"Checkmate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... majesty!" said Gardiner as he entered, to the king, who just then was sitting with the queen at the chess-board. With frowning brow and compressed lips he looked over the game, which stood unfavorable for him, and threatened him with a speedy checkmate. ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... sufficiently powerful counteroffensive to strike doubt into the confident expectations of the armies of the Central Powers, then the strategical plan had reached a check, which might or might not be a checkmate, as the fortunes of war might determine. If, on the other hand, the stand made by the Allies at this point should prove ineffective, and if the counteroffensive should reveal that the German hosts had been able to establish impregnable defenses as they marched, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... was foreseen the fleet we usually have in Chinese waters became indispensable, not merely, as before, to protect our trade and our missionaries in China, but to checkmate the Spanish fleet, which otherwise held San Francisco and the whole Pacific coast at its mercy. When war was declared our fleet was necessarily ordered out of neutral ports. Then it had to go to Manila or go home. If it went home, it left the whole Pacific ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... my eyelids I constructed chess-boards and played both sides of long games through to checkmate. But when I had become expert at this visualized game of memory the exercise palled on me. Exercise it was, for there could be no real contest when the same player played both sides. I tried, and tried vainly, to split my personality into two personalities and to pit one against the other. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... fondly noted on his ample cuff) "the third dance from now," another "the second galop," and a third "the fourth round," she is so genuinely bewildered as to how many and what dances she is and is not engaged for that it becomes alike easy to checkmate proposals by the reply "engaged," and at any time in the course of the evening to give an immediate dance to any favored partner, in sheer hopelessness of remembering to whom, if at all, it has already ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... plotted in the West, Daniel Butterfield in the East personally laid out every detail of this great service, so as to checkmate the Southern design, were the Mississippi ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... just then found himself in presence of a most beautiful problem—white to move and checkmate in three moves. Mr. Emblem found the meshes of fate closing round him earlier than usual, and both bent their heads closely over ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... advance &c. (progress) 282. trump card; hit, stroke, score; lucky hit, fortunate hit, good hit, good stroke; direct hit, bull's eye; goal, point, touchdown; home run, homer, hole-in-one, grand slam; killing[make money], windfall bold stroke, master stroke; ten strike [U.S.]; coup de maitre[Fr], checkmate; half the battle, prize; profit &c. (acquisition) 775. continued success; good fortune &c. (prosperity) 734; time well spent. advantage over; upper hand, whip hand; ascendancy, mastery; expugnation|, conquest, victory, subdual[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... struck between the favourite, Simon and De Mouchy, and she heard me in a downcast silence. She seemed for the time to be utterly overcome by the victorious progress of Diane. Finally she thanked me listlessly, and I withdrew, determined, however, if even at the cost of my life, to checkmate the plotters. ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... own experience, so dearly bought in the garden, had shown him that he was utterly incapable of any successful resistance. He looked around him for the means of escape, and racked his brain for some expedient that would enable him to checkmate his unwieldy opponent; but he looked in vain, and thought in vain. There was nothing upon which to hang even the faintest ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... Sardinian troops immediately after the Pope's flight, when his subjects still recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned because this policy was opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in the ministry. It would have been a difficult role to play; Sardinia, while endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become its instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted proved to ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... to take two days' provisions. I had determined to push straight for the Bari islands, south of Regif hill. Should I be able to procure the supply of corn that I expected, it would at once checkmate the conspiracy. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... was certain that dastardly influences were at work, but thanks to the sterling loyalty of certain men from among the Dutch population, the plans of the conspirators were more or less known, and arrangements were made to checkmate them. All honour to these true patriots who took a big risk for ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... almost a checkmate, and for a time Polly quite shook with fury, but after a little she sufficiently recovered herself to reflect that the reins of authority had not yet been absolutely placed in her hands, and it might be wisest for her to ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... Larkin's, and the route to Chattanooga via Willa's Valley and the Chattanooga Creek, open for retreat; and if Johnston attempt to leave Dalton, Thomas will have force enough to push on through Dalton to Kingston, which will checkmate him. My own opinion is that Johnston will be compelled to hang to his railroad, the only possible avenue of supply to his army, estimated at from forty-five to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... enough to show a statue is intended, but not sufficiently to disclose the sculptor's purpose. One thing alone was definite and unalterable, to combat the introduction of the Inquisition and the extermination of the Protestant Netherlanders by aid from the Spanish soldiery. The first checkmate given Philip's nefarious scheme was when the States-General compelled his removal of the troops, though at this time William was still Catholic in religion and a loyal subject of Philip, being in no sense a revolutionist. He was easily ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... to take the law into his own hands, to thrash him publicly, to make Monte Carlo impossible for him. And then, suddenly, he remembered his duty. They were trusting him in Downing Street. Chance had put into his hands so many threads of this diabolical plot. It was for him to checkmate it. He was the only person who could checkmate it. This was no time for him to think of personal revenge, no time for him to brood over his own broken life. There was work still to be ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... satisfaction of triumphing over these crooks excited him. He continued to cover the walnut-shell while with his free hand he drew his own money from his pocket. He saw that the owner of the game was suffering extreme discomfort at this checkmate, ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... once, "That is the curtate or perihelion distance," which pleased him greatly, as it showed how accurate his description was. He was a chess-player, and, when travelling alone, he used to carry a book with diagrams of partially-played games, in which it is required to give checkmate in a fixed number of moves. He would study one of them, and then, shutting the book, play out the ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... the least attention to anything she says," cried Polly. "Tom and I didn't come here because we wanted to. We only came to checkmate her. I hoped I'd get the opportunity to say a word to you, and now she has given it to me. I just want to tell you that she threw Phil over in perfectly horrid way. She hasn't any right to lay the ghost of a claim to him, has ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... imagined that Mr. Chamberlain and his noble colleagues had anything but beds of roses whilst pursuing the diplomacy adopted to checkmate the Bond. They had to gain national support without divulging their own proceeding, and were at the same time reduced to a situation which imposed a spartan fortitude in concealing and repressing involuntary perturbation ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... senator's mind that California, though meaning all he said, had in full view the Gilmore-Harriet affair and that this was a move in that, a move to checkmate. His countermove had to be prompt; some one was coming up the nearest steps. "My dear sir, there is another trouble; serious, imminent, and almost sure to involve our friend Hugh in a vital mistake—Why, general, I thought you, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... tactics the enemy anticipated that he would adopt, and immediately made up his mind to checkmate them by following a totally different line of action; and accordingly he promptly signalled for his other two captains to come on board. This they did forthwith, and, taking them into the cabin of his ship, he briefly and hurriedly explained to them the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... to his engagement, he raised this immense sum, much of it being gathered in halfpence, and carried on horseback to the appointed trysting-place. But Lawers was better than his word, for soldiers surrounded the house, and made the Macgregors prisoners. The game ended with checkmate, when the duped freebooters paid the death penalty in Edinburgh. Colonel David R. Williamson, the present laird of Lawers, has been long noted for his public spirit and eminent services ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... judge, Lord Kames, two centuries later, who on sentencing to death a man with whom he had often played chess and very frequently been beaten, added after the solemn words of doom, "And noo, Matthew, ye'll admit that's checkmate for you." ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton |
