters passing between Boston and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expense of a mail to Oregon, on the pretext that ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... impassioned utterance, "you must save yourself! All opposition is vain. Only the smallest part of the National Guard is still to be trusted, and even this part only waits the first pretext to fraternize with the populace. The cannoneers have already withdrawn the loading from the cannon, because they are unwilling to fire upon the people. The king has no time to lose. Sire, there is protection for you only in the National Assembly, and only the representatives ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... let her know the moment he came up to London, and, when he did, found that she had already been asking for him at the hospital at which he had an appointment. He did not like this, and, on seeing her, told Mildred that she was not to come there on any pretext; and now, after an absence of three weeks, he found that she bored him quite decidedly; he wondered why he had ever troubled about her, and made up his mind to break with her as soon as he could. He was a person who dreaded quarrels, nor did he want to give ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... thousand conscripts who, according to law, could not be drawn until September, 1807. This was the beginning of the fatal practice destined in the end to enervate France and demoralize the army. There was already little patriotism among the men, except what served as a pretext for plunder; the homogeneity of purpose, principle, nationality, and age was ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... as are not merely the intimidations by which tyrannies are maintained under pretext of law, can be obeyed through the exercise of a quite common degree of reasoning power and self-control. Most men and women can endure the ordinary annoyances and disappointments of life without committing murderous assaults. They ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... laughed, and he and Watton carried off Letty, whose vanity was once more happy in their society; while Ancoats, glad of the pretext, hurried along in front to find the great ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... our Hours without interruption? Do we love this holy exercise? Or do we easily interrupt our prayer on any trifling pretext, and ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... iron, with hearts of steel, are you Taverneys. You and your sister are terrible people—you go not for the sake of traveling, but to leave me. Your sister said she was called by religions duty; it was a pretext. However, she wished to go, and she went. May she be happy! You might be happy here, but you ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... should be so numerous as to be within easy reach of every voter, and no expenses of conveyance, at the cost of the candidate, should be tolerated under any pretext. The infirm, and they only on medical certificate, should have the right of claiming suitable carriage conveyance at the cost of the state or of the locality. Hustings, poll clerks, and all the necessary machinery of elections, ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... joined the bear hunt; Christian found pretext to stay behind. Sweyn, being out of humour, manifested his contempt by uttering not a ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... the pretext of making some inquiry about the luggage, managed to be near so as to hand up Rose to her seat by the coachman, who appeared far more absorbed in the management of his horses than in the young woman who sat by him, upon whom he did not bestow even a ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... his assistance to the people of Hebron. The lord of the city was a heartless man, who oppressed the Jews sorely. One day he commanded them to pay a large sum of money into his coffers, the whole sum in uniform coins, all stamped with the same year. It was but a pretext to kill the Jews. He knew that his demand was ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... often "drilled" for a week, though "drilling" in this trade is used more often with men than with women, who are less liable to irregularities caused by drink. In some establishments the bait of sixpence a week for good conduct is offered, but this is deducted on the faintest pretext, and the worker fined as well, for any violation of regulations tacit ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... provide for the maintenance of an army of such size and efficiency as to provide for all possible contingencies arising from foreign aggression or internal troubles. In recognition of the fact that we have lawless elements in all of our large cities always ready to avail themselves of any pretext for riot and incendiarism, he urged the wisdom of providing such safeguards against these uprisings as would be afforded by disciplined and efficient troops ready for instant service at any point. Some of the demagogues in the ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... The profound peace of the Union affords no pretext for a standing army; and without a standing army a government is not prepared to profit by a favorable opportunity to conquer resistance, and take the sovereign power by surprise. [This note, and the paragraph in ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the larger; I have dashed Rose-blood upon its petals, pricked its cup's Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit, And show a better flower if not so large: 150 I stand myself. Refer this to the gods Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare (All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext That such a gift by chance lay in my hand, Discourse of lightly or depreciate? It might have fallen to another's hand: what then? I pass too surely: let at least ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... suddenly to run downstairs while the door was open. This she did one day, when she was pretty sure she had heard an unusual sound of horses' feet below. If Mr Forster should be going without her seeing him it would be dreadful. If he should have arrived after an absence this would afford a pretext for renewing intercourse with him. So she watched her moment, sprang to the door, and was down the stair before her attendant could utter a cry of warning to ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... Indians had a tract of land on the Credit River, on which the Government proposed to build a village of some twenty or thirty cottages, with the intention of building a church for them and inducing them to join the Church of England, upon the pretext that the Methodist preachers were Yankees. As my Father had been a British officer, and fought seven years during the American Rebellion for the unity of the Empire, was the first High Sheriff in ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... young man, who was her junior by several years (which circumstance she did not consider to be a fault in him); but having paid his court, and being admitted to the intimacy of the house, he suddenly flung up his suit, when it seemed to be pretty prosperous, without giving a pretext for his behaviour. His friends rallied him at what they laughingly chose to call his infidelity. Jack Churchill, Frank Esmond's lieutenant in the royal regiment of foot guards, getting the company which Esmond vacated, when he left the Court and went to Tangier in a rage at discovering that his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... its subject-matter are one, so marvellous in that its very subject-matter becomes lovely when an artist has selected it! For surely this is no idle nor fantastic saying. To deny that 'making up' is an art, on the pretext that the finished work of its exponents depends for beauty and excellence upon the ground chosen for the work, is absurd. At the touch of a true artist, the plainest face turns comely. As subject-matter ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... pretext and then another for delay. He knew he could not take Robin with him. He knew, too, how restless and troublesome the child would become if left ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... two or three persons; refreshments are served; larger groups begin to gather around prominent persons, but there is the same diversity of sentiment and purpose that is to be found in a chance crowd in a public park. The guests are not in one place, with one accord. But now, on some pretext, the power of public speech is evoked; perhaps a toast is offered and responded to, or a more formal address of welcome or congratulation, or anything else suitable to the occasion. The subject and the manner of introduction are ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... to leave the room on some pretext, she saw Kate coming in with a huge bunch of Jacqueminot roses in her hand. Of course, Sanderson had sent them. The perfume of them sickened Anna, as the odor of a charnel house might have done. She tried ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... to have planned to secure from the King successive charters each more liberal than its predecessor, and each entrusting more fully the control of the colony to the Company. This could be done without arousing the suspicions of James under the pretext that they were necessary for the success of the enterprise. When at length sufficient power had been delegated, Sandys designed to establish in Virginia a representative assembly, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... are the constant animation and ever-rising standard of the believer's spiritual progress. He is the eternal Antidote to our fears, and also to our sins. He is the infinite Contradiction to the least compromise, under any pretext, with evil; and He is this, among other ways, by being Himself "that blessed Hope"; "the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our Hope" (1 Tim. i. 1); so that the prospect of His Return, and of what He will do for us, and for Himself (eauto), when He ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... anti-Austrian activities that rapidly spread among their brothers within the Austrian Empire. The Austrian government, much disturbed by a movement that threatened to spread among her other subject populations, began to seek a pretext for crushing her southern neighbor and so settling the troublesome Serbian ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... sad reason to remember both the occasion and the date, sir. Mr. Belcher had determined to get my signature to an assignment, and had brought me to his house on another pretext entirely. I suppose he had summoned these ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... said, "I wonder if there can be a fire." And with this pretext for investigation, she, too, joined the little group ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... protests, and the Germans and the pacifists wanted to pledge the local to a movement for a general strike of labour throughout the country. Street-meetings had been resumed—for, of course, since the strike in the Empire had been settled, the police had had no pretext to prevent them. The extremists now wanted anti-war speakers on every corner, and anti-war leaflets shoved under every doorstep; they were willing to put up the money and to pledge their time for ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... friend that the Duke of Queensberry had employed Mr. Gay to inspect the accounts and management of his grace's receivers and stewards (which, however, proved to be a mistake), wrote this Epistle to his friend.—H. Through the whole piece, under the pretext of instructing Gay in his duty as the duke's auditor of accounts, he satirizes the conduct of Sir Robert ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... was poor, and his master had little or nothing to give him, so he hit upon the expedient of keeping a butcher's shop, where he could sell meat, cheaper than any one else in Venice, by availing himself of his exemptions from octroi. The Senate resolved to fasten upon this illicit traffic as a pretext for dismissing Killigrew; and on the 22d of June, 1652, they sent their Secretary, Busenello, to tell Killigrew, viva voce, that he must go. Busenello went to San Fantin, and there found one of Killigrew's butchers, who told him that the Resident only kept his shop there, but lived ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... muttered Bermudo, "may be the pretext; but I will neither discuss the merits of our undertaking, nor the justice of our cause. To me, at least, they are just and meritorious. I seek by my own exertions that redress which my humble station could not procure, when matched against those to whom chance, not ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... or without bigoted religious teachings; he burns incense to stupefy our senses, lights candles to obscure our sight, amuses the masses with buffooneries to prevent them from thinking, draws us away from common-sense morality, and leads us, under the pretext of a mystic and symbolic religion, to the confessional, the very hothouse of mischief. Satan in all his shapes and forms as he rules the world has been described by Goethe as Egotism. Selfishness is his element ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... explain. And now I must go, Denzil, and claim the fair one for this waltz. Try and look less miserable, my dear fellow,—I will not quarrel with you on the Princess's account, nor on any other pretext if I can help it,—for I don't want to kill you, and I am convinced your death and not mine would be the result of a fight ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... loafers in the market-place ready for any mischief, and by no means particular about the pretext for a riot. Anything that would give an opportunity for hurting somebody, and for loot, would attract them as corruption does flesh-flies. So the Jewish ringleaders easily got a crowd together. To tell their real reasons would scarcely have done, but to say that there was a house ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... Alford came, both in pursuit of the fleet-footed Brown. Sid DuPree, puffing audibly, stopped just out of reach, glad of any pretext to halt long ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... they deem inherently right. He always strove to avoid the appearance of evil as well as the evil itself; and, with one unhappy exception, he always succeeded. He fully realized that his conduct was under constant scrutiny by enemies in both races eager to find some pretext to drag him down. So circumspect was he in his behavior that once only between the time he became a national character in 1895 until his death twenty years later did his critics succeed in distorting any deed of his into the semblance of misconduct. The very nature of the charge ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... very satire said to have offended the pantomimus contains an eloquent panegyric of that emperor. Further, it is hard to believe the story that Juvenal was banished to Egypt at the advanced age of eighty under the pretext of a military command. The problem is insoluble.[713] The most that can be said is that the persistence of the tradition gives it some claim to credibility, though the details handed down to us are wholly untrustworthy, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... obliged to repeat to satisfy the great audiences which greeted us. The chorus of 500, composed of singers in all walks of life, people of leisure who had good voices which they had been taught how to use, often take pleasure in giving the public a treat if a pretext can be found for doing so. In this case it was thought that an imitation of the manners, dress and costume of a past age would attract an audience when a simple concert might not. This proved to be true, especially of the Easter Anthem, which was magnificently sung, and an ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... before harm befell them. An English vessel, the Prometheus, was in the harbour, and, though the Dey had forbidden the Consul and his family to leave the city, the Captain of the Prometheus had a scheme for conveying them safely on board. He himself landed on the pretext of conferring with the Dey, and, when he returned to his ship, the Consul's wife and little daughter, disguised as sailors, left the city under his charge. But there was another member of the family ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... This belt, therefore, of Borussia (whence our word Prussia is derived)—roughly from the Vistula up on to the Bight of Libau—was held by the Teutonic knights in a sort of savage independence. The Christian faith, which it had been their pretext and at first their motive to spread, took little root; but they did open those avenues whereby the civilization which Germany itself had absorbed from the south and west could filter in; and the northern ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... deacon's humour, but without letting wot either in whose service he was, or on what exploit he was bound, sowing however, from time to time, hints as to the need that seemed to be growing of putting a curb on the bold front wherewith the Archbishop of St Andrews, under the pretext of suppressing heresies, butted with the horns of oppression against all who stood within the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... left my charge for a moment to see after my baggage, and when I came back I found her sitting on a luggage barrow, with her package in her hand, crying with despair because several cabmen had refused to let her into their cabs, on the pretext ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... producing a serious reduction in our stock of provision. He acknowledged the justice of the statement, and promised to remove as soon as his party had prepared snow-shoes and sledges for themselves. Under one pretext or other, however, their departure was delayed until the 10th of the month, when they left us, having previously received one of our fishing-nets, and all the ammunition we possessed. The leader left his aged mother and two ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... him the opportunity of showing what kind of man he was. In this year the Spaniards of Villa Rica, the nearest town in Paraguay to the reductions in Guayra, sent out an expedition to chastize some Indians who had insulted a chief called Tayaoba, whom Montoya had baptized. This was the pretext for the expedition, but Montoya knew well that the real object was to hunt for slaves. He brought before the Governor the edict of the King of Spain forbidding any war to be made upon the Indians without sufficient cause. All was in vain, and the expedition left Villa Rica ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... aware of similar designs, had forestalled the conspirators by putting some to death and banishing the remainder. Cyrus, on his side, welcomed these fugitives, and having collected an army, laid siege to Miletus by sea and land, endeavouring to reinstate the exiles; and this gave him another pretext for collecting an armament. At the same time he sent to the king, and claimed, as being the king's brother, that these cities should be given to himself rather than that Tissaphernes should continue to govern them; and in furtherance ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... When Kitson returned he found his friend, as he thought, in extremis, and van Heerden also thought that John Millinborn would not speak again. To his surprise Millinborn did speak and van Heerden, fearful of having his villainy exposed, stabbed him to the heart under the pretext of assisting him to ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... and say to the plaintiff such is your law; but if he cannot be acquitted according to either law, then bring forward adroit pretexts and secure his acquittal. These are the words of the Rabbi Ishmael. Rabbi Akiva says, "No false pretext should be brought forward, because, if found out, the name of God would be blasphemed; but if there be no fear of that, then it ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... and I hope the most romantic reader will let me revert from him to the Alcazar gardens. We were always reverting to them on any pretext or occasion, and we mostly had them to ourselves in the gentle afternoons when we strayed or sat about at will in them. The first day we were somewhat molested by the instruction of our patriotic ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... defiance of all principle or political honesty, yet was the government poverty-stricken: however, the French directory looked around for some weak ally or neutral to plunder, and their cupidity was directed towards free Switzerland. Berne had a well-replenished treasury; and on the flimsy pretext of its having publicly enrolled emigrants and given shelter to deserters, a French army, under General Breme, was sent on the marauding errand of demanding the public purse of its citizens. Success ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... happened on the 8th of November, 1520. Of this almost unparalleled act of baseness and cruelty, Vertot (p. 113, 114, 115, Amst. ed.) gives the following account, from Zigler, who was an eye-witness, and many other authors of credit. The pretext for this execution was the demolishing of Stecka, a castle belonging to the traitor Trolle, which the Swedish States had ordered to be rased, contrary to the ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... that Anne Boleyn was received with evil looks and in stern silence, and construing this into an affront to himself, Henry not only made slight and haughty acknowledgment of the welcome given him, but looked out for some pretext to manifest his displeasure. Luckily none was afforded him, and he entered the castle in ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... from an intimate friend, which, in generosity or discretion, he resolved to overlook, but which those aware of it could just perceive had cooled or alienated the former affection. Indefatigably occupying himself with all the details of the election, Harley had fair pretext for absenting himself from Audley, who, really looking very ill, and almost worn out, pleaded indisposition as an excuse for dispensing with the fatigues of a personal canvass, and, passing much of his time in his own apartments, left all the preparations for contest to his ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He had not consulted about going into them) to get Him out, was to 'tempt God.' True faith is ever accompanied with true docility. He had come to do His Father's will. A divine 'must' ruled His life. Was He to begin His career by throwing off His allegiance on pretext of trust? If the Captain of our Salvation commences the campaign by rebellion, how can He lead the rank and file to that surrender of their own wills ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... torn a ligamentous insertion and lacerated some of its fibers, or a violent effort in jumping, galloping, or trotting, to which the victim has been compelled by the torture of whip and spur while in use as a gambling implement by a sporting owner, under the pretext of "improving his breed"; the extra exertion of starting an inordinately heavy load, or an effort to recover his balance from a misstep, slipping upon an icy surface, or sliding with worn shoes upon a bad pavement, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... of the state. For a long time the unhappy Agamemnon turned a deaf ear to their arguments, but at last they succeeded in persuading him that it was his duty to make the sacrifice. He, accordingly, despatched a messenger to his wife, Clytemnaestra, begging her to send Iphigenia to him, alleging as a pretext that the great hero Achilles desired to make her his wife. Rejoicing at the brilliant destiny which awaited her beautiful daughter, the fond mother at once obeyed the command, and sent her to Aulis. When the ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... across it accidentally. If it became known it would create no end of scandal and ruin our little church. That man had no good intention in putting in his request for the Little River pulpit. What is more, he is not a real minister of the gospel. He is using it merely as a pretext." ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... has at least the pretext that they were pledged as hostages: because I go simply as guest and envoy. No, to me danger cannot ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... write to Declare that the Snow called the Princess of Orange and the Cargoe belongs in truth to the Spainish Merchants, and the Dutch Pass and Colours were only for a pretext in the affair; for which we have Set our names in testimony of the Truth upon Oath declaring to be forced neither by the Capn. nor any of the officers nor by imprisonment, one the contrary have been well used. Eleventh ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... fond of being in hot water that it is a wonder all the albumen in his body is not coagulated. There are common barrators among doctors as there are among lawyers,—stirrers up of strife under one pretext and another, but in reality because they like it. They are their own worst enemies, and do themselves a mischief each time they assail their neighbors. In my student days I remember a good deal of this Donnybrook-Fair style of quarrelling, more especially in Paris, where some of the noted surgeons ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Parker was the first man to light. He took three or four heroic whiffs—then gave it up. He got up with the remark that he had to go to the bedside of a sick parishioner. He started out. Rev. Dr. Burton was the next man. He took only one whiff, and followed Parker. He furnished a pretext, and you could see by the sound of his voice that he didn't think much of the pretext, and was vexed with Parker for getting in ahead with a fictitious ailing client. Rev. Mr. Twichell followed, and said he had to go now because he must take the midnight train for Boston. ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... live in sin, or are dishonest, or they conceal sins or concubinage; or whether they receive bribes; or whether with their authority as fiscal they have annoyed the Indians, or have taken rice, fowls, or other things at a less price; or whether they have imposed any tax under pretext of alms for the church, by their authority that they possess as ministers of it; or whether they have taken more fees than belong to them by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... aside the common—I had almost said vulgar—apologetic pretext that Jesus was using ad hominem arguments, or "accommodating" his better knowledge to popular ignorance, as well as to point out the inadmissibility of the other alternative, that he shared the popular ignorance. ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... always noble. All the faults of taste cannot be surveyed that have been occasioned in criticism or the practice of art by this—confusion between actual human nature and true human nature. The greatest trivialities are tolerated and applauded under the pretext that they are real nature. Caricatures not to be tolerated in the real world are carefully preserved in the poetic world and reproduced according to nature! The poet can certainly imitate a lower ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... opposition, he sent no writs to the more refractory barons: but even those who were summoned, sensible of the ridiculous cheat imposed by the pope, determined not to lavish their money on such chimerical projects; and making a pretext of the absence of their brethren, they refused to take the king's demands into consideration.[*] In this extremity the clergy were his only resource; and as both their temporal and spiritual ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... finding no other pretext for deferring the torture that she was to inflict on Clifford,—her reluctance to which was the true cause of her loitering at the window, her search for the artist, and even her abortive prayer,—dreading, also, to hear the stern voice of Judge Pyncheon from below stairs, chiding her delay,—she ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... courage of our men by those who escape from the trenches to avoid the rifle and machine gun fire of the enemy. Henceforth, I shall hold responsible all Officers who do not shoot with their revolvers all the privates who try to escape from the trenches on any pretext. Commander of ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... her of her former position, and praising her for not forgetting herself. Malania Sergievna would willingly have acquiesced in these remindings and praisings, however bitter they might be—but her child had been taken away from her. This drove her to despair. Under the pretext that she was not qualified to see after his education, she was scarcely ever allowed to go near him. Glafira undertook the task. The child passed ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... which in the tropical forests of the New World had not been yet ascertained. Cousin Benedict would certainly have attached his name to some discovery of this kind. But he did not like botany—he knew nothing about it. He even, quite naturally, held flowers in aversion, under the pretext that some of them permit themselves to imprison the insects in their corollas, and poison them ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... questions. My infallible Church was mercilessly forcing me to oblige those poor, trembling, weeping, desolated girls and women to swim with me and all her priests in those waters of Sodom and Gomorrha, under the pretext that their self-will would be broken down, their fear of sin and humility increased, and that they would ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... deeming (as it is most true) that England is a mighty animal, which can never die except it kill itself. She grounded this fundamental maxim, to banish thence the exercise of the Roman religion, as the only means to break all the plots of the Spaniards, who under this pretext, did there foment rebellion." Alluding to some other particulars of that reign he adds:—"By all these maxims, this wise princess has made known to her successors that besides the interest which the king of England has with all princes, he has yet ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury
... Peace was hailed with an enthusiasm scarcely less than that which for twenty years had created military heroes. The Holy Alliance was not hypocritical. Although a political compact made under a religious pretext, it was formed by monarchs deeply impressed by the horrors of war, and by the necessity of establishing a new basis for the happiness of mankind on the principles of Christianity, when peace should be the law of nations; at the same time it was formed no less to suppress those ideas which ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... Mrs. Pickle ascribed the assurance to her excess of complaisance; and expressed such tenderness of zeal for her dear sister's health and tranquility, that the reluctant maiden found herself obliged to resign her authority, without enjoying the least pretext for complaining of her ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... pride, not with hauteur, but with a glance of unconscious, unmistakable superiority. "O, that stare!" she added; nothing but high birth and long descent can give it! Dearest, he's becoming a great affliction to me. I want to know who he is. Couldn't you invent some pretext for speaking to him?" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... any habits of steady industry, yet earnestly coveting the productions they know not how to earn! The inevitable consequence is, that war is made throughout that unhappy continent, not only upon the slightest pretences, but often without any pretext at all. Villages are set on fire, and those who fly from the flames, rush upon the spears of the enemy. Private kidnapping is likewise carried on to a great extent, for he who can catch a neighbor's child is sure to find ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... Hinpoha and the Captain, who had gone exploring on foot on the pretext of gathering firewood, reported a small waterfall a short distance up the river. A waterfall on the premises was too valuable a stage "prop" not to be used, and Hinpoha was soon ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... was disgusted to find that the whole head had not been taken, and, on the pretext that he had left his gauntlet behind, a companion regained admittance to the church, while the knight again kept the monk in charge in conversation at the door. Dalmatius went to the chest behind the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... own apologies seemed to lose their significance; he felt a little foolish, and she, with some slight evidence of childish awkwardness, seemed to seek a pretext for short escape. ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... start back now, since there was no more information to be had, but on one pretext or another Uncle Darcy delayed. He was so pitifully eager for more news of Danny. The smallest crumb about the way he looked, what he did and said was seized upon hungrily, although it was news eight years old. And he begged to hear once more just what it was Danny had said ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... in our public policy. With a few exceptions, the salaries of public officers are too low—in many cases they are meager. This fact furnishes a pretext for efforts to make money while in the public service. All these efforts are adverse to the public interests and often the proceedings are tainted with corruption. A member of Congress ought to ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... truly socialistic than those of members of the party who joined in the work of national slaughter. These views were over-ruled; Clerambault's article was returned to him, after spending some weeks in the bottom of a drawer, on the pretext that there were so many current items that they took up all the space, and that the paper ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... short period to visit the City of Destruction where he entices all he can into like rebellion, and to bear a share of his punishment; and though he well knows that by so doing he increases his own penalty, {34a} yet malice and envy urge him on whenever he has a pretext, and so much does he love evil that he seeks to destroy this city and this edifice, although he knows of yore that its ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... sufficiently common in its neighbourhood. But, even within a very few years, when an enlightened agriculturist, M. Laclede, endeavoured to clear the ground, and plant and improve, the fury of opposition he experienced was disgracefully extraordinary. Under the pretext that their pastures were invaded, the people came with fire and hatchet, and burnt his trees, and cut away his bridges ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... fishmonger in the Agora once when she went with the slaves to buy a mackerel. The auctioneer had astonished everybody by knocking down to her a noble fish an obol under price, then under pretext of showing her a rare Boeotian eel got her aside into his booth and whispered a few words that made the red and white come and go from her cheeks, after which the lady's hand went quickly to her purse, and she spoke quick words about "the evening" ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... shall the amount of merchandise shipped annually from those islands to Nueva Espana exceed two hundred and fifty thousand eight-real pieces, nor the return of principal and profits in money, the five hundred thousand pesos which are permitted—under no pretext, cause, or argument that can be advanced, which is not expressed by a law of this titulo; and the traders shall necessarily be citizens of the Filipinas, as is also ordained. [Felipe II—Madrid, January 11, 1593. Felipe III—December 31, 1604; Madrid, May ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... at her with such loving gratitude in her soft eyes that her aunt retreated to the kitchen where Mrs. Hamilton followed her on the pretext of obtaining a ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... means, and the care of the boy's education, served the widow as a pretext for secluding herself in a socially remote suburb, where it was inferred that she was expiating, on queer food and in ready-made boots, her rash defiance of fortune. Whether or not Mrs. Peyton's penance took this form, she hoarded her substance ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... assassinations are becoming terribly common, and in the last three days fifty-two men have been killed. There will be a general order out to-morrow that men are not to go beyond certain limits, unless at least four are together, and that they are not, under any pretext whatever, to enter a ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... concerned, so far as I remember to have heard expressions on the subject. There were many who regarded the treatment of General Scott as harsh and unjust. It is quite possible that the vanity of the General had led him to say and do things that afforded a plausible pretext to the administration for doing just what it did and what it had wanted to do from the start. The court tried the accuser quite as much as the accused. It was adjourned before completing its labors, to meet in Frederick, Maryland. General ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... Catherine had four sons, three of whom successively mounted the throne of France, but all were childless. Although the king of the petty state of Navarre was a Protestant, and Catherine was the most fanatical of Catholics, she made this marriage a pretext for welding the two houses; but actually it seems to have been a snare to lure him to Paris, for it was at this precise time that the bloody Massacre of St. Bartholomew's day was ordered. Henry himself escaped—it is said, through ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... we contrived to catch some of them, and through one member of our party or the other to get at their stories. Really it was all one story. The slaving Arabs, on this pretext or on that, had set tribe against tribe. Then they sided with the stronger and conquered the weaker by aid of their terrible guns, killing out the old folk and taking the young men, women and children (except the infants whom they butchered) to be sold as slaves. It seemed that the business ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... Smith, of Maryland, was chairman, on that part of the President's message "relative to the spoliations of our commerce on the high seas, and the new principles assumed by the British courts of admiralty, as a pretext for the condemnation of our vessels in their prize courts." The debates in that committee resulted in two resolutions, both offered by Mr. Adams, adopted, reported, and finally passed by the Senate, with some modifications; Mr. Pickering, Mr. Hillhouse, and Mr. Tracy, the three Federalists in ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... faithful servant of Toussaint's was brought in dead—shot from a thicket which his master was expected to pass. On another, the road home was believed to be beset; and all the messengers sent by the family to warn him of his danger were detained on some frivolous pretext; and the household were at length relieved by his appearing from the garden, having returned in a boat provided by some of his scouts. Now and then, some one mentioned retiring to the mountains; but Toussaint would not hear of it. He said it would be considered a breach ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... a Mrs. Cudgeon, the wife of a citizen who had made a large fortune in butter and eggs, had been taking lessons in all the English branches, and French (here Miss Pillbody smiled), for six months, but had postponed payment on one pretext and another, and had finally withdrawn from the school, leaving unpaid tuition to the amount of one hundred and fifty dollars. Miss Pillbody had written several dunning letters to Mrs. Cudgeon, and received no answer. The soft grass of epistolary ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... himself as informer, and employed his boy twice in the same capacity. Inspector Horton acted as informer eleven times, and Inspector King four times. During this year the Registrar General so far forgot that there was even a sanitary pretext for the Ordinance for the law he was set to operate as to employ as an informer one Vincent Greaves, whom he knew to be diseased. From about this time on, many cases of conviction were secured against women where it was evident the matter had ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... military matters being entirely out of my province. Soon after von Papen's recall I entered a protest against the sending of a successor, as there was no longer any useful purpose to be served by the employment of a Military Attache, whose presence would only serve as a pretext for a renewed hostile agitation ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... French interest, and the Prince of Orange, supported by the English; even to our own days the same opposite interests existed, and betrayed the Republic, although religious doctrines had ceased to be the pretext.[B] ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... sister Hilary appears to be in such poor health at present. Such being the case, however, it would seem to me that home was the best place for her. I do not at all approve of this modern fashion of running about the country, on any and every pretext. Also, if I remember correctly, your father has frequently described Winton to me as a place of great natural charms, and peculiarly adapted to those suffering from ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... Perceiving that the nation was determined to give monarchy the benefit of a trial, they have—in that reverence for the national will which is the first duty of Republicans—patiently awaited its results, and endured every form of misgovernment rather than afford a pretext to those in power for the non-fulfilment of their declared intention of initiating a war to regain our own territory and true frontier,—a war without which, as they well knew, the permanent security and dignity of Italy were impossible, and which, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... was Peabody's final warning. "Be sure to tell her to get hold of his two daughters on some pretext at once. She knows them well. Maybe we can influence the old man through his girls, don't ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... fly their engagements and secrete themselves, with or without a pretext, are not so easily reached. We shall have to surprise Oliver Ostrander, in order to place his father's message ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... time cometh, so my joy may be fulfilled, because I seek naught in this save the approof of Allah extolled and exalted be He!" Now when the Wazir Shimas saw that the King was urgent to have the rest of the exposition, he put him off with a pretext; but Jali'ad assembled all the astrologers and interpreters of dreams of his realm and as soon as they were in the presence related to them his vision, saying, "I desire you to tell me the true interpretation of this." Whereupon one of them came forward ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... and more than one council had been held. A room, too, which had seen more than one tragic happening, as its almost unparalleled isolation proclaimed. So much Mr. Van Broecklyn had told her, but she was warned to be careful in traversing it and not upon any pretext to swerve aside from the right-hand wall till she came to a huge mantelpiece. This passed, and a sharp corner turned, she ought to see somewhere in the dim spaces before her a streak of vivid light shining through the crack at the bottom of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various |
