"Intrigue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this, proposed to make him her Grand Almoner. Certain prelates who had been themselves hoping to obtain this office, seeing their design thus frustrated, murmured bitterly, bursting forth into angry invectives against the Saint, as if by cabals, and intrigue, according to the custom of the world, he had succeeded in gaining the post for himself. St. Francis, however, was merely amused by what he called the buzzing of flies, and wrote to one ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue."—Critic. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... it is the resort of a good many of the most dangerous people in Europe—people who play the game through to the end. It is a perfect hot-bed of political intrigue, and it is under ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... seemed at last aroused to take notice of the affair, and in his ignorance of the circumstances, presumed that the serenader, who could be seen in a small boat on the river from the spot where he stood, was attempting some intrigue with the Sultan's people, and knowing well the object of his being placed there was to prevent such things, he took particular note of both the slave and the serenader for many minutes, until at last, satisfied of the correctness of his surmise, ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... of Congreve's better work, are ineffective now because they fall between two stools: between the comedy (or tragedy) of a crude physical fact, naked and impossible, as in Rochester, and the comedy (or tragedy) of delicately-phrased intrigue. The latter was yet to come when this play was produced, and meantime such episodes went very well, and their popularity is intelligible. For the rest The Old Bachelor, though to us in these days its plot appear a somewhat uninspiring ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... I am sure, if I say that as a man with some experience of intrigue, I thoroughly distrust that woman's sincerity. She is intimate with M. ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by the love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and pursue; and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, [a transitory state;] every excursion shall serve but the more to endear thee to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, I shall get above ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... shelter and protection, he was aware that if she applied to them, as he did not fulfill his promise in my case, he would stand a poor chance. If my mother made application to them for protection they would learn that he did not return me home, and immediately detect the intrigue. After I was safely secured in the trader's yard, Mr. L. took my mother home. I remained in the yard three months. Near the termination of the time of my confinement I was passing by the office when the ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson
... craft and force and villainy ruling, we see kingdoms far from any perception that society is for man and from God. We see Dei gratia on our coins, and 'by the grace of the Devil' for real motto. We see long tracks of godless crime and mean intrigue, and here and there a divine gleam falling from some heroic deed of sacrifice. We see king and priest playing into each other's hands, and the people destroyed, whatever be the feud. But we are to believe that the world is the kingdom of God; to learn whence comes all human ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... derive its whole authority from the selfish interest of the borough-mongers but from the great outside current of patriotic sentiment and aspiration. But public opinion was not yet powerful enough to support the great minister without an alliance with the master of the small arts of intrigue. The general sentiments of discontent which had been raised by Walpole was therefore beginning to widen and deepen and to take a different form. The root of the evil, as people began to feel, was not in the individual Walpole but in the system which he represented. ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... done. All, which this creed can in reality produce, scarce goes beyond some exterior exercises, which are vainly thought to reconcile man to God. It may make men build temples, sacrifice victims, offer up prayers, or perform something of the like nature; but never break a criminal intrigue, restore an ill gotten wealth, or mortify the lust of man. Lust being the source of every crime, it is evident (since it reigns as much among idolaters and anthropomorphites, as among atheists) idolaters and anthropomorphites must ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... and the abnegation of the King's prerogative, will be as near the ideal democracy as is possible. That change will be in itself our most potent guarantee against all future wars. No democracy ever encouraged bloodshed. It is, to my mind, a clearly proved fact that all wars are the result of court intrigue. There will be no more of that. The passing of monarchical rule in Germany will mean ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... about secretly), and Fathers Juan de Santo Domingo and Juan de Vargas, who were the lecturers exiled to Cagayan; the latter went publicly through the city, scorning the royal authority by which they were exiled. Immediately began the intrigue—which, according to report, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... with a very good grace, though, I dare say, with rage and disappointment inwardly—not that his heart was very seriously engaged in his designs upon this simple lady: but the life of such men is often one of intrigue, and they can no more go through the day without a woman to pursue, than a fox-hunter without his sport ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... This version (the usual one) is contested by Cyon, who says that Katkoff's influence over the Czar was undermined by a mean German intrigue.] ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... mind: they might be turned to some use hereafter, either by prejudicing the Prince against Isabella, if he persisted in that union or by diverting his attention to a wrong scent, and employing his thoughts on a visionary intrigue, prevent his engaging in any new pursuit. With this unhappy policy, he answered in a manner to confirm Manfred in the belief of some connection between Isabella and the youth. The Prince, whose passions wanted little fuel to throw them into a blaze, fell into a rage at the idea ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... for the fun of the game, and get let down a bit for her own good, yet I shouldn't advise anyone to get seeing her too often. Fate dealt her a royal straight flush in hearts, and better that you can't—no! not even if you hold a full house of intrigue and bad intent t'other end ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... alone with her little sister, because the girl will talk of the delights of the coming wedding, and how nice it would be if Anna Liisa had a child for her to dress like a doll. The bride's father and mother, who know nothing of their daughter's intrigue, come and drink coffee, and like true peasants they pour the coffee into a saucer, and putting a bit of sugar into their mouths imbibe the beverage through it, supporting the saucer on five fingers. Thus happily they all sit together—a real representation ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Grumkow, as spy upon one of the Queen's Maids of Honor,—suspected by him to be a No-maid of Dishonor, and of ill intentions too,—who lodges in that part of the Palace: of whom Herr Grumkow wishes intensely to know, "Has she an intrigue with Creutz the new Finance-Minister, or has she not?" "Has, beyond doubt!" the Spectre-Scullion hopes he has discovered, before exorcism. Upon which Grumkow, essentially illuminated as to the required particular, manages to get the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... no hurry to visit the Sublime Porte. He had to provide for the safety and government of Algiers during his absence, when exposed to the dangers both of foreign attack and internal intrigue. He had to reckon with the galleys of the Knights of St. John, who, after wandering homeless for a longer time than was at all creditable to that Christendom which they had so heroically defended at Rhodes, had ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... leaden seal upon the plans made by the sometime attorney of Mantes, and a formidable scheme sprouted up, a flourishing scheme, fertile in harvests of gain and intrigue. La Cibot was the hinge upon which the whole matter turned; and for this reason, any rebellion on the part of the instrument must be at once put down; such action on her part was quite unexpected; but Fraisier had put forth all the strength of his rancorous ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... being insincere. In short, as he could attain his unholy end in no other way, Morris entered on a career of mild deception, designed to prevent his wife from suspecting him of she knew not what. His conduct was that of a man engaged in an intrigue. In his case, however, the possible end of his ill-doing was not the divorce-court, but an asylum, or so some observers would have anticipated. Yet did man ever adore a mistress so fatal and destroying as this poor shadow of the dead ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... another. For many years after his accession I believe the Kaiser was genuinely anxious to preserve the peace of Europe and tried his best to do so, though I am bound to say that at times he adopted rather peculiar methods, a mingling of bullying and intrigue. But now since 1904—just hand me that thin book, please. Thank you—the Kaiser has changed his tone. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... Farringdon, of the county of Kent. Walpole tells us that she figured among the beauties of the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and was bedchamber-woman to Queen Caroline. Her character was not spotless, for we hear of an intrigue, which her own mistress imparted in confidence to the Duchess of Orleans (the mother of the Regent: they wrote on her tomb Cy gist l'oisivete, because idleness is the mother of all vice), and which eventually found its way into the 'Utrecht Gazette.' It was Mrs. Selwyn, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... they revolt, or that they resort to secret intrigue, to dynamite, and all other means, however bloody the unthinking world may regard them, to give back some of the terror which they have dealt out for centuries? No, it is ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... don't wish to mince the matter—there stands the fact: I love her. I could find a dozen ways of sending a letter to her without your knowledge. But I wish to be quite above-board with you, and with her husband. A message through you asking her to come is at least free from any odour of intrigue. If she retains any of her old ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... Villena. The ambition and selfish passion of these two men are enlisted against her. Perez is determined to marry her; her father is determined to sweep Macias out of the path of his own political advancement. The intrigue devised between the two is perfectly successful. Macias is enticed away; Elvira, forced to believe that she is deserted and betrayed, is half driven, half entrapped, into a marriage with Perez; and Macias, returning ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pianoforte edition? Schuberth told me for certain that printing would begin directly they had received the manuscripts. Don't delay too long, dearest friend—and believe me when I once more assure you that the work is as eminent as the intrigue, to which it momentarily succumbed, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... intrigue, Clayton ignored the possible effect of his further presence in Worthington's household as an attractive young man when little Alice, at a bound, passed through the gates of girlhood and became the beautiful ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... women in the house, I should have suspected a mere vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man's business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which could account for such elaborate preparations, and such an expenditure as they were at. It must then be something out of the house. What could it ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... with the perplexed and anxious air of a man who has the oppressive burthen of promoting other people's merriment upon his mind. He had involved himself in a dozen scrapes in consequence of a politic intrigue, which, by the by, Master Simon and the Oxonian were at the bottom of, which had for object the election of the Queen of May. He had met with violent opposition from a faction of ale-drinkers, who were in favour of a bouncing barmaid, the daughter of the innkeeper; but he had been too strongly backed ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... their predecessors in office. As little could it be owing to personal cowardice, and dread of consequences to themselves. Ministers, timorous from their attachment to place and power, will fear more from the consequences of one court intrigue, than from a thousand difficulties to the commerce and credit of their country by disturbances at three thousand miles distance. From which of these the ministers had most to apprehend at that time, is known, I presume, universally. Nor did they take that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to engage in a drama of intrigue a la Verre d'Eau; if this were the only way open to me, I should pack my bundle tomorrow and settle down in a German village; work I will as much as I can, but to sell my ware in this market is impossible to me. Artistic affairs here are in so vile a ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... much method in it. It is obviously but the climax of a long intrigue—a course of duplicity that I could never have believed possible in a girl like Mary, although I have always thought HIM cad ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... sum, and that same hour with them and Marie departed for Berlin. Marie did not need the money. Nor did the argument that she was serving her country greatly impress her. It was rather that she loved intrigue. And so she became ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... exercise of his power of fascination that he lured the foes who had plotted against him at La Magione into his snare at Sinigaglia. Paolo Orsini, Francesco Orsini, duke of Gravina, Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Oliverotto da Fermo were all men of arms, accustomed to intrigue and to bloodshed, and more than one of them were stained with crimes of the most atrocious treachery. Yet such were the arts of Cesare Borgia that in 1502 he managed to assemble them, apart from their troops, in the castle of Sinigaglia, where ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... as possessing a rather dull intellect, and as being, partly for that reason, a "safe" man for the presidential office, Napoleon soon proved his capacity for intrigue and for cajoling the people. By intervening in behalf of Pope Pius IX, whom revolutionists had driven from Rome, he gained the support of the clergy. Napoleon's troops restored Pius IX (1850) to the papal throne. The ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... who is proposing to our young hero some scheme for his estate; while the seated and periwigged figure who runs his fingers over the harpsichord has been suggested as that of the great composer Handel. But when we start forth to knock down the watch, "beat the rounds," intrigue with the fair, and generally keep up the character of a young blood or "macaroni," a little timely assistance is often welcome; and is here proffered (with hope of due remuneration) by the villainous-looking figure on the prodigal's left, whose ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... one of us shall give account of himself to God. This impression is strengthened by a view of the very unequal and indiscriminate allotments of the present life. Here the virtuous are often the objects of hatred and relentless persecution. Here the man of ambition and dark intrigue, circumvents and treads down his more honest rivals. Here Providence often afflicts even the most pious; while the licentious, and proud, and oppressive, are, perhaps, suffered to enjoy uninterrupted prosperity. ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... pecuniary gain. From some passages, however, I cannot but infer that the writer did not mean to bring it before the public, but wrote it rather as a series of private memoranda, to aid his own recollection of circumstances and dates. The Duc de Lauzun's account of his intrigue with Lady Sarah goes so far as to allege, that he rode down in disguise, from London to Sir Charles B.'s country seat, agreeably to a previous assignation, and that he was admitted, by that lady's confidential attendant, through a back staircase, at the time when Sir Charles ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... could help other men writing silly letters to her? Did he not think she could keep out of a mess? And she smiled the self-satisfied smile of a woman conscious of many admirers and of her own powers of intrigue. ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... you into his confidence, and you married his alleged daughter. John Minute discovered this fact, not that he was aware that it was his own daughter, or that he thought that your association with my sister was any more than an intrigue beneath the dignity of his nephew. You did not think the time was ripe to spring a son-in-law upon him, and so you waited until you had seen his will. In that will he made no mention of a daughter, because the child ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... and an account of a few fashionable distempers that have befallen him, and you strike him dumb. How many a pretty gentleman's knowledge lies all within the verge of the court! He will tell you the names of the principal favorites, repeat the shrewd sayings of a man of quality, whisper an intrigue that is not yet blown upon by common fame; or, if the sphere of his observation is a little larger than ordinary, will perhaps enter into all the incidents, turns, and revolutions in a game of ombre. When he has gone thus far, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... evasions, he rightly judged that the figure that lay there was more than half in the land of ghosts already—that the enchanter who met him in the Butcher's Wood, and whose wand had traced those parallel indentures in his skull, had not only exorcised for ever the unquiet spirit of intrigue, but wound up the tale of his days. It was true that he was never more to step from that bed, and that his little children would, ere many days, be brought there by kindly, horror-loving maids, to look their last on 'the poor master,' and kiss awfully his cold stern mouth before the coffin lid ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the queer old door and the odd presence of the leering mask suggested one thing above all others as appertaining to the mansion's past history—intrigue. By the alley it had been possible to come unseen from all sorts of quarters in the town—the old play-house, the old bull-stake, the old cock-pit, the pool wherein nameless infants had been used to disappear. High-Place Hall could boast of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the huge castle Nuovo, which combined the strength of a fortress with the elegance of a palace, it must not be supposed that there was naught but gross sensuality. Court intrigue and scandal there were in plenty, and there were many fair ladies in the royal household who were somewhat free in the bestowal of their favors, sumptuous banquets were spread, tournaments for trials of knightly skill were ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... sword upon him, in consequence of which apprehending the severity of the military law, the latter had set off to the capital to appeal to the electoral prince, but was no more heard of. The colonel, who is a finished master of intrigue, enters Storm's house in disguise, and attempts with the help of a band of his soldiers to carry off Ella by force. In this he is opposed by the good and gallant old officer, who, sword in hand, beats off ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... His reluctance arose from the fact that such a power complicated matters. He must be on the defensive until he knew what she was going to do, what he must do himself, and what results were probable or possible. He had spent his life in intrigue of one order or another. He enjoyed outwitting people and rather preferred to attain an end by devious paths. He began every acquaintance on the defensive. His argument was that you never knew how things would turn out, consequently, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... within. The returns were surer; also it was easier to knead and mold and bake one's loaf of legislation as a member, with a seat in Senate or Assembly, than as some unassigned John Smith, who, with a handful of bribes and a heart full of cheap intrigue, must do his work from the corridor. A legislative seat was a two-edged sword to cut both ways. You could trade with it, using it as a bribe, bartering vote for vote; that was one edge. Or you could threaten with it, promising nay for nay, and thus compel some ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... case before Sir Arthur Laird, who was then our Ambassador to the Porte, and the Honourable Horace Maynard, who was Minister for the United States. Sir Arthur was a pronounced Philo-Turk and would not for a moment believe that any such abominable intrigue as I suggested could have occurred to the mind of any Turkish official. He received me with marked coldness and I felt from the first that I could make no headway with him. Mr Horace Maynard met me in another spirit "One ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... motif, and then attempt to ruin her, though she was the sister of his friend, by devices worthy of Lovelace at his last and lowest stage. Peregrine's overwhelming vanity, swollen by facile conquests, would inevitably have degraded him to this abyss. The intrigue was only the worst of those infamous practical jokes of his, in which Smollett takes a cruel and unholy delight. Peregrine, in fact, is a hero of naturalisme, except that his fits of generosity are mere patches ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... quick to perceive O'Moy's charitable desire to leave her optimism undispelled. But he was no less quick to perceive the opportunities which the circumstances afforded him to further a certain deep intrigue upon ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... remarkable person as the principal character in the romance—for it will be easily comprehended that the little love intrigue of Quentin is only employed as the means of bringing out the story—afforded considerable facilities to the author. In Louis XI's time, extraordinary commotions existed throughout all Europe. England's Civil Wars were ended, rather in appearance than reality, by the short lived ascendancy of ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... man in France, and who was, moreover, a King. He was perfectly persuaded that every woman would yield to the slightest desire he might deign to manifest. He, therefore, thought it a mere matter of course that women fell in love with him. M. de Stainville had a hand in marring the success of that intrigue; and, soon afterwards, the Marquise de C——, who was confined to her apartments at Marly, by her relations, escaped through a closet to a rendezvous, and was caught with a young man in a corridor. The Spanish Ambassador, coming out of ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... were the subtlest statesmen of their age; indeed, in them statecraft may be said to have had its dawn; yet Henry VIII., by the sheer force of his tyranny and despotic will, baffled them both. While Cromwell, the greatest genius in Europe, thought he held all the threads of intrigue in his own hands, his royal master by the dogged pursuit of one end overthrew the minister's entire scheme. Saturated though he was with Machiavellian theories, a man of one book, and that book The Prince, Cromwell lost all by his inability to read the bent ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... which gives such harmony to the diverse expressions by which a simple soul reveals itself, could lend no charm to a being whose every instinct predestined her to the storms of passion. Yielding himself up to the pleasures of this dawning intrigue, the young man did not try to explain the contradictions which were obvious between the coquetry and the enthusiasm of this singular young girl. Her assumed indifference allowed him to examine at his ease a face which was now as beautiful in its calmness as it had been when agitated. Like the ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... unique machine routine ravine regime intrigue caprice suite valise Bastile magazine guillotine ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... decline, and gave this as a reason for not accepting a third nomination for the Presidency. This humility has established an unwritten law of limitation on vaulting presidential ambitions. Indeed, intrigue and corruption in America must ever struggle with the idealised phantom of this ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... assistance from those gentlemen." Another says: "The people who ought to have an interest in checking abuses are mostly absentees, and the few who are living in the country try all they can to provide for their own tenants." Another: "All jobbing and intrigue here." Another: "A day or two since I found the wife of a coachman of a magistrate of L2,000 a year on the relief list." The Commissioners, however, were strongly of opinion that the introduction of cooked food was a ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... London which settled the Balkan crisis that she could count upon our good will for peace in any conference of the powers. We had sought no diplomatic triumph in the Balkan Conference; we did not give ourselves to any intrigue; we pursued impartially and honorably the end of peace, and we were ready last July to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... as little cause for self-congratulation on the part of Protestants as the substitution of the supremacy of the crowned Bluebeard, Henry VIII., for that of the Pope, in the English Church. It had little in common with the revolution of 1642. The field of its action was the closet of selfish intrigue,—the stalls of discontented prelates,—the chambers of the wanton and adulteress,—the confessional of a weak prince, whose mind, originally narrow, had been cramped closer still by the strait- jacket of religious bigotry and superstition. The age of nobility and heroism had well-nigh ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... he knew of Teutonic intrigue and influence in India, Ceylon, Afghanistan, Aden, Persia, Egypt, East Africa, the Straits Settlements, and China, he was reminded of the men and women of Pompeii who ate, drank, and were merry, danced and sang, pursued pleasure and the nimble ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... question had been countermanded. Various explanations were given for this action, and I shall recur to it again. But it is believed by those who were interested in General Smith, and had confidence in his unusual capacity for high command, that his relief was largely, if not altogether, due to intrigue, on the part of General Butler, aided perhaps by an exaggerated estimate on the part of General Grant of that officer's political importance, which General Smith could easily have defeated had he been on the ground in actual ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... restitution to Poland of the mouth of the Vistula, of Dantzig and of the Polish portion of the Baltic coastline. This programme will prevent Lithuania and the Ukraine from becoming instruments of Prusso-German oppression and Austrian intrigue. It is only such a Poland as this which will be able to fulfil its historic mission as ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... between the Governor-General and Sir James Outram.[35] And here Lord Derby may perhaps be allowed the opportunity of removing a misconception from your Majesty's mind, as to any secret intelligence or underhand intrigue between Lord Ellenborough and Sir James Outram, to the detriment of Lord Canning. Lord Derby is in the position to know that if there is one person in the world to whom Lord Ellenborough has an utter aversion, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... He had a presentiment that his life was going to date from this kiss, that with it was going to begin a new existence, that he never would be able to free himself from these deadly and caressing lips with their faint savor of cinnamon, of incense, of Asiatic forests haunted with sensuousness and intrigue. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... than mortal powers endow'd, How high they soar'd above the crowd! Theirs was no common party race, Jostling by dark intrigue for place; Like fabled gods, their mighty war Shook realms and nations in its jar; Beneath each banner proud to stand, Look'd up the noblest of the land, Till through the British world were known ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... fathered by him? What book contains one of his maxims for men to live by? Many persons still live who knew him, and remember him, but can any of them repeat a saying of his which passes current on the lips of Americans? So much sound and fury, so much intrigue and sophistry, and self-seeking, and now the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... than to hear or think nothing about duty, to just know that I had come back to England to stay, and that you were English, and that we were going to live just the sort of life I pictured to myself that two people could live so happily over here, without too much ambition, without intrigue, simply and honestly. I am a little weary of cities and courts, Francis. To-night more than ever England seems to appeal to me, to remind me that I am ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... interposition which has restored to me the inheritance that ought always to have been mine. I receive the money, not only as my right, but also as a proper compensation for the injustice which I suffered from my father, and a proper penalty paid by my younger brother for the vile intrigue by which he succeeded in disinheriting me. His conduct, when a young man, was uniformly discreditable in all the relations of life; and what it then was it continued to be (on the showing of his own legal representative) after the time when I ceased to hold any communication ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... intrigue, founded on the knowledge of private history, was as the very breath of her being: she could not exist in composure without it. Wherever she went, therefore—and her changes of residence had not been few—it was one ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... forget, my dear," Miss Sandus had improved the occasion to remark, "that you are not English; but the Italian in you comes out in your unconquerable passion for intrigue." ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... had been universally charged with carrying on an intrigue with the Opposition, for the purpose of continuing in office under the regency. Lord Eldon's belief is introduced against that charge; but there can be no doubt whatever that the charge was universally rumoured at the time; that anecdotes confirmatory of the fact were told in every direction; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... often ultra conservative. It is rare to witness diplomacy in toto, or even single diplomats, side with progressive efforts and ideas. English diplomacy and diplomats do it at times; but then mostly for the sake of political intrigue. ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... and love towards everybody in his heart such as he had never felt before. The certainty that no action of Maslova could change his love for her filled him with joy and raised him to a level which he had never before attained. Let her intrigue with the medical assistant; that was her business. He loved her not for his own but for her sake ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... a man's second choice. It is entered upon, more often than not, as the safest form of intrigue. The caitiff yields quickest; the man who loves danger and adventure holds out longest. Behind it one frequently finds, not that lofty romantic passion which poets hymn, but a mere yearning for peace and security. The abominable hazards of the high seas, the rough humors and pestilences of the ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... exportation of arms and munitions by the joint resolution of last March. It is still a regrettable fact that certain American ports are made the rendezvous of professional revolutionists and others engaged in intrigue against the peace of those Republics. It must be admitted that occasionally a revolution in this region is justified as a real popular movement to throw off the shackles of a vicious and tyrannical ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... not a year of fighting, was pro-eminently a year of intrigue. William's enemies on the continent strove to turn the representative of the West-Saxon kings to help their ends. Edgar flits to and fro between Scotland and Flanders, and the King of the French tempts him with the offer of a convenient ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... admitted, "in America we don't lay much store by that sort of thing, but I don't know as we're very good judges about what goes on over here. I shouldn't call this place, anyway, a hotbed of intrigue. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... whilst Constant affected the highest thinking, unhappily he practised the lowest living; nor did the transcendentalism of his books atone for the meanness of his life. He frequented the gaming-tables while engaged in preparing his work upon religion, and carried on a disreputable intrigue while writing his 'Adolphe.' With all his powers of intellect, he was powerless, because he had no faith in virtue. "Bah!" said he, "what are honour and dignity? The longer I live, the more clearly I ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... whose family had for three centuries possessed Oldenhurst, had received the news of his financial ruin; and the vast pile which had survived the repeated invasion of superstition, force, intrigue, and even progress, had succumbed to a foe its founders and proprietors had loftily ignored and left to Jews and traders. The acquisition of money, except by despoilment, gift, royal favor, or inheritance, had ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... You would have me Cozen, intrigue, and cheat, and play the huckster, As your republicans, peace on their lips And subtle scheming treaties, till the moment When it is safe to spring? Would you have me cringe To the ignorant mob of churls, through whose sweet voices The road to greatness lies? Nay, nay; I am A King's son, ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... morning to accompany her to the great hall. She had within her a secret which she would not have disclosed to the universe,—the secret of her husband's success, of his fame and future happiness. So far Dumiger had informed her that there was an intrigue against him, in which the Grand Master was the principal: he explained to her that the object the Grand Master had in view was to obtain the prize and its accompanying honors for his own son. Carl and Krantz undertook to protect her through the crowd, and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... not interfere with Juliette, but contented himself with insinuating, by jest and action, what her share in this day's work had been. To these hints Deroulede, of course, paid no heed. For him Juliette was as far above political intrigue as the angels. He would as soon have suspected one of the saints enshrined in Notre Dame as this beautiful, almost ethereal creature, who had been send by Heaven to gladden his heart and to elevate his ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... first of the lawyers' clerks and apprentices, I find it a general complaint that they are under no manner of government; before their times are half out, they set up for gentlemen; they dress, they drink, they game, frequent the playhouses, and intrigue with the women; and it is no uncommon thing with clerks to bully their masters, and desert their service for whole days and ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... not heard wheels in the drive, so they were startled by Vessons' intrigue insertion of himself into a small opening of the door, his firm shutting of it as if in face of a beleaguering host, ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... said, was now seldom given in the relentless warfare which the selfish interests were ever waging against the people, but it was intrigue, the promise of place and power, and the ever effectual appeal to ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... to the future. Do not stay in Washington. Halleck is better qualified than you are to stand the buffets of intrigue and policy. Come out West; take to yourself the whole Mississippi Valley; let us make it dead-sure, and I tell you the Atlantic slope and Pacific shores will follow its destiny as sure as the limbs of a tree live or die with the main trunk! ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... corroborated. What Lord Baxby thought and said when he awoke the next morning, and found himself so strangely tethered, is likewise only matter of conjecture; though there is no reason to suppose that his rage was great. The extent of his culpability as regards the intrigue was this much; that, while halting at a cross-road near Sherton that day, he had flirted with a pretty young woman, who seemed nothing loth, and had invited her to the Castle terrace after dark—an invitation which he quite forgot ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... to act on Russia's behalf, and to watch proceedings. The arrival of this agent was what the French desired, for they knew that they could soon cause a rupture between England and Russia. In a short time, indeed, through French intrigue, D'Oubril, the Russian agent, suspected the good faith, of Lord Yarmouth, and Lord Yarmouth suspected the good faith of D'Oubril. A quarrel ensued between them, and then Talleyrand raised his demands and abated his proffered concessions. D'Oubril returned to Petersburgh, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to himself before the complacent ignorance of her husband. He knew such women: convicted in Chinese, perhaps before the entire Ammidon family, not a muscle of her face would betray surprise or concern. She might try to murder him, very ingeniously, but never descend to the intrigue, the lies, of a Western woman placed in the same position. She'd stoically accept the situation. These visions ran rapidly, vividly, through his brain; he was accustomed to them; a greater part of his waking life was filled ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... 1839 till 1846 an orgy of bloodshed and intrigue went on in Lahore. Kharak Singh, the Maharaja's son, died in 1840, and on the same day occurred the death of his son Nao Nihal Singh, compassed probably by the Jammu Rajas. Sher Singh, and then the child, ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... authority by Juarez. The protest had little effect, however, and his next proceeding was to come to New Orleans, get into correspondence with other disaffected Mexicans, and thus perfect his plans. When he thought his intrigue ripe enough for action, he sailed for Brazos, intending to cross the Rio Grande and assert his claims with arms. While he was scheming in New Orleans, however, I had learned what he was up to, and in advance of his ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... hands. Aged and childless, Zoroaster and Nehushta were to him children, and he loved them with his whole soul. Moreover, he knew the Persian Court, and he knew that if once they were taken into the whirl and eddy of its intrigue and stirring life, they would not return to Ecbatana; or returning, they would be changed and seem no more the same. He was bitterly grieved and hurt at the thought of such a separation, and in the grand simplicity of his greatness he felt no shame at shedding tears for them. Zoroaster himself, ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... canteen women. "Yes, ladies, you furnish the good people of the Faubourg Saint-Germain with something to talk about. It is said, Madame A..., that you are intimate with Monsieur B..., and you Madame C...., with Monsieur D." On any intrigue chancing to appear in the police reports, "he loses no time in informing the husband of what is going on."—He is no less indiscreet in relation to his own affairs;[1293] when it is over he divulges the fact and gives ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Blondel into the plot which was to transfer Geneva to Savoy and strike the heaviest blow at the Reformed that had been struck in that generation, was another thing and one remote. The Syndic was a trifle discontented and inclined to intrigue; that was true, Grio knew it. But to parley with the Grand Duke's emissaries, and strive to get and give not, that was one thing; while to betray the town and deliver it tied and bound into the hands of its arch-enemy, was another and a far more weighty matter. One, too, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... me about it. And if you'll tell me a lie about one thing, you'll tell me a lie about another, and I don't believe one word of all your explanations about the intrigue between ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... the clan, MacLean of Duart, in the Isle of Mull, had an intrigue with a beautiful young woman of his own clan, who bore a son to him. In consequence of the child's being, by some accident, born in a barn, he received the name of Allan-a-Sop, or Allan of the Straw, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... Look at your old romances, and what is the system of education—of youthful pursuits—which they in general inculcate? Intrigue and bloodshed.[214] Examine your favourite new edition of the Fabliaux et Contes of the middle ages, collected by Barbazan! However the editor may say that "though some of these pieces are a little too free, others breathe a spirit of morality and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... intrigue," exclaimed Mirandola. "The freedom of Venice is the price of the slavery of Rome. I heard of it ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... Government to suppose him capable of abandoning the royal cause, while there was hope in military means. That it was his determination to hazard all things rather than chill the coalition. But this let me impress upon your Ministry," said he, with his powerful eye turned full on me; "that if intrigue in the German cabinets, or tardiness on the part of yours, shall be suffered to impede my progress, all is at an end. I know the French; if we pause, they will pour on. If we do not reach Paris, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Mademoiselle Marguerite from the machinations of her enemies. Madame d'Argeles's disclosures formed, as it were, a sequel to the confidential revelations of Pascal Ferailleur, and the involuntary confession of the Marquis de Valorsay; and the baron could no longer doubt the existence of the shameful intrigue which had been planned in view of obtaining possession of the count's millions. And if he did not, at first, understand the motives, he at least began to discern what means had been employed. He now understood why Valorsay ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... nights he lay there dreaming awake of secret cafes in Mont Martre, where ivory women delved in romantic mysteries with diplomats and soldiers of fortune, while orchestras played Hungarian waltzes and the air was thick and exotic with intrigue and moonlight and adventure. In the spring he read "L'Allegro," by request, and was inspired to lyrical outpourings on the subject of Arcady and the pipes of Pan. He moved his bed so that the sun would wake him at ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... commission follows, the envoy is instructed to appear as his old friend, praising him to Miss Blair for his good qualities. Temple is adjured to dwell upon his odd, inconstant, impetuous nature, how he is accustomed to women of intrigue, and he is to ask of the fair one if she does not think there is insanity in the Boswell family. She is to hear of his travels, his acquaintance with foreign princes, Voltaire and Rousseau, his desire to have a house of his own; and then he diverges into practicality ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... the fete being given to the members of the government; on the other hand, Cesar was severely blamed for his ambition, and laughed at for his political pretensions: some people even went so far as to deny his wound. The ball gave rise to more than one intrigue in the second arrondissement. The friends of the family were easy in their minds, but the demands of mere acquaintances were enormous. Honors bring sycophants; and there was a goodly number of people whose invitations ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... document is attested by its concluding words, the signature of the witnesses, so Isaac confirmed the blessing he had bestowed upon Jacob.[116] That none might say Jacob had secured it by intrigue and cunning, he blessed him again with three blessings, in these words, "In so far as I am endowed with the power of blessing, I bestow blessing upon thee. May God, with whom there is endless blessing, give thee His, and also the blessing wherewith Abraham desired to bless me, desisting ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... scheme of classic grandeur. Levau's work on the east front was destroyed, and in October 1665, Bernini's foundations were begun. The majestic new design, however, ignored the exigencies of existing work and of internal convenience, and gave opportunities for criticisms and intrigue, which Colbert and the French architects,[146] forgetting for the moment all domestic rivalry, were not slow to make the most of. The offended Italian, three days after the ceremony of laying the foundation stone by the king on ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... corrupt. In the various associations of home and community life indifference, cruelty, unchastity, and crime add to the burdens of poverty, disease, and wretchedness. A yellow press mirrors a scandalous amount of intrigue, immorality, and misdemeanor. Government abuses its power; public opinion is intolerant and unjust; fashion is tyrannical; law is uncompromising. In times like our own economic interests frequently overshadow cultural interests. ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... discharged the duties of his office, and was most honorably received by the queen on his return. But he was not of the stuff out of which courtiers are made. He was too honest, independent, and disinterested to gain wealth or power by intrigue or flattery; so, though the queen respected him, and often advised with him, he received neither gifts nor offices, but lived for several years in retirement, devoting ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... that you can rig up a hypnotic ray from a flashlight battery, a piece of bamboo, and a few lengths of wire. That'll get Ali in an awful sweat. He can't get weapons. None at all. And for the Sultan," Trimmer was warming up to his intrigue, chewing on his cigar with gusto, "tell her you're on to a catalyst that turns clay into aluminum and oxygen in the presence of sunlight. The Sultan would sell his right leg for something like that. He tries hard for ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... failed with the blue daffodil. The attempt would have been so thoroughly well worth making; there would have been some sport in it, and a foe worthy of her steel. In spite of her desire for the simple life, she had too much real ability for this sort of intrigue, and too much past practice in subterfuge, not to experience lapses of inclination for it when she saw such work being done, and perhaps not done well. Of this, however, she naturally did not speak to Rawson-Clew; she rearranged her flowers in ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... irritate the native Sardes against the continental officials; and they are generally detested. Our author, however, candidly allows that intrigue prevails so universally in the island, and the influences of relationship and connexions are so great, as to raise suspicions of the purity and fairness of native functionaries, especially of those who ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... as soon as I arrived I was in the thick of an intrigue. You read Madame Drozdov's letter, of course. What could be clearer? What did I find? That fool Praskovya herself—she always was a fool—looked at me as much as to ask why I'd come. You can fancy how surprised I was. I looked round, and there was that ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... becoming clearer that English intrigue was behind all these troubles with the Iroquois. Dongan, the Catholic Governor of New York at this period, a resourceful and adroit politician, formed the design of absorbing the territory of the Iroquois into the domain of James II. of England; ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... really excelled, the gifts of intrigue, patience, long-suffering, dissimulation, and tortuous fraud, were thus brought into play, and allowed their full value. Such qualities had every chance of prevailing in the long run, against the noble carelessness ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted infesti regibus, as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... thence for use elsewhere. The utter miscarriage of Germany's plans is, indeed, a fine tribute to Great Britain. The Emir of Afghanistan did probably more than any single native to thwart German treachery and intrigue, and every friend of the Allied cause must have read of his recent assassination ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... became insane about the year 1586 or early in 1587, after having just begun the Salutation chapel. I have explained in "Ex Voto" that I do not believe this story. I have no doubt that Tabachetti was declared to be mad, but I believe this to have been due to an intrigue, set on foot in order to get a foreign artist out of the way, and to secure the Massacre of the Innocents chapel, at that precise time undertaken, for Gio. Ant. Paracca, ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... feelings of one of the government's employees in the argus line of business, a man renowned for his success in almost all the arduous and intricate affairs that had been committed to his care, to find himself baffled in a paltry private intrigue, and one which he had merely undertaken for the ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... in the office, not only put me in the way of doing my work, which I quickly picked up, but was good enough also to guide my reading, for I was deplorably ignorant. In those days Scribe was the great dramatist, producing innumerable clever plots of intrigue, modelled on no natural society, but on a society all his own, composed almost exclusively of colonels, young widows, old soldiers, and faithful servants. No one had ever seen such widows and colonels, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... of veritable happiness. Something of a hush comes over Saint-Simon's stirring narrative as one of the members of the "little flock" passes through the careless, triumphant crowd, unceasingly busy with intrigue and salutation, petty love and petty triumph, amidst the marble staircases and magnificent halls of Versailles. Saint-Simon goes calmly on with his story; but for one second we seem to have compared all this jubilant ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... amiably. "I wouldn't try that on, if I were you," he added, turning to Mr. Grex, whose hand was slowly stealing from the back of his coat. "That sort of thing doesn't do, nowadays. Revolvers belong to the last decade of intrigue. You're a bit out of date with that little weapon. Don't be foolish. I am not angry with any of you. I am willing to take this little ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... into two parts, one dealing with Lady Jane Grey, and the other with Mary Tudor as Queen, introducing other notable characters of the era. Throughout the story holds the interest of the reader in the midst of intrigue and conspiracy, extending considerably over ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... human nature is pretty much the same in the church as out of it, and there is quite as much intrigue among the prelates of the church as among the politicians at court. His majesty, talking about his early years not long since, said there was nothing but disagreement and intrigue among those who had charge of him during ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... that, during the government of the House of Burgundy, the clergy of the Netherlands had fallen into considerable disrepute. Intrigue and court favor alone had the disposal of the benefices; while the career of commerce was open to the enterprise of every spirited and independent competitor. The Reformation, therefore, in the first instance found but a slight ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... hot and violent withal, arises in more than one young heart. If he must give himself to the Devil, he will rush full tilt on this adventurous intrigue. Let the castle be never so surely closed, one fine opening is still left for Satan. In a game so perilous, what chance of success reveals itself? Wisdom answers, None. But what if Satan ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... energy by a virtuous passion. Her lover, while he adores her beauty, is too honest a man to abuse the confiding tenderness of a creature so charming and inexperienced. Wycherley takes this plot into his hands; and forthwith this sweet and graceful courtship becomes a licentious intrigue of the lowest and least sentimental kind, between an impudent London rake and the idiot wife of a country squire. We will not go into details. In truth, Wycherley's indecency is protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters. It is safe, because ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
