"Denouement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Catastrofe. My book on playwriting divides plays into Introduction, Development, Crisis, Denouement and Catastrofe. And so one may devide life. In my case the Cinder proved the Introduction, as there was none other. I consider that the Suitcase was the Development, my showing it to Jane Raleigh ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... rabblement of sounds and syllables that had been accumulating during the suspense of audible speech; but now fell clattering down like hailstones about the ears of the crew, not less to their annoyance than the embargo had been to their dismay. Among the unlucky revelations at this denouement, the author gravely states that a rude fellow (the boatswain, I think), having cursed the knight himself in a fit of passion, his sin then found him out, and was promptly visited by retributive justice, in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... in his life, he was at the door of the mystery, yet it remained unopened. The first time was when he was listening to Lord Mountdean's story, when the mention of the name Dornham should lead to a denouement; the second was now, when, if he had listened to the convict, he would have heard that ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... again," groaned Mr. Winslow; "now you're going to see and hear the dramatic denouement, while I shall have to be content with taking ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... Story", by David H. Whittier, possesses a tragical plot whose interest is slightly marred by triteness and improbable situations. Of the latter we must point out the strained coincidence whereby four distinct things, proceeding from entirely unrelated causes, give rise to the final denouement. The culmination of the aged father's resolve to kill his enemy, the conditions which make possible the return of the son, the presence of the enemy's hat and coat under the wayside tree, and the storm which prompts the son to don these garments, are all independent circumstances, whose ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... poverty. This is the last golden lock to the millions of Lagunitas, The poor puppet he has set up to play the contestant is under his control. He had wished to see Natalie homeward bound before this denouement. It must be. He muses. Kill her! Ah, no; too dangerous. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... he was regarded by superior persons as a writer of "shockers," he had a large and increasing public who were fascinated by the wholesome and thrilling stories he wrote, and who held on breathlessly to the skein of mystery until they came to the denouement ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... mind was filled with that dark presentiment—that shadow from the coming event, which superstition believes the herald of the more tragic discoveries, or the more fearful incidents of life; he felt steeled, and prepared for some dread denouement,—to a journey to which the hand of Providence seemed to conduct his steps; and he looked on the shroud that Time casts over all beyond the present moment with the same intense and painful resolve with which, in the tragic representations ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... toujours fort grave et plein de perils. Je ne puis naturellement faire dans une pareille situation de projets a longue echeance. Non seulement tout plan de voyage est abandonne pour le moment, mais je vis au jour le jour, toujours pret a partir au recu d'une depeche annoncant le denouement fatal. Aussi ne puis-je dans ce moment insister pour vous engager a faire au Chateau d'Eu cette visite dont je me promettais tant de plaisir et d'interet, mais qui, dans les circonstances actuelles, risquerait fort d'etre brusquement interrompue. ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... either to overhear or interrupt the foregoing conversation, had fortunately chosen the former alternative. And here, perchance, should the story end, for the after-history of Joachim Murat is a tragical addendum to that happy denouement. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... has been able to elude all Baltimore's attempts at conversation—has refused all his demands for a dance, yet this same knowledge that the night will not go by without a denouement of some kind between her and him is terribly present to her. To-night! The last night she will ever see him, in all human probability! The exaltation that enables her to endure this thought is fraught with such agony ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... famous mediums of expression. "Lord Jim" is perhaps his masterpiece and may be regarded as the most interesting book written recently in our language with the exception of Henry James' "Golden Bowl." For sheer excitement and the thrilling sensation of delayed denouement it must be conceded that not one of our classical novelists can touch Conrad. "Victory" remains an absorbing evidence of his power of concentrating at one and the same moment our dramatic ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... held his place while the room centred its eyes upon him, scenting some unexpected denouement. He saw it, and in concession to a natural vanity and dramatic instinct, he threw back his head and stuffed his hands into his coat-pockets while the crowd waited. He grinned insolently at the Judge and ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... that the author has displayed great adroitness in the "denouement" of his tale. In the course of a few pages all the principal characters, male and female, are suddenly produced, safe and unscathed, before the reader. To be sure, this is done by the aid of a little "diablerie," but then it is done ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... passengers to sail by the Bermudian and the Cecelia. A new possibility had presented itself. If the psychological moment in someone's affairs was eventuating, something for which she had long planned the denouement. That person might be sailing. If only he could accompany her, perhaps in the isolated world of a steamer's life, he might bring his will to bear—force from her a promise to cease from her pernicious activities, and an acceptance of his future aid in all financial matters—two ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... moment the author of the play appears on the stage, and, delivering an excellent philosophical dissertation on the merits of the "situation," shows that by the purest principles of art the sacrifice is necessary, but at the same time offers to the audience the privilege of changing the denouement. Such, however, is the nice aesthetic sense of a Chinese auditory, and so universal the desire of bloodshed in the heathen breast, that invariably at each representation of this remarkable tragedy the cause of humanity gives way to the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... the stars glittered with her eagerness for the denouement. "And did she think it ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... practical man he took a more healthy view of his adventure with Madame de Tecle, and began to congratulate himself on its denouement. Had things taken a different turn, his future destiny would have been compromised and deranged for him. His political future especially would have been lost, or indefinitely postponed, for his liaison with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Bourgeois and the break-up of the Honnetes Gens. De Pean, while resolving to make Le Gardeur the tool of his wickedness, did not dare to take him into his confidence. He had to be kept in absolute ignorance of the part he was to play in the bloody tragedy until the moment of its denouement arrived. Meantime he must be plied with drink, maddened with jealousy, made desperate with losses, and at war with himself and all the world, and then the whole fury of his rage should, by the artful contrivance of De ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Bonaparte might not see the course predicted to be necessary and unavoidable, even before a war should be imminent, was a chance which we thought it our duty to try: but the immediate prospect of rupture brought the case to immediate decision. The denouement has been happy: and I confess I look to this duplication of area for the extending a government so free and economical as ours, as a great achievement to the mass of happiness which is to ensue. Whether we ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... dresses which were worn both by Lord Chetwynde and herself, and the general appearance of the grounds. On these she lingered long, describing little incidents in her search, as though unwilling to come to the denouement. When she reached this point of her story she became deeply agitated, and as she described the memorable events of that meeting with the fearful figure of the dead the horror that filled her soul was manifest in her looks and in her words, and communicated itself to Gualtier so strongly ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... two boys who had waited the Hun had profited cunningly by the brawl. They had approached at its beginning—a fight was anybody's to watch—they had applauded its denouement with shrill and hearty cries, and they now ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... double-bedded room, an old gentleman—a disbanded officer, I think, whose health disturbed his repose—began a conversation of a peculiar kind, and asked me whether I was not a Freemason. Darkness, and the distance I was from him, induced a studiedly cautious reply. But a denouement the next day followed. This incident was the only explanation the unwonted and wholly unexpected remittance admitted. A stranger, traveling to a southern and sickly city to embark for a distant State, perhaps never to return—the ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... on a trip that had to do with seeing some man in Wall Street (whom, incidentally, he failed to see), and Richard Caramel had been half persuaded, half tricked into joining them. They had condescended to a wet and fashionable wedding on Monday afternoon, and in the evening had occurred the denouement: Gloria, going beyond her accustomed limit of four precisely timed cocktails, led them on as gay and joyous a bacchanal as they had ever known, disclosing an astonishing knowledge of ballet steps, and singing songs which ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... out like a figure of Christ imperfectly gilded and fixed upon a cross of tarnished silver. The flickering rays shed by the blue flames of a crackling fire were therefore the sole light of this sombre chamber, where the denouement of a drama was just ending. A log suddenly rolled from the fire onto the floor, as if presaging some catastrophe. At the sound of it the sick woman quickly rose to a sitting posture. She opened two eyes, clear as ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Telestis and the fidicina in Ep., the quarrel between Mnesilochus and Pistoclerus in Bac. resulting from the former's belief that his friend had stolen his sweetheart, the exchange of names between Tyndarus and Philocrates in Cap., the entrapping of Demaenetus with the meretrix at the denouement of As., etc., etc. It is understood, we presume, that the modern farce occupies no exalted position in the comic scale, is distinguished by the grotesquerie of its characters, incidents and dialogue, and is indulgently permitted ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... judges, but as the sun falling around a helpless thing. As he sees the farthest, he has the most faith. His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things. In the talk on the soul and eternity and God, off of his equal plane, he is silent. He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement: he sees eternity in men and women,—he does not see men and women as dreams or dots. Faith is the antiseptic of the soul,—it pervades the common people and preserves them: they never give up believing and expecting and trusting. There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... many who echoed her laugh, for, indeed, the story did sound like an absurd fable. All eyes were turned on Nell, and all waited for her to bring about with a denial the satisfactory denouement. Drake did not laugh, for his heart was burning with fury against the audacity, the shameless insolence, of Lady Luce; but he smiled in a grim fashion as his eyes ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... something of the nature of the joke, and, hearing steps and smothered laughter above, turned back and slipped into a closet at the end of the hall, where she shrank into a corner and waited with eager ears and bated breath for the denouement. ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... paragraph, at any rate the kind of paragraph that Will Howe (who used to be a professor of English) would approve. On the whole, rather than rewrite the entire narrative, tersely, we will have to postpone the denouement (of the story, not the tie) until to-morrow. This is an exhibition of the difficulty of telling anything exactly. There are so many subsidiary considerations that beg for explanation. Please be patient, Pete, and to-morrow we will ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... best printer of etchings in England" (and a capital printer he certainly is); and it was not "found that they produced impressions never before approached even by Delatre"—here we have the contradiction alluded to—no! this theatrical denouement I must ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... simultaneous—a coherent series of representations may take place, involving what seem to be protracted periods for their unfoldment. Every reader will easily call to mind dream experiences of this character, in which the long-delayed denouement was suggested and prepared for by some extraneous sense-impression, showing that the entire dream drama unfolded within the time it took that impression to travel from the ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... was so relieved at the happy denouement of that fearful tragedy that she could only protest, "Helen, Helen, why ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... parts,—Complication and Unravelling or Denouement. Incidents extraneous to the action are frequently combined with a portion of the action proper, to form the Complication; the rest is the Unravelling. By the Complication I mean all that extends from the beginning of the action to the part which marks the turning-point ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... reasons. The lesser, but not negligible, reason is that we possess no convenient English word for the unknotting or disentangling of a complication. Denouement itself cannot be plausibly Anglicized, and no native word has as yet, by common consent, been accepted as its equivalent. I sometimes wish we could adopt, and print without italics, the excellent and expressive Greek word "lusis"; but I cannot, on my ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... To this question the Buddhist replied with a smile: "Set your mind at ease," he said; "there's now in maturity a plot of a general character involving mundane pleasures, which will presently come to a denouement. The whole number of the votaries of voluptuousness have, as yet, not been quickened or entered the world, and I mean to avail myself of this occasion to introduce this object among their number, so as to give it a chance ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... father wanted to be rich: he needed money to carry on his intrigues. He allowed himself to be tempted. But whilst he believed himself one of the managers, called upon to divide the receipts, he was but a scene-shifter with a stated salary. The moment of this denouement having come, his so-called partners disappeared through a trap-door with the cash, leaving him alone, as they say, to face ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... been quietly assembled in the vicinity in anticipation of this denouement. They were led by Senators and Deputies wearing the official scarf of their high legislative function. This at once afforded the latter reasonable immunity from arrest, and served to encourage and assure those accustomed to look for ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... was bold, and the denouement—the time and place in which the hero of it existed, considered—not much out of keeping; yet it must be confessed, that it required a delicacy of handling both from the author and the performer, so as not much to shock the prejudices of a modern English audience. G., ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... motive was only an itch to see what would then take place. But when I saw that the issue would be an obvious one: that he would merely be spirited forth to sea again, and this time, forced to work, I felt a little sorry for the man. At the same time, I admit I wanted to observe the denouement myself, of his case ... and as I now intended to desert the ship, it would have ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Mrs. Abrahams, rather tonelessly. An ardent supporter of the local motion-picture palace, she had hoped for a slightly more gingery denouement, something ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... were expecting that condemnation, it filled them with grief. D'Artagnan, whose mind was never more fertile in resources than in critical emergencies, swore again that he would try all conceivable means to prevent the denouement of the bloody tragedy. But by what means? As yet he could form no definite plan; all must depend on circumstances. Meanwhile, it was necessary at all hazards, in order to gain time, to put some obstacle in ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ladders. The wealthy had long since taken their departure. None of the factories and workshops had opened their doors; trade and commerce there was none; there was no employment for labor; the life of enforced idleness went on amid the alarmed expectancy of the frightful denouement that everyone felt could not be far away. And the people depended for their daily bread on the pay of the National Guards, that dole of thirty sous that was paid from the millions extorted from ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... sure that your story is in three paragraphs, arranged thus: (1) Situation; (2) Climax; (3) Denouement. ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... at Stangate Creek." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1480—Capt. Berkeley, 30 Dec. 1744, and enclosure.] In the engagement two of the seamen were wounded, but all escaped the snare of the fowler, and in that happy denouement our ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... miss so interesting a denouement as the actual capture of this prodigy of the wilds, I was up early and off the following Sunday to Newark, where in Peter's apartment in due time I found him, his rooms in a turmoil, he himself ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... the denouement of the preceding chapter; but it must not be forgotten, that Delme had been residing some months at Leamington, and that Emily and Julia were friends. In his own familiar circle—a severe but true test—Sir Henry had every opportunity of becoming acquainted with Miss Vernon's sweetness of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... argument for the institution of the Holy Office in Seville. Between the two there are many points of contact, and each supplies what the other lacks to make an interesting narrative having for background the introduction of the Inquisition to Castile. The denouement I supply is entirely fictitious, and the introduction of Torquemada is quite arbitrary. Ojeda was the inquisitor who dealt with both cases. But if there I stray into fiction, at least I claim to have ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... that, in reading a novel, part of the pleasure you feel arises from your conscious anticipation of the end, and your satisfaction in seeing that you anticipated correctly? Or part, sometimes, from the occasional unexpectedness of the real denouement? Well, life is like that. I enjoy observing my successes, and, in a way, my failures. Let me show you what I mean. I think I know what you said to Sebastian—not the words, of course, but the purport; and I will write it down now for you. Set down YOUR version, too. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... those mysterious notices of a great land in the western ocean which we find in the ancient chronicles, so interwoven with narrative we know to be true, as to make it impossible not to attach a certain amount of credit to them. This particular story is the more interesting as its denouement, abruptly left in the blankest mystery by one Saga, is incidentally revealed to us in the course of another, relating to events with which the first had no connection. [Footnote: From internal evidence it is certain that the chronicle which ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... cry of joy burst from the mother and daughter, as they rushed into each other's arms. Nature, always strongest in pure minds, even before this denouement, had, indeed, rekindled the mysterious flame of her own affection in their hearts. The father pressed her to his bosom, and forgot the terrors of the sound before him, whilst the son embraced her with a secret consciousness that she was, ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... minute the whole correspondence was on the table, and Mr. Holdfast laid it out in order, like a map, and went through it, taking notes. "What a comedy," said he. "All but the denouement. Now, Mr. Bayne, can any other manufacturers show me a correspondence ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Cap'n was saturnine, and even lost his interest in the animated figures on distant Cod Lead Nubble, though Hiram could not drag his eyes from them, seeing in their frantic gestures the denouement of his plot. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... little sigh. The tragedy which a few minutes ago she had seen looming up, eluded her. She had courted a denouement in vain. He was ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... open the conversation, until, realizing that he was a god and that the chief witch-doctor was doing the same thing, reflected swiftly and desiring to make an impression, repeated Bakahenzie's mystic phrase which he had overheard whilst hiding in the jungle previous to the denouement: ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... The unexpected denouement at the house had rendered the major and captain doubly anxious; for now nothing but the most consummate skill and daring could save them from recapture; and, while the former kept close watch on the house to catch the ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... only a moment before fully determined to leave the rancho and her, was now going to her father to demand her hand as a contingency of his remaining did not strike him as so extravagant and unexpected a denouement as it was a difficult one. He was only concerned HOW, and in what way, he should approach him. In a moment of embarrassment he hesitated, turned, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of his vague theory of hallucination he seemed every day, all his life, to be expecting the continuation, and, so to say, the denouement of this affair. He could not believe that that was the end of it! And if so he must have looked ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... denouement caused much laughter and excitement amongst the spectators. The judge adjourned the trial, and sent for Mon. Bouvier, the gaoler, and guards ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... not reasonable I should continue our engagement to its denouement, since by that boastful parade of skill I have inadvertently turned you into a blind man. Can you not stanch your wound sufficiently to make possible a renewal of our exercise on somewhat ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... far, even beyond his hopes. The coming of Van Dorn and the acquaintance formed with Lindlay would be of untold value to him in his work. A little later, Van Dorn would come to his assistance without arousing suspicion, not being known as a mining expert, and when the time came for the final denouement, Lindlay would accompany Mr. Cameron to the mines, as he was a skilled expert, and having already visited the mines, could furnish testimony as to the fraud practiced ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... upon Shirley. From the angle of an audience, he was beginning to observe a phase of this double play of personalities which was unseen by either of the participants. Two sleepless nights, after such a first evening together, and what then? He imagined the denouement, with a growing enjoyment of his vantage-point ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... the whole spectacle as in a dream. So swift had been the action, so fantastic the denouement, that he could not at first reconcile it all with reality. He went slowly over to the prostrate "Slim" Rawley, whom the others had laid out decently upon the ground, half expecting him to leap up and laugh in their faces; but the already stiffening figure with the fiendish ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... can't drop it till you have turned the last page."—Cleveland Leader. "Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution, almost takes one's breath away. The boldness of its denouement is sublime."—Boston Transcript. "The literary hit of a generation. The best of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly story."—St. Louis Dispatch. "The story is ingeniously told, ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... own. They appear before the footlights of a fulfilled destiny; and their doubts, their weaknesses, are concealed, along with their temptations, beneath the paint and stage drapery lent them by the historian who, knowing beforehand the denouement toward which their efforts tended, unconsciously assumes a like knowledge on their part. They are thus often credited with deep-laid motives and plans which it may perhaps have been impossible for them ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... doubts of the reality of the tale. Another of his remarks gave me less pleasure. He detected the identity of the King with the wandering knight, Fitz-James, when he winds his bugle to summon his attendants. He was probably thinking of the lively, but somewhat licentious, old ballad, in which the denouement of a royal ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... would but confine the abundant tide of his flowing and leisurely utterances, he would have more time to bestow on really exciting and dramatic episodes, instead of going off into a little corner and carefully embellishing it, while the denouement waits and the interest grows cold. Neither can he write a page without sending a sly bolt of amused perception through it, in which he discovers some foible or pricks some bubble of pretension, but always tenderly, as if he loved his victim. To the fact that Mr. Blackmore's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Democracy, was best served by sending out to the newspapers a "broadside" of pungent extracts; public curiosity in a novel like The Lady, or the Tiger? was, of course, whetted by the publication of literary notes as to the real denouement the author had in mind in writing the story. Whenever Mr. Stockton came into the office Bok pumped him dry as to his experiences with the story, such as when, at a dinner party, his hostess served an ice-cream lady and a tiger to the author, and ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... Balzac had first to pay off his debts, and Mme. Hanska, as a Polish subject of the Czar Nicholas, was not in a position to marry from one day to another. The growth of their intimacy is, however, amply reflected in these volumes, and the denouement presents itself with a certain dramatic force. Balzac's letters to his future wife, as to every one else, deal almost exclusively with his financial situation. He discusses the details of this matter with all his correspondents, who apparently ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... After all, it was not so much he who had desired this match as Roberts, and as long as the senator was willing to withdraw, he could make no objection. He wondered what part, if any, his son had played in bringing about this sensational denouement to a match which had been so distasteful to him, and it gratified his paternal vanity to think that Jefferson after all might be smarter than he had ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... the act of final detachment. Death, however, as he reflected, must be for every one nothing less than the fifth or last act of a drama, and, as such, was likely to have something of the stirring character of a denouement. And, in fact, it was in form tragic enough that his end not long ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... eccentricities of modern fashion, and put herself into the hands of the best dressmaker in town. And thus snubbing, and being snubbed, dressing and dancing and feasting and flirting, did she soar higher and higher in her butterfly career. The denouement comes when they are cut out by "Ye rising Minnows"—an American sculptor—one Pygmalion F. Minnow—whose wife was twice as beautiful ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... hard to see how any proper end could be devised for a paper of this nature, reciting a few incidents, sad and gay, from the records of a half-forgotten childhood, unless by putting the child to death; for which denouement, unhappily, there was ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... The denouement I cannot relate, as the artful bird, followed by her ardent suitor, soon flew away beyond my sight. It may not be rash to conclude, however, that she held out ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... unprepared for such a denouement, shot a searching glance at Carolina. She bowed her head ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... taking the side of the Central Powers loomed into the domain of actuality, Italy with her nearer intuition in Balkan affairs called attention to the impending denouement. In this she was seconded by Serbia, who asked the aid of the Allies in striking a blow which would have prevented what proved from the allied point of view to be a calamity. Italy's suggestion was that Sofia be at once occupied before Bulgarian mobilization could be got ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... baggage—but alas, upon an examination she finds that nothing is left her in lieu of the month's board for three people and a week's board for the fourth, saving some empty trunks. For a few days subsequent to this denouement, Dr. Thorne and family live in retirement. Then they boldly emerge and repeat the same series of operations in other localities of this much ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... presence of these lords, and gives them what they ask on their own terms. In his letters he has made some attempts at an expression of gratitude for our great liberality. This I enjoyed somewhat. The villain is not a difficult one to manage, at least in the financial way. I leave the denouement to ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... imperious that M. Fortunat bowed and went off, completely bewildered by this denouement. "She's crazy!" he said to himself. "Crazy in the fullest sense of the word. She refuses the count's millions from a silly fear of telling people that she belongs to the Chalusse family. She threatened ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... what the denouement of the situation was to be. He would not send her away peacefully, for she knew he dared not risk the story she would tell regardless of any promises of secrecy she might give him. If he left her bound in the cabin, she would freeze before help ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... of the stations he saw a crowd collected, rag-pickers and countrywomen. Doubtless some drama of the night about to reach its denouement before the Commissioner of Police. Ah! if Frantz had known what that drama was! but he could have no suspicion, and he glanced at the crowd indifferently from ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... its denouement just under the shoulder of the rose-roofed terrace jutting from a lowish, plainish house on the left, beyond certain palms and eucalyptus-trees. It is one of the most sacred shrines in Rome, for it was in this house that the "young English poet whose name was writ in water" died to deathless ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... the denouement for it was so like Julie; but Mrs. Vernon added, "Julie you speak exactly like the millennial times, when the lion and the lamb shall dwell in love ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Mac. Edit. "Shahrazad" and here making nonsense of the word. It is regretable that the king's reflections do not run at times as in this text: his compunctions lead well up to the denouement. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the Senator shook in his hand—Baraja commended his soul to all the saints in the Spanish calendar—Cuchillo clutched his carbine, as if he would crush it between his fingers—while the chief himself coolly awaited the denouement ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... exclaimed in rapture. "We will make it our business to see to the denouement of this little comedy. It is obvious that fate is taking care that I shall ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... hustled off to make room for others, but so unerringly are they drawn that we feel that we are in the presence of living people. Take Colette Willy, for example, who comes in on page 2656 at a time when the denouement is clearly at hand. The author, who is working up to his great scene —the appointment of Dr. Norman Wilsmore to the International Commission for the Publication of Annual Tables of Physical and Chemical Constants— draws her for us in a few lightning touches. ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... affectionate, self-sacrificing sister would she be, thus kindly to relieve her brother at her own expense! But, just as this plan began to ripen for execution, she was counter-plotted, or fancied herself to be, which led to the same denouement. Winnie Morris came to pass a vacation with her brother, Wayland, and the fore-doomed bachelor, Augustus Lester, most audaciously dared to fall in love with the cackling girl. So Miss Mary declared; and to remain in her brother's mansion, where ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... city into something like an uproar. It is doubtful if you would not have to go back to the '60's to find a newspaper story which eclipsed this one in effect. For a generation, the biography of Henry G. Surface had had, in that city and State, a quality of undying interest, and the sudden denouement, more thrilling than any fiction, captured the imagination of the dullest. Nothing else was mentioned at any breakfast-table where a morning paper was taken that day; hardly anything for many breakfasts ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... folly which was hurrying me to infallible destruction, without success. For me there was only obedience. With a revolver in either hand I marched towards the bureau as unconcernedly as if I would not have given my life to have escaped the denouement which I needed but a slight modicum of common sense to be aware was close at hand. I placed the muzzle of one of the revolvers against the keyhole of the drawer to which my unseen guide had previously directed me, and pulled the trigger. The lock was shattered, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Then ensued the frightful denouement. It ensued almost without warning. At the time I felt absolutely positive that I was seasick. I would have sworn to it. If somebody had put a Bible on my chest and held it there I would cheerfully have laid ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... presume he alludes, Raffaelle's "Death of Ananias;" the event, in Sapphira, is intimated and suspended. "Though," says Mr Burnet, "the painter has but one page to represent his story, he generally chooses that part which combines the most illustrative incidents with the most effective denouement of the event. In Raffaelle we often find not only those circumstances which precede it, but its effects upon the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... and of that purpose the reader will learn if only he will have the patience to read this prefatory narrative (which, lengthy though it be, may yet develop and expand in proportion as we approach the denouement with which the present work is destined to ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... of the hour censured, as they were certain to censure, the construction, and especially the conclusion, of "Rob Roy." No doubt the critics were right. In both Scott and Shakspeare there is often seen a perfect disregard of the denouement. Any moderately intelligent person can remark on the huddled-up ends and hasty marriages in many of Shakspeare's comedies; Moliere has been charged with the same offence; and, if blame there be, Scott is ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the chattering of that crowd of women who are always eager to display themselves at a first representation.' All this is very true, but not at all applicable in this instance. This time Racine is well judged. The denouement is the most ridiculous I ever heard. Imagine that silly, conceited Junia turning vestal, as if Madame de Sennes were to enter the Ursuline Convent. Heaven forbid that I should play the scholar; but I have read in Menage that it required other formalities to take the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... recital the young man's mind, stimulated by the eerie perplexities and the unhappy denouement, had ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... was circulated among our citizens and, we believe, very numerously signed. This we think was a great error.... It is dangerous for the people to undertake to meddle with the majesty of the jury trial; and strange as it may sound to some people, we regard the unfortunate denouement of this case as but the extreme exemplification of the very principle which actuated those who originated this petition. Each proceeded from a spirit of discontent with the decisions of the authorized ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... marvelling Silvas, who watched him as they would have watched a curiosity in a side-show. All about the carriage were gathered the children from a dozen blocks, waiting and eager for some tragic and terrible denouement. Carriages were seen on their street only for weddings and funerals. Here was neither marriage nor death: therefore, it was something transcending experience and ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... had that day written the final chapter, but he hadn't. The final chapter he was to write the next day, following hard upon a denouement, which to Mr. Tompkins, he with his own eyes having seen what he had seen, was so profound a puzzle that ever thereafter he mentally catalogued it under one of his favorite headlining phrases: ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... smile wrinkled into a dolorous grimace; she succeeded only in convulsing her contracted visage with the sobs that she sought to restrain. Overcome at last, humiliated, powerless, she broke into tears, and this unforeseen denouement put an end at once to all the pleasure ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... now that the pair began to muse on the denouement. Could this be a member of the firm or an employe? This hypothesis jeopardized the success of the night's adventure, unless, when they had permitted the prisoner to emerge, they bound and gagged ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... make the world safe for democracy was the crisis of civilization. Victory on the fields of France has been the satisfactory denouement. The question naturally arises: Shall there be a happy ending of the great drama for the white American and a tragic ending for the Negro? Or, rather, as the American brotherhood gathers about the charmed circle and smokes the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... in appearing, and she employed the interval in meditating on the plot of her next novel, which was already partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to find a satisfactory denouement. By a not uncommon process of ratiocination, Mrs. Fetherel's success had convinced her of her vocation. She was sure now that it was her duty to lay bare the secret plague-spots of society, and she was ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... explaining how impossible it would be for two to avail themselves of an opportunity to escape and abandon their friend to her fate. If one was forsaken by the others, eternal remorse would be the portion of those who deserted her; hence, they must make their escape together or await the denouement. ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... diaeresis in preeminent, and accented "e"s in debris and denouement, and in some French words. These have been replaced ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... a good one, however, for pointing another moral. We need not suppose that the dreamer was aiming at the denouement from the beginning of the dream. Dreams have no plot in most instances; they just drift along, as one thing suggests another. The sight of people running to cover suggested a thunderstorm, and that suggested that "I might get struck", as it would ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... Miss Rutherford—Having promised to write you the denouement, I do, of course; though the delay is longer than I expected when promising. It was most exciting. Peter Walsh upset the Tortoise—on purpose I now think—but no one else has said so yet—and Lord Torrington swam for his life while his lovely ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... Parthenia his wife. I imagined a different denouement from the play. Ingomar had taken Parthenia back to the mountains, and kept a hotel for the benefit of the Alemanni, who resorted there in large numbers. Poor Parthenia was pretty well fagged out, and did all the work without "help." ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... arrow. The night was fine, the sea calm; it would complete the voyage in safety. But upon return what a surprise has been prepared for that motor-boat and its detestable owner! What a surprise, ma foi. I yearn to hear of the denouement. ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... Stair' is interesting from the first sentence to the last; the characters are vital and are, also, most entertaining company; the denouement unexpected and picturesque and cleverly led up to from one of the earliest chapters; the story moves swiftly and without a hitch. Robert Burns is neither idealized nor caricatured; Sandy, Jock, Pitcairn, ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... own will, the Marquis de Ligne had lived as though he were the autocrat of fate itself instead of one of its servants, and therefore was surprised when the venerable playwright prepared the unexpected denouement. In pursuance of this end, it was decreed by the imperious and incontrovertible dramatist of the human family that this crabbed, vicious, antiquated marionette should wend his way to the St. Charles on a particular ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... found embracing his mother most tenderly by Susanna, who comes with a purse to repay the loan. She flies into a passion and boxes Figaro's ears before the situation is explained, and she is made as happy by the unexpected denouement as the Count and Don Curzio are miserable. Bartolo resolves that there shall be a double wedding; he will do tardy justice to Marcellina. Now we see the Countess again in her lamentable mood, mourning the loss of her husband's love. (Aria: ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... was only an infamous conspiracy to ruin the young man. The Belgian capitalist, this count apparently so respectable, was only an expert card-sharper whom Chauvignac had brought from Paris to play out the vile tragi-comedy, the denouement of which would be the ruin of ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... conceived almost on the lines of a Greek tragedy. Told with great technical skill, the plot works to a denouement which though inevitable is ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Carried along on the boisterous rush of the narrative by Chesterton's wonderful high-spirited style, he will soon see that he is being carried into much deeper waters than he had planned on; and the totally unforeseeable denouement will prove for the modern reader, as it has for thousands of others since 1908 when the book was first published, an inevitable and moving experience, as the investigators finally discover ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... Ecclesiastics, bishops even, did not scruple to mingle in these transactions. In a short time, the population of the capital was increased by three hundred thousand souls. Foreigners also arrived in crowds; but, less intoxicated by the prevailing madness than the French, they foresaw the fatal denouement, and, for the most part, extricated themselves in time from its effects."—(Vol. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... purely poetical, in spite of the excess of esprit, and the one in which fancy is the freest."[62] It was greeted by the public with enthusiasm, and even such severe critics of Marivaux as La Harpe could find little to say against it,—that it "lacked intrigue" and had a "weak denouement " possibly, but after all that he had made of Harlequin, "of that ideal personage, who up to that time had only known how to provoke laughter," an "interesting" character "by ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... away last night, with Forrester's murder and the sordid denouement in Reddy Mull's room, seemed! How far away even half an hour ago this very night seemed! Just half an hour ago! Then, with no thought but one of dogged perseverance to keep up his quest, with neither hint nor sign that his quest was any nearer the end than ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... engagement with the powerful master of Lough Ree. If the local traditions of Westmeath may be trusted, where Cambrensis is rejected, the Norwegian and Irish principals in the tragedy of Lough Owel were on visiting terms just before the denouement, and many curious particulars of their peaceful but suspicious intercourse used to be related by the modern story-tellers around Castle-pollard. The anecdote of the rookery, of which Melaghlin complained, and the remedy for which his visitor suggested to be "to cut ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... at the expense of my judgment. A 'trompeur trompeur et demi' is prettily said; and, if you please, you may call 'Varon, un Normand', and 'Sostrate, un Manceau, qui vaut un Normand et demi'; and, considering the 'denouement' in the light of trick upon trick, it would undoubtedly be below the dignity of the buskin, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the arbor under which they were arguing. The discussion had been religiously listened to, and Fouquet himself, scarcely able to suppress his laughter, had given an example of moderation. But with the denouement of the scene he threw off all restraint, and laughed aloud. Everybody laughed as he did, and the two philosophers were saluted with unanimous felicitations. La Fontaine, however, was declared conqueror, on account of his profound ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... good plot; above all, she loved a farce. Engrossed by everything that passed upon the stage she would follow, with childlike innocence, the unwinding of the story; or she would assume an air of knowing superiority and exclaim in triumph, "There! You didn't expect that, did you?" when the denouement came. Her sense of humour was of a vigorous though primitive kind. She had been one of the very few persons who had always been able to appreciate the Prince Consort's jokes; and, when those were cracked no more, she could still roar with laughter, in the privacy of her household, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... conception of what this meant came to his mind—the man had gone mad. The strained cords of that diseased brain had snapped in the presence of imagined terrors, and now all was chaos. The horror of it overwhelmed Hampton; not only did this unexpected denouement leave him utterly hopeless, but what was he to do with the fellow? How could he bring him forth from there alive? If this stream was indeed the Tongue, then many a mile of rough country, ragged with low mountains and criss-crossed by deep ravines, yet stretched between where they now were ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish |
