"Overt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... break into war. Major Anderson in Fort Moultrie, and the state commander in the city, watched each other like two suspicious animals, neither sure when the other will spring. In short, in all the overt acts, the demeanor and the language of this excitable State, there was such insolence, besides hostility, that her emissaries must have been surprised at the urbane courtesy with which they were received, even by a ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... the other accused persons did not criminate him, the captain came to the determination of proceeding no further in the business. He was, therefore, set at liberty, and landed with the other passengers. His companions were also liberated, as they had committed no overt act, and there was no evidence against them. Ford, who had all along protested his innocence, tried to worm his way into the confidence of Wenlock, and always volunteered to accompany him whenever he made any excursions into the interior. Wenlock, in spite of the young man's professions, disliked ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... over now," she said to the Mayor. "You draw up something that we can all sign at once." She fixed her eyes on Paul, partly to satisfy her curiosity and justify her predilection for him, and partly to detect him in any overt act of boyishness. But the youth simply returned her glance with a cheerful, easy prescience, as if her past lay clearly open before him. For some minutes there was only the rapid scratching of the Mayor's pen over the paper. Suddenly he stopped and ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... been surcharged with faithfulness, for, instead of waiting until an overt act was committed, as all had been instructed to do, he rushed upon the men in a burst of enthusiasm which knew no restraint ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... LOOKED rather savage at one point in our discussion, but I do assure you that you committed no overt act of ferocity; and if you had, I think I should have fully deserved it for joining in the ferocious onslaught ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... has been stigmatised as worse than ungenerous. It was, at all events, extremely to the point, and it may be suggested that for Raleigh and Cecil the time for showing generosity to Essex was past. They took no overt steps, however, but it is plain that they kept themselves informed of the mad meetings that went on in Essex House. On the morning before the insurrection was to break out, February 18, 1601, Raleigh ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... a rosary at the bottom of a trunk; she hardly knew how to use it, but often fumbled the beads in her trembling fingers. She had lived to grow old without any overt exercise of her religion, but she had always been a pious woman, and she would pray to God all day long, in the chimney corner, to save her boy and that good, kind Monsieur Brotteaux. Elodie often came to see her; they durst not look each other in the eyes, and sitting side by side they would ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... or attempts to desert in time of War ... death or such other punishment as the court martial may direct ... any other time any punishment except death." Essential features are: (1) An intent not to return. (2) An overt act of separation from duty. Drunkenness tends to show absence of the intent. Minority is no defense. Enlistment while in desertion does not remove ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... that the cause was to introduce and make the Catholics predominant in his councils and government. The result, which that eager and blind politician hurried on too fast, and which therefore did not take place, would have been that "liberty of conscience" would soon have become an "overt act of treason" before an inquisition of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and excited in her profound apprehensions whose very nature she would scarcely admit to herself, the main occupation of her mind was still her own quarrel with Louis. The quarrel was now over, for they had conversed in quite sincere tones of friendliness, but she had desired and expected an overt, tangible proof and symbol of peace. That proof and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... lively arts the impact of the Grass was more overt. On the comicpage, Superman daily pushed it back and there was great regret his activities were limited to a fourcolor process, while Terry Lee and Flash Gordon, everinspirited by the sharp outlines of mammaryglands, also saved the country. Even Lil Abner and Snuffy Smith battled ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Francois," took her after a short cannonade, and carried her into Halifax, where she was condemned by the court. Several captures of small craft, accused of illegal acts, were also made by the English. These proceedings, being all of an overt nature, gave the officers of Louis XV. precisely what they wanted,—an occasion for uttering loud complaints, and denouncing the English as breakers ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... in favor of visible consumption it has come about that the domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, as compared with the eclat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on before the eyes of observers. As a secondary consequence of the same discrimination, people habitually screen their private life from observation. So far as concerns ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... wife, with anger and envy gnawing his heart—anger against fate, envy of Roderick Vawdrey, who had won the prize. If evil wishes could have killed, neither Violet nor her lover would have outlived that summer. Happily the Captain was too cautious a man to be guilty of any overt act of rage or hatred. His rancorous feelings were decently hidden under a gentlemanly iciness of manner, to which no one could ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... in forming acquaintanceships at such places. Impure women of the "higher," that is the more successful class, and gamblers, abound at the hotels. The proprietor cannot turn them out unless they are notorious, until they commit some overt act, for fear of getting himself into trouble. As soon, however, as his attention is called to any improper conduct on their part, they are turned into the street, no matter at what hour of the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us? What reason can you give the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case, and to what cause, or one overt act can you point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? and what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? can either of you to-day name one governmental ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... I.W.W. were tried for conspiracy under the Federal espionage act. In January, 1919, a trial jury in Sacramento found 46 defendants guilty. The offense in the majority of these cases consisted in opposing military service rather than in overt acts against the Government. But in May and June, 1919, the country was startled by a series of bomb outrages aimed at the United States Attorney-General, certain Federal district judges, and other leading public personages, which were ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... wrangle without end. But whether the individual thinks the measure right or wrong is a point at still a greater distance from the reach of all human decision. It is therefore very convenient to politicians not to put the judgment of their conduct on overt acts, cognisable in any ordinary court, but upon such a matter as can be triable only in that secret tribunal, where they are sure of being heard with favour, or where at worst the sentence will be only ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... there was an attack directed on us. He'd be mustered out of space and into the Lunar Cells for that. But on the other hand, the "safety for passengers" clause Pietro was citing applied only in the case of overt, direct and physical danger by an officer to normal passengers. He might be able to weasel it through a court, or he might be found guilty of mutiny. It left me in a ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... of men like you and me, chosen for the purpose," said Partow, "is worthily to direct the courage that goes with moral right. The overt act of war must come from them by violating our frontier, not in the African jungle but here. Even when the burglar fingers the window-sash we shall not fire—no, not until he enters our house. When he does, you would ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... were called, humbled the city government, deprived it of all local privileges, suppressed all independent corporations, asserted the royal prerogative of nominating aldermen, and erected a fortress to overawe the burghers. Thus the only overt attempt to resist the authority of Charles V, apart from one or two insignificant ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... 1581, the same spirit of persecution which had inspired the Catholics to inflict such infinite misery upon those of the Reformed faith in the Netherlands, began to manifest itself in overt acts against the Papists by those who had at last obtained political. ascendency over them. Edicts were published in Antwerp, in Utrecht, and in different cities of Holland, suspending the exercise of the Roman worship. These statutes were certainly a long ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that matters were becoming serious. There was no subsequent patrolling of the camp before the stranger's cabin. Their curiosity was singularly abated. A general feeling of repulsion, kept within bounds partly by the absence of any overt act from Bulger, and partly by an inconsistent over-consciousness of his shotgun, took its place. But an ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the Christian era men demanded overt signs of the favour of God, and the objects of veneration kept in the churches and monasteries were held to be capable of curing disease. The Latin Church had either a saint or a relic of a saint to cure nearly every ill that flesh is heir to. St. Apollonia was ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... promulgate anew the edicts against heretics in all their original severity. The court of Inquisition in Spain had pronounced the whole nation of the Netherlands guilty of treason in the highest degree, Catholics and heterodox, loyalists and rebels, without distinction; the latter as having offended by overt acts, the former as having incurred equal guilt by their supineness. From this sweeping condemnation a very few were excepted, whose names, however, were purposely reserved, while the general sentence was publicly confirmed by the king. Philip ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... organism for the better performance of the governmental office, an apparatus of law-courts, judges, and barristers; a national church, with its bishops and priests; and a system of caste, titles, and ceremonies, administered by society at large. By the first, overt aggressions are cognised and punished; by the second, the disposition to commit such aggressions is in some degree checked; by the third, those minor breaches of good conduct, which the others do not notice, are denounced and chastised. Law and Religion control behaviour ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... was carried through without further overt hostilities. It chanced to be holidays with me, all my tutors were on their vacation, my governor, Vohrenlorf, on a visit at Berlin. Hearing of my solitude, he insisted on making arrangements to return speedily; but for a few days I was left quite alone, saving for the ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... squad of officers and three hundred men is mysterious. Floyd and his gang were treacherous enough. What was it? Were they imbecile? Were they timid? Was there, till too late, a doubt whether the traitors at home in Virginia would sustain them in an overt act of such big overture as an attempt here? But they lost the chance, and with it lost the key of Virginia, which General Butler now holds, this 30th day of May, and will presently begin ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... overt opposition, though opponents were blandly invited to mount the waggon and state their views; but there was a good deal of quiet chaff on the outskirts of the crowd, which is the portion I always ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... sincere in their belief that the success of this measure meant the triumph of the French and the reversal of all that had been done to hold the colonies for the Empire against rebels whose avowed purpose was separation. Twelve years had gone by since they had failed in the overt act. Now Papineau was back in the House, about to receive his arrears of salary as Speaker. In Elgin's eyes he was a Guy Fawkes waving flaming brands among all sorts of combustibles. Mackenzie had been granted amnesty by the monarch {119} he had called 'the bloody Queen of England.' Wolfred Nelson, ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... lots to where Fred Wilson, manager of the general store, slept in a two-room shack belonging to the hotel. The door was locked—Fred being a small man with little trust in Providence or in his overt physical prowess—and so he rapped cautiously upon the window until Fred awoke and wanted to know who in ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... to come sooner or later. Much domestic malice Washington was destined to encounter in the later years of political strife, but this was the only instance in his military career where enmity came to overt action and open speech. The first and the last of its kind, this assault upon him has much interest, for a strong light is thrown upon his character by studying him, thus beset, and by seeing just how he passed through this most trying ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... electioneering purposes, and there might be a rebound which would pretty well crush all those who had been concerned. Individual gentlemen could, of course, say what they pleased to individual voters; but it was agreed at last that no overt use should be made of the rumours by Mr Alf's Committee. In regard to other matters, they who worked under the Committee were busy enough. The dinner to the Emperor was turned into ridicule, and the electors were asked whether they felt themselves bound to return a gentleman ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... we shall not be likely to vanquish the monster, even in ourselves, unless we make the thoughts our point of attack. So long as they are sensual we are indulging in sexual abuse, and are almost sure, when temptation is presented, to commit the overt acts of sin. If we cannot succeed within, we may pray in vain for help to resist the tempter outwardly. A young man who will indulge in obscene language will be guilty of a worse deed if opportunity ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... that all the Duke's little cabinet (the women and the toad-eaters) hate Peel, and that there never was any real cordiality between them. Everything confirms my belief that Peel, if he did not bring about the dissolution of the late Ministry by any overt act, saw to what things were tending, and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... don't want any overt acts of violence here," wheezed Baumberger, laying hand upon Good Indian's shoulder from behind. Good Indian shook off the touch as if it were ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... said Winnington, frowning. "My ward is of age. If Miss Marvell does anything overt—But she has promised to do nothing ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... vagueness and indefiniteness of the accusation, founded on what in the nature of things was absolutely impossible to be known, except by overt action; founded on suspicion or conjecture of men's thoughts. "That thou and the Jews think to rebel!" There was no pretence that they had rebelled. There is no need to begin the lie in so gross and bungling a manner; it was bad enough to set the conjecture of an intention in ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... to find the world standing up stubbornly against it, essentially unconverted and hostile, whatever name it may have been christened with; and we may expect the spirit of the world to find expression, not only in overt opposition to the supernaturalistic system, but also in the surviving or supervening worldliness of the faithful. Such an insidious revulsion of the natural man against a religion he does not openly discard is what, in modern Christendom, we call the ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... given you as yet have not satisfied you? Well, then, I will give you others; and, by Heaven, you will be content with them! You think Austria's unkindly feelings to Prussia have not been shown by any overt act. I will now prove to you that she is on the point of acting." And Frederick, lifting up some papers from his desk, continued: "These papers will prove to you, what you seem determined not to believe, namely, that Saxony, Russia, and, France ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... governor to convene the Assembly, and approved all the acts which had caused the Assembly's dismissal; it resolved to preserve order, and quietly dissolved itself. "I doubt," said the British Attorney-General, "whether they have committed an overt act of treason, but I am sure they have come within a hair's breadth ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... prototype of the higher unfoldment of woman beyond her time. She stands for the point in human development when womanliness asserts itself and begins to revolt and to throw off the yoke of sensualism and of tyranny. Her revolt was not an overt act, or a criticism of the proceedings of the king. It was merely exercising her own judgment as to her own proceeding. She did not choose to be brought before the assembly of men as an exhibit. The growth of self-respect ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... that he was not at the taking of Carlisle as therein specified. His objections were taken into consideration; the Lords retired to their chamber, and there consulted the judges whether it be necessary that an overt act of high treason should be proved to have been committed on the particular day ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... were punished late and tardily, whereas at present we find fault with the deity for correcting the character and disposition of same before they commit crime, from our ignoring that the future deed may be worse and more dreadful than the past, and the hidden intention than the overt act; for we are not able fully to understand the reasons why it is better to leave some alone in their ill deeds, and to arrest others in the intention; just as no doubt medicine is not appropriate in the case of some patients, which would be beneficial to others not ill, but yet perhaps in ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the Swiss Diet determined to dissolve the Sonderbund, which had at length committed the overt act of treason, General Dufour was appointed commander-in-chief of the Federal army. A few days after the call for troops was issued, he found himself at the head of an army of one hundred thousand men, and immediately entered actively upon the work before him. His dispositions were skilful and his ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... obvious that all such laws do condemn sin in the sense that they solemnly declare God's judgment about it, and His sentence on it; but in the sense of real condemnation, or casting out, and depriving sin of its power, they all are impotent. The law may deter from overt acts or lead to isolated acts of obedience; it may stir up antagonism to sin's tyranny, but after that it has no more that it can do. It cannot give the purity which it proclaims to be necessary, nor create the obedience ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... vouch this is no proof; Without more wider and more overt test Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods Of modern ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... god Society could have made her control herself so admirably; but Adelaide was a faithful worshiper of the divine life of conventionality, and she had her reward. Leam showed nothing, at least nothing directly overt. Perhaps her demeanor was stiller, her laconism curter, her distaste to uninteresting companionship and current small-talk more profound, than usual; but no one seemed to see the deeper tinge of her ordinary color, and she passed muster, for her creditably. In her heart she thought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... doctrines, but a truly practical scheme of life. In this endeavour he was preceded by Richard Baxter, who had written on the 'Unreasonableness of Infidelity,' and was followed during the eighteenth century by many who in the old Dissenting chapels were leading the way towards an overt Unitarianism. ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... in a ferment. Experienced Indian fighters say the signs of a speedy going on the war-path are not to be mistaken. No one can tell how soon the whole frontier may be in a bloody blaze. The women and children are rapidly coming in from all exposed settlements. Nothing overt as yet has transpired, but that the Indians will collide very soon with the settlers is certain. All the troops have been withdrawn. In our defenceless state there is no knowing how many lives may be lost before the regiments of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... spoken of the would-be mutineer, Badham. It must be remembered that he had committed no overt act of mutiny, and though Captain Hassall was perfectly right in putting him in irons, he could not have been brought to trial on shore. The day before we reached Sydney he pleaded so hard to be forgiven, and so vehemently promised amendment in all respects, that the captain ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... that she had told him things about herself and her history which were probably known to no other human being beside. Brought up as the youths had been, and trained in a measure beneath the kindly eye of the priest, they would in any case have asked his counsel and blessing before taking any overt step in life; but all the more did they feel that they must speak to him now, since he was probably the only person within their reach who could tell them anything as to their own parentage and history that they ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his class or his club, for example,—the conflicts of ambitions, the readiness to shirk one's share of common responsibility, the discordant prides and appetites of one sort and another which lead to overt injustices. All these should be used to throw light upon the living moral problems of group-life in the vocations, in the civic world, ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... and recommended by Mr. Gallatin, one of the most enlightened statesmen of our country, was favorably received, but no step was taken in consequence; the President not being disposed, in all probability, to commit himself by any direct countenance or overt act. Discouraged by this supineness on the part of the government, Mr. Astor did not think fit to renew his overtures in a more formal manner, and the favorable moment for the re-occupation of Astoria was suffered to ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... completely as to the safety of the members of the Landtag. The Landtag was opened today, minus King and minus cheers, with quite calm discussion. In a few words I uttered my protest against the thanks and exultation that were voted to the King, without hostilities becoming overt. Ten thousand men of the city militia were posted for our protection, but not even a slight disturbance occurred at the palace. I could be with you tomorrow, as there is no session, if I had ordered ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... make public profession of the faith which he held (if any). So the Tory policy was to watch, not indeed permitting their opponents to gather strength, and muster in armed force or with order, but being well apprised of all their schemes and intended movements, to wait for some bold overt act, and then to strike severely. And as a Tory watchman—or spy, as the Whigs would call him—Jeremy Stickles was now among us; and his duty ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... organization; their form and size are alike in all individuals of the same species; and species vary enough to induce one to believe, that there is a necessary relation between an animal's way of life and that of its globules. If the microscope has not yet caught them in any overt living act, who can be surprised? it is only dead blood which has been submitted to the test. They ought to be observed in the exercise of their functions, in the living animal itself, as has been done to some extent in the frog; and if our foolish chat could influence scientific observers, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... had committed some overt act that she knew nothing about. Could anything elude her ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... noticing my exclamation: "Any overt or covert action on your part, toward carrying out your intention, will be telepathically conveyed to us, and our executive—" ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... would not be too much to say that if anyone had given him the opportunity he would have welcomed a chance to quarrel, especially with the lady of the local Institute. Thus, cured of all moral distempers, and every tendency to speculate on feminine charms, hidden or overt, did he descend ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... whistle, carrying less fear. Apparently the slow-moving, sleepy bear meant no harm. For half an hour the marmot watched alertly, then slid down beneath the bowlders and started eating. From time to time he sat stiffly erect, peering suspiciously at the intruder. But since the bear made no overt move, he continued his feeding as though he were too hungry to wait until ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... coincidence between the will of God and the conduct of his creatures, it will follow, most conclusively, that God is the author of sin. He has decreed and brings to pass all the sensations, perceptions, emotions, inclinations, volitions, and overt actions, of the whole human race. Various attempts have been made to avoid this result, but they are all futile. The Confession of Faith says: "God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... passion or prudence predominated at the moment. He seemed utterly unable to bring himself, save fitfully, to the final adoption of either line of conduct. And yet, at the moment when his jealousy most furiously boiled over, he decided on taking the first overt step towards the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... office and place, in the maintenance of religion. But we may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword, or like unto it; that is, to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish seditions; to authorize conspiracies and rebellions; to put the sword into the people's hands; and the like; tending to the ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... pride at present, was touched, and he told himself that since she chose thus to withdraw he would certainly not make a definite and overt attempt to follow. Then, by way of adhering strictly to this very good resolution, he proceeded to accept every social invitation which came his way, went religiously to luncheons, dinners, dances, anything that offered. He even ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... fight with Hyrcanus, as being angry at the trial he had been summoned to undergo before the Sanhedrim; but his father Antipater, and his brother [Phasaelus], met him, and hindered him from assaulting Jerusalem. They also pacified his vehement temper, and persuaded him to do no overt action, but only to affright them with threatenings, and to proceed no further against one who had given him the dignity he had: they also desired him not only to be angry that he was summoned, and obliged to come to his trial, but to remember withal how he was dismissed without condemnation, and ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... overt act of treason was committed," continued Mr. Osler, "when the French half-breeds were requested by Riel to bring their arms with them to a meeting to be held at Batoche on March 3rd. This indicated that the prisoner intended to resort to violence. On the 18th instant they find him (Riel) sending ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Commander-in-Chief stationed at Boston, had also thrust upon him the civil government of that town. He had some five thousand British troops in Boston, and several men-of-war in the harbor. There were no overt acts, but the speed with which, on more than one occasion, large bodies of Colonial farmers assembled and went swinging through the country to rescue some place, which it was falsely reported the British were attacking, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... had not been content to lie snoring on their backs. We could hear them creeping and whispering out there beyond the doors; but till after the shot from the soldier's pistolet they had not dared to show us any overt act of hostility. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... sincerity in his efforts for the good of all that he resented the attitude which they had taken. He knew they would try to get his invention peaceably, if possible, but would stop at nothing if they failed, and he expected some overt act of violence tonight that would mean war with ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... was seen no more in his old parish. Railroad journeys are costly things and curates' holidays rare. Besides, he had no overt excuse for coming. And so life went on for five years. The curate and Eileen may have met during that period, for Eileen sometimes went away visiting. As Excalibur was not privileged to accompany her on these occasions he had no means of checking her movements; but the chances ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... daily growing more and move palpable, until any additional evidence has become simply cumulative; that the election of Abraham Lincoln was not the cause, but only marked the culmination of the treason, and furnished the shallow pretext for its first overt acts. That you are not prepared to admit all this is, I am forced to believe, mainly because you dislike the conclusions which must inevitably follow from such an admission. I say this, because, passing over for the present the undoubted fact, that this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... that they checked the pace of their horses as they approached, and that they reined to either side of the road to compel him to go between them. But he pulled his own horse out still further, and as they could not pass on both sides of him without an overt act of hostility they drew together again in the middle ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fortunately, now lay on the same side; and the ancient sentiment of loyalty, smothered for a time, but not extinguished, revived in the breasts of the people. Still this was not manifested, at once, by any overt act; for, under a strong military rule, men dared hardly think for themselves, much less communicate their thoughts to one another. But changes of public opinion, like changes in the atmosphere that come on slowly and imperceptibly, make themselves more and ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Alava's, with others which he had received from Spain, confirmatory of his worst fears. Louis of Nassau voted for open and instant rebellion; William recommended a cautious observance of the projects of government, not doubting but a fair pretext would be soon given to justify the most vigorous overt acts of revolt; but Egmont at once struck a death-blow to the energetic project of one brother, and the cautious amendment of the other, by declaring his present resolution to devote himself wholly ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... discovered in her overt act, she evidently felt that duty demanded some further ceremony from her. She approached him very timidly, but with an exquisite, little elderly early-Victorian manner. She was of the most astonishingly perfect type, though Tembarom was not ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... my own mind as to how I ought to act with respect to this voluminous production; but when I had read to the bottom of the first page I closed the book, and very seriously informed my visitors that it evidently contained treasonable matter, and that nothing more than the overt act of holding the meeting, to carry the scheme into execution, was required to make all that were concerned in it liable at least to be indicted for high treason. I certainly should not, I told them, countenance any such ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... I told Hollerith, was a reasonably big wheel around Ancarta. He wasn't in sympathy with the Government, but he hadn't fought in the revolutionary armies or been active in any overt way. ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer
... them myself before I could express an opinion. You have that tape of Holloway's with you?" When Kellogg nodded, Mallin continued: "Did either of them make any actual, overt claim of sapience?" ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... completion, which were only to be bought from Tory importers, and which had been therefore nearly doubled in value. When liberty interfered with the private interests of Batavius, he had his doubts as to whether it was liberty. Often Bram's overt disloyalty irritated him beyond endurance. For, since he had joined the ranks of married men and householders, Batavius felt that unmarried men ought to wait for the opinions and leadership of those ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... the next important occasion. For home use, or for associating with those about whose opinion he is indifferent, no matter how rude the Manners, or how uncared for the costume. Perhaps the rudeness may chance to come out in some overt act that will not bear passing over in silence, and then the perpetrator utters an "excuse me," that reminds one of a bright new patch set upon an old faded garment. Not that such a patch is unworthy of respect when worn by honest poverty, and set on with a neatness that makes it ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... know General Howard, will not consider this sketch a flattery or an exaggeration. He was a candidate for the Governorship at the last election, and so powerful was his acknowledged personal prestige, that, in despite of overt intimidation and secret influences, which made a free voting an absurdity, the Black Republicans exulted over his ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... and again he looked severely toward Satan: "I tell you that as long as sentimental weakness marks the prosecution of offences in violation of the laws necessitated by war-time conditions; as long as deserved punishment for overt acts of pro-Celestialism is withheld; as long as weak-kneed clemency condones even a suspicion of disloyal thinking: then just so long will a righteously incensed, if now and then misguided patriotism take into its own hands ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... anything overt had occurred, or been articulately said, between them last Sunday afternoon. But they had been alone together, and had each witnessed strange and disturbing matters in ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... his design also was only diversion; and that, as his master was a tooth-drawer, the gag was what they sometimes used in their business. These excuses, frivolous as they were, were of some avail to them; and, as they had not manifested any evil design by an overt act, they ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... that case. . . . Renee threw herself beseechingly into the mute interrogation, keeping both of Rosamund's hands. They could slip away only by deciding to, and this rare Englishwoman had no taste for the petty overt hostilities. 'If I can be of use to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... assaulted by one of the mob, who was arrested by the police. His comrades began throwing stones, but the police maintained their hold of their prisoner, and conveyed him to the jail. A crowd then gathered in front of the police station and made threats of rescuing their comrade, but no overt act was committed. The mob, which had by this time become greatly enraged, was really not composed of railroad employees, who had contemplated no such result of their strike, and now generally deplored the unfortunate turn which the affair had taken. It was for the most part composed of the worst ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... upon to incur, they had to be met by more effective measures. Faced by this emergency, Power did not mince matters. It laid violent hands upon the unwilling subject and forced him, nolens volens, to sail its ships, to man its guns, and to fight its battles by sea as he already, under less overt compulsion, did ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... the State must come to a conclusion about inward dispositions by presumption from overt acts, arguing serious moral guilt before proceeding to capital punishment. To this extent the State is remotely a judge of sin. But it does not punish sin retributively as sin, nor even medicinally. It punishes the violation of its own laws, to ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... Simon Gradkoski. But Gronovitz, the Hebrew teacher, crypto-atheist and overt revolutionary, who read a Hebrew edition of the "Pickwick Papers" in synagogue on the Day of Atonement, was with Strelitski, and a bigot whose religion made his wife and children wretched was with the cautious Simon Gradkoski. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... been free from the overt problems of sex life. We have repeatedly been informed that she has been a girl of good character in this respect. "I ran away from home for a good cause. I'm not one of those girls who is crazy about the boys.'' Usually Inez shows a very even temper. It is only ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... a girl who still had to understand that fear is an overt argument only for her own sex. I thought too of those grisly lank brutes straining at their chains and the chorus they could make of a night when they heard belated footsteps along the edge of the Killing Wood, and the thought banished my wish to please her. Like most imaginative ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... natives did not wholly subside upon the rear-admiral's departure, no overt act of violence immediately followed. The queen had fled to Imeeo; and the dissensions among the chiefs, together with the ill-advised conduct of the missionaries, prevented a union upon some common plan of resistance. But the great body of the people, as well as their queen, confidently ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... his rights will be respected and observed. But if these individual crimes involve the greater one of an organized conspiracy of a party, or a race, to deprive another party or race of citizens of the enjoyment of their unquestioned rights, accompanied with overt acts, with physical power sufficient to accomplish their purpose, then it becomes a national question which must be dealt ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... has throughout been the common good or the public interest. And the desire for this end on the part of the majority of the members of the community, or the majority of those who were able to express their opinions, though its action was until recently not overt nor direct, and was not recognised, has led to the gradual evolution of the whole fabric of law and moral feeling, in order to govern and control the behaviour and conduct of the individual in his relations with his family, neighbours and fellow-citizens ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... country in perpetual turmoil, now inflaming the minds of the people, then exciting insurrections among the nobles, and then, again, encouraging the parliaments in resistance. He never appeared as an actor, but every movement was directed by his genius. He did not escape suspicion, but committed no overt acts by which he could be punished. He and the celebrated Duchess de Longueville, a woman who had as great a talent for intrigue as himself, were the life and soul of the Fronde—a civil war which ended only in the reestablishment of the monarchy ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... suggested revolt in the Transvaal may take is not likely to be revealed, until some overt step towards its execution has been taken. We would all desire that the end in view should be secured by peaceful means, and that the Transvaal should become a part and parcel of ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... Sir Peregrine, he was ready enough to cooeperate with his supporters in any proceeding for the suppression of this free-spoken and most objectionable little Radical, who dared to wag his plebeian tongue against the son-in-law of a Duke. An occasion for the first overt act of hostility was afforded by certain rites connected with the erection of the monument on Queenston Heights to the memory of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. The construction of the monument ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the meeting was over, was a cheerful, general salutation, and the familiarity of the sight of him was plain in the response he got, equally general and equally cheerful. Lieutenant Da Cruz's smile was even further significant, if he had thought of interpreting it, and there was overt amiability in the manner in which Ensign Sand put her hymn-books together and packed everybody, including her husband, whose arm she took, out of ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... entirely in the absorbing interests of the present: they must remember that it is the business of a University to make contributions to learning as well as to teach. Secondly, they must insist on equality of payment and status when there is any disposition, overt or acknowledged, to differentiate on the score of sex. It is not right to yield on these points, for an important principle is at stake. On the other hand the time and place for insistence must be ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... complaint against him, afforded him protection, with assurances of every assistance he might need, declaring publicly that their ports were equally free for Americans as for Britons. I have besides these overt acts still more convincing proofs, that the moment your application is made every thing will be ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... responsibility of government. At that date the organization of the Southern Confederacy had not been perfected. Four States which ultimately joined it had not yet seceded from the Union. There had been no overt act of violence. The Administration still believed in the possibility of a peaceful settlement. But on the 12th of April Fort Sumter was attacked. On the 14th it was surrendered. On the 15th the President issued his Proclamation ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... victim. As he passed, a close observer might have noted that each man trembled visibly while the god's eye was upon him, and looked after him askance with a terrified sidelong gaze as he passed on to his neighbor. But not one savage gave any overt sign or token of his terror or his reluctance. On the contrary, as Tu-Kila-Kila passed along the line with lazy, cruel deliberateness, the men kept chanting aloud without one tremor in their voices, "We are all your meat. Choose which one you will ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... the Divine personality is ultimately explained by the fact that an energetic Life-process is wanting—a Life-process which entertains the question not so much from without as from within. Whenever such a Life-process is found, there is simultaneously found, often in overt contradiction to the formal doctrinal statement, an element of such a personal character of God."[56] But this immanent aspect of the idea of God is accompanied by a transcendent aspect. We have noticed already that the very nature of the Ought included a transcendent and objective ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... did not mean war. The President told Congress that if the threat against American lives and property conveyed by the resumption of submarine war were followed by overt acts of actual injury to Americans he would come before Congress once more and ask for authority to take the necessary steps to protect American interests. But for the moment he seems to have felt that only a warning was necessary; that the Germans, if convinced ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... of the bushmen had exceeded that of the white men. The weeks had gone by, and no overt acts had been attempted. The bushmen swarmed in the camp in increasing numbers, and they were always making presents of yams and taro, of pig and fowl, and of wild fruits and vegetables. Whenever the gold-hunters moved ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... the Virginia Resolutions of 1773.—On sea as well as on land, friction between the royal officers and the colonists broke out into overt acts. While patrolling Narragansett Bay looking for smugglers one day in 1772, the armed ship, Gaspee, ran ashore and was caught fast. During the night several men from Providence boarded the vessel and, after seizing ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... however they may differ from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact, that there are evil powers going about continually to take cognizance of our evil thoughts; and, if their Master gives them power, to bring them into overt action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin, of which I dare not disbelieve—as some sceptics would have us do—the sin of witchcraft. Of this deadly sin, you and I are aware Bridget Fitzgerald has been guilty. Since you saw her last, many ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... only her; and I don't think I am bound to do that. Not in the great matter, I am clear. Nobody can meddle with my real sincere pledge of myself to Frank, nobody!" she spoke as if there was iron in her lips. "But as far as overt acts go, they have a right to forbid me, till I am of age at least, and we ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... undetected thieves steal. Every time we shake the social body, in this or that spasm of probing and reform, hundreds drop out, like moths from an unprotected garment; so that at last we are prone to suspect that the thief, overt or covert, is more the rule than the exception, and that a good part of the cash in circulation was more or less dishonestly come by. But, leaving this aside, the money or values appropriated by thieves accredited as such and sent to jail, is an amount ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... Strawn, a young lawyer of this city, of some education, a very fair order of talents, and who had seemed hitherto taciturn and reserved. Upon conversation with him we were astonished to find that he did not approve of the Jeff. Davis principles, and had no fellowship with any overt act of treason. He had been appointed a Brigadier-General, on the ground of his supposed ability, but early took occasion to express himself, in such a manner that his commission was speedily revoked. Mr. Strawn was, he ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... FOLLIOTT.—Very true, sir; if he can. Here is the Captain who can. But I think he must have finished his education at some very rigid college, where a quotation or any other overt act showing acquaintance with classical literature was visited with a severe penalty. For my part, I make it my boast that I was not to be so subdued. I could not be abated of a single quotation by all the bumpers in which ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... since Link's birth, had been perhaps the only home in all that wild region which did not boast a dog of some kind. Link's father had had an inborn hatred of dogs. He would not allow one on the place. His overt excuse was that they killed sheep and worried cattle, and that he could not afford to risk the well-being of his ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... score of centuries earlier. Tennyson, to take another example, displayed not a little of this "sluggish avoidance of needless invention," often preferring to apply his imagination to the transfiguring of what Malory or Miss Mitford, Froude or Freeman had made ready for his hand. This eschewing of overt originality fitted him all the more to be spokesman of his time, and to voice the ideals of his race and of his day. Tennyson, so Sir Leslie Stephen told us, "could express what occurred to everybody in language that could be approached by nobody." Browning, on the other hand, ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... afford distraction; but in the main his thoughts all turned on schemes for freeing England from the French tyrant. But not till Gyda, Harold's widowed mother, came to Baldwin for sanctuary did he take any overt action. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" (Matt. xii. 86, 87). It would seem that the judgment, as being conducted by external means, takes account of human thoughts only so far as their consequences are manifested by overt deeds and spoken words. It is not the less true, according to the doctrine of the Lord himself (in Mark iv. 22, and Luke viii. 17), that in the day of judgment all secret and hidden things will be revealed. The words in St. Mark, "neither was ...
— An Essay on the Scriptural Doctrine of Immortality • James Challis
... and warmth with which it was attempted to beat it down, did for a time put the kingdom in a ferment. The men who have since that time scourged Ireland with a rod of iron, charge this as the commencement of the crimes of the country—the first overt act of her intemperance and violent propensity to discontent. Whether it deserves that epithet Englishmen will judge, when they learn that this doubt was first suggested by some of the best lawyers—the ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... over which he had no control, and of his temper, over which he had very little. He had taken on the Mastership of the Pexdale Hounds in succession to a highly popular man who had fallen foul of his committee, and the Major found himself confronted with the overt hostility of at least half the hunt, while his lack of tact and amiability had done much to alienate the remainder. Hence subscriptions were beginning to fall off, foxes grew provokingly scarcer, and wire obtruded itself with increasing frequency. ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... the chief of the poste, "and great scoundrels they are, too! We have been shadowing them for some time, but could never detect them in any overt act until to-day. They belong to a very dangerous gang of prowlers, led by a shrewd German named Waldmann, whose headquarters are in a wretched caboulot of the Cite ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... overt, tangible, clear, indubitable, palpable, transparent, conspicuous, manifest, patent, unmistakable, discernible, obvious, perceptible, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... feeling than an idea based on any overt act of the natives, and Johnny tried to shake it off. That he might do this more quickly, he gave himself over to the study of these strange nomads. Their dress was a one-piece suit made of short haired deer skins. Men, women and children ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... Sally herself bade fair (barring accidents) to prove a fixture in the household, it seemed inevitable that they must be often thrown together. So she must at all costs school herself to treat him civilly—at least without overt animosity. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... on the growth of newfangled doctrines; which, however, instead of having the wonted effect of my discourses, set up the theological weavers in a bleeze, and the very Monday following they named a committee, to raise money by subscription to build a meeting-house. This was the first overt act of insubordination, collectively manifested, in the parish; and it was conducted with all that crafty dexterity with which the infidel and jacobin spirit of the French Revolution had corrupted the ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... no overt steps can be taken till your resignation is accepted; and (2nd) that in the meantime I may, without offence, mention my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the slightest effect. He merely smiled when the hot-headed Kennedy suggested retaliation, and would not allow Lillyston to try the effect of remonstrance. It was not long before Brogten became thoroughly ashamed that his malice should be tried and despised, and he would have proceeded to more overt acts of hatred had he not been one day informed by Lillyston that the Hartonians generally had heard of his proceedings, and that if he continued them he would be universally cut. For, indeed, such practical jokes as Brogten attempted are now almost unknown at Camford, and every ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... me a little. However, my inexperience at handling such men, and the anomalous character of my position to some extent consoled me. In the filaments brushed across the face of my understanding I could discover none so strong as to support an overt act on my part. I cannot doubt, that had the affair come to a focus, I should have warned the scientists even at the risk of my life. In fact, as I shall have occasion to show you, I did my best. But at the moment, in all policy I could see my way ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... cloak of the most orthodox observance; and when by chance a nest of heretics was brought to light, the learning and skill of the average Ordinary failed to elicit a confession from those who professed the most entire accord with the teachings of Rome. In the absence of overt acts, it was difficult to reach the secret thoughts of the sectary. Trained experts were needed whose sole business it should be to unearth the offenders, and extort a confession ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... Dora's part it was only vanity and flirtation—Ethel grew more and more uneasy. She almost wished for some trifling overt act which would give her an excuse for warning Dora; and one day, after three weeks of such philandering, ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... clear or obscure, do not cause ambassadors to demand their passports. The declaration of war awaits the overt act. Behold, then, how great a matter is kindled by a little fire! The casus belli between France and England in the Seven Years' War—the war which humbled France in Europe and lost her India and Canada—had to do with a small ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... feeling of the majority. They were boycotted, and had to shut up shop. Others, older-established, or in possession of a monopoly, weathered the storm, but their opinions cost them something. These are the milder cases. Yet shooting or bludgeoning are likely enough to follow overt political action, such as refusing to join a procession ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... expressions were imputed to him, and some, too, reflecting on Edward's legitimacy; but he was not accused of any overt act of treason; and even the truth of these speeches may be doubted of, since the liberty of judgment was taken from the court, by the king's appearing personally as his brother's accuser,[*] and pleading the cause against him. But a sentence of condemnation, even ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... this commendation, and the effect of it, and of the whole incident, in confirming and strengthening the principle of obedience in her heart, is very much greater than rebukes or punishments for any overt act of disobedience ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... But though, as I have said, the bickerings between the two powers had been going on for a long while, Florence did not as yet, in view of the complications that existed, and the new complications that might arise from overt act, feel herself strong enough to take the field in open war and to hazard all, it might be, upon the chances of a ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to the Senate for the avowed purpose of preventing war. Webster, in the Senate again, was on friendly terms with the leaders of the English governing party, and both he and they were striving to prevent the expansionists from committing an overt act of hostility. Benton, the foremost of expansionists before Tyler became President, was also ready to compromise the dispute. This meant that Calhoun, Webster, and Benton would unite their influence to defeat the foreign policy of the President ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... about to commit an overt act. Gen. Hawley, president of the centennial commission and manager of the programme, had peremptorily forbidden its presentation. Yet in the face of this—in the face of the assembled nation and representatives from the crowned heads of Europe, a handful of women actuated by the same ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... he be reinforced with the five ships of the rear division, he would cheerfully forego the triumph of such additional success, to be certain his friend did not intend to carry his disaffection to overt acts. He found it hard to believe that a man like Bluewater could really contemplate carrying off with him the ships he commanded; yet he knew the authority his friend wielded over his captains, and the possibility ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... filibustering expedition against Mexico, he was favored by circumstances. Spanish troops had taken up a position east of the Sabine River, on what was American soil; and only an overt act was needed to precipitate war. Every frontiersman was preparing for a tussle with the hated Spaniard. In the event of war Burr knew well enough that an expedition against Mexico would be countenanced by the government at Washington. Whether or no war with ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... act, or the illegal acts, have been actually done or not in pursuance of the conspiracy. Where these illegal acts, however, have been done, and can be clearly proved, it is usual—but not necessary—to set them out in the indictment for a conspiracy. This is called setting out the overt acts, (and was done in the present instance,) not as any part of the conspiracy, but only as statements of the evidence by which the charge was to be supported—for the laudable purpose of giving the parties notice of the particular facts from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... of weakness is dangerous only so far that it exposes one to the risk of becoming a bore; for the world generally is not interested in the motives of any overt act but in its consequences. Man may smile and smile but he is not an investigating animal. He loves the obvious. He shrinks from explanations. Yet I will go on with mine. It's obvious that I need not have written that ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... no alternative: fight they must. As the devil is said to betray his victims into situations where they are compelled to advance from bad to worse, so the conspirators adroitly hastened the people into overt acts from which they were told there was no retreat. We believe these facts to have had great influence with our Government; and in this way we can understand the generous but mistaken forbearance of the administration in the earlier stages of the contest,—we say ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... crepe de Chine, she looked P. Sybarite up and down with wide eyes overwise in the ways of life, shrewdly judicious of mankind; handled her pistol with experienced confidence; spoke, in a voice of surpassing sweetness, with decision and considerable overt contempt for the phraseology of convention—swearing without the least affectation, slanging heartily when slang ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... not to be trifled with, a quiet group of thirty bronzed faces, some grinning with the anticipated joy of the combat they loved, some grim as death itself, each affectionately twirling a gleaming gun. One overt act on the part of the circus men, and down they would go like ninepins and they knew it—knew it so well that, within two minutes after they had assembled, all dodged into and lost themselves in the throng of onlookers like ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... "around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean." (Why We Are at War, p. 23, New York, 1917.) The President promptly broke off diplomatic relations (February 3), and said that we should refrain from hostilities until the commission of "actual overt acts" by Germany forced us to the conviction that she meant to carry out her ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... to seize Fort Pitt and its arms and ammunition; but he found most of the militia officers unwilling to co-operate in such an overt act of treason. But they readily consented to the perpetration of outrages against excise officers, and the whole country in that region was governed, for the moment, by the combined powers of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... but in future, I am afraid, the conduct of Mr. Hastings will improve our law vocabulary. The first, then, of these offences with which Mr. Hastings stands charged here is receiving bribes himself, or through his banians. Every one of these are overt acts of the general charge of bribery, and they are every one of them, separately taken, substantive crimes. But whatever the criminal nature of these acts was, (and the nature was very criminal, and the consequences to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... other, between the husbands, was thus not much greater than between their wives; but, in their case, of course, it was not marked by any of those outbreaks and overt acts which distinguished the enmity of their better halves. The dislike of the former was passive, that of the latter active—most indefatigably active; for Mrs. Anderson was every bit as spirited a woman as her neighbour, Mrs. Callender, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... instinct might have led her forward. In the two conflicting dangers she might have found safety. The road after all was a public way. Any number of persons might meet there accidentally. But she saw only the darker side of the situation. To turn to Tryon for protection before Wain had by some overt act manifested the evil purpose which she as yet only suspected would be, she imagined, to acknowledge a previous secret acquaintance with Tryon, thus placing her reputation at Wain's mercy, and to charge herself ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... sweet to her; but there was a bitter in the sweet. These newly-overt acts of his, which had culminated in this plain question, coming on the very day of Mrs. Jethway's blasting reproaches, painted distinctly her fickleness as an enormity. Loving him in secret had not seemed such thorough-going inconstancy as the same love ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Iulius Caesar. In the house of one or the other of them, indeed, the meeting at which Catiline first unfolded his purposes was believed to have been held. Still Catiline had not been guilty of any overt act which enabled Cicero to attack him. He had, indeed, been informed, on very questionable authority, that Catiline had made a plot to assassinate him while holding the elections, and he made a considerable parade of taking precautions ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... out of the present; and as they would not bear witness against each other as to the past, it was not easy from old affairs to make out cases of treason. Former private consultations of a treasonable character, it was said, lacked connection with overt acts, and the overt acts of a treasonable character lacked connection with the prior consultations: as, for instance, they said, the consultation to seize the Castle was treasonable, but it was not followed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... of so glaring an abuse, with which the whole country is now familiar, we must not exaggerate. It would still be impossible for the politicians, for instance, to get a verdict during war in favour of an overt act of treason. But after all, argument of this sort applies to any tyranny, and the power the politicians have and exercise of refusing to prosecute, however clear an act of treason or other grossly unpopular act might be, is equivalent to a power ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... place, it would demean her to be so placed; and in the second, we could never be sure that the report of her residence there might not reach the ears of Sir Rudolph. As a last resource, of course such a step would be justifiable, but not until at least overt outrages have been attempted. Now I will call ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... to be done in that way it was unquestionably to be done by some one alone, who, like the doctor, would, and could, remain profoundly quiet and await the issue of events, be they what they might, and probably remain a spy and attempt no overt act which should be of a hostile character. This unquestionably was the mode, and perhaps we should not be going too far when we say it was the only mode which could be with anything like safety relied ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... obligations which have been exchanged between them and destroy American ships and take the lives of American citizens in the willful prosecution of the ruthless naval program they have announced their intention to adopt. Only actual overt acts on their part can make me believe ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... bigotry or narrow- mindedness. Only a few years ago I fought my way, with other Popish pilgrims, to the shrine of our patron Saint (as he was, until superseded by Saint George in the thirteenth century), and there I indulged in overt acts of superstition violating Article XXII. of 'the Church of England by law established.' A verger, with some colonial tourists, arrived during our devotions, but his voice was lowered out of regard for our feelings. Indeed, both he and the tourists adopted towards ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... inundate and drown the whole palace; and the same strength, which enabled you to bring over the enemy's fleet, might serve, upon the first discontent, to carry it back: that he had good reasons to think you were a Big-endian in your heart; and, as treason begins in the heart, before it appears in overt acts, so he accused you as a traitor on that account, and therefore insisted you should be put ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... the Lord's Supper between the Lutherans and the Reformed, even as the first conflict on this question was begun, not by Luther, but by his opponents, Carlstadt, Zwingli, and Oecolampadius. For the adoption of the Consensus Tigurinus in 1549, referred to above, cannot but be viewed as an overt act by which the Wittenberg Concord, signed 1536 by representative Lutheran and Reformed theologians, was publicly repudiated and abandoned by Calvin and his adherents, and whereby an anti-Lutheran propaganda on an essentially Zwinglian ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... politician, now that McGaw's chances were gone, to advise any departure, even by a hair-line, from the strict letter of the law. He was, moreover, too upright as a justice to advise any member of the defeated party to an overt act which might look like unfairness to any bidder concerned. He had had a talk, besides, with his brother over night, and they had accordingly determined to watch events. Should a way be found of rejecting on legal grounds ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was "little danger of an overt act of secession while General Taylor was in the presidential chair" was based on evidence then incomplete and is abandoned by more recent historians. It is moreover significant that, of the speeches cited by Rhodes, ridiculing the danger of secession, not one was delivered ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... smallest possible quantity of corporeal inconvenience. When luxuries become necessaries, insolvency is the best safety-valve to discharge the surplus dishonesty of the people, which, if pent up, would explode in dangerous overt acts of crime and violence; and it ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... a request; but remember, my son"—the Hegumen accompanied the warning with a menacious glance—"remember proselyting is the tangible overt act in heresy which the Church cannot overlook.... To proceed. The Princess' doctrines are damnatory of the Nicene; if allowed, they would convert the Church into a stumbling-block in the way of salvation. They cannot be tolerated.... I can no more—the night was too ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... be desired. For as it is a sin to betray one's country, to injure one's parents, to plunder temples, which are all sins of commission; so it is likewise a sin to be afraid, to grieve, to be under the dominion of lust, even if no overt act follows these feelings. But, as these are sins, not in their later periods and consequences, but at once from the first moment; so those actions which proceed from virtue are to be considered right ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... economic policy of China, or we may believe that under existing circumstances it represents the part of prudence for her. That makes no difference. Given the frequent occurrence of such economic invasions, with the backing of soldiers of the Imperial Army, with the overt aid of the Imperial Railway, and with the refusal of Imperial officials to intervene, there is clear evidence of the attitude and intention of the ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various |
