"Perfidy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unfeeling barbarity, is more than we can bear. And though we might have filled Lombardy with complaints and charges against this city, and spread the story of our misfortunes over the whole of Italy, we did not wish to slander so just and pious a republic, with the baseness and perfidy of one wicked citizen, whose cruelty and avarice, had we known them before our ruin was complete, we should have endeavored to satiate (though indeed they are insatiable), and with one-half of our property have saved the rest. But the opportunity is past; we ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... doubt fresh sins for which she needed forgiveness, she took my mother from her dungeon, assumed the liveliest indignation at this horrible treatment, about which she appeared to have known nothing, wiped her tears, and by an abominable refinement of perfidy received the thanks of the victim whom ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the transition is easy to the north. The border-land of Breffni, whose chief was the first of the native nobles that perished by Norman perfidy, was at the beginning of the century swayed by Ulgarg O'Rourke. Of Ulgarg we know little, save that in the year 1231 he "died on his way to the river Jordan"—a not uncommon pilgrimage with the Irish of those days. Nial, son of Congal, succeeded, and about the middle of the century ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... small boat which they had there, left the river, and went to our fort, giving news of the disaster just as Captain Lazaro de Torres arrived. With the help that had just come to them, they determined to take vengeance for that perfidy. The commandant sent the said captain, Lazaro de Torres, with one of the galleys which they had there, accompanied by one hundred infantrymen. They entered the river of Tanchuy, which is very beautiful, and densely inhabited by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes, established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which they meditated. Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Emperor, whose eyes were at last opened to the perfidy of his friend, would before long allow himself to be deceived more shamefully still by the very man whose ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... Germain, which has so often been charged on Catherine as an act of perfidy, was rather an imperative necessity, if respite were to be had from the misery into which the land had fallen. Its conditions were honourably carried out, and Catholic excesses were impartially and severely repressed. Charles IX., who was now twenty years of age and ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... is a mockery. I am what one man's perfidy has made; I may yet learn to be worthy of another ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... unblushing traitor! Florian has arrived, arrived in safety: every way I have been betrayed; and now to screen your perfidy from punishment, you dare insult my ear with forgeries too monstrous ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... cared little, he was equally ready to save his party by putting an end to it with the loss of all that had been at stake. Franklin, however, decisively cut off that hope. America, he assured Hartley, would not forfeit the world's good opinion by "such perfidy;" and in the incredible event of Congress instructing its commissioners to treat upon "such ignominious terms," he himself at least "would certainly refuse to act." So Digges, whom Franklin described as "the greatest villain I ever met with," carried back no comfort from secret, tentative ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... an outline of that incomparable perfidy, which, after a career of seeming success, is brought to a close. Of a fallen man I would say nothing; but, for the sake of Humanity, Louis Napoleon should be exposed. He was of evil example, extending with his influence. To measure the vastness of this detriment is impossible. In sacrificing ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... of putting me to the fire ordeal," answered Harry; "but I had a word to say against that, as you may see. Xaxaguana, one of the chief conspirators, has already paid the penalty of his perfidy, and lies there dead." ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... amounting to a defect, he certainly carried his good qualities to their extreme limits. Obstinately faithful to his pledged word, devoted to the death, confiding to blindness, good almost to a complete forgetfulness of himself, he was inflexible towards ingratitude, falsehood, or perfidy. He would have felt no compunction to sacrifice a traitor, because, could he himself have committed a treason, he would have thought it only just to expiate ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... last letter written, lavished them. And they have been trifled with—scorned! She, daughter of the erst proudest planter in all Mississippi State, has been slighted for a Creole girl; possibly, one of the "poor white trash" living along the bayous' edge. Full proof she has of his perfidy, or how should Darke know of it? More maddening still, the man so slighting her, has been making boast of it, proclaiming her suppliance and shame, showing her photograph, exulting in ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the wretch thy perfidy hath made, To journey cheerless through the world's wide waste? Say, why so soon does all thy kindness fade, And doom me, thus, affliction's cup ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... because of this incident, and the strained relations which resulted from her perfidy, that none of her erstwhile friends responded to her invitation to join her in a bath in a beaver dam of which Mr. Hicks told her when they ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... at all Hardly a distinguished family in Spain not placed in mourning Invincible Armada had not only been vanquished but annihilated Nothing could equal Alexander's fidelity, but his perfidy One could neither cry nor laugh within the Spanish dominions Security is dangerous Sixteen of their best ships had been sacrificed ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... time Jack Everson had lost all doubt of the perfidy of the man. He could not fail to know what had taken place within the preceding twenty-four hours in the cities named, and he lacked his usual cunning when he ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... Parliament a measure refused by so many statesmen. But the mass of the people do not go back to the beginning; they take for granted the summary judgment that English emancipation was a master-piece of perfidy. ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... The duplicity and perfidy of the Emperor and the Romanists in their dealings with the Lutherans was characterized by Chancellor Brueck as follows: "The tactics of the opponents in offering a copy [of the Confutation] were those of the fox when he invited ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... had sternly accepted the challenge. War was in the air, and the Northern temper, without there being any general consciousness of it, was fast mounting to the war point in the thermometer of the passions, thanks to the perfidy and ruffianism of the slave-power in Congress ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... endless variations. Lizzie, after the first sharp spasm of disappointment, made no effort to conceal her anxiety from Miss Macy, and the fond Andora was charged to keep a vigilant eyeupon the postman's coming, and to spy on the bonne for possible negligence or perfidy. But these elaborate precautions remained fruitless, and no letter ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... characteristic of him. He sets every man as a spy upon his neighbour, awes the more daring into obedience by the display of a ruffianism more outrageous than their own, and, raising the worst scoundrels in the place to office, compels them to find "cases" for punishment. Perfidy is rewarded. It has been made part of a convict-policeman's duty to search a fellow-prisoner anywhere and at any time. This searching is often conducted in a wantonly rough and disgusting manner; and if resistance ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... right wing was led by Serapio, a youth whose beard had hardly grown, but who was beyond his years in courage and strength. He was the son of Mederichus the brother of Chnodomarius, a man throughout his whole life of the greatest perfidy; and he had received the name of Serapio because his father, having been given as a hostage, had been detained in Gaul for a long time, and had there learnt some of the mysteries of the Greeks, in consequence of which he had changed the name of his son, who ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... but Charles was not satisfied without meddling everywhere. Both father and son cherished some good intentions; both were sincere believers in their narrow theory of kingcraft. For wrong-headed obstinacy, utter want of tact, and bottomless perfidy, there was little to choose between them. The humorous epitaph of the grandson "whose word no man relies on" might have served for them all. But of this unhappy family Charles I. was eminently the dreamer. He lived in a world of his own, and was slow in rendering thought into action; and this ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... flourished. This, if I may be pardoned the continued parallel, is our Manx Miranda. And indeed it is difficult to shake off the idea that Shakespeare must have known something of the early story of Man, its magicians and its saints. We know the perfidy of circumstance, the lying tricks that fact is always playing with us, too well and painfully to say anything of the kind with certainty. But the angles of resemblance are many between the groundwork of the "Tempest" and the earliest of Manx records. Mannanan-beg-Mac-y-Lear, the magician who surrounded ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... fortunate islands, and forcing them to levy a tax of 10% on incomes. "This tax," writes the indignant banker, "is one of the many blessed fruits of the French Revolution, and of the horrible tyranny and perfidy of their ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... which backwoods' education is based. Accordingly, if in youth the backwoodsman incline to knowledge, as is generally the case, he hears little from his schoolmasters, the old chroniclers of the forest, but histories of Indian lying, Indian theft, Indian double-dealing, Indian fraud and perfidy, Indian want of conscience, Indian blood-thirstiness, Indian diabolism—histories which, though of wild woods, are almost as full of things unangelic as the Newgate Calendar or the Annals of Europe. In these ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... the pugnacity of his disposition, and, while his blood was up, revelled in the fray. He could speak to the farmers in a blunt homely way, which suited them; and they brought him in as one of the Conservative Members for East Fernshire. But on penetrating the perfidy of the wife of his bosom, Cedric Bloxam mused sadly over the honours that he had won. When Lady Mary had alternately coaxed and goaded him into contesting the eastern division of his county, she was seeking only the means to an ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... parts, excellent breeding, and well natured, hath now, being a Prince, brought his affairs to that pass that there is not a person in the world, man or woman, that dares rely upon him or put any confidence in his word or friendship." The one man in England indeed on whom the discovery of the king's perfidy fell with the most crushing effect was Shaftesbury himself. Ashley Cooper had piqued himself on a penetration which read the characters of men around him and on a political instinct which discerned every coming change. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... against a King so potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished? I, one of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would still have been unpardonable. Now that they are friends and close allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your deeds, no punishment sharp enough to requite them. But though you cannot suffer as you deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can honorably inflict, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Joseph, in a manifesto to his troops, denounces Italy, and declares that his former ally's perfidy ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... teaching,—that the heavenly vision is to be seen only by the eyes of purity and grace. 'Pelleas and Ettarre' is a tale of dole, showing the evil at work at the court, and the wrecking effect of another woman's perfidy. 'The Last Tournament' has for its hero the court fool, who, amid the treason of Arthur's knights, is firm in his loyal allegiance to the King. In contrast to him is Sir Tristram, who, despite his prowess, in jousts on the tilting-field, is "one to whom faith is ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... as an act of perfidy, that the Federal Government have brought here and caused to be slaughtered, some 1600 out of 1900 volunteers from the District of Columbia, who were to serve only 30 days in defense of the Federal city. At the same time our government is keeping ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... advertisement to be 'one clear, nice, cool squirt of water' over the political remains of Honourable Abner Handy, to extinguish if possible his fatal lust for crooked money." After this followed the story of Handy's perfidy in the hitching rack case, a petition in disbarment proceedings, and the copy of the warrant for his arrest charged with a felony in the case sworn to by Hedrick himself. But the effective thing was the pictures, showing ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... at St. Petersburg, and found the Czarina, whose conjugal perfidy was more than suspected, tolerably resigned to the extinction of that dazzling life whose incalculable and god-like utility it is reserved for posterity to appreciate! I have observed, by the way, that in general men are the less mourned by their families in proportion as ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and aroused her suspicions that Gabalas was engaged in some dark intrigue against her. No wonder that the logothetes observed in consequence a marked change in the empress's manner towards him, and in his despair he took sanctuary in S. Sophia, and assumed the garb of a monk. The perfidy of Apocaucus might have stopped at this point, and allowed events to follow their natural course. But though willing to act a villain's part, he wished to act it under the mask of a friend, to betray with a kiss. Accordingly he went to S. ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... her to death, and at the same time seeming to act only from attachment, and to be entirely devoted to her. The poor Dauphine never distrusted this woman, who had been educated with her, and had accompanied her to France; she did not imagine that falsehood and perfidy existed to such an extent as this infernal creature carried them. I was perfectly amazed at it. I opposed Bessola, and did all I could to console the Dauphine and to alleviate her vexation. She told me when she was dying ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... day arrived on which I was to entertain my newly-found old friends, I lived principally on Dora and coffee. In my love-lorn condition, my appetite languished; and I was glad of it, for I felt as though it would have been an act of perfidy towards Dora to have a natural relish for my dinner. The quantity of walking exercise I took, was not in this respect attended with its usual consequence, as the disappointment counteracted the fresh air. I have my doubts, too, founded ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... merely make them liberal in giving, but almost lead them to live as though everything they possess were held in common. No one can want food while there is corn anywhere in the town." It is true that the missionaries often accuse the Iroquois of cruelty and perfidy; but the narrative shows that these qualities were only displayed in their wars, and apparently only against enemies whose cruelty and ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... just God avenging Robert Fitzhilderbrand's perfidy, a worm grew in his vitals, which gradually gnawing its way through his intestines fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with excruciating sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was by a fitting punishment brought to his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Renault (in which Otway follows the history), and partly from being struck with compunction during the spectacle of the Doge's wedding the Adriatic, when his imagination contrasted the public rejoicings with the desolation which was to follow. After disclosing the plot, and experiencing the perfidy of the Senate, who had promised him the lives of his friends, he was made captive while bearing arms against Venice, and drowned the day after his arrival in the city. Renault, according to St. Real, was an old French gentleman, who had fled to Venice for some unknown cause, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... for ever memorable by the taking of a citadel, consequent on the Governor's perfidy. The bravery of the people was irritated by the breaking of the word of honour. This act (the strongest proof that the nation who knows best how to obey, is jealous of its just liberties,) has been followed by incidents that from the public ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... A blankness to run at and dash your head against. Mrs Verloc remained immovably seated. She kept still as the population of half the globe would keep still in astonishment and despair, were the sun suddenly put out in the summer sky by the perfidy of a ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... all the wickedness of this world is not to be compared to your perfidy; that neither fate, hell, nor Heaven in its wrath ever produced anything so wicked ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... is probably the largest in the world, and it seems to have been got up merely to exhibit one of Louis-Philippe's sons in the thickest of the fray. Last of all, we have the Capture of Abd-el-Kader, as imposing as Vernet could make it, but no whisper of the persistent perfidy wherewith he has been retained for several years in bondage, in violation of the express agreement of his captors. The whole collection is, in its general effect, delusive and mischievous—the purpose being to exhibit war as always glorious, and France as ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... and the acquisition of the coveted Florida country was brought appreciably nearer. The popular sentiment on the latter subject found characteristic expression in a toast at a banquet given at Nashville in honor of the returning conqueror: "Pensacola—Spanish perfidy and Indian barbarity rendered its capture necessary. May our Government never surrender it from ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of Tario of Lothar, his fine eyes filled with apprehension for her safety, his splendid figure personifying all that is finest in the fighting men of martial Mars, she could not believe that any faintest trace of perfidy lurked beneath ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... instant, Sergius sprang forward to reopen the door. Convinced of her perfidy, and madly lashing himself into yet further fury with the consciousness of his wrongs, it was as yet not in his mind that even by accident such a forced separation as this should befall her. His hand was upon the bolt—in another second it would have been drawn back—when his further ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... demonstrations of joy always manifested upon our making them a present. The women especially were most obliging in every respect, and, upon the whole, we should have been the most suspicious of human beings had we entertained a single thought of perfidy on the part of a people who treated us so well. A very short while sufficed to prove that this apparent kindness of disposition was only the result of a deeply laid plan for our destruction, and that the islanders for whom we entertained such inordinate feelings ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... that is between us pass and I come not back, know that he hath cheated and cozened us and planned a plot to separate us each from other, so forget thou not the plighted faith betwixt us, for I fear that he hath found out our love and I dread his craft and perfidy." Then, whilst her man was busy about his march she fell a-weeping and lamenting and no peace was left her, night or day. Her husband saw this, but took no note thereof; and when she saw there was scant help for it, she gathered together her clothes and gear and deposited ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... Laomedon himself. Heracles, arriving at this critical moment, killed the monster by the aid of a fort built for him by Athene and the Trojans, so as to rescue both the exposed maiden and the people; but Laomedon, by a second act of perfidy, gave him mortal horses in place of the matchless animals which had been promised. Thus defrauded of his due, Heracles equipped six ships, attacked and captured Troy, and killed Laomedon, giving Hesione to his friend and auxiliary ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... of their indignation at what, one of them said, would be called swindling in the conduct of private affairs; while another declared that the President was throwing the people "into the embrace of that monster at whose perfidy Lucifer blushed and hell stands astonished." France knew all this while what England's decision would be. She was ready to rescind the orders in council when the French edicts were revoked, but she did not recognize a mere letter from the French minister, Champagny, to the ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... The Byzantine perfidy of this formulation lies in the phrase "above-mentioned Jews," which gives the impression of referring to those that had "removed" to Moscow from other parts of the Empire, i.e., settled there ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... a little picture wreathed in evergreen,—his own likeness, which the dead girl had begged her family to bury with her. Now, if never before, the unhappy man saw what a wealth of love he had cast aside, a love that, even in death caused by his base desertion, could forgive him his perfidy and carry his picture in a fond embrace down to the grave. As his guardian angel, she would bear it with her up to God's throne, and there plead his cause. Overcome at last by a flood of anguish and remorse, the guilty man cried aloud in his despair ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... shamelessness of the world's sin, if He had not spoken words and done works among them such as none other ever said and did; but in the face of the perfect beauty of His character, the grace and truth of His words, and the loveliness of His deeds, it was by their perfidy He was crucified and slain. In vain He challenged them to convince Him of sin, and to bear witness to any evil which might justify their malicious cruelty. They knew it was innocent blood; but this knowledge, so far from mollifying them, only ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... highest profit. If circumstances shift this from the side of their enlistment to that of an adversary, their arms and hearts go where their pockets lead. It must be remembered that the Hessian who "down-town" is steeped in perfidy, trickery, and fraud, may appear before the "up-town" world as a Christian citizen and an example of domestic virtue. The type is not uncommon nowadays of the pleasant and proper gentleman, prompt to knock down any one daring to asperse his veracity after five any evening ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... bound, and commenced throwing off the rounded sentences of the first part of a very long speech,—at one moment denouncing princes and kings in general, and in the next threatening to smother Spain with an interesting exposition of her perfidy. Her puppet government was a base mockery; he said Espartero had grossly deceived him!—Here he was brought to a stand by Mr. O'Sullivan, 'It's meself thinks the gintleman 's about debatin matter what 'll cum afore the Convention to-morrow,' ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... and the Perfidy of the High Priests. At the beginning of the second century B.C. the Judean state was closely encircled by a ring of Hellenic cities and subjected on every side to the seductions of that debased Greek culture which had taken firm root in the soil of Palestine. As was almost inevitable, ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... favorite child, for she gave him courage, self-possession, and the political sagacity of a Cesar Borgia. But education had not bestowed upon him that nobility of conduct and ideas without which nothing great is possible in any walk of life. He was not regretted, because of the perfidy with which his adversary, who was a worse man than he, had contrived to bring him into disrepute. His death put an end to the exploits of the Order of Idleness, to the great satisfaction of the town of Issoudun. Philippe therefore had nothing ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... allusions to her faithless lover, but only a consciousness of mortification and wounded pride was awakened by them. In fact, during the first tempest of her indignation at his arrest, still later at the arrest of her father, and finally at the discovery of his perfidy to her, she had forgotten that he was her lover; she had forgotten her previous tenderness toward him; and, now that her fire and indignation were spent, only a sense of numbness and vacancy remained. All that had ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... long enough story, which became a record of perfidy and crime laid entirely at the doors of Murray McTavish and ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... followed by the acknowledgement, by Louis XIV, of the son of James II, the deposed and fugitive king of England and the determined foe of the rights of the Colonists, as the rightful king, although in the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, he had solemnly stipulated to the contrary. This act of perfidy roused the English to fury. The primary cause of the war, then raging, was the acceptance by Louis of the crown of Spain for his grandson Philip despite a previous formal renunciation. But the immediate occasion ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... her the aggressor; but, if she were so, America has not only repelled the injury, but done a greater. As to the rest, if perfidy, treachery, avarice, and ambition can prove their cause to have been a rotten one, those proofs are found on them. I think, therefore, that, whatever scourge may be prepared for England on some future day, her ruin is ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... stress. Why was that sheet silent as to his talents? Did it reflect that in boasting of the bourgeoise nobility of Monsieur Baudoyer—which, certainly, is a nobility as good as any other—it was pointing out a reason for the exclusion of the candidate? A gratuitous piece of perfidy! an attempt to kill with a caress! To appoint Monsieur Baudoyer is to do honor to the virtues, the talents of the middle classes, of whom we shall ever be the supporters, though their cause seems at times a lost one. This appointment, ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... a lithe snake she turns on herself, and must be tracked in and out. Not being a girl to solve the problem with tears, or outright perfidy, she had to ease her heart to the great shock little by little—sincere as far as she knew: as far as one who loves may be. The day of the funeral came and went. The Jocelyns were of their mother's opinion: that for many reasons ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... contracted an affection for some other girl, and for her sake jilted your mother. If so, retribution fit and proper followed on his perfidy, because he brought no wife later on to grace his home. Doubtless he was betrayed in his turn. That was ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... my Lord, in one respect I am sure he speaks truth. For our old Butler told my waiting-maid of a poor young creature who has been deceived, undone; and she, and her whole family, involved in shame and sorrow by his perfidy. ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... infirmities which hardship and anxiety had heaped upon his advancing age. But he had not yet exhausted his cup of bitterness. He had yet to experience an evil worse than storm, or shipwreck, or bodily anguish, or the violence of savage hordes,—the perfidy of those in whom ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... own. He was shot in the garden of Pretoria Gaol upon August 24th. A fresh and more stringent proclamation from Lord Roberts showed that the British Commander was losing his patience in the face of the wholesale return of paroled men to the field, and announced that such perfidy would in future be severely punished. It was notorious that the same men had been taken and released more than once. One man killed in action was found to have nine signed passes in his pocket. It was against such abuses that the extra severity ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... State was, in fact, taking every day a new harshness. Gregory VII. a century earlier had suggested that kingly power was of diabolic origin. "Who is ignorant that kings and princes have their beginning in this, that knowing not God, they by rapine, perfidy, and slaughter, the devil moving them, affect rule over their equals-that is, over men, with blind greed and intolerable presumption." But the papal theory of a vast Christian republic of all peoples, under the leadership of Rome, found ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... "Hypocrite!" she exclaims, dashing it to the ground, and with her foot placed defiantly upon the domino, assumes a tragic attitude, her right arm extended, and the forefinger of her hand pointing in his face. "Ah!" she continues, in biting accents, "it is against the perfidy of such as you I have struggled. Your false face, like your heart, needed a disguise. But I have dragged it away, that you may be judged as you are. This is my satisfaction for your betrayal. Oh that I could have deeper revenge!" She has unmasked ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... medical science considers worse than useless. The tone of the press all through the Transvaal War did attract some attention in this country, and since then from time to time we are presented with quotations from abusive articles about our greed, our perfidy, and our presumption. I am not writing as a journalist, for I know nothing whatever of journalism; but as a member of the general public I believe that we are inclined to overrate the importance of these amenities, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... evening Mounser Green called and sent up tender enquiries; but in all this there was very little to comfort her. There she lay with the letter in her hand, thinking that the only man who had endeavoured to be of service to her was he whom she had treated with unexampled perfidy. Other men had petted her, had amused themselves with her, and then thrown her over, had lied to her and laughed at her, till she had been taught to think that a man was a heartless, cruel, slippery ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... out in acts of dishonesty and profanity, which disgraced and drove him from the State. He sought security from public scorn in the wilds of Florida; but all restraint had given way, and very soon the innate perfidy of his nature manifested itself in all his conduct, and he was obliged to retire from Florida. At that time Texas was the outlet for all such characters, and thither went Gautier, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... took it in his own. His voice was no longer winning, but harsh and neglectful. Indifference brooded in the heart of the monster. The worst of it was, that he had been so cautious and noncommittal in his declarations, that she could not upbraid him for his perfidy. With a cold calculation worthy of a demon, he had made love in the pantomimic way, and eschewed written or verbal communications of an erotic nature. No jury could have muleted him one cent for damages in a breach-of-promise ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... and eager prayer And maniac laugh of dark despair The widowed mother stood; And, with white lips, an orphan throng Rehearsed a fearful tale of wrong And misery and blood. And strong in virtue others came, Unnumbered victims to proclaim Of vengeance, perfidy, and dread, Who slumbered with the silent dead. The world might start, the sable plumes might wave, But for that haughty ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... commander-in-chief; and urged upon him, that, by succeeding in the capture and safe delivery of Arnold, he would not only gratify his general in the most acceptable manner, but would be hailed as the avenger of the reputation of the army, stained by a foul and wicked perfidy; and, what could not but be highly pleasing, he would be the instrument of saving the life of ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... not forget," replied the Earl, "and it is because I remember that my sword remains in its scabbard. The fellow has been amply repaid by the friendship of De Montfort, but now this act of perfidy has wiped clean the score. An' you would go in peace, sirrah, go quickly, ere ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... services must be requited with some suitable indemnity, either one of the French West Indies or Corsica. These plans were shattered by Buonaparte's skill and the valour of Dugommier's soldiery; but no record has yet leaped to light to convict the Pitt Ministry of the perfidy which Buonaparte, in common with nearly all ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... but we hold back a little; we would not seem to thrust ourselves upon him. Greeting, lord Timon; pray let me warn you against these abominable flatterers; they are your humble servants during meal-times, and else about as useful as carrion crows. Perfidy is the order of the day; everywhere ingratitude and vileness. I was just bringing a couple of hundred pounds, for your immediate necessities, and was nearly here before I heard of your splendid fortune. So ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... and was strongly convinced that it was the duty of every patriotic citizen to oppose its provisions. The firm resolve was declared by the state convention of Ohio, composed of men of all parties, that the institution of slavery should gain no advantage by this act of perfidy. It was denounced as a violation of a plain specific pledge of the public faith made by acts of Congress in 1820 and in 1850. With this feeling there ran current a conviction that the measure adopted was forced by southern domination, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... the dust of travel and changed his clothes. He did not at once go out to dinner, though he was exceedingly hungry. He was impulsive and impatient, and he had conceived a plan whereby he might punish Victor Nevill's perfidy without a public exposure, and at the same time, he fondly hoped, do Jack a ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... most leisure and are most learned. This needs no Priest to teach it, and no authority to indorse it; and if every man did that only which is consistent with it, it would exile barbarity, cruelty, intolerance, uncharitableness, perfidy, treachery, revenge, selfishness, and all their kindred vices and bad passions beyond ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... giant Farbauti, his mother being Laufey or Nal, and his brothers Byleist and Helblindi. He is of a goodly appearance and elegant form, but his mood is changeable, and he is inclined to all wickedness. In cunning and perfidy he excels every one, and many a time has he placed the gods in great danger, and often has he saved them again by his cunning. He has a wife named Siguna, and their son ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... his cruelty, his blasphemy, his perfidy were strongly exposed and unanimously condemned, and that he was denounced as a violator of law and propriety, false to the dignity of the Church, and faithless to the State, he implored the princes to ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... even the queen-mother or Croesus—was to have access to the hanging gardens, whither he had conducted Nitetis. Cambyses, meanwhile, continued the drinking bout, thinking the while of punishment for the false woman. Bartja could have had no share in her perfidy, or he would have killed him on the spot; but he would send him away. And Nitetis should be handed to Boges, to be made the servant of his concubines and thus to atone ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... came down the ladder and told what he had seen, of course the rest of us wished to become eye witnesses to the perfidy of this vagabond ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... consideration. He did not dare to declare to himself all that he suspected of the president. Nor did he dare to believe that Britt would dump the whole burden on the cashier. However, if Britt undertook such a play of perfidy, the outlander knew that the native would have the advantage in the ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... claim to our admiration, and weighed like an incubus upon the peoples it oppressed. The history of the Mahrattas, as written by Grant Duff, whose account I have, throughout, followed, is one long record of perfidy, murder, and ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... that unworthy girl that my life was made stormy by my fondness for her. I was constantly lectured and disgraced for what was called 'trying her;' in other words charging her with her little perfidy and throwing her into tears by showing her that I read her heart. However, I loved her faithfully; and one time I went home with ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... moment; yet how blinded he must have been by his faith in Marcian's loyalty not to have reflected upon many circumstances prompting suspicion. Marcian had perhaps been false to him from the very day of Veranilda's disappearance, and how far did his perfidy extend? Had he merely known where she was concealed, or had he seen her, spoken with her, wooed her all along? He had won her; so much was plain; and he could scarce have done so during the brief journey to his villa. O villainous Marcian! ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... would have been a far fiercer denouncer of Essex's treason. He had every reason to be enraged. He was a wise man duped by a foolish one. He was in danger of being implicated in a treason which he abhorred, through the perfidy of a man who was generally considered as his friend and patron, and who was supposed to act from his advice. As Bacon doubtless knew what we now for the first time know, every candid reader must be surprised at the moderation of his course. Essex would not ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... force in the country."[645] Twelve months later, in a review of the activity of the Liberal Government, "The Reformers' Year Book" stated: "The story of Chinese labour in the Transvaal during the year 1906 has been one of continuous perfidy on the part of the Liberal Government at home. Returned to power largely on account of the opposition of the people of this country to Chinese slavery in any shape or form, they have burked the main issue at every point, and only carried out a few minor changes which have been totally ineffective, ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... departure. He now began his accursed employment of winning and enslaving the pure affections of my young sister, in order to allure her from her father's home. He found the task of making her love him, not very difficult, for she knew nothing of the perfidy of man; but when he first proposed her flying with him, she was startled and horrified, and would have betrayed him, had he not assured her that he had mentioned the subject merely to try her, and that it was far from his intention to make ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... reading of that letter has revolutionized my character. I am a changed woman, Dorothy, and thoroughly ashamed of myself. When I remember how I have deluded that poor, credulous young man, in making him believe I understood even the fringe of what he spoke about, it fills me with grief at my perfidy, but I am determined to amend my ways if hard study will do it, and when next I see him I shall talk to him worthily like ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... a woman than the assertion that a Lovelace has been guilty of misleading attentions to others besides herself. If she is not the solitary object of his affections, let her at least be the solitary victim of his perfidy. And that Mrs. Porcher should aspire to share her role of betrayed one was, to Serena, a piece of unheard-of impertinence. She refused to bestow further attention upon Miss Hart, and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... triumph in which the Dutch colony reduced the Swedish under its jurisdiction. It only prepared a larger domain for it to surrender, in its turn, to superior force. With perfidy worthy of the House of Stuart, the newly restored king of England, having granted to his brother, the Duke of York, territory already plighted to others and territory already occupied by a friendly ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... that innocent soul to a life of perfidy and shame?—God send me death quickly and spare me ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Tuileries. It is stated that General Brune made him renounce his former principles, desert his former companions, and betray to the then First Consul of the French Republic the secrets of the friends of lawful monarchy, of the faithful subjects of Louis XVIII. His perfidy has been rewarded with one hundred and fifty thousand livres in ready money, with the see of Orleans, and with a promise of a cardinal's hat. He has also, with the Cardinals Gonsalvi, Caprara, Fesch, Cambaceres, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... first and only love. It is well both for him and the faithful maiden that he cannot so forget the past as to take her in his arms and clasp her almost wildly to his heart. But for this, conscious shame would have betrayed his deeply-repented perfidy. ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... the other temples of Greece. When Alexander the Great had overthrown Darius, he utterly destroyed the city where the priests Branchidae had settled, of which their descendants were at that time in actual possession, punishing in the children the sacrilegious perfidy of their fathers. ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... have heard a low growl rumble from his chest. He knew that his country was at war with Germany and that not only his duty to the land of his fathers, but also his personal grievance against the enemy people and his hatred of them, demanded that he expose the girl's perfidy, and yet he hesitated, and because he hesitated he growled—not at the German spy but at himself for ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not a single one, in the hour of trial, to take my part, not one who refused to take part against me. Past words of love, and caresses, little heeded at the time, rose to her memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get. And Mariana, born for love, now hated all ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... whom I had fought for and saved half-a-dozen times over all by myself—for it is not worth while going back to what Agnes Anne did, as it were, accidentally. I was so angry at the mere thought that there and then I charged him with his perfidy. He laughed a short, ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... to be noted is, that whereas Sophia said her say in about fifty pages, the masculine reply covers seventy-eight in smaller print. He opens by a "Dedication to the Ladies," beginning, "Lovely creatures"—an exordium which any woman of spirit would resent, the perfidy and disrepect of his intentions being obvious in those words alone; and he continues in the tone of flippancy which was to be expected. His arguments are weak in the extreme, and his satire is pointless. The only hit is his scheme for a female university, with Mrs. Manly and Mrs. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... defended, while he pictured himself in those reports as opposing the plans.... What would have happened if some day those reports had fallen into the hands of certain persons—and that was undoubtedly the purpose—and, if accused, we had no witnesses to prove the spy committed perfidy? Thus, for instance, he attempted to convince me—but in his records claimed that it was I who proposed it—that it would be but child's play to find out the residences of the higher military officers in all the greater cities of Germany, then, in one night, ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... by the majority (end of May 698). Thus the corporation did public penance. In secret the individual lords, one after another, thoroughly frightened at their own temerity, came to make their peace and vow unconditional obedience— none more quickly than Marcus Cicero, who repented too late of his perfidy, and in respect of the most recent period of his life clothed himself with titles of honour which were altogether more appropriate than flattering.(5) Of course the regents agreed to be pacified; they refused nobody pardon, for there was nobody who was worth the trouble of making ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Majesty desires nothing more sincerely than thus to terminate a war which he in vain endeavored to avoid, and all the calamities of which, as now experienced by France, are to be attributed only to the ambition, the perfidy, and the violence of those whose crimes have involved their own country in misery and disgraced all civilized nations."—"The king promises on his part the suspension of hostilities, friendship, and (as far as the course ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... due to him. But there was that in Lady Julia's letter that was wormwood to him. Lily Dale was again thinking of this man, whom she had loved in the old days, and who had treated her with monstrous perfidy! It was all very well for Lady Julia to be sure that Lily Dale would never desire to see Mr Crosbie again; but John Eames was by no means equally certain that it would be so. "The tidings of her death disturbed her!" said Johnny, repeating to himself ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... rebels forfeited, confiscated, and sold by commissioners to be appointed for that purpose, and the moneys arising on the sales to be applied to the use of the refugees, to compensate for their sufferings by the rebels in ease of the parliamentary donations? Will not the perfidy of France and Spain justify Great Britain in proposing and entering into an alliance with the courts of Russia, Prussia, and other powers, to unite against France and Spain, the common disturbers of public tranquillity; take ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... cases in which a man would be ashamed not to have been imposed on. There is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and without which men are often more injured by their own suspicions than they would be by the perfidy of others. But when men whom we know to be wicked impose upon us, we are something worse than dupes. When we know them, their fair pretences become new motives for distrust. There is one case, indeed, in which it would be madness ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... for some time. Indeed rumours of the sort had been afloat before. The proximate cause of her insanity was not certainly known. Some suspicion of the worthlessness of her lover, some enlightenment as to his perfidy, or his unaccountable disappearance alone, may have occasioned its manifestation. But there is great reason to believe that she had a natural predisposition to it. And having never been taught to provide for her own mental sustenance, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... signifies the seven candlesticks, with their seven letters? A. seven crimes, which Masons should always avoid, viz.: Hatred, Discord, Pride, Indiscretion, Perfidy, Rashness, and Calumny. ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... disagreeable feeling about the diaphragm, akin in a remote degree to the sensation he had when the perfidy of the red-haired schoolgirl became plain to him. It made his ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... to the scratch without a refresher. And so he is taken to his corner by his client and dosed with another L100. Then all his ardour returns. He sees the thing as clear as daylight—the radiant innocence of the plaintiff, the black perfidy of the defendant. To-morrow evening the vision will have faded again, but another L100 will make it as plain as ever. Yes, it is a good word—"refresher"—a candid word, an honest word. It puts the relation on a sound business footing. There is no sham sentiment about it. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... astonished at the injustice that has been done him." These words giving me courage: "Sir," said I, "I do assure you I am perfectly innocent. I am likewise fully persuaded the necklace never did belong to my accuser, whom I never saw, and whose horrible perfidy is the cause of my unjust treatment. It is true, I made a confession as if I had stolen it; but this I did contrary to my conscience, through the force of torture, and for another reason that I am ready to give you, if you will have the goodness to hear me." "I know enough ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... himself, "is an instance of feminine perfidy equal to anything that Byron ever sneered at. This girl, who was so proud to receive my attentions a little while ago, and who so gladly accepted me for her promised husband, now turns away at the slightest cloud of disapproval falling upon me. And ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... went his way and, as Zurayk still did not appear, Ali put out his hand to the purse; but no sooner had he touched it than the bells and rattles and rings began to jingle and the gold to chink. Quoth Zurayk, who returned at the sound, "Thy perfidy hath come to light, O gallows-bird! Wilt thou put a cheat on me and thou in a woman's habit? Now take what cometh to thee!" And he threw a cake of lead at him, but it went agley and lighted on another; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton |
