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Secret   /sˈikrət/  /sˈikrɪt/   Listen
Secret

noun
1.
Something that should remain hidden from others (especially information that is not to be passed on).  "He tried to keep his drinking a secret"
2.
Information known only to a special group.  Synonym: arcanum.
3.
Something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained.  Synonyms: closed book, enigma, mystery.  "It remains one of nature's secrets"



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"Secret" Quotes from Famous Books



... Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen, 1668, is a tragicomedy. In the preface he discusses a curious question, whether a poet can judge well of his own productions? and determines very justly, that, of the plan and disposition, and ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... I know it, my dear! Have I not watched you both? I am already keeping your secret, never fear. Tell me only what you please, but you need not tell me to have your good-will, for my heart is ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... one most competent to speak, but it was the profound religious experience of one who had broken out of the charmed circle, and whose intense earnestness melted all opposition. The converts she made needed no after-training. It was when you saw she was opening some secret record of her own experience, that the painful silence and breathless interest told the deep effect and lasting impression her words were making on minds, that afterward ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... such commandments—it was done in the age of Racine and in the age of Pope—but the wise critic knows that in literature the rules are less important than the "inner light." Hence, criticism at its highest is not a theorist's attempt to impose iron laws on writers: it is an attempt to capture the secret of that "inner light" and of those who possess it and to communicate it to others. It is also an attempt to define the conditions in which the "inner light" has most happily manifested itself, and to judge ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... moods of the Fraser River, the habits of its thronging tenants, as no other man has ever known them before or since. He knew every isle and inlet along the coast, every boulder, the sand-bars, the still pools, the temper of the tides. He knew the spawning grounds, the secret streams that fed the larger rivers, the outlets of rock-bound lakes, the turns and tricks of swirling rapids. He knew the haunts of bird and beast and fish and fowl, and was master of the arts and artifice that man ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... the cousin had had his way. Daniel did not like Mr. Hungerford. He had grown to tolerate him because Serena liked him so much, and declared him such a help in her literary and political labors, but the captain had found secret comfort in the belief that his daughter did not like him any better than he did. Now it looked as if she was beginning to like him, after all. And there was no doubt whatever ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... seated familiarly, at her ease, before his fire, in his kitchen, with that colour in her cheeks, that brightness in her eyes, and her hair in that disarray—it was unspeakable; his heart closed in a kind of delicious spasm. And the fragrance, subtle, secret, evasive, that hovered in the air near her, did not ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... grudge against them. "Look," he said, "how the bobbies spread themselves about to get good lodgings and good food, and then, after the drinking regulations, they dropped on the secret wine-sellers. You saw them lying in wait, with a corner of an eye on the shop-doors, to see if there weren't any poilus slipping quietly out, two-faced that they are, leering to left and to right ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... man; "some one approaches; we must not be seen whispering together like two plotters, for their suspicions would be certainly awakened; and I fear that my face or your eyes will reveal the secret. Quick, go upstairs, and endeavor, as soon as possible, to resume your calmness. I beg you not to compromise the honor of your name, which is in ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... an exile." At Norvin's exclamation of astonishment, he nodded." There's a long story behind it which you could not appreciate without knowing my father and the character of our Sicilian people, for, after all, Sicilian character constitutes La Mafia. It is no sect, no cult, no secret body of assassins, highwaymen, and robbers, as you foreigners imagine; it is a national hatred of authority, an individual expression of superiority to ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... farewell of the Moor Zanche unworthy. It is impossible to describe the "whirl of spirits" (as the good old-fashioned phrase has it) into which the reading of this play sets the reader, except by saying that the cause of that whirl is the secret of the best Elizabethan writers, and that it is nowhere, out of Shakespere, better exemplified than in the scene partly extracted from Middleton, and in such passages of Vittoria ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... to fall lower than the other, so that it over-lapped and doubled back upon itself in a broad fold. Here it hung for probably half an hour, slowly swinging to and fro, as if moved by a gentle wind. What new spectacle was in secret preparation behind it we did not learn, for it was hauled up so bunglingly that the whole arch broke and fell in, leaving merely a pile of luminous ruins under the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... necessary to guard bridges, residences of Ministers, and Government offices. But instead of recalling Turkish troops from Galicia to do this, they kept them there in the manner of hostages, mixed up in German regiments, and sent picked bodies of German troops to Constantinople. Fresh corps of secret police have also been formed to suppress popular manifestations. They are allowed to 'remove' suspects by any means they choose, quite in the old style of bag and Bosporus, but the organisation of them is German. And well ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... elections to a National Assembly were held; although only 75 of 150 members of the Transitional National Assembly were elected, the constitution stipulates that once past the transition stage, all members of the National Assembly will be elected by secret ballot of all eligible voters; National Assembly elections scheduled for December ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... others, was taken captive by the British Indians and brought to fort Niagara, where they were kept for some time, and urged to take up arms and fight against the revolutionists. Finally, this celebrated sachem, Longboard, held a secret council among the captives, and instructed them all to take arms and advance with the British Indians, and use their influence to lead them to a place where they might be captured, and they with the rest, which they successfully effected, and were re-captured by ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... caverns and winding passages leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within this secret nursery were deposited near an hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, and enveloped in a tough skin, but too lately excluded to contain any rudiments of young, being full of a viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within the influence ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... in me. But I feel an interest in you, as branches of the same vine from whose root I daily draw the principle of spiritual vitality—Yes! Sisters in Christ I feel an interest in you, and often has the secret prayer arisen on your behalf, Lord "open thou their eyes that they may see wondrous things out of thy Law"—It is then, because I do feel and do pray for you, that I thus address you upon a subject about which of all others, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... a minit before you go," said Jim, clumsily evading a direct reply. Clarence hesitated a moment, and then yielded. For an equal moment Jim Hooker was torn between secret jealousy of his old comrade's graces and a desire to present them as familiar associations of his own. But ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... prisoners which you will see sent into captivity across the Rhine! What has the government to lean on—a government discredited, impotent, beaten! What in the world can prevent a change, an uprising, a revolution? Why, even if there were no such thing as the Internationale and its secret Central Committee—to which I have the honor to belong"—and here his sneer was frightful—"I tell you that before a conquering German army had recrossed the Rhine this land of chattering apes would be tearing one another for very want ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... because these had declared against their will. This document was a matter of common talk and notoriety, not only because it was declared by many of the townspeople, who had heard it from those who had been present at the meeting (and as there were so many of them it could not be kept secret); but also, as soon as it was requested, the archbishop told the father rector, Luis de Pedrasa, that he would not give up such a paper, even if he were deprived of the archbishopric; and father Fray Pedro de Herrera, his procurator, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... said I. "Of course." I had picked up the original cipher message and was bending my brows over it. "It's pretty maddening to think that an important secret may lie here on this slip of paper, and that it is beyond human power to ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... grain, and into store conveyd: Part hidd'n veins diggd up (nor hath this Earth Entrails unlike) of Mineral and Stone, Whereof to found thir Engins and thir Balls Of missive ruin; part incentive reed Provide, pernicious with one touch to fire. 520 So all ere day spring, under conscious Night Secret they finish'd, and in order set, With silent circumspection unespi'd. Now when fair Morn Orient in Heav'n appeerd Up rose the Victor Angels, and to Arms The matin Trumpet Sung: in Arms they stood Of Golden Panoplie, refulgent Host, Soon banded; others from the dawning Hills ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... Nick Ribsam who made the proposal; the others were inclined to hold back, but the plucky little fellow insisted, and it was agreed that Bowser's secret should be learned by keeping him company to the ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... good a girl in the kitchen or about the house as was her sister; but she was bright in the parlour, and if that motherly heart could have been made to give out its inmost secret— which however, it could not have been made to give out in any way painful to dear Hetta—perhaps it might have been found that Susan was loved with the closest love. She was taller than her sister, and lighter; her eyes were blue as were her mother's; her hair was ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope

... for the charge brought against me by certain ignoramuses—that I have never written a moral tale, or, in more precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined to bring me out, and develop my morals:—that is the secret. By and by the "North American Quarterly Humdrum" will make them ashamed of their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution—by way of mitigating the accusations against me—I offer the sad history appended,—a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... by, as he approached manhood, he began speaking in the rude gatherings of the neighborhood, and so laid the foundation of that art of persuading his fellow-men which was one rich result of his education, and one great secret of his ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... that graceful, clinging vine is," she exclaimed, ignoring his retort and pointing up to a vine covered tree, while Steve thrust back into the secret place of his heart all the cherished memories which the old wood held for him, realizing decidedly that Nancy was no longer a shy, timid little girl ready to place her hand in his, but a young woman who would ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... 'buildings' and 'quarries'. Many works to which you can hardly deny the character of works of genius may be likened to elegant and splendid edifices, the structure of which you cannot but admire, although the secret of their architecture you do not understand, and although from them you neither do nor can extract a single stone. They stand up before the view, dazzling ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... answered the jackal. 'You talk so much that you would be sure to confide the secret to somebody, and then we should have had our trouble for nothing, besides running the risk of our necks being broken by the farmer. I can see that he is getting disheartened, and very soon he will give up the search. Have patience ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... to do. I could not look Her Highness in the face. But I too must go to Vienna. I am not versed in politics, but the secret that we share is terrible. ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... a perfect success," the other ran on—"perfect. How did you think mine looked? I'll tell you a compliment I got for you, if you'll tell me one you got for me. If not, I'll save it up in my secret breast till you're ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... mind and find out why he had told the lie. Of course it was known that when in London much of his business was done at Tattersall's. But the horsey man is generally on the alert to take care that no secret of his trade escapes from him unawares. And it may be that he was thus ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... thinking in her secret heart, over and over. How could she help it? And Joy, perhaps—possibly—Joy was thinking the same thing, with a spice of pleasure in ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... the ocean; the stars, and the unknown in space; by all those things which are most powerful known to me, and by those which exist, but of which I have no idea whatever, I pray. Further, by my own soul, that secret existence which above all other things bears the nearest resemblance to the ideal of spirit, infinitely nearer than earth, sun, or star. Speaking by an inclination towards, not in words, my soul prays that I may have something from each of these, ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... is so, and you shall answer that you have indisputable proof, and such proof you may take my word to be, that the young man is not in sympathy with the cause of the Metis, and that he is actually a secret and paid agent of the Canadian Government. That your course may seem more reasonable, and appear to be the outcome of your own inclination, you will on such occasions be able to say that you are under obligation to him for his readiness and gallantry—always ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... music, and gossip together, and I am rather out of it. Of course, I speak German, but not very fluently. There are two or three uncommonly smart women who speak English as well as you do, and their children have English names; but all the same, they hate us in their secret hearts and often give me a nasty scratch; so I needn't tell you that I don't open my heart to them. The English live in another direction—down the Halpin Road, or out by the Royal lakes, and I have really grown ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... old Izan rode up the castle mount one day on a borrowed donkey. "Howel he loaned it to me," she explained dryly. "Seems like he has less fear of witches since little Gwillym began to fat up. I have secret things to speak of to my lord, Master Roger. Will ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... Francis, notwithstanding his counsellors, hesitated about taking the first step; but at length, yielding to the solicitations of England and the secret intrigues of Russia, and, above all, seduced by the subsidies of Great Britain, Austria declared hostilities, not at first against France, but against her allies of the Confederation of the Rhine. On the 9th of April Prince Charles, who was appointed commander-in-chief ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... loathe eavesdropping and anything that savours of underhand work, but what are we to do? Something is going wrong among the juniors, and for the sake of the school we've got to put it right if we possibly can. It's no use asking them their sweet secret, for they wouldn't tell us; and I'm afraid setting the monitresses on the track would only make things worse. If we can find out what they're doing, then we shall know our ground. I'm a Torch-bearer and you're a Fire-maker, and we must appeal to them ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... knowledge. Some of the fundamental propositions in the exact sciences of physics and chemistry are only hypotheses, that have undergone extensive modification in recent years. Political opinions are subject to constant change. Sixty years ago the secret ballot was feared as one of the worst of evils, lest voters might then wreak awful vengeance upon those in authority; now its ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... to Spain were known; and, as I afterwards learned, it was absurdly enough imagined, that Russia had designs upon Chili, and that these formed the secret motive of our visit. Freire, who had already distinguished himself as a general, is a stately-looking man, at that time about forty-five years of age, and of a very agreeable exterior; he was born in Talcaguana, of very poor parents, and, without ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... profession of guide I don't know, unless it was on account of some natural proclivity for an easy life. A grave, lean, saturnine man was Dominico—something of a cross between Machiavelli and Paganini. If he knew any thing about the wonders and curiosities of Moscow he kept it a profound secret. It was only by the most rigid inquiry and an adroit system of cross-examination that I could get any thing out of him, and then his information was vague and laconic, sometimes a little sarcastic, but never beyond what I knew myself. Yet he was polite, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... above the brutal throng. Nowhere does that spiritual emotion find deeper expression than in the "Visitation." The passion of thanksgiving, the poignancy of mother-love, throb through the two women, who have been travelling towards one another, with a great secret between them, and who at length reach the haven of each other's love and knowledge. Here, too, the dying light, the waving tree, the obliteration of form, and the feeling of mystery make a deep appeal to the sensuous apprehension. We find it again and again; the great trees ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... vices of their neighbours in the desert, and in cruelty surpass them, and the law of the strongest is alone respected. I was ill-treated by the aga, the representative of the Turkish Government, until I produced the firmans which I had concealed in a secret pocket, given me by Mohammed Aly, the viceroy of Egypt, and by Ibrahim Pasha, his son. When the aga saw these with their handsome seals, he regarded me as a great personage; but I refused to take up my abode in his house, which hospitality he offered, and continued ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... the spread of intemperance by bringing a beerhouse, so to say, to everybody's door. In nearly every street there are several such beerhouses, and among two or three neighbouring houses in the country one is sure to be a jerry shop. Besides these, there are hush- shops in multitudes, i.e., secret drinking-places which are not licensed, and quite as many secret distilleries which produce great quantities of spirits in retired spots, rarely visited by the police, in the great cities. Gaskell estimates these secret distilleries in Manchester alone at more ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... some profound monition of nature, which, in proportion as man's upward evolution progresses, he becomes capable of apprehending? Why this impassioned exaltation by him of his tender companion? What is the secret spring that makes her the ceaseless fountain of lofty inspiration she is to him? What is the hint of divinity in her gentle mien that brings him to his knees? Who is this goddess veiled in woman whom men instinctively reverence yet ...
— A Positive Romance - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... reasons existed well calculated to influence Tracy's action. William Wirt had carried only Vermont, and Henry Clay had received but forty-nine out of two hundred and sixty-five electoral votes. Anti-Masonry had plainly run its course. It aroused a strong public sentiment against secret societies, until most of the lodges in western New York had surrendered their charters; but it signally failed to perpetuate its hold upon the masses. The surrendered charters were soon reissued, and the institution itself became ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... blood upon it, that shall be the sign of your new worship. See how it points to the sky. Let us call it the tree of the Christ-child. Take it up and carry it to the chieftain's hall. You shall go no more into the shadows of the forest to keep your feasts with secret rites of shame. You shall keep them at home, with laughter and song and rites of love. The thunder-oak has fallen, and I think the day is coming when there shall not be a home in all Germany where the children are not gathered around the green fir-tree ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke

... a FACT, and one that may not be altogether devoid of significance, that this number SEVEN seems to have been the mystic number of many of the nations of antiquity. It has even reached our times as such, being used as symbol[TN-26] by several of the secret societies existing among us. ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon

... of her! A mild and peaceable tenderness of which he had never thought himself capable welled up from his and heart.... Wide gardens of Paradise seemed to open, gardens with secret grottos and shady corners. And upon one of the palm-trees there sat Joko—amiable ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... himself there, the Emperor bought his house in the rue d'Anjou Saint Honore, paying for it eight hundred thousand francs, much more than it was worth, and then he gave it to Bernadotte, who did not scruple to accept it. The sum was paid to Moreau out of the secret fund of the police before he left for Cadiz. Josephine's urgent solicitations saved the life of the Duke Armand de Polignac, whose death-sentence was commuted to four years' imprisonment before being transported. Madame Murat secured a modification of the sentence of the Marquis de Riviere; ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... string together his incidents with some skill, and he makes use of his learning in the accepted fashion of his day.[624] The poem is deluged with proper names and learned aetiology, though he has no conception of that magical use of proper names and legendary allusions which is the secret of the masters of ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... know? That I cannot see by your face that there is something? I have studied it quite long enough to understand it. Come, Maurice. The past is the past—you have decided that—and it is a merely curious mood that leads me to ask you the secret of the great crime that has separated us. My crime, ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... one occasion, and he observed that "Elia," like Dickens, was a small and delicate eater. With faltering voice he told me of Lamb's "givings away" to needy, impoverished friends whose necessities were yet greater than his own. His secret charities were constant and unfailing, and no one ever suffered hunger when he was by. He could not endure to see a fellow-creature in want if he had the means to feed him. Thinking, from a depression of spirits which Procter in his young ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... in committee, or reported unfavorably, or so amended as to change their meaning entirely, merely at the will of the party leaders, or of "bosses" and interests outside of the legislature. A large part of the work of the committees is carried on in secret. Although "hearings" may be held at which citizens may present arguments for and against proposed measures, these may be mere matters of form. Influential interests may maintain a lobby at the legislature, which means that they are represented there by agents who seek to influence ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... only popped it in to keep it safe until she could return it. Charley broke out. "As if I did not know better than that! Didn't you make him give you that parasol and promise him your photo? Ay, and give it him in return? You thought he would keep your secret, I suppose, but he tells everything, like a donkey as he is, to Bertie Elwood, and Bertie and I have such fun over him. And now, because you are jealous of poor Metelill, and think Aunt Charlotte may take a fancy to you instead of her, you are sticking his photo into her ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of his muse have attracted less attention, have been less fully understood, than his poems of more tender coloring. The personal character of Chopin had something to do with this general misconception. Kind, courteous, and affable, of tranquil and almost joyous manners, he would not suffer the secret convulsions which agitated him to be ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... village, and among them one referred to in an early chapter of this narrative. All the unaccountable looks and tastes and ways of Elsie came back to her in the light of an ante-natal impression which had mingled an alien element in her nature. She knew the secret of the fascination which looked out of her cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance of the strange repulsion which she felt in her own intimate consciousness underlying the inexplicable attraction which drew her towards the young girl in spite of this repugnance. She began ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... on this object and that, and occasionally running back into some secret nook where he had hidden his supply of nuts. With one of these in his paw he would jump up on something, crack it in his powerful small jaws, and look very wise and serious as he picked out the meats ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. Speak, thou vast and venerable head, muttered Ahab, which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. .. that head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... and confused. He had supposed the whole affair to be, so far, a secret between himself and ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... others, were the questions asked at every meeting: "What known sin have you committed since our last meeting? What temptations have you met with? How were you delivered? What have you thought, said, or done of which you doubt whether it be sin or not? Have you nothing you desire to keep secret?" ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... the privy council. In March 1718 he became chancellor of the exchequer. The proposal of the South Sea Company to pay off the national debt was strenuously supported by Aislabie, and finally accepted in an amended form by the House of Commons. After the collapse of that company a secret committee of inquiry was appointed by the Commons, and Aislabie, who had in the meantime resigned the seals of his office, was declared guilty of having encouraged and promoted the South Sea scheme with ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Pompadour's character, which was one of extreme timidity, than to engage in such an adventure. But her curiosity was raised to the highest pitch, and, moreover, everything was so well arranged that there was not the slightest risk. Madame had let M. de Gontaut, and her valet de chambre, into the secret. The latter had hired two rooms for his niece, who was then ill, at Versailles, near Madame's hotel. We went out in the evening, followed by the valet de chambre, who was a safe man, and by the Duke, all on foot. We had not, at farthest, above ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... pseudo-Shakespearian plays from William the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth. When busy with 'Vortigern,' he was detected by a friend of his own age, who pounced on him while he was at work, as Lasus pounced on Onomacritus. The discoverer, however, consented to "stand in" with Ireland, and did not divulge his secret. At last, after the fiasco of 'Vortigern,' suspicion waxed so strong, and disagreeable inquiries for the anonymous benefactor were so numerous, that Ireland fled from his father's house. He confessed all, and, according to his ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... The accession made to his family being known, several of his neighbors came in to inquire after the health of his wife and infant; and as Art, when left to his own guidance, had never been remarkable for keeping a secret, he made no scruple of telling them that he had got drunk the night before, and was, of course, quite out of order that morning. Among the rest, the first to come in was little Toal Finnigan, who, in ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... and gone and forgotten aforetime. And I, the Aryan master in old Egypt, have myself builded my two burial places—the one a false and mighty pyramid to which a generation of slaves could attest; the other humble, meagre, secret, rock- hewn in a desert valley by slaves who died immediately their work was done. . . . And I wonder me here in Folsom, while democracy dreams its enchantments o'er the twentieth century world, whether ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... idea of the terrain, save that it is a very undulating country of abrupt hills and dales. It is this peculiarity which has made the war on this front different to any other, more picturesque and more secret. In front the fighting lines are half in the clay soil, half behind the shelter of fallen trunks. Between the two the main bulk of the soldiers live like animals of the woodlands, burrowing on the hillsides and among the roots of the trees. ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... heard among the ruling classes make the sway of the police absolute and therefore tyrannical—she had not lived there without getting something of that dread and horror of the police which to people of the upper classes seems childish or evidence of secret criminal hankerings. And this nervousness had latterly been increased to terror by what she had learned from her fellow-outcasts—the hideous tales of oppression, of robbery, of bodily and moral degradation. But all this ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... stupid! There's another class, men whose imagination forewarns them of dangers and whose mental training, technical equipment and sheer manual dexterity enable them to attack a formidable proposition like a modern safe—by way of illustration—and force its secret. They're the successful criminals, like myself—but they're no less stupid, no less failures, than the other ninety-nine in our every hundred, because they never stop to think. It never occurs to them that the same intelligence, applied to any one of the ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... not remain. I have read that the fundamental principle underlying the written laws referred to was that: "The people should obey the law, but should not know the law." The code was accordingly a secret one. I have not space, nor indeed have I any inclination, to deal with what is, after all, an academical question as to the law prevalent in Japan prior to the Revolution. It was probably for the most part, just as in other countries when feudalism ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... one's own set—like foul sewers underneath the pavements! The succession of deceased generations, of imbeciles, epileptics, paralytics! The innocent children born to a life-time of torment; the women hiding their secret agonies from the world! Sometimes women went all through life without knowing the truth about themselves. There was poor Mrs. Valens, for example, who reclined all day upon the gallery of one of the most beautiful homes in the county, and showed her friends the palms of her hands, ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... retain something of their ancient organization we find this sacred knowledge committed to the keeping of various secret societies, each of which has its peculiar ritual with regular initiation and degrees of advancement. From this analogy we may reasonably conclude that such was formerly the case with the Cherokees also, but by the breaking down of old ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... shame at having confessed her attachment, and a fear that her father would discover it. With Dallas, consideration for the feelings of her sister made her shrink from mentioning Lounsbury. Yet there was another reason, and one no less delicate—she, as well, had a secret ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... innocence, until at last Al-muli commenced to think that there must be some secret entrance ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... young people could not fail to know that there was a secret feeling of approval in the good woman's breast. After a few miles' travel the reluctant final parting came. We could not then know that this loved parent would lay down her life a few years later in a heroic attempt to follow the wanderers ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... could embarrass Stormont by selling the secret he had been cheated of to somebody else. It was amusing to think of two parties looking for the vein; the difficulty was that he did not know anybody likely to be a buyer. But he could wait, since it looked as if he had put Stormont off the track, and by and by he might ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... saffron-hued residents of Four-and-a-half Street, but its bland proprietor was regarded by the authorities as a particularly inoffensive and law-abiding specimen—his high standing at Bethany proving a very strong card. He was also the head of a powerful secret society, or 'tong,' and wielded a tremendous influence in the Washington settlement, so his countrymen dared not betray him. There was another, and in its way an equally potent reason why the Chinaman played so well the role of convert. He had fallen desperately in love with Miss Cragiemuir, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... rival of her own daughter. The older woman | |knew many tricks with which the daughter was | |unacquainted, and in the end she managed to "bag" | |the game. | | | |The marriage, which took place in Chicago, was kept | |a secret even after the couple returned home, and it| |was not until young Bates told the whole story to | |his mamma a few days ago that his family had an | |inkling of the true state of affairs. Now the suit | |has ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... The secret ambition of Mr. Pendennis had always been to be a gentleman. By prudence and economy, his income was largely increased, and finally he sold his business for a handsome sum, and retired forever from handling of the mortar and pestle, having purchased as ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... is. We are quite at liberty to suppose, even if we were not bound to suppose, that after all Blougram's defence is merely or partly ironical, and that he is not the contemptible creature he would be if we took him quite seriously. It is no secret that Blougram himself is, in the main, modelled after and meant for Cardinal Wiseman, who, it is said, was the writer of a good-humoured review of the poem in the Catholic journal, The Rambler (January, 1856). The supple, nervous strength and swiftness ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... simultaneous massacre. They feigned toleration and reconciliation. The court of Paris invited all the leading Protestants of the kingdom to the metropolis to celebrate the nuptials of Henry, the young King of Navarre, with Margaret, sister of Charles IX., the reigning monarch. Secret orders were dispatched all over the kingdom, for the conspirators, secretly armed, at a given signal, by midnight, to rise upon the Protestants, men, women and children, and utterly exterminate them. "Let not one remain alive," said ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... that's not to be talked about, you know! Besides, it was her son, not her husband, that I wrote about. I only found out about the husband a day or two ago. Only you must be very careful, dearest, and remember it's a dead secret. I promise not to tell things, and then of course I forget, when it's you. Old Mrs. Picture would quite understand, though, if I ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... not the least suspicion what the parents were saying, he felt on coming away from the Shtcherbatskys' that the secret spiritual bond which existed between him and Kitty had grown so much stronger that evening that some step must be taken. But what step could and ought to be taken ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... alone," thought he, "and yet if I take any one into my secret, I'll have to share those eggs. That won't do at all, because I want them myself. I found them, and I ought to have them." He quite forgot or overlooked the fact that those eggs really belonged to Hooty and Mrs. Hooty ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess

... his eyes for a single instant, and looked away. She was burning and throbbing from head to foot. She could find naught to say in answer; no word wherewith to turn his deliberate sentence into a jest. Perhaps in her secret heart she did not desire to do so, for a voice within her, a voice long stifled, cried out that she had met her mate. And, since surrender was inevitable, why should she seek to ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... searched in vain for the goats. Not a trace of them was to be seen; so, Fritz and Eric had finally to come to the conclusion that the islanders—along with their enemy, as they now looked upon him, Nat Slater—had paid another secret visit to the plateau and destroyed the animals. They believed the Tristaners did this with the object of expediting their departure from Inaccessible Island, where there could be no doubt they must have spoiled their sealing, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Colla was talking, an extraordinary interest in the sight of all mathematical students; wherefore when Cardan heard the report that Antonio Maria Fiore, Ferreo's pupil, had been entrusted by his master with the secret of this new process, and was about to hold a public disputation at Venice with Niccolo Tartaglia, a mathematician of considerable repute, he fancied that possibly there would be game about well ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... He studied the chart and soon made out their position. Jupiter was a hundred million miles behind them and they were heading almost due sunward. The automatic control mechanism was not functioning. Evidently Mado had kept this a secret—and for a purpose. He wished he could talk with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... before I had been in Constantinople. I was disheartened and utterly disgusted. All the way from the home office of the United States Secret Service in Washington I had trailed my man, only to lose him. On steamships, by railway, airplane and motor we had traveled—always with my quarry just one tantalizing jump ahead of me—and in Constantinople ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby

... organizing an army, gathering malcontents, sending emissaries primed with patriotic lies to the people, and with promises of plunder to the wild llaneros. Even a Monterist press had come into existence, speaking oracularly of the secret promises of support given by "our great sister Republic of the North" against the sinister land-grabbing designs of European powers, cursing in every issue the "miserable Ribiera," who had plotted to ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... distinct shape, they largely displaced ghosts as dispensers of knowledge of the future, and these latter, standing outside of and in rivalry with the circle of State deities, could be approached only in secret—necromancy became illicit and its influence was crippled. And when, finally, in the earlier centuries of our era, the old gods disappeared, the rise of monotheistic belief was accompanied by a transformation of the conception of the future of the soul; it was to be no longer ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... I must do myself the justice to add that my passion inconvenienced nobody. I would no more have spoken of it than of my imaginary command of the army of the Potomac. The pleasures which my love afforded me could give umbrage to no one. Yet I am convinced that Ellen read my secret. Not that she ever said a word to me on the subject; no look or syllable of hers could have made me suspect that she had guessed ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... been brought round from Sicily; for none of our letters or papers said a word about any large force having sailed from England. Not a soul seemed to know anything about it. I know a man on Crawford's staff, and he assured me that none of them were in the secret. ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... might fraudulently unearth if he were left to himself. A more absurd sight than Mr Boffin in his mental irritation trotting very nimbly, and Mr Wegg hopping after him with great exertion, eager to watch the slightest turn of an eyelash, lest it should indicate a spot rich with some secret, assuredly had never been seen in the shadow of the Mounds. Mr Wegg was much distressed when the quarter of an hour expired, and came hopping ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... secrets in the management of bees, and who promised, among other things, to impart to him an infallible remedy against the bee-moth. On the receipt of the money, he very gravely told him that the secret of keeping the moth out of the hive, was to keep the bees strong and vigorous! A truer declaration he could not have made, but I believe that the bee-keeper felt, notwithstanding, that he had been imposed upon, as outrageously, as a poor man would ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... to say that he knew too much already, and that she did not wish him to know more. He did not repeat the question, but Ellen felt that her secret was no longer entirely ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... His magnetism, her husband's magnetism, that vast reservoir upon which floated the souls of many, like tiny lamps set adrift upon the bosom of the Ganges by pious Mohammedan widows, must it ever be free to all but herself? Must she, who worshipped at his secret shrine, share her adoration, her idol, with the first sentimental school girl? It was revolting. She would bear with it no longer. The ride through the park cooled her blood and eased her headache. Just to be nearer to him; that might set her throbbing nerves at rest. As if she had been ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... mind to have mercy on the lacerated body, but without effect. His own wayward heart gave him the key to read the cipher of this man's life. "A noble nature ruined," said he to himself. "What is the secret of his history?" ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... shoulders leaning against the wall. He was always in clogs and mittens; at stated intervals he spat upon the pavement, his sea-blue eyes following the passers-by with an unfathomable expression. The policeman, who was aggressively pacing up and down his beat, glanced at him in secret every time he passed him, as much as to say, "Shan't we ever manage to catch the rogue? Why doesn't he ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... found that several tribes in Africa and in America worship the moon, and not the sun; a great number worship both; but no tribes are known to adore the sun, and not the moon. For the periodicity of the sun is still in part a secret; but that of the moon is modestly apparent, perpetually influential. On her depend the tides; and she is Selene, mother of Herse, bringer of the dews that recurrently irrigate lands where rain is rare. More than any other companion of earth is she the Measurer. ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell

... like the Oriental, has the true secret for making this food a palatable article of diet. The old mammy in New Orleans always tells her children that, of course, le riz must be thoroughly washed and she always insists that the grains be cleansed in four waters—two warm and two cold—and then it ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson

... extended little beyond the external honors paid to the gods of their country and the attendance upon sacrifices and processions. The sacred ceremonies were magnificent and public, except that the votaries of Bacchus and Ceres were indulged in their secret mysteries. The festivals were observed with every circumstance of pomp and splendor to charm the eye and please the imagination. A sacrifice was a feast attended with gayety and even licentiousness. Every temple was the resort of the idle ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various

... only to give them an opportunity of enjoying, at leisure, the conveniencies and necessaries of life; or, in the language of Cato, teach them to value their houses, their villas, their statues, and their pictures, at a higher rate than they do the republic. They may be found to grow tired in secret of a free constitution, of which they never cease to boast in their conversation, and which they always neglect in ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... Sarmiento's work for the information it affords of Peru under the Incas, it is but little known, has been rarely consulted by historians, and still remains among the unpublished manuscripts which lie, like uncoined bullion, in the secret ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... have entered into the obtuse heads of those officers lately promoted from the ranks. Seeing that the intercourse of different towns with each other and with the coast and abroad has been so long broken up, I cannot fathom the secret of how the population lives. The troops arrive in a village one day and levy contributions, the guerrilleros arrive the next and do the same; the fields must be neglected, trade must droop, yet nobody apparently wants food. True, the land is ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... Persons may save well towards half in half, and have their Beer and Ale strong, fine and aged at their own Discretion: A satisfaction that is of no small weight, and the rather since I have now made known a Method of Brewing a Quantity of Malt with a little Copper and a few Tubs, a Secret that has long wanted Publication; for now a Person may Brew in a little Room, and that very safely by keeping his Wort from Foxing, as I have already explained, which by many has been thought impossible heretofore; and this Direction is the more ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous

... not vouchsafed him a word of thanks nor yet one of those milder glances which reward an effort made; and she remained the same as on the first day, the mysterious creature whose secret soul he had never understood, and upon whom not even the storm of terrible events had ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... habit of offering his services to gentlemen with mustaches and orders of merit; in his master's office he was constantly occupied with the means and affairs of the nobility. How intimately he knew old Ehrenthal's secret desire to become the possessor of a certain estate! And how came it that in the midst of his annoyance with Hippus, the thought of his schoolfellow Anton suddenly flashed across him, and of the day when he had walked with him last? That very ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... body through the medium of the air. Its virtues have been extolled by David Urquhart and other eminent authorities on the bath. "There is a difference," says Mr. Urquhart, "between radiating and transmitted caloric.... I cannot pretend to treat of this great secret of nature; to work out this problem a Liebig is required. This I can say, that such heat is more endurable than common heat. There is a liveliness about it which transmitted heat lacks. You are conscious of an electrical action. It is ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop

... It was as if a voice spoke suddenly in her soul, asking a quiet question. Could she defy him and still hide her secret? Would not the steady eyes read her through and through the instant that her will resisted his? Would he not know in a moment? Was it not even possible that he had begun already ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... dislike him more and more, in so much that, like others of his nature and calling, he made sore and secret complaints of his parishioners to his mitred master; representing, for aught I ken to the contrary, that, instead of believing the Gospel according to Charles Stuart, we preferred that of certain four persons, called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, of whom, it may be doubted, if he, poor man, knew ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... meal. He could hardly rouse himself to talk to Carrie and when she turned to Mordaunt, the latter's careless smile as he began to joke moved him to almost uncontrollable rage. Dick was in a black mood, for the secret he carried had worn his nerves, and he did not like Evelyn's writing to Lance. He was resolved that his sister should have nothing to do with the fellow. When dinner was over he said to Mordaunt, "I'd like to see the gun ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss

... no purpose, for, true to the old axiom that more haste means less speed, it had to stop and go over the message again, this time sufficiently slow for novices to understand. What it said is a State secret. It is rumoured, however, that several officers were "mentioned in dispatches" for the part they played in this local action, caused by mistaken identity, but alas! their skill and bravery remained unrewarded ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... where the rooms were swept every night as regular as clockwork, and the floors sanded, and the pots and pans scoured, and all while the maids slept. They put it down to the piskies; but we know better, miss, and now we've got the secret between us we can lie easy in our beds, and if we hear anything, say "God bless the child!" and go ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... could only be excused by a certain knowledge of danger—to awake a gentleman's family at such an hour, even for the purpose of warning them. Moreover, should my advice prove fruitless, I reflected that my visit—which could not be made in secret—might aid in bringing about the very danger I apprehended. A circumstance so extraordinary could not fail to be noticed ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... of April there remained with the Emperor, of all the great personages who usually surrounded him, only the grand marshal of the palace and Count Drouot. The destination reserved for the Emperor, and the fact that he had accepted it, was not long a secret in the palace. On the 16th we witnessed the arrival of the commissioners of the allies deputed to accompany his Majesty to the place of his embarkment for the Island of Elba. These were Count Schuwaloff, aide-de-camp of the Emperor Alexander from ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton



Words linked to "Secret" :   classified, esoteric, qabalah, perplexity, cabala, watchword, cabbalah, countersign, password, information, esoterica, info, kabala, concealed, kabbala, inward, word, unacknowledged, kabbalah, confidence, cabbala, covert, parole, qabala



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