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Artifice   /ˈɑrtəfɪs/   Listen
Artifice

noun
1.
A deceptive maneuver (especially to avoid capture).  Synonym: ruse.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Artifice" Quotes from Famous Books



... over to another entrance, returned, and listened eagerly. Convinced that a sound of breathing came from midway between the two holes he had examined, he moved towards the spot directly above the nest, tapped it sharply with his beak, and again returned to listen near the entrance. But all his artifice was quite in vain; the voles would not bolt; they were not even inquisitive; so presently, baffled in his hopes of plunder, he moved clumsily away, stooped for an instant, and lifted himself on slow, sable pinions into ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... say:—'How shameful in an official person to throw dust in the eyes of the House by detaining it upon a miserable trifle, whilst the criminal gravities of his conduct are skulking in the rear under this artifice for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... By Jupiter, You hit our modern teachers to a hair! I knew this fool was a philosopher. Pepe is right. Mechanic means advance; Nature bows down to Science' haughty tread, And turns the wheel of smutty artifice: New governments arise, dilate, decay, And foster creeds and churches to their tastes: At each advance, we cry, "Behold, the end!" Till some fresh wonder breaks upon the age. But man, the moral creature, midst ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker

... a real change of sentiment or only artifice, on a supposition of our being too far engaged in affection to retract, and therefore that we should steal a marriage, which would leave them at liberty to give or withhold what they pleas'd, I know not; but I suspected the latter, resented it, and went ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... play because the violent struggle between good and evil woke up many responsive memories in his mind. The hero of the play had been shown feeling precisely as Julian had often felt. That was enough. He did not very much care for the brilliant artifice, which Valentine had remarked with so much pleasure. He did not specially note the peculiar effect of nature produced by the simplicity and thoughtful directness of the dialogue. He only knew that he had seen somebody whose nature was akin to his own nature, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... synonymous with Life,— Sat idle, being much perplexed What Attitude to study next, Because he would not wholly tell Which Pose was likeliest to sell. To him the Muse: "Why seek afar For things that on the threshold are? Why thus evolve with care and pain From your imaginative brain? Put Artifice upon the shelf,— Take pen and ink, and draw—Yourself!" The author heard: he took the hint: He photographed himself in print. His very inmost self he drew. . . . The critics said, "This Will Not Do. No more ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... having been represented to the War Department that there are numbers of foreigners entrapped by artifice and fraud into the military and naval service of the United States, who would gladly withdraw from further participation in the inhuman warfare waged against a people who have never given them a pretext for hostility; and that there are many inhabitants of ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... poisons, and here, in very truth, was one of them at work. His vengeance on her for her indifference to his suit was not so clumsy and primitive as that of simply slaying her. He had, by his infernal artifice, intended, secretly, to bear her off. To-morrow when men found a broken church-door and a violated bier, they would set the sacrilege down to some wizard who had need of the body for ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... it was a cunning artifice on her part. The duchess, feeling interested in the newly-married young woman, and wishing to serve her in a delicate manner, thought of that expedient which has met with complete success. You cannot ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... that she had lost the encounter, for the simple reason that the right was all on his side, the wrong and injustice on hers. Instinctively she felt that if she told him all he in his gathering coolness would accept it as an artifice, an untruth. Her handkerchief, which she had nervously rolled into a ball, fell to the walk. He picked it up, but to the outstretched ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... of "Woak Hill" was swept into my mind, to make there an impression which will never be obliterated while life lives in my brain. I did not know, in that delirium of exaltation which a poetic discovery always makes in the heart of a youth, whether most to admire the bold artifice of the man who had adapted an unrhymed Persian metre—the Pearl—to the needs of a poem in the broadest Dorsetshire dialect, or the deep intensity of the emotion with which he had clothed a glorious piece ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... history furnishes no examples of that cowardice, treachery, and baseness which dishonour the annals of all nations, and scarcely can an instance be adduced of a Creole having committed a disgraceful action. Untainted by the mean vices of dissimulation, artifice, and suspicion, they possess great frankness and vivacity of character, joined to a high opinion of themselves, and their intercourse with the world is not stained by that mysterious reserve so common in Europe, which obscures ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... to my notice that at a meeting you addressed recently in your constituency you referred to me, and in the course of your remarks you said that I had employed in the House of Commons the "blustering artifice of the rhetorical hireling." May I ask you for your authority for this statement? I can only hope that your reply will avoid any ambiguity, and for your further enlightenment I may inform ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various

... by the company, this island is set forth as being very expensive to the company, and so thinly inhabited as to take off very little goods, while it is so barren as to require large supplies of provisions. All this is pure artifice; for, though Banda is a very small island in comparison with Amboina, being only about twelve leagues in circumference, it certainly affords as great profits, which arise from the important commerce in nutmegs, which grow here in such prodigious quantities as to enable the Dutch company to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... would recommend rank rebellion, either by force or artifice, according as circumstances might ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... him"—and as he spoke he pointed with his finger, but with a look of unutterable scorn, to Joseph Mason, who was sitting opposite to him—"that fragment of his old father's property which he coveted so sorely? Where had she learned such skilled artifice? Gentlemen, such ingenuity in crime as that has never yet been proved in a court of law, even against those who have spent a life of wretchedness in acquiring such skill; and now you are asked ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... assertions that Maryland Catholics were conspiring with the Indians to perpetrate a new St. Bartholomew massacre of Protestants, and hot counter-assertions that this is "a sleveless fear and imagination fomented by the artifice of some ill-minded persons." In the end Coode assembled a force of something less than a thousand men and marched against St. Mary's. The Council, which had gathered there, surrendered, and the Association ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... the town to Artemis, and by means of a rope connected the city walls with the temple, which stood nearly a mile away in the suburbs, and then entreated for peace in the name of the goddess. Croesus was amused at the artifice, and granted favourable conditions to the inhabitants, but insisted on the expulsion of the tyrant. The latter bowed before the decree, and confiding the care of his children and possessions to his friend Pasicles, left for the Peloponnesus with his retinue. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... admitted that the garden is as much a work of art,* or artifice, as anything that can be mentioned. The energy localised in certain human bodies, directed by similarly localised intellects, has produced a collocation of other material bodies which could not be brought about in the state of nature. The ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... time given her toilet, she had performed wonders. Perhaps, with a surprising effort of her will, she had snatched some rest, for her eyes wore the fresh, pellucid gleam after prolonged slumber. Her cheeks were smooth and by artifice, seemed to wear the virginal down. Easy and graceful as ever, she affected a slight constraint, which agreed with a pretence ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... past two days the partners had haunted the court-room where their lawyer, together with the counsel for the Scandinavians, had argued and pleaded, trying every possible professional and unprofessional artifice in search of relief from the arbitrary rulings of the court, while hourly they had become more strongly suspicious of some sinister plot—some hidden, powerful understanding back of the Judge and the entire mechanism of justice. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... year, the old man ran a race with one of these children, and contrived, by an artifice, to win it. She got before him; when, fearing he would hurt himself, she stopped to look after him; he came up to her; and then, just pushing her back a little, got before her to the goal, which was very near them. How ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen

... and the merchant unable to discharge his obligations to other firms. He who had to recover money from men thus depressed had a hard task indeed, as Anton soon found out. On every side he heard lamentations which were but too well founded; and frequently every species of artifice was employed to evade his claims. Every day he had to go through painful scenes, often to listen to long legal proceedings carried on in Polish, out of which he generally came with an impression of having been "done," though the agent played the part of interpreter. It was a strange ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... the whole case for the Presbyterians. The opposing system was discredited in their mind by the policy by which it was promoted. It was a policy of coercion, of bribery, of dissimulation and artifice, of resort to every kind of influence that is intolerable to a free and high-spirited people. It was a policy that harassed the most faithful and honourable men in the Church, and preferred the most unscrupulous and obsequious to places of power. ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... spouted a highly spiced sauce upon fish which were swimming about as if in a tide-race. All of us echoed the applause which was started by the servants, and fell to upon these exquisite delicacies, with a laugh. "Carver," cried Trimalchio, no less delighted with the artifice practised upon us, and the carver appeared immediately. Timing his strokes to the beat of the music he cut up the meat in such a fashion as to lead you to think that a gladiator was fighting from a chariot to the accompaniment of ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... and spare form. Here Mr. Allen is at his best, representing young love springing up fiercely, exuberantly, against a lovely background congenial to the human mood. He has not known, however, how to keep up that difficult equilibrium between artifice and simplicity which the idyl demands. His later books tend to be turgid, oppressive, cloying with sentimentalism and amorous obsessions in their graver moments, and in their lighter moments to fall flat from a lack of ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... experiencing the joys of heaven at the very moment that I wrote to you. All was over—I wrote to you in the night, and I trust that you and my sister will pardon this slight but very necessary artifice;—for when, after all the distress that I had suffered, I turned my thoughts towards you, I could not possibly persuade myself to surprise you all at once with the dreadful and fatal news. Now, however, I hope that you have both prepared ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... safe place, except to some old mistress of his, who lives retired in that neighborhood, and has some pity or regard for the wicked old Hakon. Old mistress does receive him, pities him, will do all she can to protect and hide him. But how, by what uttermost stretch of female artifice hide him here; every one will search here first of all! Old mistress, by the slave's help, extemporizes a cellar under the floor of her pig-house; sticks Hakon and slave into that, as the one safe seclusion she can contrive. Hakon and slave, begrunted by the pigs above them, ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... l'enfer, couvrant tout de ses vapeurs funbres, 35 Sur les yeux les plus saints a jet ses tnbres. Lui seul, invariable et fond sur la foi, Ne cherche, ne regarde et n'coute que toi; Et bravant du demon l'impuissant artifice, De la religion soutient tout l'difice. 40 Grand Dieu, juge ta cause, et dploie aujourd'hui Ce bras, ce mme bras qui combattait pour lui, Lorsque des nations sa perte animes Le Rhin vit tant de fois disperser les armes. Des mmes ennemis je reconnais ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... know Frenchmen by caricature merely, as volatile, fickle, deceitful, full of artifice, should sit in judgment upon them. He has the least heart of all who thinks that there is not some heart everywhere! The charity which tarrieth long and suffereth much wrong, has been that of the Parisians of the Latin ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... suspicions. Her hostess's artifice was a transparent one, but she nevertheless fell in with it. She had seen Vane only in the company of others; this might be the same again to-morrow; and there was something to be said. By intuition as much as reason, she recognized that there was something ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... convinced them that there was a fraud, and that appearances that vanished at the approach of unconsecrated light must be produced by mere human artifice. ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... Mr. Farraday, with a countenance so open and a voice so hearty that the Violet, used to artifice from everybody, suspected that they could not be real, and this suspicion made her give up the game for the time being. She laughed with a mocking sweetness as she sprang out of the car and to the top of the steps before he could ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... vultures—have fed upon the liberties of man. From all these there has been, and is, but one means of escape—intellectual development. Upon the back of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain have been the fetters of superstition. Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished. Reading, writing, thinking and ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... interfere on one side or the other, and from that moment all the means of appreciation will be complicated and entangled, instead of becoming clear. It ought to be the part of the State to prevent, and, above all, to repress artifice and fraud; that is, to secure liberty, and not to violate it. I have enlarged a little upon exchange, although loan is my principal object: my excuse is, that I conceive that there is in a loan an actual exchange, ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... fall of the angels, is evidently unbelievable to himself; and the more so, that it is wholly founded on, and in a great part spoiled and degraded from, Hesiod's account of the decisive war of the younger gods with the Titans. The rest of his poem is a picturesque drama, in which every artifice of invention is visibly and consciously employed; not a single fact being for an instant conceived as tenable by any living faith" (Sesame and ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... clapped shut, but Janet had not entered. She had employed the artifice to convey the impression it had. She did not wish to go in to her work just yet, for calm as she had appeared during the interview her emotions were running full tide. Love Ed Sorenson? Marry him? She groped for and dropped into a wicker chair, her ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... Napoleon's preference for mere soldiers, there are many gradations, and the margin is wide enough to afford the least intelligent government means of making rational nominations; but, in all ages, human weaknesses will exercise an influence in one way or another, and artifice will often carry off the prize from modest or timid merit, which awaits a call for its services. But, leaving out of consideration all these influences, it will be profitable to inquire in what respects this choice of a commander will be difficult, even when the ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... every precaution to defend my person in case the fiend should openly attack me. I carried pistols and a dagger constantly about me and was ever on the watch to prevent artifice, and by these means gained a greater degree of tranquillity. Indeed, as the period approached, the threat appeared more as a delusion, not to be regarded as worthy to disturb my peace, while the happiness I hoped for in my marriage wore ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... and that thy triumph over a woman, who for thy sake was abandoned of every friend she had in the world, was effected; not by advantages taken of her weakness and credulity; but by the blackest artifice; after a long course of studied deceits had been tried ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... determining and thus acting, you will pursue the plain and direct road to the attainment of your wishes; you will defeat the insidious designs of your enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice; you will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings; and you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... into one extreme, or the other, and either are all panegyric or all censure; in which case, all they say cannot be just; for, as all nations are governed by men, and the bulk of men of all nations live by artifice of one kind or other, the few men who pass among them, without any sinister views, cannot avoid feeling, and but few from complaining of the ill treatment they meet with; not considering one of Swift's shrewd remarks; I never said he, knew a man who could not bear the misfortunes of another perfectly ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... sensible of the limited extent of human knowledge, to examine with reverence the ways of GOD, nor presumptuously reject any opinion which has been held by the judicious and the learned, because it has been made a cloak for artifice, or had a variety of fictions raised upon ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... endeavored, however, to gain further time by spinning out the negotiation, holding up for this purpose the prospect of an ultimate accommodation, and suggesting the re-establishment of his kinsman, the unfortunate Frederic, on the Neapolitan throne, as the best means of effecting it. The artifice, however, was too gross even for the credulous Louis; who peremptorily demanded of the ambassadors the instant and absolute ratification of the treaty, and, on their declaring it was beyond their powers, ordered them at once to leave his court. "I ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... years I taught rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, made sale of a loquacity to overcome by. Yet I preferred (Lord, Thou knowest) honest scholars (as they are accounted), and these I, without artifice, taught artifices, not to be practised against the life of the guiltless, though sometimes for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from afar perceivedst me stumbling in that slippery course, and amid much smoke sending out some sparks of faithfulness, which I showed ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... Paris with no known source of wealth and no recognized employment is a position which can by no artifice be long maintained. So Lucien, as he crept up in the world, gave more and more weight to the question, "What does he live on?" He had been obliged indeed to confess to Madame de Serizy, to whom he owed the patronage of Monsieur Granville, the Public Prosecutor, and of the Comte ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... Tunis, and defence of Gibraltar. The news-papers spoke of some fireworks exhibited in England in honour of their hero; they were "vrayment feux de joye" said an agreeable Venetian, they were not feux d'artifice. ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... brothers by one father and mother, and we are all indebted to thee for thy kindness. And know thou that he who played this trick on thee in the likeness of an ape, is a Marid of the Marids of the Jinn; and had he not used this artifice, he had never been able to get the girl; for he hath loved her and had a mind to take her this long while, but he was hindered of that talisman; and had it remained as it was, he could never have found access to her. However, fret not thyself for that; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... the flag, tries to hurry or delay, as the case may be, until the judicial auspices appear most favorable. A lawyer who has a weak defence seeks to bring the case before a weak judge, or, if public clamor is loud against his client, makes use of every technical artifice to secure delay, by claiming that there are flaws in the indictment, or by moving for commissions to take testimony in distant points of the country. The opportunities for legal procrastination are so numerous that in a complicated ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... expect you to see that she does. Use any messenger, any artifice, but get her away from this hall for ten minutes, even if it is only into Mrs. Deo's room. When she returns I shall be on my knees before this keyhole to watch her and observe. To see what, I do not mean to tell you, but it will be something which will definitely settle for me this matter of identity. ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... Bulwer, "the reader should remark with what delicate artifice the tenderness of sex and charity heighten and warm the snowy coldness of her ethereal superiority. What a union of all woman's finest qualities! Pride that disdains calumny; gentleness that forgives it! Nothing can be more simply grand than the whole of this ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... upon for the original, he the next day produced a parchment, containing the same poem, in which he had written yprauncing, instead of ifrayning; but by some artifice he had obscured the Ms. so much, to give it an ancient appearance, that Mr.B. could not make out the word without the use of galls. —What follows from all this, but that C. found on examination that there was no such word as ifrayning, ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone

... after a time he enquired of the Magi what should be done with them. Now the Magi deemed it by no means just to condemn men who denied their guilt and had not been explicitly found guilty, but they suggested to him an artifice by which Arsaces himself might be compelled to become openly his own accuser. They bade him cover the floor of the royal tent with earth, one half from the land of Persia, and the other half from Armenia. This the ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... and there a touch Taught me, betimes, the artifice of things— That all about, external to myself, Was meant to be suspected,—not revealed Demonstrably ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... "There is no harm in their saying so. It was an artifice of benevolence. You saw the bull, and had not seen the sheep. So is the superior man affected towards animals, that, having seen them alive, he cannot bear to see them die, and, having heard their dying cries, he cannot bear to eat ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... dangers which threatened the Duke on every side, and which he finally surmounted by the aid of the French. His affairs once reestablished, he grew weary of relying on France and other foreign allies, and he resolved for the future to rely alone on artifice and dissimulation—a course in which he so well succeeded that the Orsini were reconciled to him through the intervention of Signor Paolo, whom he had gained over to his interests by all manner of rich presents and friendly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... and drag her back into absolutism before her sentimentality will allow her to put herself on the defensive. They are pandering to the lowest instincts of the people, and enervating their manhood by every artifice in their power. Thus they have successfully achieved the introduction into Germany of that most degraded form of self-worship—Chauvinism. They poison her morality by wisely organizing that every conscience, every conviction, should have its ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... precaution to render the surprise complete, and although the defences of Richmond were still too weak to resist a resolute attack, Magruder, the same officer who had so successfully imposed upon McClellan at Yorktown, was such a master of artifice that, with 28,000 men and the reserve artillery,* (* Magruder's division, 13,000; Huger's division, 9000; reserve artillery, 3000; 5 regiments of cavalry, 2000. Holmes' division, 6500, was still retained on the south bank of the James.) he might be relied upon to hold Richmond until Porter had ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... the dignity of her person, assisted by the dignity of her movements, a stranger would have been disposed to call her at a distance a woman of commanding presence; but never after he had approached near enough to behold her face. Every thought of artifice—of practised effect—or of haughty pretension, fled before the childlike innocence—the sweet feminine timidity—and the more than cherub loveliness of that countenance, which yet in its lineaments was noble, whilst its expression was purely gentle and confiding. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... the regular denizens of Rainbow Island had dwelt together in peace and mutual goodwill, but each diminutive wou-wou must be taught not to pull any strings he found tied promiscuously to trees or stakes. As a preliminary essay, Jenks resolved to try force combined with artifice. Failing complete success, he would endeavor to kill every monkey in the place, though he had in full measure the inherent dislike of Anglo-India to the slaying ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... the river could not bring assistance to their friends, that he ought not on that account to ascribe very much to his own valour, or despise them; that they had so learned from their sires and ancestors, as to rely more on valour than on artifice or stratagem. Wherefore let him not bring it to pass that the place, where they were standing, should acquire a name, from the disaster of the Roman people and the destruction of their army or transmit the remembrance [of such an event ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... having four feet. Pen'du-lous, hanging down. Com'merce, trade, Pro-bos'cis, snout, trunk. 3. Strat'a-gem, artifice. Doc'ile, teachable. 6. Ar'rack, a spirituous liquor made from the juice of the cocoanut. A-sy'lum, a refuge. 7. Un-wield'y, heavy, unmanageable. Tac'-it-ly, silently. 8. Ep-i-dm'ic, affecting many people. Na'bob, a ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... knew was impossible. Approaching his Commander with a lie in his mouth, he obtained the desired permission, in order to receive the last blessing of a dying father; and, exulting in the unworthy artifice, he hurried to Dorchester, which, on that occasion, was to be the scene of his recreation. During his absence, Marion arrived at the truth of the story, but said nothing. When the youth returned, which he did after two weeks' absence, he proceeded to the marquee of ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... and nay; but I feel so no longer. Love, I take it, is a battle, and I use a military simile because there is war about us. If a good general wishes to take a position, and if he fails in the direct charge—if he is repelled with loss—he does not on that account retreat; but he resorts to artifice, to stratagem, to the mine, to the sly and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... all human warmth. Nothing could set back the clock, and give her what this girl had. Time had "done her in," as it "did in" every woman, one by one. And she saw herself going down the years, powdering a little more, painting a little more, touching up her hair, till it was all artifice, holding on by every little device—and all, to what end? To see his face get colder and colder, hear his voice more and more constrained to gentleness; and know that underneath, aversion was growing with the thought 'You are keeping me from life, and love!' till one evening, in sheer nerve-break, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... an important, but always an interesting, occasion. At this juncture, Bull Bear, an influential chief among the Cheyennes, came in and reported that the chiefs were on their way to our camp, but would not be able to reach it for some time. This was a mere artifice to secure delay. General Hancock informed Bull Bear that, as the chiefs could not arrive for some time, he would move his forces up the stream nearer the village, and the council could be held at our camp that night. To this proposition ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... human virtues; and none but itself can offer the welcoming smile whereby these are ennobled and purified, none but itself can accord them the right to penetrate deep into our moral life. For every virtue must be maleficent and steeped in artifice that cannot support the fixed and eager regard of justice. And so do we find it too at the heart of our every ideal. It is at the centre of our love of truth, at the centre of our love of beauty. It ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... in former times, that there were no antipodes? that according to whether the sacred fowls had eaten or not, it was permitted or forbidden to fight? that the statues of the gods had spoken or changed their place? Add to those things all the knavery and artifice which the charlatans put in practice to deceive and delude the people, and then can we be surprised that they succeeded in imposing on them and gaining their belief? But let it not be imagined, nevertheless, that everyone was their dupe, and that amongst so many blind and credulous people ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... moment did Steve permit a shadow to cross the child's sunny, smiling face. From the first moment when the responsibility for Marcel's little life had fallen into his hands his mind was made up. By every artifice the boy must be kept from all knowledge of the tragedy that had befallen him. When he asked for his mother he was told that she was so sick that she could not be worried. This was during the first two days. After that he was told that she had gone ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... was very sorry, she hadn't meant to, she would never do it again. He did not for a moment suspect that it referred to the scene at Lady Halifax's, and was more than half real. It was not easy to know that even genuine feeling, with Elfrida, required a cloak of artifice. He put it down as a pretty pose, and found it as objectionable as the one he had painted. He was more curious, perhaps, but less disturbed than either of the Cardiffs as the days went by and Elfrida made no sign. He felt, however, that his curiosity ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... in mediaeval Europe, at a time when glass was much more of a rarity. The material was chosen to imply a sort of jewelled strangeness from the start. When Cinderella loses it in her haste, it should flee at once like a white mouse, to hide under the sofa. It should be pictured there with special artifice, so that the sensuous little foot of every girl-child in the audience will tingle to wear it. It should move a bit when the prince comes frantically hunting his lady, and peep out just in time for that royal personage to spy it. Even at the coronation ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... and small Napoleon carried his point. Although Roederer pleaded long and earnestly that Joseph and Louis should come next to the Emperor in the succession, and inserted a clause in the report which he was intrusted to draw up, yet by some skilful artifice this clause was withdrawn from the constitutional act on which the nation was invited to express its opinion: and France assented to a plebiscite for the establishment of the Empire in Napoleon's family, which passed over Joseph and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... bones. He returned to contemplation of the prodigy. Hollow it was, and of no metal known on earth, was his conclusion. It was right-named by the ones of old-time as the Star-Born. Only from the stars could it have come, and no thing of chance was it. It was a creation of artifice and mind. Such perfection of form, such hollowness that it certainly possessed, could not be the result of mere fortuitousness. A child of intelligences, remote and unguessable, working corporally in metals, it indubitably was. He stared at it in amaze, his brain a racing wild-fire ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... the provision of benefices in France. Simony and the whole train of concomitant abuses reappeared more scandalously than ever; and Louis found himself despised by his subjects as the dupe of papal artifice. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... to him the red and yellow covered tale. "The Cracksman's Spoil, or Young Sleuth's Double Artifice" she ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford

... reconciled himself to the kirk, by doing penance for adultery, and for the almost equally heinous crime of having scared Mr Andrew Cant,[B] the famous apostle of the covenant. This, however, seems to have been an artifice, to arrange a correspondence betwixt Montrose and Lord Gordon, a gallant young nobleman, representative of the Huntley family, and inheriting their loyal spirit, though hitherto engaged in the service of the covenant. Colonel Gordon was successful, and returned ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... preemption was now authoritatively reestablished, and some feeble and ostensible regulations were made to relieve the weavers who might suffer by it. The Directors imagined that the reestablishment of their coercive system would remove the evil which fraud and artifice had grafted upon one more rational and liberal. But they were mistaken; for it only varied, if it did so much as vary, the abuse. The servants might as essentially injure their interest by a direct exercise of their power as by pretexts drawn from ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... and they that insist upon single Texts, without considering the main Designe, can derive no thing from them cleerly; but rather by casting atomes of Scripture, as dust before mens eyes, make every thing more obscure than it is; an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth, but their ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... pleasant sight to see these old enemies converted into new and loving friends; and to behold their first meeting after being cheated into mutual liking by the merry artifice of the good-humoured prince. But a sad reverse in the fortunes of Hero must now be thought of. The morrow, which was to have been her wedding day, brought sorrow on the heart of Hero and ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... head with the flat of his hand, crooned to him, using every artifice that he knew to quiet the nerves ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... where sacred peacocks strolled and girls more sacred still—vestals whom Pizarro's soldiers raped—in that City of the Sun, the Word re-echoed. The mystery of it, reported back to the Holy Office, was declared an artifice of the devil. ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus

... human life there is at some time a supreme moment, a tragic climax of events; and Sidwell realized that for him this moment had arrived. Moreover, it had found him helpless and unprepared. Artificial to the bone, he was fundamentally disqualified to meet such an emergency; for artifice or subterfuge would not serve him now. One hasty glance into that relentless face caused him to turn his own away. Long ago, in the West, he had once seen a rustler hung by a posse of ranchers. The inexorable expression he remembered on the surrounding ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... the tribute, and that the pirate ships should be delivered up, the queen endeavoured to procrastinate till such time as she knew it would be necessary for the governor to retire with his armament to Cochin. But being aware of this artifice, the governor landed with 1200 men in two battalions, and ordered twenty light vessels to go up the river to attack the city on that side, while he assailed it on the land side. While marching through a wood, the governor was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... from artifice and wile: And in your eyes I read Encouragement to my unspoken thought. My heart is eloquent with words to plead Its cause of passion; but my questioning mind, Knowing how love is blind, Dwells on the pros and cons, and ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the air was heavy with incense—and blood. About him sat men and women of Rome's culture, freshly perfumed from the baths. The slender figure in the dust of the circus alone was a creature without artifice. And, as she looked up, she recognized the man in the box, the man who had once been a barbarian, too, and she turned her eyes to the iron gates of the cages whence came the roar of the beasts, and waited the ordeal. And the face was the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... the first of the Incas. He was connected with the old royal family, but did not stand in the direct line of succession. The story of his rise to power is told as follows: "A princess of royal blood, named Mama-Ciboca, contrived, by artifice and intrigue, to raise to the throne her son called Rocca, a youth of twenty years, and so handsome and valiant that his admirers called him Inca, which means lord. This title of Inca began with him, and was adopted by all his successors." He appears to have had ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... with a certain jauntiness, and he had need of what assistance artifice could lend him, for he was singularly unprepossessing. He was a man who might as well have been sixty as fifty. His clothes soiled, torn and greasy, were of good cut. The shirt was filthy, but it was attached to a frayed collar, and the crumpled ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... we have had the spectacle of millions, literally millions, of the people of England, yielding an absolute credence to the most monstrous delusions respecting public questions and measures, imposed on them by dishonest artifice, and what may be called moral incendiarism; and these delusions of a nature to excite the passions of the multitude to crime. It is difficult to believe that all this can be seen without serious ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... hotel, I felt that the mesmeric trick, or whatever artifice had been practised upon me by Brande and Grey, had now assumed its true proportion. I laughed at my fears, and was thankful that I had not described them to the strong-minded young woman to whose kindly society I owed so much. What an idiot she would have ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... confidence, I had made Mons. Gallois acquainted with all the circumstances of throwing the fender overboard, and the manner in which we had got possession of the ship. It was not to be expected, therefore, that particular artifice could be made to succeed ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... Do ye divine the diplomatic reticence, the gestures of artifice, the veiled words, the looks of doubtful meaning which some evening may induce your wife to attempt the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... as the controversy was one of the most important in its day, and the policy ultimately adopted remained longer open to question than any other of the anti-protectionist measures which were adopted. Mr. Mather's letter was the more effective, because it exposed an artifice to which Mr. Gladstone especially resorted, but in which he was supported ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... inexplicable, except on the supposition of treachery." But this was only a facon de parler with him: the idea of secret perfidy, that was constantly moving under-ground, gave an interest to the progress of the war, which else tended to the monotonous. It was a dramatic artifice for sustaining the interest, where the incidents might be too slightly diversified. But that he did not believe his own charges was clear, because he never repeated them in his "General History of the Campaigns," which ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... attitude of prayer falls into a mystic sleep, in which all its natural powers are silenced, until that which had been temporary becomes its permanent condition. You see that the soul is thus led, without effort, without study, without artifice. ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... Artevelde. 5. Literary Relics of James Thomson and Allan Ramsey. 6. A Word upon Wigs. 7. The Income Tax. 8. Paris after Waterloo. 9. Correspondence of Sylvanus Urban: Concealed Lands; Richard of Cirencester; Artifice of a Condemned Malefactor; Billingsgate and Whittington's Conduit. With Notes of the Month; Review of New Publications; Reports of Archaeological Societies, Historical Chronicle, and OBITUARY; including Memoirs of the Earl of Belfast, Bishop Kaye, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various

... English literature while we read it and enjoy it in German. There is little valid reason for our aversion; the rhythm has been made familiar to our ears by long courses of Greek and Latin and the rarity of spondaic feet is assuredly to be supplied by art and artifice. ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... The whole artifice of the surprise was exposed, and after the first bursts of pleasure had subsided, all to whom the scene was novel felt, that they would not have missed this piquante introduction to the valley of the Susquehannah, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... of the year 1434 this party began to hold up its head. Powerful as the Albizzi were, they only retained the government by artifice; and now they had done a deed which put at nought their former arts and intrigues. A Signory favourable to the Medici came into office, and on September 26th, 1434, Rinaldo in his turn was summoned to the palace and declared a rebel. He strove to raise the forces of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... by proof, for it is material to the character and principle of the revolution to shew, that no condition of America, since the declaration of independence, however trying and severe, ever operated to produce the most distant idea of yielding it up either by force, distress, artifice, or persuasion. And this proof is the more necessary, because it was the system of the British ministry at this time, as well as before and since, to hold out to the European powers that America was unfixt in her resolutions and policy; hoping by this artifice to lessen her reputation in ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine

... laws by the actual course of civilisation, Comte adopts what he calls "the happy artifice of Condorcet," and treats the successive peoples who pass on the torch as if they were a single people running the race. This is "a rational fiction," for a people's true successors are those who pursue its efforts. And, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... disappeared. With a more delicate figure she became more graceful, and no woman ever had a finer complexion. Being endowed with a most sturdy constitution, she owed all her beauty to nature and nothing to artifice; her face needed no paint, her wit no coquetry; with no fondness for luxury or dress, possessing simple and quiet tastes, never striving for effect, always preferring half-tints to a blaze of light, her expression and demeanor always had a quality of simplicity and directness ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... while he should be gone, in order to deceive the king in regard to his intentions of not returning. The king, on his part, resorted to some stratagems to ascertain whether the physician was sincere in his professions, but he did not succeed in detecting the artifice, and so the party went away. The ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... unsubstantial little maid repeated every gesture and did all the foolish things that Polly did, but without making her ashamed of them. In short, it was the fault of pretty Polly's ability, rather than her will, if she failed to be as complete an artifice as the illustrious Feathertop himself; and when she thus tampered with her own simplicity, the witch's phantom might well hope ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... artifice obtained as much water as they wanted, the besieged felt better able to endure their irksome situation. They were resigning themselves with as much philosophy as they could command to bear it a little longer, when to their great astonishment ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... order, Egyptian children were put under their care to learn the Greek tongue; and on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a correspondence with the Greeks, and, from that era, the Egyptian history, which till then had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifice of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... Hogg; and, for obvious reasons, it is in Scotland that the simpler fashion of ballad writing, whether in dialect or standard English, and more especially as employed upon martial subjects, has flourished longest. Artifice and ballad preciosity have been cultivated more sedulously in the south, with a learned use of the repetend, archaism of style, and imitation of the quaint ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... the conclusion that there was not the slightest hope of discovering anything against her that would bear inspection, and discovering that she was every day growing more and more in favor with the entire household, I resolved quietly to resort to artifice to accomplish that which I could not hope to bring about in any other way. It was very easy to steal into the school-room after hours, unobserved, and, after some practice, imitate her handwriting closely enough to have it pass for genuine with any one not familiar ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... an artifice rare in genuine ballads, might alone have proved to Scott that the poem of Miss Elliot is ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... concerned, I distrust Frenchmen as a race, and I suspect—mind you, I am merely guessing—but I repeat that I suspect the honesty of Monsieur Jean de Courtois in this matter. There was no earthly reason why he should not have married Lady Hermione some weeks ago, but it is clear that he has used every artifice to delay the ceremony until to-night—and, it may be found when we learn the facts, was prepared to put it off once more till to-morrow or next day. Why? In my opinion, the reason is not far to seek. The Earl of Valletort ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... feeling of some guilt, becoming in one who stoops to unworthy artifice, P. Sybarite walked slowly on up Broadway a little way, then doubled on his trail, going softly until a swift and stealthy survey westward from the corner of Thirty-eighth Street assured him that George was not skulking ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... There were no materials of conjecture; no probabilities to be weighed, or suspicions to revolve. Human artifice or power was unequal to this exploit. Means less than preternatural would not furnish ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... told me somewhat of it," answered Cuthbert; "but she laughed to scorn the artifice. She is not made of the stuff ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... sex in countenance, that, though she had hair, as has been already described, becoming her, and sufficiently ornamental in itself, yet she occasionally called in the aid of wigs. Brantome's words are: "l'artifice de perruques ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... a slight increase of color. "Look here," said the girl, whose dimples had deepened as she keenly surveyed him, as if detecting some amorous artifice under his show of interest for her brother. "Dad's gone down to the sheepfold and won't be back for an hour. Yo' might ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... are all true works of Art: in them (if thou know a Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity looking through Time; the Godlike rendered visible. Here too may an extrinsic value gradually superadd itself: thus certain Iliads, and the like, have, in three-thousand years, attained quite new significance. But nobler than all in this kind, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... beauteous, of stature goodly and high, of flesh tender and soft, his visage lovely and fair, his colour white, intermingled with comely reds, his eyes grey, and quick of look, his teeth white and even, his hair yellow and abundant," and trimmed with more than the usual artifice of the time. ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... glorious portion of the earth to some of its ancient spirit. Mexico, in certain senses, is the Italy of this continent; and war, however ruthless and much to be deplored, may yet confer on her the inestimable blessings of real liberty, and a religion released from "feux d'artifice," as ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... five years ago that the sacrament of the altar is but bread and wine he would, indeed, have done me a great service, and rendered me very material aid in my efforts to make a breach in the Papacy. But it is all in vain. The meaning of the texts is so evident that every artifice of language will be powerless to explain it away." He contended that the words "This is My body and This is My blood" could bear only one meaning, namely, that Christ was really present, but while agreeing with Catholics about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, he rejected ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... have endeavoured to reduce the idea of beauty to general principles. And I had the pleasure to observe that the professor of painting proceeded in the same method, when he showed you that the artifice of contrast was founded but on one principle. And I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing science, of clearing the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but perplex and puzzle the student when he compares them, or misguide him if he gives himself up to ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... things first, and such as have more of force in them than sleight and skill. This ended, Sosicles said: You speak right, and I will confirm your discourse from the very name; for, in my opinion, [Greek omitted] wrestling, is derived from [Greek omitted] i.e. to throw down by sleight and artifice. And Philinus said, it seems to me to be derived from [Greek omitted] the palm of the hand, for wrestlers use that part most, as cuffers do the [Greek omitted] fist; and hence both these sorts of exercises have their proper names, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... little more to wait for, now Coralie had gone; yet I lingered still, on the chance of her appearing again. Next moment the clown tripped up and fell flat, with magnificent artifice, and at once fresh emotions began to stir. Love had endured its little hour, and stern ambition now asserted itself. Oh, to be a splendid fellow like this, self-contained, ready of speech, agile beyond conception, braving the forces of society, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... from some Reflections that I have made on the Subject of my last Paper; by which it appears to me that there are Multitudes of this Sort of People in the World, pursuing Fortune in a very giddy Way. I suppose it will be thought ridiculous, to call him wrong-headed, who by any Artifice shall improve his Estate; yet when the Misfortunes of others, and those by much the greater Number, and a Decay of Trade are put in Ballance against that Artifice, I doubt this Charge must be somewhere, tho' I am not cunning enough to tell where. As I see but little Company, and retire for my Ease ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe

... had been too often reproached with his swarthy skin and likened to the Devil by Desdemona's father to need any such commonplace reminder of his defects, in his agony of doubt. It is, however, a fair ground for difference of opinion. But when the same artifice is resorted to in the last act to explain the words, "It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul!!"—and Othello is made to take up a toilet-glass which has fallen from Desdemona's hand,—it becomes a vile ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... The story should tell all, plainly and even bluntly. Mr. Herndon is naturally a very direct writer, and he has been industrious in gathering material. Whether an incident happened before or behind the scenes, is all the same to him. He gives it without artifice or apology. He describes the life of his friend Lincoln just as he saw it."—Cincinnati ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... pleasant evening sun, and saw beds scrupulously plain, a quaint old chair or two, and little pictures of favorite saints decorating the spotless white walls. The old ladies kept up a quick, cheerful clatter, as they paused to gossip at the gates of their little domiciles; and with a great deal of artifice, and lurking behind walls, and looking at the church as if I intended to design that, I managed to get a sketch of ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... written at least two hundred and fifty years ago; but it is pretty in spite of its artifice. Some of the conceits are so quaint that they must be explained. By the term "oaten beard," the poet means an ear of oats; and you know that the grain of this plant is furnished with very long ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... Annapolis), at Pisiquid (now Windsor), Minas, etc., were sent to Halifax, where a long conference was held; but the deputies still declining to accept the new oath, they were imprisoned, and the deportation of the Acadians decided upon. In order to do this artifice was resorted to, to prevent the people from suspecting what was in store for them, and that the poor peasants might have no chance to leave themselves or carry away their possessions. "Both old men and young men, as well as the lads of ten years of age," were called, ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... hall, and there the Greek, who could not make up his mind to see his golden dream vanish in smoke, examined with the most minute attention the shafts of the pillars to make certain that they did not conceal some artifice, that they did not mask some trap which might be discovered by displacing them; for in his despair he mingled the realism of Egyptian architecture with the chimerical constructions of the Arab tales. The pillars, cut out of the mountain itself, in the centre of the hollowed mass, formed ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... was a customary Indian stratagem. A person, affecting to be a white man, hailed them, and requested them to lie by, that he might come on board. Finding that the boat's crew were not to be allured to the shore by this artifice, the Indians put off from the shore in three canoes, and attacked the boat. Never was a contest of this sort maintained with more desperate bravery. The Indians attempted to board the boat, and the inmates made use of all arms of annoyance and defence. ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... he discovers the treachery; lying is to a Persian the worst of crimes, to be deceived the greatest disgrace; thou hast deceived the highest and proudest of the nation, and what can one inexperienced girl avail, when hundreds of women, deeply versed in intrigue and artifice, are striving for the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... admiration. The integrity and benevolence of this gentleman are so well known that our readers will probably be at a loss to conceive by what steps he can have arrived at so extraordinary a conclusion: and we are half afraid that they will suspect us of practising some artifice upon them when we report the principal arguments which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... garden, "I never saw my brother so happy in his life. Jeff always was hard to please as a boy. I used to think it was merely a critical disposition, but later I discovered that it was his extreme distaste for all artifice, acting, intrigue—all absence of genuineness. Only those boys and men interested him whom he had ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... adonnait son courage A mainte bel ouvrage Dessus la toile, et encor A joindre la soie et l'or. Vous d'un pareil exercise Mariez par artifice Dessus la toile en mainte traits L'or et ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... could be wished," wrote William Sherwood in August, 1678, "except for the malice of some discontented persons of the late Governor's party, who endeavour by all ye cunning contrivances that by their artifice can be brought about, to bring a Contempt of Colonel Jeffreys, our present good Governor.... Those persons who are the troublers of the peace ... are ... Lady Berkeley, Colonel Philip Ludwell, Colonel Thomas Ballard, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... as had been expected, he just entered the dangerous defile, and before time was given for a single blow, turned short, and leaping the heads of a row of children, he gained at once the exterior and safer side of the formidable array. The artifice was answered by a hundred voices raised in imprecations, and the whole of the excited multitude broke from their order and spread themselves about ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... benefit to send abroad strains which may assist in preparing the heart for its trials, and in supporting it under them. But there is a greater good than this, a farther benefit. Although it is in verse that the most consummate skill in composition is to be looked for, and all the artifice of language displayed, yet it is in verse only that we throw off the yoke of the world, and are as it were privileged to utter our deepest and holiest feelings. Poetry in this respect may be called the salt of the earth; we express ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... Play, by telling the Patient the Doctors Medicine will not work (which he knows well enough how to effect) and then to tell him he will prepare him one of his own that will work, when perhaps that he calls his own preparation, was nothing but what the Doctor had prescribed before; and by this Artifice to advance ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett

... particularly adapted for life among the trees; their tails are long and bushy, covering over the backs of the animals when in a sitting posture. They are all lithe and quick of movement, and their senses of sight and hearing are especially keen. They are constantly on the alert, and are full of artifice when pursued. Their food consists chiefly of nuts, fruits, and grain, but when pushed by hunger, there is no telling what they will not eat. They generally provide for the [Page 212] winter months by laying up a store of the foregoing provisions, either in holes ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... spoke the truth, and his treatment of Russia was nothing new. It had long been a clumsy artifice of his insatiable greed for war and conquest to charge his enemies with taking the sword in hand on account of their fears or expectations, the fear and expectations being usually caused by his attitude and the projects ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... else in the world vanished from her thoughts, or rather had never been there. She was drinking again the forbidden waters for which she had thirsted, perhaps without quite knowing it, so long. The strangeness, the strain, the artifice of the last eight months fell from her like a spell; she was herself again, comfortable again, poised again, thrilling from head to heels with delicious and bubbling life—ready ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... little pleased at this frantic passion, and secretly liked him ten times better for it, though she immediately resorted to every artifice to calm his anger, for she knew his violent nature, and that he was quite capable of doing as he had said. But the delight of two strings to her bow was not easily to be foregone, and thus, though she really loved the farmer, she did not discourage the gentleman. He, on his ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... with these petitioners is to begin with a fine flummery about the merits and eminent genius of the person whom they are addressing. But this artifice, I state publicly, is of no avail. When I see THAT kind of herb, I know the snake within it, and fling it away before it has time to sting. Away, reptile, to the waste-paper basket, and ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... will hardly improve his present execution, since he is now at the age of thirty-two, and can never fill more easily the youthful beauty of the part, without artifice, and, we may say, by the first intention. We should like to see him, ere many winters have passed over his head, in some new classic play, whose arrangement should not be confined to the bald, antique model, nor drawn out in sounding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various



Words linked to "Artifice" :   tactical maneuver, tactical manoeuvre, maneuver, manoeuvre



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