"Pretext" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the worst dilemma of his whole career. He knew the men were playing a game, that the chances were all against him, and that the possibilities were that under one pretext or another they intended to ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... Constantinople that the Turkish army had been signally defeated at Nezib by that of the rebel Egyptian viceroy, Mehemet Ali; and the Turkish fleet was at the same time on its way to Alexandria, where it was handed over by its commander, Ahmed Pasha, to the same enemy, on the pretext that the young sultan's advisers were sold to Russia. But through the intervention of the European Powers Mehemet Ali was obliged to come to terms, and the Ottoman empire was saved. (See MEHEMET ALI.) In compliance with his father's express ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... into actual contact, that merciless weight of animosity, from the great man to his soldier had lain on the other like iron, and clogged him from all advancement. His thoughts were of it now. Only to-day, at an inspection, the accidentally broken saddle-girth of a boy-conscript had furnished pretext for a furious reprimand, a volley of insolent opprobrium hurled at himself, under which he had had to sit mute in his saddle, with no other sign that he was human beneath the outrage than the blood that would, despite himself, flush the pale bronze of his forehead. His ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... stationed not far from the village close to the Grande-Chartreuse, pays a few days' visit to a Doctor Benassis there, under pretext of consulting him professionally. While on the visit he is initiated into the transformation that has been wrought by the doctor in the habits of the people and their homes and surroundings—a regeneration accomplished quietly and gradually, vanquishing hostility and lethargy and converting ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... On the pretext of smoking a pipe he lounged up and down the corridor, every now and then glancing at Isabel, who sat alone with compressed lips and chin sunk on her chest. He concluded from her attitude and expression that ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... Suddenly, without pretext or excuse, the duchess turned and walked very quickly—nay, she almost ran—away along the path that encircled the group of graves. Her eye had bidden me, and I followed no less briskly. I heard a despairing sigh from the poor old lady, but she had no chance of overtaking us. The ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... King resolved to show all Europe, which believed his resources exhausted by a long war, that in the midst of profound peace, he was as fully prepared as ever for arms. He wished at the same time, to present a superb spectacle to Madame de Maintenon, under pretext of teaching the young Duc de Bourgogne his first lesson in war. He gave all the necessary orders, therefore, for forming a camp at Compiegne, to be commanded by the Marechal de Boufflers under the young Duke. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Marillac. "Ah! I understand it all now, and you may dispense with the remainder of your story. So this was the reason why, instead of visiting the banks of the Rhine as we agreed, you made me leave the route at Strasbourg under the pretext of walking through the picturesque sites of the Vosges. It was unworthy of you to abuse my confidence as a friend. And I allowed myself to be led by the nose to within a mile ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the history of the seizure of Malta. For generations the value of this citadel had been known. All the strong nations of Europe had looked with covetous eyes upon it. But it was a difficult thing to find any pretext for its capture. It was held by the Knights of St. John, the decrepit remnant of an order whose heroism had many times been the shield of Christendom against the Turk, and whose praise had once filled the whole earth. They were now as inoffensive as they were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... legacy-hunting spirit of many parasites, the old lady thought that Julian would be like the rest, and hoped to enjoy the sight of him reduced to submission and obedience, in the hopes of future advantage; not that she would exult in his humiliation, but she was glad of any pretext to bring the noble boy before her as a suppliant for her favour. Accordingly, setting aside her first and better impulses, she wrote back a sharp reply, abusing Cyril and Frank in round and severe terms, and adding some bitter innuendoes about the poverty of the family, and their ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... entirely innocent is confined in either; or, if he should, he lays his account with a legal trial before established judges. But, in England, the most innocent person upon earth is liable to be immured for life under the pretext of lunacy, sequestered from his wife, children, and friends, robbed of his fortune, deprived even of necessaries, and subjected to the most brutal treatment from a low-bred barbarian, who raises an ample fortune on the misery of his fellow-creatures, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... and other members of his family, were not allowed to pass unless scrutinised and commented upon by this insatiable gaoler. Letters written to the Ministry and to well-disposed public men outside it were not forwarded, on the pretext that the title of Emperor was used. A marble bust of the Emperor's son was brought to St. Helena by T.M. Radowich, master gunner aboard the ship Baring. It was taken possession of by the authorities, and had been in Lowe's hands for some days when he intimated to ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... practical side too. We have really enough to do to look after the genuine article. You can't say we are not effective. But we don't intend to let ourselves be bothered by shams under any pretext whatever." ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... of all the phantoms that ever deluded the fond hopes of a credulous world, a Parliamentary revenue in the colonies is the most perfectly chimerical. Your breaking them to any subjection, far from relieving your burdens, (the pretext for this war,) will never pay that military force which will be kept up to the destruction of their liberties and yours. I ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... dispatches were likewise made out and sent off in the Iphigenia, whilst a sort of breathing-time was given to those who had been of late so actively employed. Whilst this sabbath continued, I amused myself by landing; and under the pretext of shooting, strolled sometimes farther up the country than prudence exactly warranted. The houses and villas, upon the immediate banks of the river, I found universally deserted, and thoroughly plundered. The corn, however, was uninjured; and even flocks of sheep were seen grazing within ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... meaning of the woman's actions before. Now they were only too clear. She had evidently gotten Mrs. Morton, whom Grace suddenly remembered had been registered under an assumed name, out of the way on some pretext or other, and had gone to Ruth's room, with the intention, no doubt, of carrying out her previous threats. The situation was frightful. It would admit of no delay. Grace dashed to the desk and began to speak rapidly, in a frightened voice, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... Edward soon observed that she only walked about with them out of a desire to please; that when she stayed out late with them in the evening it was because she thought it a sort of social duty, and that she would often find a pretext in some household matter for going in again—consequently he soon managed so to arrange the walks which they took together, that they should be at home before sunset; and he began again, what he had long left off, to read aloud poetry—particularly such as had for its ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... FALSEHOOD fair entices thee Against the truth to go, No matter what the pretext be, Be ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... no power in that "Beware!" for our little navy, which had performed such valiant deeds, had, under the pretext of "public economy," been transformed into a swarm of gun-boats—a "mosquito fleet"—that was ridiculed at home and despised abroad. British cruisers patrolled American waters, and insulted our flag whenever they pleased. They became legalized plunderers, and no American merchant ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... abide the consequences." He turned to Captain Stanhill and Caldew. "It will be necessary to search the housekeeper's rooms. Lumbe, you remain here and take charge of these two women. Do not allow either of them to leave the room on any pretext. You had better keep the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Empire, and to divert the energies of politicians from pressing home questions. He did not condemn the policy which led to the occupation of Egypt by England, but he declared that even if it was inevitable it was a misfortune, and that we ought to 'see that we do not on any pretext, however plausible, get that Egyptian millstone tied permanently round our necks.' He was very sceptical about Imperial Federation, and entirely incredulous about the possibility of an Imperial Zollverein. ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Lebedeff. He seemed as if he could not do without the general. But it was not only Ardalion Alexandrovitch whom Lebedeff kept out of the prince's way. Since they had come to the villa, he treated his own family the same. Upon the pretext that his tenant needed quiet, he kept him almost in isolation, and Muishkin protested in vain against this excess of zeal. Lebedeff stamped his feet at his daughters and drove them away if they attempted to join the prince on the terrace; ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... There was now no pretext for him to stay longer, but he glanced at the fire which had burned lower than ever, only two coals hugging each other in the feeble effort to give forth heat. Prescott was standing beside a little table ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... in under a pretext. I pretended to believe that there was a room to be let—for a single elderly lady. But at last I fell to weeping so that I could see the people thought me out of my mind. And then I told them the true reason for my coming there. A clerk in the post-office is living there now ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... others by the freedom of speech and republican opinions of Callisthenes, a kinsman and disciple of Aristotle, who had been, by the latter's influence, appointed to attend on Alexander. Callisthenes proved so unpopular, that the king seems to have availed himself readily of the first plausible pretext for putting him to death, and to have threatened his former friend and teacher with a similar punishment. The latter, for his part, probably had a deep feeling of resentment towards the destroyer of ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... then robbed of its jewel; and while he could have wept for his despair, he felt he could support it nobly. But this affair looked otherwise. The man was patently no gentleman; he had a startled, skulking, guilty bearing; his nails were black, his eyes evasive; his love perhaps was a pretext; he was perhaps, under this deep ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... breeds of Zebus are treated with great veneration by the Hindoos, who hold it sinful to deprive them of life under any pretext whatever. They are in general used as beasts of draft, principally for purposes of husbandry, but a select number (of which the specimen before us is one,) are exempted from all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... from Geneva; and yet you will observe that it is no consideration for his wife or mother-in-law, only the charge of his little flock, that keeps him from setting out forthwith for London, to comfort himself with the dear presence of Mrs. Locke. Remember that was a certain plausible enough pretext for Mrs. Locke to come to Geneva—"the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the Apostles"—for we are now under the reign of that "horrible monster Jezebel of England," when a lady of good orthodox ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are hereby authorized to promulgate in any way you please, That the Second Edition will be augmented, corrected, as aforesaid; and that Mr. (Any Son of Adam you please to name) is, so far as I have any voice in the matter, appointed by me, to the exclusion of all and sundry others on what pretext soever, to print and vend the same to my American Friends. And so it stands; and the Sheets (probably near thirty in number) will be out with the March Packet:— and if nothing can come of it, I for one shall be very glad! ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... she said, "by promoting the happiness of others, that we can secure our own." When they left, she generally presented them with some little article they seemed to fancy, enforcing their acceptance of it by some delicate pretext, that she might not appear to know they were in want. If she remarked that their clothes were much tattered, she obtained her mother's permission to give them some of her own, and then sent Paul to leave them, secretly ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... dusty grade; they were not saying anything at all when they rounded the Point o' Rocks and held their horses rigidly back from racing home, as was their habit, and when they dismounted at the stable, they refused to look at each other upon any pretext whatsoever. ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... safe return; but she had fears And doubting sorrows, which implored my stay; While I, though all was ready, dried her tears, And found fresh pretext ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... likewise called attention to a violent speech made by Mr. Johnson at St. Louis in September, 1866, charging the origin of the riot to Congress, and went on to say of the speech that "it was an unwarranted and unjust expression of hostile feeling, without pretext or foundation in fact." A list of the killed and wounded was embraced in the committee's report, and among other conclusions reached were the following: "That the meeting of July 30 was a meeting of quiet citizens, who came together without arms and with intent peaceably to ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... These words occur in the preface attached in 1851 to the second edition of the Twice-Told Tales; a propos of which I may say that there is always a charm in Hawthorne's prefaces which makes one grateful for a pretext to quote from them. At this time The Scarlet Letter had just made his fame, and the short tales were certain of a large welcome; but the account he gives of the failure of the earlier edition to produce a sensation (it had been published in ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... saw that he was trying to devise some pretext to detain me, and my anxiety to find myself clear of ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... And so—on the pretext that some lesson, the hour of which had been altered, now came at such an awkward time that it had already more than once prevented me, and would continue to prevent me, from seeing my uncle—one day, not one of the days which he set apart for our visits, I took advantage of the fact that my parents ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... And, seizing the pretext, he began to tell her of the first thing that came into his head; how he had sailed some thousands of miles from the Cape to the Mauritius, explaining the mysteries of great circle sailing, and why they had sailed due ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... profit on all other kinds of money than the kaldar. They therefore resisted the general introduction of these rupees as long as possible, and when this failed they hit on a device of marking the rupees with a stamp, under pretext of ascertaining whether they were true or false; after which the rupee was not exchangeable without paying an additional batta, and became as valuable to the money-changers as if it were foreign coin. As justification ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... was designed not only to furnish a diplomatic pretext for the war, but also to induce the princes and cities of Syria especially to take arms against the great-king: in the spring of 685 the formal attack began. During the winter the king of Cappadocia had silently provided vessels for transport; with these ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... revolve about the dead man, lying with heavy, red-lidded eyes in the cottage. Was it,—was it murder? He put the thought aside laboriously, only to be besieged afresh, to wonder, to argue, to protest. After three hours of this he dressed and took the cable car for the cottage. He might find some pretext to examine the dead man ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... greatly strengthened the ministry in Hungary. In the ensuing elections of 1896 the government won a gigantic majority. The drastic electoral methods of Banffy had, however, contributed somewhat to this result, and the corrupt practices were the pretext for the fierce opposition in the House which he henceforth had to encounter, though the measures which he now introduced (the Honved Officers' Schools Bill) would, in normal circumstances, have been received with general ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... any limitations, [249] or precarious conditions of allegiance. Nor are arms allowed to be kept promiscuously, as among the other German nations: but are committed to the charge of a keeper, and he, too, a slave. The pretext is, that the Ocean defends them from any sudden incursions; and men unemployed, with arms in their hands, readily become licentious. In fact, it is for the king's interest not to entrust a noble, a freeman, or even an emancipated slave, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... memoranda and notes I received from M. Zola during his exile, I also find this, dated February: 'You did right to refuse Mr. ——- my address. I absolutely decline to see anybody. No matter who may call on you, under whatever pretext it be, preserve the silence of the tomb. Less than ever am I disposed to let people ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... to throw the whole blame of this exclusive Ministry on the King, he but repeated the indecorum of which he had been guilty in 1802. For, having at that time made use of the religious prejudices of the Monarch, as a pretext for his manner of quitting office, he now employed the political prejudices of the same personage, as an equally convenient excuse for his manner of returning ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... good, nay, necessary, to put those polluting, damning questions. My infallible Church was mercilessly forcing me to oblige those poor, trembling, weeping, desolated girls and women to swim with me and all her priests in those waters of Sodom and Gomorrha, under the pretext that their self-will would be broken down, their fear of sin and humility increased, and that they would be purified ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... that Satan had often been in the shed-room before,—in the antechamber of his own heart. Whenever this heart of his was full of unkindness, and hardened against his brother, although those better fraternal instincts which he kept repressed and dwarfed might repudiate this cruelty under the pretext that he did not really mean it, still the great principle of evil was there in the moral shed-room, clamoring for entrance at the inner doors. And this, we may safely say, may apply to ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... reappearing on the third Sunday, would soon be reduced to the level of his brethren, and a new relative would take the place which he had been filling as a matter of accommodation. I sought occasion to make the acquaintance of the mother of this fine brood, on the pretext of some church work, and after that became a regular visitor at their little home. The perfect equality of the parents; the deference with which they treated one another; and their quiet happiness, in spite of all labor and privation, made me realize ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... government will keenly feel this disappointment of their hopes, and consequently endeavour to avail themselves of the surrender of Detroit, to term it an invasion of their country, and to make it a ground for calling upon the militia to march to the frontiers for the conquest of the Canadas. A pretext so weak and unfounded, though it may deceive some, will not fail to be received in its proper light by others; and it will be immediately perceived by those who will give themselves the trouble to reflect on the subject, that the pursuit of an invading army into ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Northampton, which had been negotiated by the Mortimers during his minority, and which was extremely unpopular in England. He at once recognized Edward Balliol as King of Scotland. The only defence of Randolph's action is the probability that he suspected Edward to be in search of a pretext for refusing to be bound by a treaty made in such circumstances, and if a struggle were to ensue, it was certainly desirable not to increase the power of the English party. Edward proceeded to assist Balliol in an expedition ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... her keen feminine intuition, Felicite preferred this son; she did not perceive the greater affinity between herself and Eugene; she excused the follies and indolence of her youngest son under the pretext that he would some day be the superior genius of the family, and that such a man was entitled to live a disorderly life until his ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... the coming murder, but Electra bids him be loyal to his father. Clytemnestra on her arrival querulously defends her past, alleging as her pretext not the death of Iphigeneia but the presence of a rival, Cassandra. Electra after refuting her invites her inside the wretched hut to offer sacrifice for her newly born child, where she is slain by Orestes. At the ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... storm that was gathering against him, he had taken serious measures to confront it: he had strengthened all the fortresses that were in his hands. He had despatched to Flanders the Marquis de Sillery, La Rochefoucauld's brother-in-law, under pretext of finally disengaging Madame de Longueville and Turenne from the treaties they had made with the Spaniards in 1650, with secret instructions to renew them, and to ascertain how far he might reckon on the assistance of Spain if he were compelled to draw ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... generous and heroic spirit of the principals. Certainly, duelling is bad, and has been put down, but not quite so bad as its substitute—revolvers, bowie-knives, blackguarding, and street-assassinations under the pretext ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... has embittered many a parent's dying hours. You hear selfish persons talking vaguely about faith. You find such heartless persons jauntily spending all they get on themselves, and then leaving their poor children to beggary, with the miserable pretext that they are doing all this through their abundant trust in God. Now this is not faith; it is insolent presumption. It is exactly as if a man should jump from the top of St. Paul's, and say that he had faith that the Almighty would keep him from being dashed to pieces on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... unpleasant inquiries. He knew, however, that if he quarrelled with the Parliament for treating either peculators or Papists with severity, he should have little support in England. He therefore looked out for a pretext, and was fortunate enough to find one. The Commons had passed a vote which might with some plausibility be represented as inconsistent with the Poynings statute. Any thing which looked like a violation of that great fundamental law was likely ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... from the map by Napoleon, it is largely to British subsidies and British tenacity that they owe it. And yet these are the folk who turned most bitterly against us at the only time in modern history when we had a chance of distinguishing our friends from our foes. Never again, I trust, on any pretext will a British guinea be spent or a British soldier or sailor shed his blood for such allies. The political lesson of this writer has been that we should make ourselves strong within the empire, and let all outside it, save only our kinsmen of America, go their ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with a young lady of the same town, whose birth and fortune were equal to his own; he had also the good fortune not to displease the young lady. Both families were anxious to bring the business to a conclusion; notwithstanding which the intended always found some specious pretext to put off the ceremony. The parents of the lady, after yielding for some time to the different excuses of their future son-in-law, as they could not find out the motive, began to be weary of being put off so often, and at last declared to him that a rival, who ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... which must exist between a man and his knocker, would induce the man to remove, and seek some knocker more congenial to his altered feelings. If you ever find a man changing his habitation without any reasonable pretext, depend upon it, that, although he may not be aware of the fact himself, it is because he and his knocker are at variance. This is a new theory, but we venture to launch it, nevertheless, as being quite as ingenious and infallible as many thousands of the learned speculations which ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... arbitrary methods having amassed great treasures, and finding all things quiet at home, he raised a powerful army to invade his brother in Normandy; but upon what ground or pretext, the writers of that age are not very exact; whether it were from a principle frequent among unjust princes, That old oppressions are best justified by new; or, whether having a talent for sudden ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... will never regret the confidence you repose in me. Now I'll tell you something on my side. It is not the inventor, though the men believe it is. The inventor is a pretext of ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... seem to regret his loss very deeply. The boy appeared to be of a strong and robust constitution, and his mother's dowry would go to swell the revenues of the Champdoce family. He made his recent loss, too, the pretext for ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... to keep his army fighting and winning battles, while Europe is helplessly waiting for his answer. After the Powers had asked for an armistice he used this pretext to delay answering ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 30, June 3, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... quite well past the corner before he ventured to tell the men, whom he held back on some trifling pretext, that there was a man among the plants. The information might have caused a small panic had not his coolness dominated ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... issued for their representatives by the Council in 1551 and again in 1552. Even the Wittenberg theologians were not unfavourably disposed, and Melanchthon was actually on his way to Trent. But suddenly Maurice of Saxony, who had assembled a large army under pretext of reducing Magdeburg, and had strengthened himself by an alliance with several princes as well as by a secret treaty with Henry II. of France, deserted the Emperor and placed himself at the head of the Protestant forces. When all his plans were completed he advanced suddenly through ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... among themselves, and one or two of them wandered off on some pretext. The rest threw down their tools and looked at Smith. "Men say they no like stop here. They afraid of ghost! Too many afreet live in these tomb. That what they say. Come back finish to-morrow morning when it light. Very foolish ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... and stealing; if that were not theft? He said to himself, that this child had a right to know life before renouncing it, that to deprive her in advance, and in some sort without consulting her, of all joys, under the pretext of saving her from all trials, to take advantage of her ignorance of her isolation, in order to make an artificial vocation germinate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to lie to God. And who knows if, when she ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... uneasy when tumults arise among the mob—among people who have nothing to lose. They use as a pretext that to which we also must appeal, and plunge the ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... had seen more than one tragic happening, as its almost unparalleled isolation proclaimed. So much Mr. Van Broecklyn had told her, but she was warned to be careful in traversing it and not upon any pretext to swerve aside from the right-hand wall till she came to a huge mantelpiece. This passed, and a sharp corner turned, she ought to see somewhere in the dim spaces before her a streak of vivid light shining through the crack at the bottom of the blocked-up door. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... responsibility to that point. Ertell, who commanded twelve thousand men near Bobruisk, refused to quit his cantonments, to follow Dombrowski, and to come and defend that part of the river. He alleged, as his justification for refusal, the danger of a distemper among the cattle, a pretext unheard of and improbable, but perfectly true, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... king, and the efforts that have been made have not in any way shaken his position. Therefore he must die. It will be easy to put him out of the way. There are plenty of small chambers and recesses which he might be induced to enter on some pretext or other, and then be slain without difficulty, and his body taken away by night and thrown into ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... sole pretext for affirming his title, as the editors of the 1829 collection of his works affirmed it, is that the poems are found in the Reliquiae Wottonianae, in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, or in England's Helicon, and are ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... blended such extravagancies and presumptuous prophesyings with his support and vindication of the Millennium, and the return of Jesus in his corporeal individuality, —because these have furnished divines in general, both Churchmen and Dissenting, with a pretext for treating his doctrine with silent contempt. Had he followed the example of his own Ben Ezra, and argued temperately and learnedly, the controversy must have forced the momentous question on our Clergy:—Are Christians bound to believe whatever an Apostle believed,—and ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... lean on worse advisers.' Seneca resolved to retire, and entreated Nero to receive back the wealth he had so lavishly bestowed. The Emperor, bent on vengeance, refused the proffered gift, and Seneca knew that his doom was sealed. In the year 65, on the pretext of complicity in the conspiracy of Piso, he was commanded to commit suicide, and Tacitus (Ann. xv. 61-63) has shown his love for Seneca, in spite of all his faults, by the tribute he pays to the ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... day trying new inventions to escape from this passage (that is, on fixing her marriage, or the succession). She thinks that the Duke of Norfolk is principally the cause of this insisting,[91] which one person and the other stand to; and is so angried against him, that, if she can find any decent pretext to arrest him, I think she will not fail to do it; and he himself, as I understand, has already very little doubt of this.[92] The duke told the earl of Northumberland, that the queen remained steadfast to her own opinion, and would take no other advice ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... her father did not; but she made no reference to them, and appeared to be aware of nothing which called for explanation or remark. Perhaps she missed Norburn's visits less because his place was so often filled by Dick Derosne, who, unable to find, or perhaps scorning, any pretext of business, came with the undisguised object of seeing the Premier's ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... the jury was with him, but the law gave his enemies power to retain him six months longer. Mr. Crimpton demands a writ of appeal to the sessions. The Commissioner has no alternative, notwithstanding the character of the pretext upon which it is demanded is patent on its face. Such is but a feeble description of one of the many laws South Carolina retains on her statute book to oppress the poor and give power to the rich. If we would but purge ourselves of this distemper of chivalry and ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Don Quixote remove his armor; but the helmet they could do nothing with, for it was tied tightly with green ribbons about his neck and on no pretext whatever would he hear of ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... one was a struggle between Pensionary Barnevelt, aided by the French interest, and the Prince of Orange, supported by the English; even to our own days the same opposite interests existed, and betrayed the Republic, although religious doctrines had ceased to be the pretext.[B] ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... a great sensation in France and at all the foreign courts. The torrents of noble blood then shed caused such anguish to the chancellor Olivier that his honorable mind, perceiving at last the real end and aim of the Guises disguised under a pretext of defending religion and the monarchy, felt itself no longer able to make head against them. Though he was their creature, he was not willing to sacrifice his duty and the Throne to their ambition; and he withdrew from his post, suggesting l'Hopital as his rightful successor. Catherine, hearing ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... great (54) factions. His handiwork still prejudice of that plantation: remains, and it is owing to (15) insomuch as some of (5) them, him that some of the colonists, upon the ground of their first on the pretext of liberty of expedition, liberty of conscience, conscience, the original cause of have withdrawn themselves from (5) their emigration, have withdrawn their jurisdiction, and obtained themselves from the old colonial ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... foolishly jealous as a moon-calf. Brilliana was as kind to him as ever, but she gave her time to the new man, and Halfman, inwardly bleeding and outwardly the magnificent stoic, left the pair to themselves and absented himself at meal-times on pretext of pressing business with the volunteer troop. But his temper grew as a gale grows and ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... said Spikeman, lowering his voice, and supposing that he had got the soldier sufficiently worked up and committed by his language. "With this key"—taking one from his pocket—"will I unfasten thy manacles, and under pretext of unwittingly leaving open the door of thy cell, direct the jailer to enter and lock it, when thou, being a strong and active man, may, on his entrance, overpower him, and grant thyself free passage, and with five ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... which greeted us. The chorus of 500, composed of singers in all walks of life, people of leisure who had good voices which they had been taught how to use, often take pleasure in giving the public a treat if a pretext can be found for doing so. In this case it was thought that an imitation of the manners, dress and costume of a past age would attract an audience when a simple concert might not. This proved to be true, especially of the Easter Anthem, which was magnificently ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... better acquainted than any other sportsman with the localities in which they are to be found, generally takes up his quarters near them late at night, and installs himself; sleeps there, sups there, and, determined not to leave it under any pretext, laughs in the face of the unfortunate wight who arrives after him, in the happy delusion that he has anticipated every one else. For it is a forest law, and acknowledged by all, that two sportsmen cannot, without disturbing one another, sit down at the same Mare; possession is in this ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... said Meldon. "If I go without you I shall be a damper on the whole proceedings. A third person on these occasions always finds the greatest difficulty in not being in the way, whereas if you come we can stroll off together after lunch under pretext of searching for lobsters or something of that kind, and leave ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... slovenliness or untidiness; and, ha! there were the first signs of work on the white sheets of manuscript paper. I wonder what is he writing about. It is not quite honorable, but as I am on the war path, perhaps I could get here a pretext for scalping ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... was made to me on the 27th of September, and, lest pretext for delay might arise from my absence, I determined to remain at St Ildefonso until the Court should be on ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... this delay was the danger arising from European sources. The monarchies of Europe had no sympathy with American freedom. They became impatient with the reports of "no progress" in the war, and at this time some of them were watching for a pretext to recognize the Southern Confederacy. This came vividly to the knowledge of Carl Schurz, minister to Spain. By permission of the President he returned to this country—this was late in January, 1862—to lay the matter personally before him. With the help of Schurz, Lincoln ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... Warrener, and unless peevish or perturbed in spirit would have made little allusion to it. As matters stood, however, she was in a most querulous and excitable mood: she could not rail at the real cause of her misery, and so, woman-like, she was thankful for a pretext for uncorking the vials of her wrath on somebody or something else. If the young matrons in garrison who, with the two or three visiting maidens, were disposed to rebel at Miss Nell's apparent absorption of all the available cavaliers at the post, and call her a too lucky girl, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... with high honor. At last, being left alone with him at night in his tent, she beheaded him with his own falchion as he lay asleep and intoxicated, and going forth gave his head to her maid, who put it in her bag, and they two passed the guards in safety under the pretext of going out for prayer, as had been their nightly custom. The head of Holofernes was suspended from the wall of the city, and when the warriors within sallied forth, the besieging army fled in consternation. Judith receives ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... single word from fashionable lips! Our heroine managed with considerable address in bringing her quarrel with one friend to a crisis at the moment when another was ready to receive her. An ostensible pretext is never wanting to those who are resolved on war. The book to which Miss Turnbull had subscribed was the pretext upon this occasion: nothing could be more indifferent to her than politics; but Lady Bradstone's party and principles ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... profound, that at the time when their king, Ptolemy, was not yet declared the friend of the Roman people—when they were paying all possible court to travellers from Italy, and their fears made them avoid every ground of accusation and every pretext for making war upon them—yet a Roman having killed a cat, the people rushed to his house, and neither the entreaties of the grandees, whom the king sent for the purpose, nor the terror of the Roman name, could protect this man from punishment, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Be it further enacted that all meetings of free Negroes or mulattoes at any school house, church, meeting-house or other place for teaching them reading or writing, either in the day or night, under whatsoever pretext, shall be deemed and considered as an unlawful assembly; and any justice of the county or corporation, wherein such assemblage shall be, either from his own knowledge, or on the information of others, of such unlawful ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... and other booty, set fire to the buildings, and made hostile demonstrations against several places with his cavalry. He then retreated, with all his followers, into his own kingdom, expecting that Adherbal, roused by such provocation, would avenge his wrongs by force, and thus furnish a pretext for war. But Adherbal, thinking himself unable to meet Jugurtha in the field, and relying on the friendship of the Romans more than on the Numidians, merely sent embassadors to Jugurtha to complain of the outrage; and, although they brought back but an insolent reply, yet he resolved to endure any ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... kept the Emperor silent company during his studies, till the close of the first hour after midnight. The sharp, north wind which blew through the darkness did his aching head good, and still he racked his wits for some pretext to attract Hadrian from his labors, but in vain. His tormented brain was like a dried-up well; bucket after bucket did he send down, but not one brought up the refreshing draught he needed. Nothing—nothing could he think of that could conduce to his end. Once he plucked up courage and said ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and more especially the elder, had been much at the mill since their reappearance. John, indeed, upon one pretext or another, scarcely spent a day without calling. His rough kindness appealed to Phoebe, who at first suspected no danger from it, while Mr. Lyddon encouraged the man and made him and his brother welcome at ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... of patriotism, he made up his mind to offer himself as Thomas Roch's guardian, by passing himself off as an American thoroughly conversant with the French language, in order that if the inventor did at any time disclose his secret, France alone should benefit thereby. On pretext of returning to Europe, he resigned his position at the New Jersey manufactory, and changed his name so that none should know ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... known the story for a month, thought Pen, with a sharp pang of grief, and a gloomy sympathy—this accounts for her letter of to-day. She will not implicate her father, or divulge his secret; she wishes to let me off from the marriage—and finds a pretext—the generous girl! ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his quarters at the village inn, in preference to accepting the proffered hospitality of the Lady de Tilly, whom, however, he had frequently to see, having been craftily commissioned by Bigot with the settlement of some important matters of business relating to her Seigniory, as a pretext to visit the Manor House and linger in the village long enough to renew his old familiarity ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... in the history of philosophy. It appears that the cities of Asia Minor, after their contest with the Lydian kings, had fallen an easy prey to the Persian power. It remained, therefore, only for that power to pass to the European continent. A pretext is easily found where the policy is so clear. So far as the internal condition of Greece was concerned, nothing could be more tempting to an invader. There seemed to be no bond of union between the different towns, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... East, on the 2nd of June. Upon the 22nd of July he reached Aden, and in November he was at Mecca, whence the last letters received from him are dated. Upon re-entering Yemen, he, like Niebuhr, was robbed of his collections and baggage, upon the pretext that he collected animals, in order to compose a philtre, with the intention ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... forward wing of the Italian national party took action in a way that either forced, or more probably encouraged, Victor Emmanuel's Government to step in under the pretext of preventing the creation of a Roman Republic. The King invited Pius IX. to assent to the peaceful occupation of Rome by the royal troops, and on receiving the expected refusal, moved forward 35,000 soldiers. The resistance of the 11,000 Papal troops proved to be mainly a matter of form. The wall ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... of the Press. The reference to the Constitution seemed almost an insult; the kind of crisis which was meant was obviously a period of civil war or invasion; it seemed as though the Government had taken the first pretext for proroguing Parliament to be able to avail themselves of this clause. The ordinances reminded men of those of Charles X.; surely, they said, this was the beginning ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... maturity; and this diaphaneity allowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin. Her person seemed made of a shadow; there was hardly sufficient body to provide for sex; a little matter enclosing a light; large eyes forever drooping;—a mere pretext for a soul's remaining on ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... for a sum of two millions of francs; and that his sole reason for not entertaining the proposal was his distrust of those who made it. 'They would have taken my money,' said he, 'and then found a pretext for putting me to death, that I might tell no secrets.' This was too near the truth to be tolerated; in concert with the local authorities, the military enemies of my father conspired against him—witnesses were suborned; and, finally, under some antiquated law of the place, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... markets, in the kitchens of the gourmets, in the jewel-boxes of the virgins. Liberty, visibly, was taking flight. Besides, the power concentrated in him might be so pleasantly distributed. It was decided that Caesar was in the way. To put him out of it a pretext was necessary. ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... discussed how old Mrs. Ede might be given the slip. The idea of the walk was not approved of; it was too simple; but on this point Kate would take no advice, although she accepted the suggestion that she was to go upstairs, and under the pretext of changing her petticoat, should fold her hat into her mantle and tie the two behind her just as she would a bustle; an ingenious device, but difficult to ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... stroke was to add to my cable to The Journal, "Recommend ample recognition of special facilities afforded by telegraph official"—and then get him to read it himself under the pretext of wishing to learn if my writing was legible. He grinned all over himself, and said it was. After my first story is gone I will give him 200 roubles for himself in an envelope and say Journal wired me to do it. That will fix him for the coronation story, as it amounts ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... has torn a ligamentous insertion and lacerated some of its fibers, or a violent effort in jumping, galloping, or trotting, to which the victim has been compelled by the torture of whip and spur while in use as a gambling implement by a sporting owner, under the pretext of "improving his breed"; the extra exertion of starting an inordinately heavy load, or an effort to recover his balance from a misstep, slipping upon an icy surface, or sliding with worn shoes upon a bad pavement, and other kindred causes. We can repeat here what we ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... might have gone on longer, but for the sudden death of Alexander, his friend and patron. Then the hatred of the Athenians to the conqueror showed itself in hostility to his old master, and sought for means to put him out of the way. How hard it was to find a pretext for so doing is shown by the fact that they had to fix upon the poem which he had written on the death of his friend Hermias many years before, and base upon it—as having the form of the paean, sacred to Apollo—a charge of impiety. Aristotle, recognizing the utter flimsiness of the charge, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... post se relicto foetore abiit." Splendidly dressed, with two companions, he frequented an honest man's house at Rothenberg. He brought with him a piper or fiddler, and contrived feasts and dances under pretext of wooing the goodman's daughter. He boasted that he was a foreign nobleman of immense wealth, and, for a time, was as successful as an Italian courier has been known to be at one of our fashionable watering-places. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... for a few moments with the boys, then find some pretext for going to the well, over which a guard had been set to prevent any evil-disposed parties from tampering with it, and once there he was quite as eager to get back to his partners as he had been to leave them. In fact, he was in the highest degree nervous, and had not the others been afflicted ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... be ridiculous to think, says D'Alembert, that there is nothing more to discover in anatomy, because anatomists devote themselves to researches that may seem to be of no use, and yet often prove to be full of use in their consequences. Nor would it be less absurd to lay a ban on erudition, on the pretext that our learned men often give themselves up ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... on a suit of linsey-woolsey and a hat of hispid felt: end of First Act; open the purse. From the dealer of frippery, spick and span from top to toe, he is taken to the hostelry, where he is detained a fortnight, sometimes a month, on the pretext of having to wait for the best steamer: end of Second Act; open the purse. From the hostelry at last to the steamship agent, where they secure for him a third-class passage on a fourth-class ship across ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... feeble woman, I am like a boat without a helm, without oar and without light toward which to sail. And the heart longs for happiness. You must understand that a woman must be loved and must love some one in the world, and if she lacks true love she seizes the first pretext of ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... commander would have no difficulty in inventing a pretext for taking off his head. A more prudent captain would have realized that Encisco with his trained mouth could do very much more harm to him in Spain than he could in Darien. Balboa thought to nullify that possibility, however, by sending Valdivia, with a present, to Hispaniola, and Zamudio ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... defining the nature of such change, without saying whether it would be for good or for evil. In his criticisms upon individuals, the writer was guarded and moderate—the keenest-eyed censor of the press could not have found a pretext for interference with expression of opinions so polite. Of the Emperor these articles spoke little, but that little was not disrespectful; yet, day after day, the articles contributed to sap the Empire. All malcontents of every shade comprehended, as by ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shadowed wherever she goes. Sit down a moment, Sam, and let me think." The doctor stroked his chin reflectively. "I'm afraid if I go to their house on the pretext of giving Miss Metoaca medicine I will be searched, and if that paper is incriminating we will all swing together. Here, let me read the message, and then I can repeat it to Miss ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... dissipated instantaneously. "Give me half," he said, "and let me go.—What scoundrels are these pawnbrokers!" ejaculated he, as he passed out of the accursed shop, "seeking every wicked pretext to rob the poor man of his ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... employment offices, the seeking of a job may involve moral danger. The practice of private employment bureaus in sending unsuspecting girls to immoral places under the pretext of finding legitimate employment is common. The director of the Municipal Employment Bureau in Portland says that, the managers of houses are sometimes so bold as to telephone to the bureau for girls, telling for ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... we were in a state of anxiety on account of one thing, and we kept going to Father Peter's house on one pretext or another to keep track of it. That was the gold coin; we were afraid it would crumble and turn to dust, like fairy money. If it did—But it didn't. At the end of the day no complaint had been made about it, so after that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... martial law ... and by such summary course and order as is agreeable to martial law, and as is used in armies in time of war, to proceed to the trial and condemnation of such offenders, and them to cause to be executed and put to death according to the law martial. By pretext whereof some of your Majesty's subjects have been by some of the said commissioners put to death, when and where, if by the laws and statutes of the land they had deserved death, by the same laws and statutes also they might and ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... answered. "The present Nabob, Allaverdy Khan, has always been our good friend. But he is old and sick, and his nephew, who is likely to succeed him, is a dangerous young man, puffed up with pride and conceit. If he should come to the throne he is only too likely to find some pretext ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... thousand eight hundred, by means of the Greek fire.... Its composition was kept secret at Constantinople, pretending that the knowledge of it came from an angel to the first and greatest of the Constantines, with a sacred injunction not to divulge it under any pretext, etc. It ... was kept secret above 400 years ... was stolen by the Mahometans, who employed it against the Crusaders. A knight, it appears, who despised the swords and lances of the Saracens, relates, with heartfelt sincerity, his own fears at the sight and sound of the mischievous ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... a peculiarly active officer succeeded in hitting it. The chief was immediately laid up with a wound in his leg. He SAID that a dog had bitten him, but few people perhaps were deceived by so flimsy a pretext. (Miss Mary H. Kingsley, "Travels in West Africa" (London, 1897), pages 538 sq. As to the external or bush souls of human beings, which in this part of Africa are supposed to be lodged in the bodies of animals, see Miss Mary H. Kingsley op. cit. pages 459-461; R. Henshaw, "Notes on the Efik belief ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... of the Mississippi River. If that corresponds to the description given, or is equal to the expectations formed of it, there will be no difficulty on the part of the Seminoles. If the Creeks, however, raise any objections, this will be a sufficient pretext on the part of some of the Seminole deputation to oppose the execution of the whole ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... duties imposed by this stormy and perilous period. They afford brilliant illustrations of the statesmanship of the crisis. Sumner exposes the origin and mainspring of the rebellion, Douglass strips off its pretext, Everett paints its crime, Boutwell boldly proclaims its remedy in emancipation, and Banks pronounces a benediction on the first act of reconstruction on the solid basis of freedom to all. They furnish also an epitome of the convict of arms. Bryant utters ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... tell the whole truth, by pointing out the awful consequences of an innocent man's conviction. Their evidence was not shaken by the Government Pleader's cross-examination, and it was corroborated by a dome, who swore that Siraji had got some arsenic from him a few days before her death, on the pretext that it was wanted in order to poison some troublesome village dogs. After consulting with the jury for a few minutes, the judge informed Nalini that his client was acquitted, and Debendra Babu left ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... east. A British chief, in order to secure half of his property to his family at his death, left it to be equally divided between his daughters and the Emperor. The governor of the district, under the pretext that Boadicea, the widow of the dead chief, had concealed part of the property, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... bath room, or, more accurately, the inside of a cistern. Walls, floor, and ceiling are all waterproof and capable of being washed down with a hose. There must be no casings or cornices of any sort to catch dust; and in the best appointed hospitals no one is permitted to enter, under any pretext, whose hands and ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... for his return to Rotherwood, with his ward, the Lady Rowena, and his following. It was during the bustle preceding his departure that Cedric, for the first time, cast his eyes upon the deserter Gurth. He was in no very placid humor and wanted but a pretext for wreaking his anger ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... avert even worse consequences, and by dawn of the following morning the fever was conquered and the sufferers sank into a somewhat troubled sleep, from which the faithful Peter would not permit them to be aroused upon any pretext whatsoever. As for the bitten man, he suffered severely for several hours, the wounded limb swelling to about three times its normal size, while acute pains shot through the whole of his tortured body; but at length ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... small importance; the servile flattery that awaited him wherever he went was so grateful to his mind that he could not willingly relinquish it, and run upon certain detection at the court of the monarch. Upon one pretext or another he delayed his journey, notwithstanding the earnest solicitations of his good friend the bishop. The latter had given his word to the minister, and pledged his honour that he would induce Delisle to go, and he began to be alarmed when he found he could not subdue the obstinacy ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... under pretext of religion Adulation for inferiors whom they despise Calumny is often a stronger and more lasting power than disdain Created one child for damnation and another for salvation Depths of credulity men in all ages can sink Devote himself to ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... kissing cousin Ruth good-bye, but this excited no suspicion, as it was a thing I did on every pretext. Then I slipped out and took back streets till I was several blocks away from the house. Taking a closed carriage here, I was driven to the same station and took the same train for Whiting as on the previous evening. I found the doctor awaiting me with a lantern. ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... servant of Toussaint's was brought in dead—shot from a thicket which his master was expected to pass. On another, the road home was believed to be beset; and all the messengers sent by the family to warn him of his danger were detained on some frivolous pretext; and the household were at length relieved by his appearing from the garden, having returned in a boat provided by some of his scouts. Now and then, some one mentioned retiring to the mountains; but Toussaint would not hear of it. He said it would be considered ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... She kissed his hand and said to him, "O my lord, know that I have been in these quarters some five months, during which I have withheld myself from sale till thou shouldst be present and see me; and yonder slave-dealer also made thy coming a pretext for not vending me, and forbade me for all I sought of him night and day that he should cause thee come hither and vouchsafe me thy company and gar me and thee forgather." Quoth Ishak, "Tell me what ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... now, either of you," he continued coolly. "Old Norton came after me as I was trekking south, utterly sick of the English lot. He came on the old pretext: that I had bought diamonds and was carrying them off. He searched again, and then I told him the simple truth—that you two had volunteered to carry despatches so as to get clear off with the swag you ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... too, doubtless had frequent conference with the unhappy wife of their colleague, during her sojourn in the Government House, and perhaps secretly counselled with her on her adventure. Whatever outward or seeming pretext may have been adopted for this movement, we can hardly suppose that many friends of the Proprietary were ignorant of its object. We have, indeed, evidence that the enemies of the Proprietary charged the Council with a direct connivance in the scheme of Talbot's escape, and made it a subject ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... Armilly!" murmured the Count, half-audibly. "The name is familiar, certainly, though where I have seen or heard it before I cannot now recall. The lady is French by birth, the paper says, and that fact, at least, is a sufficient pretext for me to visit her. I will call on her as a fellow countryman, and the interview will demonstrate if she is known ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... must really forgive me if I use an expression which has been on the tip of my tongue for some time: this is scandalous! You force yourself into a man's house, and then, under pretext of asking for his opinion, you practically—on ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... single-handed, had robbed Sir Alexander McRae—who then enjoyed a fortune and an enviable reputation for philanthropy, thanks to the combination of glucose, vitriol and other chemicals which he prepared under the humorous pretext of manufacturing beer—wrung high encomiums from ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... aside of the direct succession in the case of Henry IV. was a pretext for the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) to settle the royal claims of different descendants of Edward III. While this war did not greatly disturb the common people, it occupied the attention of those who might have been patrons of literature. ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... child, then, and that foolish affair had been more her mother's folly than her own. It flashed upon her that unless she put away the shame of it, the shame would weaken her and master her. But how to assert herself she did not know till he gave her some pretext. ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... by Concini to the growing ambition of the Prince de Conde was unfortunately not destitute of foundation; and suspicions were rapidly gaining ground that he meditated nothing less than a transfer of the crown of France to his own brow, on the pretext that the marriage of Henri IV with the Tuscan Princess was invalid, his former wife being still alive, and his hand, moreover, solemnly pledged to the Marquise de Verneuil. On more than one occasion, when he had feasted ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... kissed him on his bald forehead, her white hands clinging to his shoulders. Jim saw the man shake off those hands with a rough gesture; saw the grieved look on her face; saw the man follow her slight figure with his eyes, as she stooped under pretext of mending the fire. But he could not hear the ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... ranged his elephants, lions, and giraffes round his plate, and his mother, under pretext of a draught, breakfasts ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... he went on: "At least, if we suffer from the tyranny and fickleness of nature or our own want of experience, we neither grimace about it, nor lie. If there must be sundering betwixt those who meant never to sunder, so it must be: but there need be no pretext of unity when the reality of it is gone: nor do we drive those who well know that they are incapable of it to profess an undying sentiment which they cannot really feel: thus it is that as that monstrosity of venal lust is no longer possible, so also it is ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris |
