"Perpetrate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kind of attorney,"—and bade him prepare his will according to certain instructions. The will was made, but not in the manner directed, and subsequently, on the testator regaining his health, he discovered the fraud which the crafty lawyer or proctor had tried to perpetrate—which was, in fact, to make himself the sole legatee. In his just indignation he made another will, and in it for ever excluded the fraternity of proctors from benefiting thereby. The reader is at liberty ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... of gatherings, scattered over the whole length and breadth of the city,—some of them engaged in actual work of demolition and ruin; others with clubs and weapons in their hands, prowling round apparently with no definite atrocity to perpetrate, but ready for any iniquity that might offer,—and, by way of pastime, chasing every stray police officer, or solitary soldier, or inoffensive negro, who crossed the line of their vision; these three objects—the ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... of the man's voice, Keene judged that he meant to perpetrate a murder. With hands and limbs free, though weak from the blow he had received on the head, Silas Keene was not the man to give up life without ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... add nothing but hypocrisy to him; for he avowed public prostitution, laughed at all honour, public spirit, and patriotism; and gave convincing proofs that the most phlegmatic old miser upon earth could not be sooner tempted with gold to perpetrate the most horrid ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... manner in which Pomponio had accomplished his evasion disclosed. Stupefied, the commandant and his men gazed at, the traces of the deed, the pools of half-dried dark blood and the two pieces of bone, eloquent of the fortitude he must have possessed, the desperation he was in, to perpetrate ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... is a young man of but twenty-six, yet he speaks with the gravity of age. He tells the King that his first duty is to be just; that to punish unheard is but to inflict violence and perpetrate fraud. Those for whom he speaks are, though simple and godly men, yet charged with crimes that, were they true, ought to condemn them to a thousand fires and gibbets. These charges the King is bound to investigate, for he is a minister of God, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... always remember Eugene Field as the author of Little Boy Blue, the many friends of Field, in addition to their memory of him as the charming poet of childhood, will always think of him as the irrepressible prince of merry-makers. To perpetrate a joke Field spared neither labor nor his friends. Many of his pranks were mere whimsicalities, innocent pleasantries that hurt no one. He would spend three hours in illustrating a letter to a friend, filling the letter with gossipy trivialities ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... First of April has been employed by persons wishing to perpetrate an extensive joke upon society. Among those which have come to our knowledge the most remarkable one occurred in the city of London in 1860. Towards the close of March a large number of persons received through the post-office a card upon which the ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... success of Gen. Scott; and deeming it necessary only to exercise greater precaution to avoid similar results, they guarded more diligently the passes into their country, while discursive parties of their warriors would perpetrate their accustomed acts of aggression upon the persons and ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... course of the world now is such that both young and old are altogether dissolute and beyond control, have no reverence nor sense of honor, do nothing except as they are driven to it by blows, and perpetrate what wrong and detraction they can behind each other's back; therefore God also punishes them, that they sink into all kinds of filth and misery. As a rule, the parents, too, are themselves stupid and ignorant; one fool ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... very pathetic elements. Prince Saho, elder brother of the Empress, plotted to usurp the throne. Having cajoled his sister into an admission that her brother was dearer than her husband, he bade her prove it by killing the Emperor in his sleep. But when an opportunity offered to perpetrate the deed as the sovereign lay sleeping with her knees as pillow, her heart melted, and her tears, falling on the Emperor's face, disturbed his slumber. He sought the cause of her distress, and learning it, sent a force to seize the rebel. Remorse drove the Empress to die with Prince ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... extended tongues, from the hands of the chanter, and then practiced themselves in the use of the implements. Although they well knew the deceptive nature of these articles and fully understood the frauds they were preparing to perpetrate on the public, these young men seemed to view the whole work with high reverence and treat it with the greatest seriousness. For instance, when, in the secrecy of the lodge, they went through the motions of swallowing the trees they ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... cognizance from the stammered tones, Answered in turn, in verbal nothingness; The crabbed cynic might no longer rail; Nor those of sober countenance discourse In melancholy and foreboding strains; Nor light and frivolous sons of levity On others perpetrate the humorous jest; Fathers attempted to correct their sons, Who, listening with filial reverence, Heard but unknown and ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... constable to the town hall his mind was filled with many thoughts. All his plans for revolutionizing submarine travel, were, of course, forgotten, and he was only concerned with the charge that had been made against his son. It seemed incredible, yet the officers were not ones to perpetrate a joke. The chief and constable had driven from town in a carriage, and they now invited the inventor to ride ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... to give those fellows their quietus. If I do not, there is no knowing what mischief they may yet perpetrate before we get the—what was it those fellows called her?—ah! the Josefa—before we get the Josefa under the Daphne's guns. Now, choose a star to steer by before I remove any more of this lumber, and then sit down on deck as much on one side as you can get; I shall try ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... is so unpopular as impartial liberty. The two great parties which absorb nearly the whole voting strength of the Republic are pledged to be deaf, dumb and blind to whatever outrages the Slave Power may attempt to perpetrate. Cotton is in their ears—blinds are over their eyes—padlocks are upon their lips. They are as clay in the hands of the potter, and already moulded into vessels of dishonour, to be used for the vilest purposes. The tremendous power of the Government is actively wielded to "crush ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... published by himself, accused the executive, before the tribunal of the people, on those specific points, from its decisions respecting which he was said to have threatened the appeal. As if the offence lay, not in perpetrating the act, but in avowing an intention to perpetrate it, this demonstration of his designs did not render his advocates the less vehement in his support, nor the less acrimonious in reproaching the administration, as well as Mr. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... found Riley at the bunk house wrangling with the boys over his lost wardrobe. In Riley's opinion it was a darned poor idea of a darned poor joke, and it took a darned poor man to perpetrate it. Lance's arrival scarcely interrupted the jangle of voices. The boys had bruises of their own to nurse, and they had scant sympathy for Riley, and ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... dramatic narrative, and said the miscreant must have lowered himself by a rope from the parapet, and passed the powder inside without entering. "He periled his life to perpetrate this crime; and he also risked penal servitude for ten years. That he was not deterred by the double risk, proves the influence of some powerful motive; and that motive must have been either a personal feud of a very virulent kind, or else trade fanaticism. From this alternative ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... master were congratulating themselves on the pleasing prospect of fine weather and a full moon, to light them through Endeavour's dangerous straits, the unhappy and deluded Christian was, in all probability, brooding over his wrongs, and meditating on the criminal act he was to perpetrate the following morning; for he has himself stated, that he had just fallen asleep about half after three in the morning, and was ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... representations, and, after receiving a grand civic banquet, set out for the next place, his portmanteau fuller of music-paper than of other effects, and perhaps a dozen sequins in his pocket. His love of jesting during these gay Bohemian wanderings made him perpetrate innumerable practical jokes, not sparing himself when he had no more available food for mirth. On one occasion, in traveling from Ancona to Reggio, he passed himself off for a musical professor, a mortal enemy of Rossini, and sang the words of his own operas ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... too full for utterance. He shook the general's hand, heartily kissed Isabella, and telling them he believed they had turned conspirators, and were about to perpetrate some fearful business against the government, and sagely hinting that unless he was also made a confidant of, he should forthwith denounce them to Tacon, he shook his hand with a most ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... vengeance of the people, and the power of the devil; his fortunes were confiscated; his aged mother was cast into prison; [261] all his past services were buried in oblivion; and he was driven by injustice to perpetrate the crime of which he was accused. [27] From the review of his preceding conduct, Cantacuzene appears to have been guiltless of any treasonable designs; and the only suspicion of his innocence must arise from the vehemence of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... hand Assuredly, except my own:—or thine, If so thou wilt. Ah, perpetrate the deed; Kill me; and drag me, palpitating yet, Before thy judge austere: my blood will be A proud ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Christianity may be attended with Some Inconveniences" is such a frightful satire upon the abuses of Christianity by its professed followers that it is impossible for us to say whether Swift intended to point out needed reforms, or to satisfy his conscience,[190] or to perpetrate a joke on the Church, as he had done on poor Partridge. So also with his "Modest Proposal," concerning the children of Ireland, which sets up the proposition that poor Irish farmers ought to raise children as dainties, to be eaten, like roast ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... fact, I never, to this day, perfectly recovered. Could a person in this condition execute violence against another?—I, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage—no ability to accomplish—no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact;—without interest, without power, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Nobility, whom he had suppressed and taken Captive in the Act of Rebellion? The Minister answered, Put them, and their Adherents, instantly to Death. No, replied the Prince, that were an Act of such Bloodshed and Barbarity, as neither Fear nor Revenge shall persuade me to perpetrate. Then, grant them all free Pardon, rejoined the Minister. How! said the Prince, must Rebellion go altogether unpunished? There is no Medium that can assure your Safety, answered the Minister; you must either pull this ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... evaded it, stumbles over it at Bunker Hill. And why? Because it is not political, but moral,—because it is not local, but national,—because it is not a test of party, but of individual honesty and honor. The wrong which we allow our nation to perpetrate we cannot localize, if we would; we cannot hem it within the limits of Washington or Kansas; sooner or later, it will force itself into the conscience and sit by the hearthstone of ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... FLIRTATION.—The young man who loves a young woman has paid her the highest compliment in the possession of man. Perpetrate almost any sin, inflict any other torture, but spare him the agony of disappointment. It is a crime that can never be forgiven, and a debt ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... expressed there is such a feast in Rhoda Fleming as no other English novelist alive has spread. The book, it is true, is full of failures. There is, for instance, the old bank porter Anthony, who is such a failure as only a great novelist may perpetrate and survive; who suggests (with some other of Mr. Meredith's creations) a close, deliberate, and completely unsuccessful imitation of Dickens: a writer with whom Mr. Meredith is not averse from entering into competition, and who, so manifest on these occasions is his superiority, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... at the end to catch their breath; again they affect a mad and unrestrained rapidity which allows time neither to play nor to hear the sounds. They hurry or retard the movement for no reason besides their individual caprice or because the author did not indicate them. They perpetrate music of such a disorganized character that the musicians are utterly bewildered, and hesitate in their entrances on account of their inability to distinguish one measure ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... them. As to the "rancorous hatred that smouldered in that sad heart of his," in spite of all his oddities, all his "cantankerousness," to use one of his own words, he was a singularly steadfast and loyal friend. Indeed, it was the very steadfastness of his friendship that drove him to perpetrate that outrage at Mr. Bevan's house, recorded in Dr. Gordon Hake's "Memoirs." I need only recall the way in which he used to speak of those who had been kind to him (such as his publisher, Mr. John ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... crowded around the house of Lot with the purpose of committing a monstrous crime, the angels warded off his prayers, saying, "Hitherto thou couldst intercede for them, but now no longer." It was not the first time that the inhabitants of Sodom wanted to perpetrate a crime of this sort. They had made a law some time before that all strangers were to be treated in this horrible way. Lot, who was appointed chief judge on the very day of the angels' coming, tried to induce the people to desist from their purpose, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... knew not. He was an outcast from civilisation, he was quickly forgetting his mother tongue; but his criminal instincts, and his desire to be a "big man" with the savages among whom he had lived for so long, led him to perpetrate this one particular crime. In the dead of night he led a party of natives on board the schooner, and massacred every one of her crew, save one Fijian, who, jumping overboard, swam to the shore, and was spared. ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... act, did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate such atrocities as were brought to light during the Andover inquiry, such cold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of their principles. Oh yes, Christians are forward to judge of every tree by its ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... perpetrate this outrage at all," insisted Bundy, pulling in calculation at his little chin-whisker, "let us do it thoroughly. A hundred dollars can't take Potts any too far. We must see that he keeps going until he could never get back—" ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... have objections to hearts hanging like humble buttons, or to buttons being humble at all, but one should not stop to quarrel about such trifles with a poet who can perpetrate ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... to have them arrested and brought 3,000 miles over the ocean to England, for trial before a special commission, for treason or misprision of treason, show what unjust, unconstitutional, and foolish things Parliaments as well as individuals may sometimes perpetrate. Nothing has more impressed the writer, in going through this protracted war of words, preliminary to the unhappy war of swords, than the great superiority, even as literary compositions, much more as State documents, of the addresses and petitions of the Colonial Assemblies, and even ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... and write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform people, and excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make great strife and division among the people, and other enormities horrible to be heard, daily do perpetrate and commit. The diocesans cannot by their jurisdiction spiritual, without aid of the King's Majesty, sufficiently correct these said false and perverse people, nor refrain their malice, because they do go from diocese to diocese, and will not appear before the said diocesans; but the ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... course of this work, had to notice the very intimate connection which those concerned in the administration of justice, or ostensibly in the suppression of crime, had with those who perpetrate it. In all of our large cities, this occasionally forces itself into public notice. Anxious as the authorities always are to conceal any thing of this kind, it accidentally leaks out. The opportunity ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... himself:—But allowing that 'tis neither the one nor the other, and that her kinsmen are really to carry me to her house, I scarce believe that 'tis either that they would fain embrace Scannadio's corpse themselves, or let her do so: rather it must be that they have a mind to perpetrate some outrage upon it, for that, perchance, he once did them an evil turn. She bids me say never a word, no matter what I may hear or be otherwise ware of. Suppose they were to pluck out my eyes, or my teeth, or cut off my hands, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... both looked angry and blank. Peggy guessed at once that they had discovered their loss. But she resolved not to stop unless they did and asked questions. She felt that such a despicable act as they had attempted to perpetrate deserved no help ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... Relation of Capello's to the Senate must by now have been widespread, and of a man who could perpetrate the wickednesses therein divulged anything could be believed. Indeed, it seems to have followed that, where any act of wickedness was brought to light, at once men looked to see if Cesare might not be responsible, nor looked ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... so absurd and so mischievous!" ejaculated the Prince; and then he conversed with Vivian for some time in a whisper. "Essper," at length Vivian said, "you have committed one of the most perfect and most injurious blunders that you could possibly perpetrate. The mischief which may result from your imprudent conduct is incalculable. How long is it since you have thought proper to regulate your conduct on the absurd falsehoods of a drunken steward? His Highness and ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... remarks of this rat that they are only second to the white ants for the mischief they perpetrate. "They burrow in the gardens, and destroy the sweet potatoes; they make their nests in the roofs by day, and visit our houses and larders by night. They will eat into teak drawers, boxes, and book-cases, and can go up and down anything but glass. In the province of ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... LIFE TO THOSE WHO CAPTURE THEM. Which can be easily justified, inasmuch as there is no shepherd who does not place barriers against the wolves, and does not endeavour to save his flock, and I have already exposed to your Majesty the damage which the Gitanos perpetrate ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... The pale was next, but proudly with a bound He leapt the fence of the forbidden ground: Yet fearing to be seen, within a bed Of coleworts he conceal'd his wily head; Then skulk'd till afternoon, and watch'd his time (As murderers use) to perpetrate his crime. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... detention and impositions, are ineffectual, and are generally regarded by the culprit as unjustly interfering with his liberty. Consequently the masters have not much hold over the boys, who might, if they chose, perpetrate endless mischief without fear of painful consequences so long as they did nothing to warrant expulsion; but the young Hollander does not appear to have much enterprise in that direction. Perhaps he is sometimes kept out of mischief by his devotion to the fragrant ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... as we shall see too well before the story is ended. It may be true that John murdered his nephew Arthur with his own hands; but it was reserved for Henry, out of the public sight and away from his own eyes, to perpetrate a more cruel murder upon Arthur's hapless sister, "the Pearl of Bretagne," by one of the slowest and most dreadful deaths possible to humanity, and without any offence on her part beyond her very existence. ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... and were forced to make an exit at the end of every scene. Plays were produced by daylight, under the sun of afternoon; and the stage could not be darkened, even when it was necessary for Macbeth to perpetrate a midnight murder. ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... Florida from the United States, have violated our laws prohibiting the introduction of slaves, have practiced various frauds on our revenue, and committed every kind of outrage on our peaceable citizens which their proximity to us enabled them to perpetrate. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... wished that peace would revisit my mind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But that could not be. Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author of unalterable evils, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness. I had an obscure feeling that all was not over and that he would still commit some signal crime, which by its enormity should almost efface the recollection of the past. There was always scope for fear so long ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... that a needy and ignorant soldiery may perpetrate such robberies amidst scenes of violence, and under the temptations of want; but we expect better things from the men who ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... reading over the Letters of the President de Brosses. A hundred years ago, in Venice, the Carnival lasted six months; and at Rome for many weeks each year one was free, under cover of a mask, to perpetrate the most fantastic follies and cultivate the most remunerative vices. It's very well to read the President's notes, which have indeed a singular interest; but they make us ask ourselves why we should expect the Italians to ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... erased. It is possible that at one moment, had Montevarchi known the truth, he would have drawn back; but it is equally sure that if he had done so he would sooner or later have regretted it, and would have done all in his power to recover lost ground and to perpetrate the fraud. The dominant passion for money, when it is on the point of being satisfied, is one of the strongest incentives to evil deeds, and in the present case the stake was enormous. He would not let it slip through his fingers. He rejoiced that the thing was done and ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... Mormonism in forty-four years counted 250,000. It seems incredible, nevertheless it is a fact. In this brief space of time it has also been able to nullify our laws, oppose our institutions, openly perpetrate crimes, be represented in Congress, boast of the helplessness of the nation to prevent these things, and give the Church supremacy over the State and the people. Bills introduced in Congress adequate to their overthrow ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and prance, and high life! He was a mount for a general, for a Napoleon or a Kitchener. And he had, not a wicked eye, but, oh, such a roguish eye, intelligent and looking as if it cherished a joke behind and wanted to laugh or to perpetrate it. And I asked Uncle John for Hilo. And Uncle John looked at me, and I looked at him; and, though he did not say it, I knew he was FEELING 'Dear Bella,' and I knew, somewhere in his seeing of me, was all his vision of the Princess ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... thou man of black renown, Whose merit none enough can sing or say, Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down, Thou moral Washington of Africa! But there's another little thing, I own, Which you should perpetrate some summer's day, And set the other half of Earth to rights; You have freed the blacks—now pray shut up ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the supreme idol,—ourselves. Our god is great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to make sacrifice to him. We boast that we have conquered Matter and forget that it is Matter that has enslaved us. What atrocities do we not perpetrate in the name of ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... grotesque. He questioned himself and his oracle further. What could Paul mean exactly? God could not curse him if he did no wrong. He could only mean that he was willing to sin and be punished provided Israel might live. It was lawful then to tell a lie or perpetrate any evil deed in order to protect his child. Something suddenly crossed his mind; what it was we shall see later on. And yet the thought was too awful. He could not endure to sin, not only against his Creator, but against his boy. Perhaps God might ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... perform, achieve, carry through, effect, perpetrate, actualize, commit, execute, realize, bring about, complete, finish, transact, bring to pass, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... she should desire to be in Paris. Why does she so long to place herself in the immediate reach of tyranny? You see I pronounce the decisive word! I am really unable to comprehend it. Can she not go to Rome, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, or London? Yes, London would be the right place! There she can perpetrate libels whenever she pleases. At all of these places I will leave her undisturbed with the greatest pleasure; but Paris is my residence, and there I will tolerate those only who love me! On this the ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... others I had committed in the castle in the service of the Church. Thereat the Pope, raising his hand, and making a large open sign of the cross upon my face, told me that he blessed me, and that he gave me pardon for all murders I had ever perpetrated, or should ever perpetrate, in the service of the Apostolic Church. When I felt him, I went aloft, and never stayed from firing to the utmost of my power; and few were the shots of mine that missed their mark. My drawing, and my ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... of a sister, who was to act as regent until the boy became of age. The sister, ambitious of making the power thus delegated to her entirely her own, decided on destroying her brother. She commissioned a hired murderer to perpetrate the deed. The murderer took the child into a wood, killed him, and hid his body in a thicket, in a certain cow-pasture at a place called Clent. The sister then assumed the scepter in her own name, and suppressed all inquiries in respect ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... I divined, in a lightning flash of intuition, that apparently an effort was being made to perpetrate a hoax. In the same moment I arrived at the definite conclusion that the object of that hoax could be none other than myself. For a fleeting period my natural indignation was such ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... although, in truth, I play but an indifferent game. If you will make amends by teaching me I will try to perpetrate as ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... Luther's life. The reader has the entire passage which contains the outrageous statement of Luther before him, and will be able to judge the connection in which the words occur. What caused Luther to write those words? Did Melanchthon contemplate some crime which he was too timid to perpetrate? According to the horrified expressions of Catholics that must have been the situation. Luther, in their view, says to Melanchthon: Philip, you are a simpleton. Why scruple about a sin? You are still confined in the trammels of very narrow-minded moral views. ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... anchovy sauce, and drinking champagne, while TROCHU and JULES FAVRE fight domestic treason within the walls, and the Prussians without, upon stomachs that feebly digest Parisian "hard tack" and gritty vin ordinaire, is enough to make the spirit of liberty lay over the mourner's bench and perpetrate a perfect Niagara of tears. When FLOURENS bagged the whole government at the Hotel de Ville the other day, my feelings got the better of me, and I went ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... proceeded to commit various acts of piracy, and considering nothing but their private interests, extended their violence not only against the shipping of all countries unfortunate enough to fall in their way, but even to perpetrate the most unwarrantable ravages on the property of their own countrymen. Nor was this confined to the Cinque Port vessels only; the example and the profits were too stimulating to the restless; and one daring association on the coast of Lincolnshire seized the Isle of ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... criminals have much to do with not only the crimes they commit, but the manner in which they perpetrate their deeds, and in a consideration of what has been accomplished, heredity plays a strong part. Some men are born with an adeptness for crime of a certain character. Let the opportunity arise, and they yield to the stress of circumstance and become guilty men. I have seen a number of noted criminals ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... Engaging to raise men for the common weal It sets a harmful and unequal tax Capriciously on our communities.— The annals of a century fail to show More flagrant cases of oppressiveness Than those this statute works to perpetrate, Which [like all Bills this favoured statesman frames, And clothes with tapestries of rhetoric Disguising their real web of commonplace] Though held as shaped for English bulwarking, Breathes in its heart perversities ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... which now dazzle the eyes of him who addresses you. I am, cries the Queen of Terrors, robbed of my fair proportions. When the king-killing Thane hints to the breathless auditory the murders he means to perpetrate, in the castle of Macduff, "ere his purpose cool;" so vast is the interval he has to travel before he can escape from the stage, that his purpose has even time to freeze. Your condition, cries the Muse of Smiles, is hard, but it is cygnet's down in comparison ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... claim that there were charges which might lead to the death of an ambassador. But the envoys replied as follows: "The facts are not, O Ruler of the Goths, as thou hast stated them, nor canst thou, under cover of flimsy pretexts, wantonly perpetrate unholy deeds upon men who are envoys. For it is not possible for an ambassador, even if he wishes it, to become an adulterer, since it is not easy for him even to partake of water except by the will of those who guard him. And as for the proposals ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... said Flora; "so ornamental, especially the original performance in the corner, which you would perpetrate, in spite of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... morning found his liver and temper inflamed. He kicked his phonographic-news machine to pieces, dismissed his valet, and resolved that he would perpetrate a terrible revenge upon Elizabeth. Or Denton. Or somebody. But anyhow, it was to be a terrible revenge; and the friend who had made fun at him should no longer see him in the light of a foolish girl's victim. He knew something of the little property ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... tricks of trade—the ten thousand scoundrel subterfuges by which the lowest dealers of this world purchase Bank-stock and rear their own pine-apples—the common, innocent iniquities (innocent from their very antiquity, having been bequeathed from sire to son) which men perpetrate six working-days in the week, and after, lacker up their faces with a look of sleek humility for the Sunday pew—consider all this locust swarm of knaveries annihilated by the purifying spirit of Christianity, and then look upon London breathing and living, for one day ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... merely to take off my hat: the bow and the general effrontery were of my own invention. God knows what instigated me to perpetrate the outrage! In my frenzy I felt as though I were ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a little side-gate. The church was a grand pile of every style of architecture that had prevailed since the Cistercians had settled in Vale Leston, and of every defacement that the alternate neglect and good-will of the Underwoods could perpetrate. The grand tower at the west end was, however, past their power to spoil, and they had not done much damage to the exterior, except in a window or buttress here and there. But within! The brothers, used to the heavy correctness of the St. Oswald's ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she exclaimed, turning upon him fiercely. "Did I calmly perpetrate a deed that was sure to result in ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... surrender to them. If this was a sort of Pearl Harbor attack by human enemies—and you can guess who it might be—they might as well start killing us on the largest possible scale at the beginning. If monsters with no information about us landed, they might perpetrate some massacres with the entirely foolish idea of cowing us. But there haven't been any massacres. So it's neither a cold war trick nor an unadvised landing of monsters. There's another angle in it somewhere. Monster-human ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... revelled in discreditable tricks Until he reached the comfortable age of thirty-six, May then for half an hour perpetrate a deed of shame, Without incurring permanent ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... had attacked and defeated the English garrison at Waterford, but without any advantageous results. Roderic's weakness now led him to perpetrate an act of cruelty, although it could scarcely be called unjust according to the ideas of the times. It will be remembered that he had received hostages from Dermod for the treaty of Ferns. That treaty had been ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... bears witness today that there is no crime, no cruelty, no abomination that the mind of man can conceive which the German has not perpetrated, is not perpetrating, and will not perpetrate if he is ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... turned on the Heads, your benefactors, now your brothers, who raised you to their height? Are you not leading a revolt of the workers which would deny them the means of sustaining life? Are you not seeking to perpetrate—murder?" ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg
... his experience, that we have attempted to set in order there. They bore him company, not insufficiently—considering, in especial, his fuller resources in that line—while he worked out—to the last lucidity the principle on which he forbore either to seek Fanny out in Cadogan Place or to perpetrate the error of too marked an assiduity in Eaton Square. This error would be his not availing himself to the utmost of the convenience of any artless theory of his constitution, or of Charlotte's, that might ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... sweetly. "Which means that I am to be held to the strict obligations of my position, but that the Grand Duke Armand can perpetrate ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... had a large aviary of birds of all sorts, some for sale, some not. Among them was a glorious Humming Bird of wonderful brilliancy and plumage, a creature full of beauty and grace and charm and elegance. The man became passionately attached to it; he was ready to perpetrate any folly for the sake of obtaining possession of it, and indeed he did commit numbers of regrettable actions, and at last stole the bird from the Showman and carried it away. Then, in a foreign palace, for a short while ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... that the' traitors' should be carted down to Winchester for trial. A cold wet November seven-days' journey through mud and slush was the miserable dodge to carry out this scheme of darkness which neither Coke nor Popham would have dared to perpetrate in the broad light of London. It was, as all the world knows, a mock trial. The prisoners Raleigh, Cobham, Gray, and Markham were condemned and sentenced to death as traitors, and Raleigh, for the grim sport of the royal Nimrod, was made to witness ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... with his body. When they reached the streets of the capital, the cabriolet had to penetrate through an immense and compact crowd, whose exasperation bordered on delirium, and who evidently wished to perpetrate the utmost extremities; not knowing which of the two travellers was the Intendant of Paris, they betook themselves to crying out, "let the prisoner take off his hat!" Berthier obeyed, but Lariviere uncovered his head ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... enough, quite enough," he added mentally. "The fact is there is danger of my caring too much, and nobody knows better than you, Tredway, that that would be the greatest piece of folly I could perpetrate. Miss Rose is vastly ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... success, so far as Maddy was concerned. Not a single mistake did she perpetrate, though her cheeks burned painfully as she felt the eyes of the polite waiters fixed so often upon her, and fancied they might be laughing at her. But they were not, and thanks to the kind-hearted Guy, ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... fop in the splendor of their raiment and effeminacy of their bearing. Psychic hermaphroditism does not occur naturally in uncivilized or half-civilized races. The reason for this is patent. Atavism finds among them no weakened and enervated subjects on whom to perpetrate this ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... force &c. (display) 882; feat, exploit; achievement &c. (completion) 729; handiwork, workmanship; manufacture; stroke of policy &c. (plan) 626. actor &c. (doer) 690. V. do, perform, execute; achieve &c. (complete) 729; transact, enact; commit, perpetrate, inflict; exercise, prosecute, carry on, work, practice, play. employ oneself, ply one's task; officiate, have in hand &c. (business) 625; labor &c. 686; be at work; pursue a course; shape one's course ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... ever thought, when he was leading his men against the Maoris, of the cruel, dreadful wrong he was helping to perpetrate." ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... convulsed period, great atrocities were committed. Unfortunately the common felons were released by the British from their prisons, and used their liberty to perpetrate murders and robbery in alliance with those always naturally bent that way. So great did this evil become, so bold were the marauders, that in time they formed large parties, infested highways, attacked plantations, and the poor peasantry had to flee, leaving their cattle and all their ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Gouger mean? That Mr. Weil would actually do these dreadful things, would in his own person perpetrate the outrage of winning a pure girl to shame. It seemed childish to ask such a question, and yet such a meaning could easily be taken from what the critic had said. No, no! All he could have meant was that Mr. Weil might serve as a figure on which to lay these sins—that he could be carried ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... standing at table in attitude where natural nobility of character struggled with accidental depression, said: "Success, Mr. SPEAKER, is a mark no mortal wit of surest hand can always hit. For whatsoe'er we perpetrate, we do but row; we are steered by fate, which in success often disinherits, for spurious causes, noblest merits. Great occasions, Mr. SPEAKER, are not always true sons of great and mighty resolutions, nor, I may add, do the boldest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... form of a great and solemn referendum, a referendum as to the part the United States is to play in completing the settlements of the war and in the prevention in the future of such outrages as Germany attempted to perpetrate." ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... resistance has increased with every appearance of a disposition among the people to relax in their opposition and to acquiesce in the laws, insomuch that many persons in the said western parts of Pennsylvania have at length been hardy enough to perpetrate acts which I am advised amount to treason, being overt acts of levying war against the United States, the said persons having on the 16th and 17th July last past proceeded in arms (on the second day amounting to several hundreds) to the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... by this imperial law, the Church still suffered occasionally in particular districts. Hostile magistrates might plead that certain edicts had not been definitely repealed; and, calculating on the connivance of the higher functionaries, might perpetrate acts of cruelty and oppression. The Emperor Aurelian had even resolved to resume the barbarous policy of Decius and Valerian; and, in A.D. 275, had actually prepared a sanguinary edict; but, before it could be executed, death stepped in to arrest his violence, and to prevent the persecution. Thus, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... among gentlemen. There are practices and there are acts which, owing to circumstances, the law cannot visit, though they may be worse than many things which are legally punishable. Honest men and gentlemen, if they don't want the company of people who perpetrate such acts, have got to defend themselves as they best can, and that is what I and the friends whom I may call my clients in this affair are determined to do. I don't say that Mr. Bulstrode has been guilty of shameful acts, but I call upon him either publicly to deny ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... when all things are silent, and Bootes had turned his wain with the pole obliquely directed among the Triones.[49] She approaches to {perpetrate} her enormity. The golden moon flies from the heavens; black clouds conceal the hiding stars; the night is deprived of its fires. Thou, Icarus, dost conceal thy rising countenance; and {thou}, Erigone, raised to the heavens through thy affectionate love for thy father. Three times was she recalled ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... could not help laughing, but it was impossible to decide whether the boy was ignorant of the meaning of the word, or was trying to perpetrate a joke. ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... too troublesome in this matter. When they become a little reasonable, it will be a great miracle; for, when their passions and fears are excited, there is no end to the extremes they will perpetrate." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... When the surgeons were debating the propriety of amputating it in his hearing, he begged them to spare the leg, as it was very valuable, being an "imported leg." He was of Irish birth, and this well-timed piece of wit saved his leg, for the surgeons thought, if he could perpetrate a joke at such a time, they would trust to his vitality ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... carcass of a dead buffalo on a plain. When they judged the thing was fairly safe, they would attack with a great noise and show of ferocity; do some hasty looting amongst the cargo; break into the cabins for watches, wearing apparel, and so on; perpetrate at times some atrocity, such as singeing the soles of some poor devil of a ship-master, when they had positive information (from such affiliated helpers as Ramon, the storekeeper in Jamaica) that there ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... here, too, he arranged an ingenious alibi by being driven to Euston for the 5:15 train to Liverpool. The cabman would not know he did not intend to go by it, but meant to return to 11, Glover Street, there to perpetrate this foul crime, interruption to which he had possibly barred by drugging his landlady. His presence at Liverpool (whither he really went by the second train) would corroborate the cabman's story. That ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... dignities of neutral nations. The harsh and selfish maritime policy of the age, expressed in the British Navigation Acts and intensified by the struggle with Napoleon, led the Mistress of the Seas to perpetrate indignity after indignity on the ships and sailors which were carrying American commerce around the world. The United States demanded a free sea, which Great Britain would not grant. Of necessity, then, such futile weapons as embargoes and non-intercourse acts had to give place to the musket, the ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... not: I will listen to none of the confidences of your trusting anti-Federalists. Why cannot you come out honestly and declare your true politics? You could do far more good, and I leave you no excuse to perpetrate this lie." ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... now thirty-two, and had spent those years of his life in acquiring the honorary title of the 'first gentleman of Europe' by every act of folly, debauch, dissipation, and degradation which a prince can conveniently perpetrate. He was the hero of London society, which adored and backbit him alternately, and he was precisely the man whom the boy Brummell would worship. The Regent was colonel of a famous regiment of fops—the 10th Hussars. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... hundred years ago the whole wealth of this country had been divided equally among all, the masses would, as a whole, be poorer than they are now; and that most of the wealth which is monopolized now by the few consists not of abstractions which they perpetrate from a common stock, but of additions to it which they have made themselves by their own talents and enterprise. It is true, he proceeds, that if, having made these additions, the few gave them away instead of retaining them for themselves, as the principles of Socialism ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... essence of high treason. Upon such charges repeated trials took place in the courts of the English, and condemnations were pronounced, with sufficient justice, no doubt, where the connexion between the resort to sorcerers and the design to perpetrate a felony could be clearly proved. We would not, indeed, be disposed to go the length of so high an authority as Selden, who pronounces (in his "Table-Talk") that if a man heartily believed that he could take the life of another by waving his hat three times and crying Buzz! ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... and the establishment of Physcon upon the throne. But the perfidious monster, instead of keeping his faith in respect to the boy, determined to murder him; and so open and brutal were his habits of violence and cruelty, that he undertook to perpetrate the deed himself, in open day. The boy fled shrieking to the mother's arms for protection, and Physcon stabbed and killed him there, exhibiting the spectacle of a newly-married husband murdering the son of his wife in her ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... alarmed," said I, with augmented mildness. There was, indeed, compassion and sorrow at my heart, and these must have somewhat influenced my looks. "Be not alarmed. I came to confer a benefit, not to perpetrate an injury. I came not to censure or expostulate with you, but merely to counsel and aid a being that needs both; all I want is to see her. In this chamber I sought not you, but her. Only lead me to her, or tell me where she is. I will then rid you ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... they urged, had been put to death by the Numidians in consequence of the cruelty of his rule. Adherbal had been the aggressor in the late war. He had suffered defeat, and was now petitioning for help because he had found himself unable to perpetrate the wrong which he had intended. Jugurtha entreated the senate to let the knowledge which had been gained of him at Numantia guide their opinion of him now, and to set his own past deeds before the words of a personal enemy.[891] Both parties then withdrew ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... evil, He began his wicked workings, He engaged in lawless actions, Raged against the blushing maidens, Fired the youth to evil conduct, Singed the beards of men and heroes. "Where the mother nursed her baby, In the cold and cheerless cradle, Thither flew the wicked Fire-child, There to perpetrate some mischief; In the cradle burned the infant, By the infant burned the mother, That the babe might visit Mana, In the kingdom of Tuoni; Said the child was born for dying, Only destined for destruction, Through the tortures of the Fire-child. Greater knowledge ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... and ill-timed measure shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... anything, was that of corruptly bribing Anderson and D. A. Weber to perpetrate a fraud in the election returns of the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... themselves while at work in the fields, and fifty more, after setting fire to a farm-house while my back was turned, escaped to join a gang of their companions, who are now robbers in the woods. These fellows, however, are the last of the troop who will perpetrate such offences. With the concurrence of my patron, I have adopted a plan that will ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... of your deeds, and insult the woman whom you have robbed and made a widow. It was with a prophecy on your lips that you went forth just now to perpetrate your greatest crime; but it falls on your own head, for you laugh over our misfortune—and it cannot regard me, for my blood does not run cold; I am not overwhelmed nor hopeless, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... O God! regard my cry! On thee my hopes depend: I'm close beset, without ally; Be thou my shield and friend. Confed'rate kings and princes league, On ev'ry side attack To perpetrate the black intrigue But thou canst drive them back, Long did I fear their wink and nod; In close cabals they cry'd, There is no help for him in God; His kingdom we'll divide. Amid their army's dreadful ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... me perpetrate one more,—one which is perhaps the most glaring of all. The process of growing must be done by the growing organism, by the child, let us say, and by no one else. The child himself must take in and assimilate the ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... lost its meaning, and was no longer real to me. I was a healthy and happy man, and yet so empty did life seem to me that I was afraid of being tempted to commit suicide, even though I had not the slightest intention to perpetrate such a deed. But, fearing lest the temptation might come upon me I hid a rope away out of my sight, and ceased carrying a gun ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... that—perhaps before he was a philosopher—Riccabocca had tried the experiment, and knew what it was. Why, even that plain-speaking, sensible, practical man, Metellus Numidicus, who was not even a philosopher, but only a Roman censor, thus expressed himself in an exhortation to the people to perpetrate matrimony—'If, O Quirites, we could do without wives, we should all dispense with that subject of care (ea molestia careremus); but since nature has so managed it, that we cannot live with women comfortably, nor without them at all, let us rather provide ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... the legitimate heir to some great English estate and title, that he was removed in order to make way for some one else, and that his murder was intrusted to some person who had not the courage or the wickedness to perpetrate it, but removed him first to Hungary and afterwards to Germany, and supported him in the manner indicated, hoping that he would not long survive. When, however, he grew up, his support became irksome ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... some industrious individual taken the pains to preserve and publish one-half the good things that were said at our meetings, a large volume might be formed that would be no contemptible specimen of genius. Whenever a member had the audacity to perpetrate some shocking bad pun, and such enormities were frequent, the offender was sentenced to undergo some ludicrous punishment; and the utmost good-humor ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... somewhat dubious flag—I made the latter from descriptions furnished by Monsieur Auguste and The Young Pole himself—intended, I may add, to be the flag of Poland. Underneath which beautiful picture I was instructed to perpetrate the flourishing inscription ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... what she has done, I shall leave your house and disown you for my brother if you perpetrate this outrage upon my niece. She is dear to me as if she were my own child. Have I not brought her up since babyhood? If you carry out this order, brother, I will ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... will select one more from his numerous letters now in my possession, to show that nothing but revenge at being disappointed in my co-operation to ensure his personal aggrandisement, could have influenced him to perpetrate such ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... midst of the bog. The sequel was, that the Mexicans and their Indian friends retreated as fast as possible, and never stopped until they had reached a place of safety. My companions became vexed to think any man could perpetrate such a story on travelers, who considered they knew a thing or two, and commenced quizzing the old gentleman by asking him what the Indians knew of Satan; but the old Mexican evaded the answer by taking down the little ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... something that Savareen and he had always been on the most friendly terms, and that Savareen was one of his best customers. But, even if he had been the most bloodthirsty of mankind, he had positively had no time to perpetrate a murder. The two or three minutes elapsing between Savareen's departure from the toll-gate and Lapierre's arrival there had been too brief to admit of the latter's having meanwhile killed the former and made away with his body; to say nothing of his having also made ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... than once, and in the end the victim found that Mayes had only to raise the Triangle before him to send him to sleep instantly. Then he found that he must do certain things, whether he wanted or not. And it ended in complete subservience; so that Mayes could set him to perpetrate a robbery and then appropriate the proceeds for himself, for by post-hypnotic suggestion he could force him to bring and hand over every penny. More, the poor wretch was held in constant terror, for he knew that ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... reached their final and legitimate culmination, in the ghastly paralysis of the most indispensable functions of the Government—the ruinous abnegation of all power of self-defence—the treacherous attempt at national suicide only failing for want of courage to perpetrate the supreme act, which was exhibited by the administration of James Buchanan, in its last hours, when it proclaimed the doctrine of secession to be unfounded in constitutional right, and yet denied the power of the Government to prevent its own destruction. ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a door closed. I had no time to think of the fresh horror that was preparing; I forgot that the monster was only going out perhaps to perpetrate a fresh crime; I understood but one thing: Christine was alone ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... very great wrong did Loke perpetrate; first of all in causing Balder's death, and next in standing in the way of his being loosed from Hel. Did he get no punishment for this misdeed? Har answered: Yes, he was repaid for this in a way that he will long remember. The ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... exclaimed, stopping before the crowd of easels, the paint-boxes, the palettes on the thumbs, the sheaves of brushes, the maulsticks in the air. She glanced at the work, seeking eagerly for copies, worse than any she was likely to perpetrate. Mr. Hoskin assured her that there were many in the gallery who could not do as well as she. And she experienced a little thrill when he led her to the easel. A beautiful white canvas stood on it ready for her to begin, and on a chair by the side of the ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... that they had made Tavistock their agent for resisting any and all attempts to lower prices, and had given him practically unlimited funds to draw upon as he needed. I had Tavistock sounded on every side, but found no weak spot. There was no rascality he would not perpetrate for whoever employed him; but to his employer he was as loyal as a woman to a bad man. And for a time it looked as if "The Seven" had checkmated me. Those outsiders who had invested heavily in the great enterprises through which "The Seven" ruled were ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... his career he had contracted vicious habits, the most pernicious for him being that of drink, for when sober he was in his right mind, but the moment the drink was in his common sense departed, and he became a raving maniac, ready to fight or perpetrate any other act of folly. Up to this time he had never been tempted to steal only in order to supply means ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... youths were simply led by this stronger personality of Paul Stepaside. He, inspired by personal enmity towards Mr. Wilson, determined to be revenged on him for some fancied wrong done to him years before, has taken the opportunity to perpetrate this awful outrage. It is true he has not definitely said so, but he has insinuated that he tried to dissuade the others from taking part in this crime. But can such a thing be believed? The others were never capable of this plot, and, without a ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were not the sons of gods;—both ...
— The Republic • Plato
... born criminals and criminaloids becomes apparent directly on considering the age at which the latter enter on their anti-social career and the motives which cause them to adopt it. While the born criminal begins to perpetrate crimes from the very cradle, so to speak, and always for very trivial motives, the criminaloid commits his initial offence later in life and always for ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... packages entrusted to his care; he was also able, from long habit, fluently to read the usual announcement of "Vinos y licores finos," inscribed above tavern doors; and, when required, he could even perpetrate a hieroglyphic intended for the signature of his name; but these were the extent of his acquirements. As to deciphering the contents or superscription of the letter now in his possession, he knew that it would be mere lost labour to attempt it. He was far too wary, however, to display ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... obtain instructions for my guidance, more especially as the Turkish squadron is ready for sea, and said to be destined for Candia, with ten thousand men, intending there to repeat the barbarities which the want of provisions in the Morea renders it impossible they can longer perpetrate in that quarter. There is also a great number of captive women and children about to be transported as slaves, and the only force of the allied powers off Navarino consists of a small brig, the Pelican, which is totally ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... possible it would be an unspeakable pleasure to drop a veil over the scene, at the close of the battle of Culloden. Language fails to depict the horrors that ensued. It is scarcely within the bounds of belief that human beings could perpetrate such atrocities upon the helpless, the feeble, and the innocent, without regard to sex or age, as followed in the wake of the victors. Highland historians have made the facts known. It must suffice here to give a moderate ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... their custom. A Judas, tempted by the high reward of the French for killing him, officiously pretended to take great care of him. While Red Shoes kept his face toward him, the barbarian had such feelings of awe and pity that he had not power to perpetrate his wicked design; but when he turned his back, then gave the fatal shot. In this manner fell this valuable brave man, by hands that would have trembled to ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... Eeka mountains which enfold the Iao valley, broad fields of cane 8000 feet below, the flushed palm- fringed coast, and the deep blue sea sleeping in perpetual calm. But according to the well-known fraud which isolated altitudes perpetrate upon the eye, it appeared as if we were looking up at our landscape, not down; and no effort of the eye or imagination would put things at their ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... easy to take a practical joke as to perpetrate one. Evelyn was sitting thoughtfully on the porch when her father and mother returned. Mrs. Ellsworth was sitting at the center window above, placidly looking out. Her eyes swept carelessly over the Van Kamps, and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... the Cattle Trail, that most unique and stupendous of all modern migrations, and its founders must have been inspired with a malicious desire to perpetrate a crime against geography, or else they reveled in a perverse cussedness, for within a mile on every side lay broad prairies, and two miles to the east flowed the indolent waters of the Rio Pecos itself. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... oyster-shop. If the young lady had appeared beautiful by night, she was perfectly irresistible by day; and, from this time forward, a change came over the spirit of John Dounce's dream. He bought shirt-pins; wore a ring on his third finger; read poetry; bribed a cheap miniature-painter to perpetrate a faint resemblance to a youthful face, with a curtain over his head, six large books in the background, and an open country in the distance (this he called his portrait); 'went on' altogether in such an uproarious manner, that the three ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens |
