"Artifice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to make an issue of. We all work for the good of the people, and the whole people. There is no greed of glory or gain; no personal ambition to gratify. Were I to use any artifice to secure office or popularity, I should be instantly deprived of public esteem and notice. I do my duty conscientiously; that is the aim of public life. I work for the public good and my popularity comes as it is earned and deserved. I have no fear of being slighted or ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... on through many deserted gardens and villages, the man evidently sent to lead us astray from our S.E. course; he turned back when he saw that we refused his artifice. Crossed another rivulet, possibly the Lofu, now broad and deep, and then came to another of several deep streams but sponge, not more than fifty feet in all. Here we remained, having travelled in fine drizzling ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... be accepted, the "Fringe" of associations that belong to the old are apt to remain.[7] The thoughts of "knack, aptitude, tact, adroitness,"—not to speak of the less desirable "Brute Force," "shrewdness, subtlety, cunning, artifice, deceit, duplicity," of the older idea of management remain in the background of the mind and make it difficult, even when one is convinced that management is a science, to think and act as if ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... Pris'ner in his camp, Yet, Bethas was attended like a Prince, As tho' he still commanded the Arabians. 'Tis true, when they approach'd the royal city, He threw him into chains to blind our eyes, A shallow artifice— ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... fairest lady's ears 350 Should for him his actions speak. On, on ye lords, to war, to war! And ladies not as heretofore Embroider wimples for your wear But banners for the knights to bear. 355 For thus amid the wars of Troy I and my sisters did employ Our time and all our artifice: Standards, with many a fair device Embroidered, did we weave for them; 360 And on them lavished many a gem And gaily with glad songs of joy Our necklaces we freely gave, Tiara and diadem. Then leave your points and hem-stitch leave, 365 Your millinery and your lace, And utterly from off earth's ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... inside somewhat like a grelot;[FN406] these articles were placed by the women between the labia and an up-and-down movement on the bed gave a pleasant titillation when nothing better was to be procured. They have every artifice of luxury, aphrodisiacs, erotic perfumes and singular applications. Such are the pills which, dissolved in water and applied to the glans penis, cause it to throb and swell: so according to Amerigo Vespucci American ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... whenever it shall be proven to the satisfaction of the court that the influence of a so-called "medicine man" operates as a hindrance to civilization of a tribe, or that said "medicine man" resorts to any artifice or device to keep the Indians under his influence, or shall adopt any means to prevent the attendance of children at the agency schools, or shall use any of the arts of the conjurer to prevent the Indians from abandoning their heathenish rites and customs, he shall be adjudged ...
— Sioux Indian Courts • Doane Robinson
... year 1434 this party began to hold up its head. Powerful as the Albizzi were, they only retained the government by artifice; and now they had done a deed which put at nought their former arts and intrigues. A Signory favourable to the Medici came into office, and on September 26th, 1434, Rinaldo in his turn was summoned to the palace and declared a rebel. He strove to raise the forces of his party, and entered the piazza ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the river could not bring assistance to their friends, that he ought not on that account to ascribe very much to his own valour, or despise them; that they had so learned from their sires and ancestors, as to rely more on valour than on artifice or stratagem. Wherefore let him not bring it to pass that the place, where they were standing, should acquire a name, from the disaster of the Roman people and the destruction of their army or transmit the remembrance [of such ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... where her beauty inspired competition. Some leading Secessionists, Lawyer Hope for one, working somewhat upon his gratitude and somewhat upon his vanity, persuaded him to offer the services of himself and his sons, in a published communication, to the cause of Virginia and the Confederate States. The artifice did not succeed. He lost his hold on his congregation, and could not have safely remained after the whites left. He felt uneasy about his betrayal, and tried to restore himself to favor by saying that he meant no harm to his people; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... fails, then rise I and say:—'How shameful in an official person to throw dust in the eyes of the House by detaining it upon a miserable trifle, whilst the criminal gravities of his conduct are skulking in the rear under this artifice for misleading ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Every artifice which his natural cunning could suggest, every taunt a Frenchman's vocabulary contains, had been used by Massena to induce Sir Arthur Wellesley to come to the assistance of the beleagured fortress: but in vain. In vain he relaxed the energy of the siege, and affected carelessness. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... business habits of the country, which leave so little time for parental instruction, and, perhaps, in some degree to the acts of political agents, who, with their own advantages in view, among the other expedients of their cunning, have resorted to the artifice of separating children from their natural advisers by calling meetings of the young to decide on the fortunes ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... refused him food, and the tradition goes that he got this at length by a skilful artifice. Knowing that a total eclipse of the moon would soon take place, he sent word to the dusky chief that the lights in the sky were under his control, and if they did not give him supplies he would put out the light of the moon and never let it shine again on their island. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... not improved her own position. If he meant to keep her there he could do so, and opposition made him only more obstinate, more determined to press his advantage. Had she been more politic—Juliana off the stage as well as on—she, whose artifice was glossed by artlessness— ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... know whether the difference or the similarity in phrasing between the child's version and the woman's is the more remarkable. The early story is simpler and shows less deliberate artifice, though even then Miss Keller was prematurely conscious of style, but the art of the later narrative, as in the passage about the sea, or the passage on the medallion of Homer, is surely a fulfilment of the promise of the early story. It was in these early days that Dr. Holmes wrote to her: "I ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... systems used in photography, the vertex of the colour curve must be placed in the position of the maximum sensibility of the plates; this is generally supposed to be at G'; and to accomplish this the F and violet mercury lines are united. This artifice is specially adopted in objectives for astronomical photography ("pure actinic achromatism''). For ordinary photography, however, there is this disadvantage: the image on the focussing-screen and the correct adjustment of the photographic sensitive plate are not in register; in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the Greek tongue; and on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a correspondence with the Greeks, and, from that era, the Egyptian history, which till then had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifice of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... he filled with beasts of prey for the pleasure of the ducal family. He also laid out some most beautiful gardens, and since all this country was very dry and arid, he constructed aqueducts with great artifice and ingenuity, and brought water into the place in such abundance that these lands, which had hitherto been sterile and barren, bore fruit in great quantities. And so entirely did he improve and alter the whole place that, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... seen something he had not expected to see—a real play, with real magic to it, such magic as all his cunning stage artifice, all the studied artistry of his fearfully and wonderfully salaried stellar attachments somehow missed achieving. He tried afterwards to explain to Carol Clay, his favorite star, just what the quality ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... those admirable expedients for deciding elections, and influencing distant boroughs by powerful motives from the city. But all this was mere force and constraint, however upheld by most dexterous artifice and management: till the people began to apprehend their properties, their religion, and the monarchy itself in danger; then we saw them greedily laying hold on the first occasion to interpose. But of this mighty change in the dispositions ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... people from American Oregon are, therefore, excluded from the gold district, except such, as resorting to the artifice of denying their country, succeed in passing for British subjects. The persons at present engaged in the search of gold are chiefly of British origin, and retired servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, being well acquainted with the ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... a race, and I suspect—mind you, I am merely guessing—but I repeat that I suspect the honesty of Monsieur Jean de Courtois in this matter. There was no earthly reason why he should not have married Lady Hermione some weeks ago, but it is clear that he has used every artifice to delay the ceremony until to-night—and, it may be found when we learn the facts, was prepared to put it off once more till to-morrow or next day. Why? In my opinion, the reason is not far to ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... above all a man of deeds,—might well be tempted by a project apparently so impossible. To open for himself legally the gates of a convent of women! The Pope and the Metropolitan Archbishop would scarcely sanction it. Should he use force or artifice? In case of failure was he not certain to lose his station and his military future, besides missing his aim? The Duc d'Angouleme was still in Spain; and of all the indiscretions which an officer in favor with the commander-in-chief could commit, this alone would be punished ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the site of the present town of Annapolis), at Pisiquid (now Windsor), Minas, etc., were sent to Halifax, where a long conference was held; but the deputies still declining to accept the new oath, they were imprisoned, and the deportation of the Acadians decided upon. In order to do this artifice was resorted to, to prevent the people from suspecting what was in store for them, and that the poor peasants might have no chance to leave themselves or carry away their possessions. "Both old men and ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... it very feebly? How many weak minds have been impelled to quarrel with the organisation of society, simply because it has pleased the imagination of poets to present the image of a world constituted differently, where no propriety chains down opinion and no artifice helds nature in thraldom? What a dangerous logic of the passions they have learned since the poets have painted them in their pictures in the most brilliant colours and since, in the contest with ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... a slight increase of color. "Look here," said the girl, whose dimples had deepened as she keenly surveyed him, as if detecting some amorous artifice under his show of interest for her brother. "Dad's gone down to the sheepfold and won't be back for an hour. ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... play because the violent struggle between good and evil woke up many responsive memories in his mind. The hero of the play had been shown feeling precisely as Julian had often felt. That was enough. He did not very much care for the brilliant artifice, which Valentine had remarked with so much pleasure. He did not specially note the peculiar effect of nature produced by the simplicity and thoughtful directness of the dialogue. He only knew that he had seen somebody whose nature was akin to his ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Washington played off by the cunning of Hamilton, which turned the government over to anti-republican hands, or turned the republicans chosen by the people into anti-republicans. He delivered it over to his successor in this state, and very untoward events since, improved with great artifice, have produced on the public mind the impressions we see. But still I repeat it, this is not the natural state. Time alone would bring round an order of things more correspondent to the sentiments of our constituents. But are ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... done as much and as well as some, we would have had the fates in our own keeping. Had it not been for that artifice of the Romans at Antioch, we, had now been rather in Rome than here, and it was a woman—or girl rather, as I am told—the daughter of Gracchus, who first detected the cheat, and strove to save the army, but it ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... story into so many separate parts, these being told in succession by so many different characters, each recording events as wholly seen from the point of his own unchanged perspective. Such is the method adopted by Wilkie Collins in The Woman in White, for example. The danger of this artifice is that it tends to be too apparent. The most logically complete escape from the difficulties which we are here glancing at is to be found, no doubt, in the method of autobiography in a single and ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... which was the principal evidence against him, Cephisocrates quietly dropped it on the ground, and Lacydes noticing this put his foot on it and so hid it. And after sentence was pronounced in his favour, Cephisocrates going up to thank the jury, one of them who had seen the artifice told him to thank Lacydes, and related to him all the matter, though Lacydes had not said a word about it to anybody. So also I think the gods do often perform benefits secretly, taking a natural delight in bestowing ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... ridiculous colloquies to put upon paper drawings of our position, thus being able to see the best positions for their cannon, and the best mode, in fact, in which all their disposition might be made. We learnt this artifice ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... thousand dollars."—"Money could not alter My mind upon the subject."—"Look you, Linda; You saw my daughter. Obstinate, self-willed, Passionate as a wild-cat, jealous, crafty, Reckless in use of money when her whims Are to be gratified, and yet at times Sordid as any miser,—she'll not stop At artifice, or violence, or crime, To injure one she hates—and you she hates! Now for your sake and hers, I charge you leave This country, go to England;—close at once With ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... the knowledge they had of me. Had my intention been to seek the world's favor, I should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties. I desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice; for it is myself I paint. My defects are therein to be read to the life, and my imperfections and my natural form, so far as public reverence hath permitted me. If I had lived among those nations ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... I would have discovered to you the cause which urged me to this flight—convinced, that you would rather have favoured than opposed it; but your love and religion being insurmountable obstacles, I was obliged to make use of artifice to be just.—I quit you not, my lord, through inconstancy, I follow my husband, my father, and my brother, who were the three captives whose lives you granted me; my husband having exposed his for your glory, and ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... to see the beautiful fountains, which play twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday, from noon till evening. The columns projected from the basin in front of the castle are so voluminous, and rise with such force, that I gazed in amazement at the artifice. It is real pleasure to be near the basin when the sun shines in its full splendour, forming the most beautiful rainbows in the falling shower of drops. Equally beautiful is a fountain rising from a high vase, enwreathed by ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... his end; for when as falshood and truth are confounded by a dexterous hand, wit hath much adoe to disintangle them, and is not easily carried to destroy that which pleaseth it; contrarily, whenas invention doth not make use of this artifice, and that falshood is produced openly, this gross untruth makes no impression in the soul, nor gives any delight: As indeed how should I be touched with the misfortunes of the Queen of Gundaya, and of the King of Astrobacia, whenas I know their very Kingdoms are ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... the time of my delivery drew near, this care and tenderness of me abated. Once, as my mother-in-law had treated me in a very grating manner, I had the malice to feign a cholic, to give them some alarm; but as I saw this little artifice gave them too much pain, I told them I was better. No creature could be more heavily laden with sickness than I was. Beside continual heavings, I had so strange a distaste, except for some fruit, that I could not bear the sight of food. I had continual swoonings and violent pains. ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... your situation be critical, you have also many advantages, to balance the temptations you may be called to encounter. Heaven has blessed you with an understanding solid, judicious, and penetrating. You cannot long be made the dupe of artifice, you are not to be misled by the sophistry of vice. But you have received from the hands of the munificent creator a much more valuable gift than even this, a manly and a generous mind. I have been witness to many such benevolent acts of my Rinaldo as have ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... men,—Smith, Johnson, &c.,—who, in as many different tones, were heard to return various sharp and comical retorts, which raised shouts of laughter and made the forest ring with the sham merriment And thus he proceeded, to the secret amusement of the victors all if whom perfectly understood the artifice, till they emerged from the woods into the open grounds on the main road, when they were met by Major Ormsbee with a small detachment of regular soldiers. The tories were then, for the first time, permitted to know the smallness of the force that had captured them when, amidst ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... child! oh, blinded soul! to think of right in connection with an infidel and heretic! Do you not see that all this is an artifice of Satan? He can transform himself into an angel of light. Do you suppose this heretic would be brought back to the Church by a foolish girl? Do you suppose it is your prayers he wants? Why does, he not seek the prayers of the Church,—of holy men who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... time in 1706, when the High Church movement to persecute Dissent had assumed dangerous strength, with an excellent preface by Defoe, and concluding with the letters to Dr. Calamy, written by Delaune from Newgate. Defoe well points out that the great artifice of Delaune's time was to make the persecution of Dissent appear necessary, by representing it as dangerous to the State as well as ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... seemed only to increase the strength of my passion: I grew melancholy and despondent; I fled from society, and my health declined daily. At length no longer able to exist in this state of torture, I resolved to assume the disguise in which you see me. My artifice was fortunate: I was received into the Monastery, and succeeded ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... that only stout theologians can win to shore; if, on the other hand, he ignore doctrine, the play is "Hamlet" with the Prince of Denmark left out. He reduces our Bible to 'mere literature,' to something 'belletristic,' pretty, an artifice, a ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... his teaching seems rather to be that we should look beyond mere external trifles. Those he attacks are mostly middle-class people, or those slightly below them—the dogs in office, and the dogs in the manger. The artifice and cunning of the waiter of the Hotel at Yarmouth, where little Copperfield awaits the coach, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... suppose you own You like your Iliad in the Prose of Bohn,— Tho' if you'd learn in Prose how Homer sang, 'Twere best to learn of Butcher and of Lang,— Suppose you say your Worst of POPE, declare His Jewels Paste, his Nature a Parterre, His Art but Artifice—I ask once more Where have you seen such Artifice before? Where have you seen a Parterre better grac'd, Or gems that glitter like his Gems of Paste? Where can you show, among your Names of Note, So much to copy and so much to quote? And where, in Fine, in all ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... "I scent the devil's artifice in what you say, for the highest graces are attached to this crown of prayers. The most Blessed Virgin herself revealed to the saints this means of prayer; she declared she delighted in it; that should be enough ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... and surprise burst from the Spaniards. The artifice was a new one, and showed that the fugitives were assisted by men with intellect far in advance of their own. The pursuit was summarily checked, for the guides of the Spaniards ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... exultation of victorious invasions, the mask was shamelessly dropped, and Boerdom stands out defiantly and nakedly self-confessed, aiming at conquest and supremacy over all South Africa. Will the ensuing century have in store an instance to match that record plot of artifice and dissimulation, and see half the world duped into partisanship ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... willed that not one should look behind him, nor that one should return; he who falls rises not again." This sudden descent of the god has, even at the present day, an effect upon the reader, prepared though he is by his education to consider it as a literary artifice; but on the Egyptian, brought up to regard Amon with boundless reverence, its influence was irresistible. The Prince of the Khati, repulsed at the very moment when he was certain of victory, "recoiled with terror. He sends against the enemy the various chiefs, followed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... With this inscrutable artifice, Toby withdrew to purchase the viands he had spoken of, for ready money, at Mrs. Chickenstalker's; and presently came back, pretending he had not been able to find them, ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... name of Indian artifice is the white animal that I see moving about on the rocks?" demanded the captain, whose look was first turned in ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... emotions, and never once can you see them as anything but the creations of a highly talented brain. This is the more strange because Mr. BERESFORD'S people are as a rule so convincingly real. Perhaps to some degree the effect of artifice is due to the author's exclusive preoccupation with his central character. Cecilia's husband, her daughters, the home of her early married life, are shown to us only by the light of her flashing personality; this withdrawn, they simply cease to exist. On the whole, therefore, I should call ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... any others. In speaking of philosophical method among the Americans, I have shown that nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of equality than the idea of subjection to forms. Men living at such times are impatient of figures; to their eyes symbols appear to be the puerile artifice which is used to conceal or to set off truths, which should more naturally be bared to the light of open day: they are unmoved by ceremonial observances, and they are predisposed to attach a secondary importance ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Cambaya. Several times the capture of the place had been attempted by force, but without success. Even the great Albuquerque had been foiled in a furious attack. Failing in this, the Portuguese repeatedly endeavored to get permission to erect a fort for the protection of their trade, by persuasion or artifice. It had become an object of the most ardent desire, as well with the king and court at home, as with the viceroys and their ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... tiers looking down. The benches were draped with embroidered rugs and gold and scarlet hangings; the air was heavy with incense—and blood. About him sat men and women of Rome's culture, freshly perfumed from the baths. The slender figure in the dust of the circus alone was a creature without artifice. And, as she looked up, she recognized the man in the box, the man who had once been a barbarian, too, and she turned her eyes to the iron gates of the cages whence came the roar of the beasts, and waited the ordeal. And the face was ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... Like most men of brain and pith, who have seen and thought much, he was thankful for a new thing, because, so far as it went, it renewed him. It pleased him to imagine that he could, with a word or a look, cause this veil of artifice to be thrown aside, and the primitive passion and fierceness behind it to start forth. He allowed himself to imagine, with a certain satisfaction, that were he to make this young woman jealous she would think nothing of thrusting a dagger between his ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... accusation yet more galling with the words "whose god is their belly." Thus you hear how human righteousness, even at its best, extends no higher than to service of the sensual appetites. Take all the wisdom, justice, jurisprudence, artifice, even the highest virtues the world affords, and what are they? They minister only to that god, carnal appetite. They can go no farther than the needs of this life, their whole purpose being to satisfy physical ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... lyric, not epic. The aim of the Court poets was not the narrative or the dramatic presentation of the greater heroic legends; it was the elaborate decoration of commonplace themes, such as the praise of a king, by every possible artifice of rhyme and alliteration, of hard and exact construction of verse, and, above all, of far-sought metaphorical allusions. In this kind of work, in the praise of kings alive or dead, the poet was compelled to betake himself to mythology and ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... Dodsley, an opinion designedly pitched in a high and stentorian key and expressive of everything but compliment. On the contrary, Three-fingered Hoover—a guileless man, if ever there was one—stood bravely up for Jake, imputing this artifice of his to a passion which knows no ethics so far as competition is concerned. It was true, as Hoover admitted, that poets seldom make good husbands, but, being an exceptionally good poet, Jake might prove ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... for that idiosyncrasy in his constitution, which enabled him for so many years, not merely to brave the effects of fire, but to take a delight in an element where other men find destruction. He was above all artifice, and would often entreat his visitors to melt their own lead, or boil their own mercury, that they might be perfectly satisfied of the gratification he derived from drinking these preparations. He would also present his tongue in the most obliging manner to all who wished, to pour melted lead ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... to him, having still the same Thought) is it you that have torn me from the Princess? And could so cruel a Blow come from a Hand that is so dear to her? What will you do with an unfortunate Creature, who desires nothing but Death? And why will you obscure the Glory of your Life, by an Artifice unworthy of you?' This Language astonish'd the Prince no less than the sight of Agnes had done; he found by what she had said, that she was taken away by force; and immediately passing to the height of Rage, he made her understand by one only ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... headquarters upon many nights hoping to see her again or to pick up some clew as to her whereabouts, and at the same time he utilized many an artifice whereby he might bring terror to the hearts of the Germans. That he was successful was often demonstrated by the snatches of conversation he overheard as he prowled through the German camps. One night ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... visits of newspapers which are able, brilliant, comprehensive, clean and honest. But all the time, these men and families will have pressed upon their attention and patronage, by every device and artifice of the energetic and more or less unscrupulous publisher, other papers equally able and brilliant and comprehensive, but bringing also their burden of needless sensationalism and mendacity, undue expansion of all manner of scandal, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... that I read "Smoke" through once more, with no diminished sense of its truth, but with somewhat less than my first satisfaction in its art. Perhaps this was because I had reached the point through my acquaintance with Tolstoy where I was impatient even of the artifice that hid itself. In "Smoke" I was now aware of an artifice that kept out of sight, but was still always present somewhere, invisibly operating the story.—From "My Literary ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... sort are all true works of Art: in them (if thou know a Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity looking through Time; the Godlike rendered visible. Here too may an extrinsic value gradually superadd itself: thus certain Iliads, and the like, have, in three-thousand years, attained ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... There was no artifice left untried by the despot of Tunis. To the African princes, Moors as well as Arabs and Berbers, did Kheyr-ed-Din send embassies. For these he chose cunning men well versed in the means of exciting the furious passions of these primitive and ferocious peoples, and it was their mission ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... older than her brother, but, without a trace of artifice or intention, contrived to look the younger of the two. Her thick hair, drawn simply from her temples into a knot behind, was of that palest brown which assimilates grey. Her face, long, plain, masculine in contour and spirit, conveyed no message as to years. Long and spare of figure, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... day crossed the country, ruminating on the disaster that had befallen his squire, and could now compare circumstances coolly, he easily comprehended the whole scheme of that adventure, which was no other than an artifice of Anthony Darnel and his emissaries to draw him from the inn, where he proposed to execute his design upon the innocent Aurelia. He took it for granted that the uncle, having been made acquainted with his niece's elopement, had followed her track ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... mentality, and always afterward, when he had the opportunity to bring puerile sentimentality and common sense face to face, he forced himself to appeal to that quality, which in revealing to him the artifice of the sentiment which animated him, cured him of false sensibility, which he had ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... that poor English lad whom she drags about with her, to play propriety," continued she; "but do you suppose the world is blinded by so shallow an artifice?" ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... nothing came of the little artifice. No Buddha's graven face was less indicative than the squat man's. Perhaps his face was too sore to permit mobility of expression. The drollery of this thought caused a quirk in one corner of Kitty's mouth. The squat man stopped at the foot of the bed with the air of a mere passer-by ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... deep thinkers against a service which has all the mechanical artifice of Romanism without its strong appeal to the heart and the senses—dry, empty, rigid—a repetition of vain phrases. If I am ever to bow my neck beneath the Church's yoke, let me swallow the warm-blooded errors of Papacy ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... a poetic symbol, a beautiful artifice employed by the poets to perpetuate a legend by associating it with the imperishable hieroglyphs of the galaxy. It is not credible that men imagined that group of stars only outlined in such shape by the help of arbitrary fancy to be literally the translated hunter ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... when a little artifice may be resorted to, particularly in the matter of applying a little cut to the ball. There is a good deal of billiards in putting, and the cut stroke on the green is essentially one which the billiard player will delight to practise. But I warn ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... altar is but bread and wine he would, indeed, have done me a great service, and rendered me very material aid in my efforts to make a breach in the Papacy. But it is all in vain. The meaning of the texts is so evident that every artifice of language will be powerless to explain it away." He contended that the words "This is My body and This is My blood" could bear only one meaning, namely, that Christ was really present, but while agreeing with Catholics about the Real Presence of Christ ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... cruel artifice of fate, Thus to refine and vary on our woes, To raise us from despair and give us hopes, Only to plunge us in the gulf again, And make us doubly wretched." ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... quietly arranged that Hemstead should sit beside her, and he felicitated himself over their artifice as if it were ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... thee for a fool, so transparent was thine artifice. Forgive me! And prithee leave me! Thou seest how 'tis with me. The world hath soured me. I hate mankind. I was not always so. Once more excuse that my discourtesy, and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... to rest my horse, for I could not tell how soon I must look to his speed for safety. It was necessary also that I should see the two fellows who watched the Versailles road before they caught sight of me. Possibly an artifice might avail me where force ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... of morality was flagrant; but the motives were those which have enabled us to contemplate with distressing complacency the secret of unhallowed lives. The code that is greatly modified by time and place, will vary according to the cause. The amnesty is an artifice that enables us to make exceptions, to tamper with weights and measures, to deal unequal justice to friends ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... famous French artists. One critic writes: "The painting is firm and brilliant. The hands are especially beautiful; we scarcely know to whom we can compare Mme. Massip, unless to M. Paul Dubois. They have the same love of art, the same soberness of tone, the same scorn of artifice.... The woman who has signed such a portrait is a great artist." It is well known that the famous sculptor is ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... boasts to-day a mint turning out a very respectable coinage, a large arsenal, and a university of more promise, perhaps, than achievement; and the pride of the moment was a new arcade of shops where the goods were set out with all the artifice of the West in large glazed windows. Although Japanese and Europeans are employed, yet these are all truly native undertakings, and that, to my mind, is the best part of Chengtu's progress; it shows what the Chinese can do for themselves, not simply ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... baffled. Not only is an acute, sagacious, and austere bench a perilous foe to the trickery of the ignorant or half-prepared advocate, but the veteran practitioners around him are quick to detect every sign of mental weakness, disingenuous artifice, or disposition to substitute sham for reality. Forensic life is, to a large extent, life in the broad glare of day, under the scrutiny of keen-eyed observers and merciless critics. In every cause there are two attorneys engaged, of whom one is a sentinel upon the other; and a blunder, a slip, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... his drawings of children du Maurier is very far away from the sentimentalist of the Barrie school. He does not attempt to go through the artifice of pretended possession of the realm of the child's mind. He was of those who find the curious attractiveness of childhood in the unreality, and not, as claimed by the later school, the superior reality of the child's world. ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... of difficulty, though even then, such tricks are departures from honorable dealing. But especially when there is no purpose to be served but that of appearing to know more than you do, it certainly must be considered a very mean kind of artifice. I think I have sometimes observed an individual to be prompted, where evidently the assistance was not desired, and even where it was not needed. To whisper to an individual the answer to a question, is sometimes to pay her rather a poor compliment, at least; for it is the same as saying, ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... majesty has found fault with something with which no one has reproached me heretofore, and I confess that your criticism has struck me. But it is just, and I deserve it. However, a poet may be pardoned for using an artifice which cannot easily be detected, in order to produce a certain effect that he believes he is unable to bring about in a ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... with a white veil. The garments in very truth, strange as it may seem, were genuine nun's garments, and by some hand they had been disposed with a view to illusion. Whence came these vestments? Who contrived this artifice? These questions still remained. To the head-bandage was pinned a slip of paper: it bore ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... growth and to eradicate the evil. The men who profit by the abuses and desire to perpetuate them will continue to besiege the halls of legislation in the General Government as well as in the States, and will seek by every artifice to mislead and deceive the public servants. It is to yourselves that you must look for safety and the means of guarding and perpetuating your free institutions. In your hands is rightfully placed the sovereignty of the country, and to you everyone ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... far from care and fear! Therefore we see that our corporeal life Needs little, altogether, and only such As takes the pain away, and can besides Strew underneath some number of delights. More grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth There be no golden images of boys Along the halls, with right hands holding out The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts, And if the house doth glitter not with gold Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... a little pleased at this frantic passion, and secretly liked him ten times better for it, though she immediately resorted to every artifice to calm his anger, for she knew his violent nature, and that he was quite capable of doing as he had said. But the delight of two strings to her bow was not easily to be foregone, and thus, though she really loved ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... dishonourable death on either side, Li Keen drew his sword, and made use of every artifice of which he had knowledge in order to disarm Ling or to take him at a disadvantage. In this he was unsuccessful, for Ling, who was by nature a very expert sword-user, struck him repeatedly, until he at length fell in an expiring condition, ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... no Design or Artifice in relation to her Son, but mere Affection; which, considering all Things, one would ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... pseudonym "BIS." They can here learn from a sympathetic little introduction by Mr. WARD MUIR under what conditions of a brave but losing battle with ill-health this delicate and vivacious work was written. When I say that these recollections (which I decline to call by any word implying more artifice) illustrate their author, I give you their measure for honesty and charm combined. Honesty first of all; Mr. SMITH'S young barbarians running wild and, one conjectures, rapidly reducing their elders to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... of fighting and of fighters seem to me to have a note in them that does not ring quite true. It is just the difference between the soldier telling his own artless and rugged tale and someone else telling it for him with a touch of artifice. But when the author merely uses the War as her background she writes with real power. The straining for effect vanishes, and so little do the later stories resemble the earlier that I should not have guessed that they were written by the same hand. "Citoyenne Michelle" ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... behaviour in your family?—a CLARISSA in view, (from the time your foolish brother was obliged to take a life from him,) but defiance for defiances. Getting you into his power by terror, by artifice. What politeness can be expected ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... had been induced to suffer themselves to be called women by their old enemies, the Mingoes, or Iroquois. After the latter, having in vain tried the effects of hostility, had recourse in artifice in order to prevail over their rivals. According to this declaration, the Delawares were to cultivate the arts of peace, and to intrust their defence entirely to the men, or warlike tribes ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... majesty, and to us they were of unspeakable value. They assented, and took a list only; and did the same with the books, medicines, &c. My little work-table and rocking-chair, presents from my beloved brother, I rescued from their grasp, partly by artifice, and partly through their ignorance. They left also many articles which were of inestimable value ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... had a goat, which carried water for his service; and to this the animal was taught, not by any artifice but rather by a miracle. And a certain thief stole the goat, and eat, and swallowed it. And the author or instigator of the theft is enquired: and one who by evident tokens had incurred suspicion, is accused; but not only denieth he the fact, but adding perjury ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... endeavoured to reduce the idea of beauty to general principles. And I had the pleasure to observe that the professor of painting proceeded in the same method, when he showed you that the artifice of contrast was founded but on one principle. And I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing science, of clearing the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... to explain to so many gentler lovers—an entire absence of preference; her heart she could not give him—she did not have it. Yet after her first prayer to the Spaniard and his overseer for deliverance, to the secret surprise and chagrin of her young mistress, she simulated content. It was artifice; she knew Agricola's power, and to seem to consent was her one chance with him. He might thus be beguiled into withdrawing his own consent. That failing, she had Mademoiselle's promise to come to the rescue, which ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... I knew it. He thought himself possessed of a very important document, as you know, of which he has made, or means to make, some use. You are aware of the artifice I employed to prevent any possible evil consequences from any action of his. I have the genuine document, of course. I wish you to go over with me to The Poplars, and I should be glad to have good old Father Pemberton go with us; for it is a serious matter, and will be a great surprise ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... Burton and Beroalde, relying more and more exclusively on his own rich store of observations taken directly from human nature. In the adorable seventh volume of Tristram, and in The Sentimental Journey, there is nothing left of Rabelais except a certain rambling artifice of style. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... this proof of their attachment and respect with particular marks of satisfaction; the president and vice-president were both aldermen of London; and the council was composed of thirty gentlemen, the majority of whom were members of parliament. Great pains were taken, and some artifice was used, to learn the Dutch method of curing the fish. People crowded with their subscriptions; a number of hands were employed in building and equipping the busses or vessels used in the fishery; and the most favourable consequences were expected from the general vigour ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... remembering my former artifice, began to believe that I was only pretending to be ill, in order to draw Martin on, and then taking a certain liberty with me, as with a child, she ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... &c. In this and the next paragraph, the author introduceth the arguments he formerly used, when he turned papist in King James's time; and loth to lose them, he gives them a new turn; and they are the strongest In his book, at least have most artifice. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... the mass. Within but very few years of the present date, we have had the spectacle of millions, literally millions, of the people of England, yielding an absolute credence to the most monstrous delusions respecting public questions and measures, imposed on them by dishonest artifice, and what may be called moral incendiarism; and these delusions of a nature to excite the passions of the multitude to crime. It is difficult to believe that all this can be seen without serious apprehension, by those who sustain the primary responsibility for devising measures to secure ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... first attempt upon them was a customary Indian stratagem. A person, affecting to be a white man, hailed them, and requested them to lie by, that he might come on board. Finding that the boat's crew were not to be allured to the shore by this artifice, the Indians put off from the shore in three canoes, and attacked the boat. Never was a contest of this sort maintained with more desperate bravery. The Indians attempted to board the boat, and the inmates made use of all arms of annoyance and defence. ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... stood she, the Damsel, So deep reflected she: "O for some cunning artifice To rid me ...
— The Serpent Knight - and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... when, she said, she would discover herself, and reprimand him for his criminal passion: but, being hurried away by a much more criminal passion herself, she kept the assignation without discovering herself. The fruit of this horrid artifice was a daughter, whom the gentlewoman caused to be educated very privately in the country: but proving very lovely, and being accidentally met by her father-brother, who had never had the slightest suspicion of the truth, he had fallen in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... is impossible to give them credit for integrity when we behold the obstinacy and the artifice with which they defend their system against the strongest argument, and against ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... desired to excel in maritime enterprise, but it was otherwise during the Plantagenet period. Henry the Second possessed a most formidable fleet, numbering some five hundred vessels of war. During the reign of his successor a novel artifice in naval warfare was resorted to by the English which merits notice. The English admiral caused a number of barrels of unslaked lime to be placed in his ships. Having brought his fleet to windward of the enemy—the ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... of its contemporaries—or at least never behind them—is the end and aim of the American paper which I serve, and to attain these desirable objects, every artifice must be employed and ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... force must be larger still, If we would change these Provinces to States. Then, Colonel Proctor's intercepted letter— Bidding the captor of Fort Mackinaw Send but five thousand warriors from the West, Which, be it artifice or not, yet points To great and serious danger. Add to this Brock's rumoured coming with his Volunteers, All burning to avenge their fathers' wrongs, And our great foe, Tecumseh, fired o'er his; These are the reasons; grave enough, I think, Which urge ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... inspiration—here truth with impartial hand dips her pencil, now in brighter, now in darker colors, and thus draws her characters to the very life. Dr. Beattie justly says, "The style of the Gospel bears intrinsic evidence of its truth. We find there no appearance of artifice or party spirit; no attempt to exaggerate on the one hand, or depreciate on the other; no remarks thrown in to anticipate objections, nothing of that caution which never fails to distinguish the testimony of those who are conscious of imposture; no endeavor to reconcile the reader's ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of philosophy. All belief in revealed religion was thus destroyed. It will be seen then that in the last degrees the whole teaching of the first five was reversed and therefore shown to be a fraud. Fraud in fact constituted the system of the society; in the instructions to the Dais every artifice is described for enlisting proselytes by misrepresentation: Jews were to be won by speaking ill of Christians, Christians by speaking ill of Jews and Moslems alike, Sunnis by referring with respect to the orthodox Khalifas Abu Bakr and Omar and criticizing Ali ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... short period, the friend who had presented Captain——, alarmed for my safety, and actuated by a liberal wish to defend me from the artifice of his associate, waited on my mother, and, after some hesitation, informed her that my lover was already married; that he had a young and amiable wife in a sister kingdom, and that he apprehended some diabolical stratagem for the enthralment ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... reached a narrow passage, which showed almost the appearance of having been cut by human strength and artifice in the solid rock. There was a wall of granite on each side, high and precipitous, especially on our right, and so smooth that a few evergreens could hardly find foothold enough to grow there. This is the entrance, or, in the ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... alive, and had come back," sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all through this narrative; "and when she knew his purpose, she advised him by all means to keep his secret close; for his old friend John Peerybingle was much too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice—being a clumsy man in general," said Dot, half laughing and half crying—"to keep it for him. And when she—that's me, John," sobbed the little woman—"told him all, and how his sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she had at last been over-persuaded by her ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... truth in that," she admitted, with a laugh. "What a diverting piece of artifice this Wintergarten is, to be sure. Fancy arranging the electric lights to shine through a dome of purple glass, and look like stars. They do look like stars, don't they? Slightly overdressed, showy stars, indeed; ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... sufficient to occasion much perplexity to any one disposed to consider it in connection with the character and moral feelings of the people. Whether to note it as a reluctance on their part to incur the guilt of an oath, or as a proof of habitual tact in evading it by artifice, is manifestly a difficulty hard to be overcome. We are decidedly inclined to the former; for although there is much laxity of principle among Irishmen, naturally to be expected from men whose moral state has been neglected ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... vanished from her thoughts, or rather had never been there. She was drinking again the forbidden waters for which she had thirsted, perhaps without quite knowing it, so long. The strangeness, the strain, the artifice of the last eight months fell from her like a spell; she was herself again, comfortable again, poised again, thrilling from head to heels with delicious ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... how easily I was the dupe of that not too subtle artifice, which was only half malicious, I could smile, if I did not know how ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... This artifice is not absolutely new to the French stage, and it is possible, as Fleury[119] thinks, that the idea of the double disguise may have been borrowed from a short play by Legrand, le Galant Coureur, The situation, most difficult to handle successfully, is treated with inimitable skill by Marivaux, ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... of yourself—or being made a fool of—which you please," he assured me; and his face wore for the moment an almost friendly look. I saw clearly that he believed he had won the day. The old lady had managed to make him think that—by what artifice I knew not. But what I did know was that I believed not a jot of the insinuation he was conveying to me, and had not a doubt of the truth, ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... Mildred, but not for himself. Men rarely seem to think themselves too old to win the young of our sex; and what they want in attraction, they generally endeavour to supply by flattery and artifice. But, I acquit our new friend ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... original outlay, to facilitate transport, all that you can require. If, Sir, the complaints against the general body of the West Indians had been substantiated, I should have deemed it an unworthy artifice to attempt diverting the attention of the House from the question immediately at issue, by merely proving that delinquencies existed in other quarters; but feeling as I do that those charges have been ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... Herculaneum, and Pompeii, took part with Samnium in the beginning of the war; but their greatly exposed situation and the machinations of the Romans—who endeavoured to bring over to their side the optimate party in these towns by all the levers of artifice and self-interest, and found a powerful support to their endeavours in the precedent of Capua—induced these towns to declare themselves either in favour of Rome or neutral not long ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... a sophism, a logical artifice, a deceitful or false appearance; while specious means having the appearance of truth, plausible. Hence we see that the very essence of a fallacy is its speciousness. We may very properly say that a fallacy is more or less specious, but we can not properly say that a fallacy is ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... fine it is very fine, but it is always liable to the danger of degenerating into mannerism. Nay, where the imagination is absent and the artifice remains, as in some of the theological discussions in "Paradise Lost," it becomes mannerism of the most wearisome kind. Accordingly, he is easily parodied and easily imitated. Philips, in his "Splendid Shilling," has ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... are so mixed in civilized society, and the words so inaccurately used, both in common conversation, and in the writings of philosophers, that no metaphysical prism can separate or reduce them to their primary meaning. Next he touched upon the distinction between art and artifice. The conversation branched out into remarks on grace and affectation, and thence to the different theories of beauty and taste, with all which he ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... But it was very difficult to do this when we were armed, since, if we went to them prepared to fight, they would turn and flee into the woods, where they were not to be caught. It was necessary, accordingly, to have recourse to artifice, and this is what we planned: when they should come to seek friendship with us, to coax them by showing them beads and other gewgaws, and assure them repeatedly of our good faith; then to take the shallop well armed, and conduct on shore the most robust ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... little artifice on the part of Angelique, empty of visitors this evening. Even her brother, the Chevalier des Meloises, with whom she lived, a man of high life and extreme fashion, was to-night enjoying the more ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... did Steve permit a shadow to cross the child's sunny, smiling face. From the first moment when the responsibility for Marcel's little life had fallen into his hands his mind was made up. By every artifice the boy must be kept from all knowledge of the tragedy that had befallen him. When he asked for his mother he was told that she was so sick that she could not be worried. This was during the first two days. After that he was told that she had ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... Single horse of those people, dureing this day at any price, they offered me 2 for 2 kittles of which we Could not spear. I used every artifice decent & even false Statements to enduce those pore devils to Sell me horses. in the evening two different men offered to Sell me three horses which they informed me was a little distance off and ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... replied Mirandolet. "Unless I very much mistake your physiognomy, you yourself come of an ancient race which is not without cunning and artifice—but in such matters as you refer to, you are children, compared to your ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... the hour of the next day's noon before the preacher recovered from the effects of potations so unusual to him. It was then that Dalton questioned him, and discovered the artifice and cruelty of the treacherous Burrell, in abandoning the poor preacher to starvation: a consequence that must have occurred, had not the Skipper providentially stood in need of some articles of bedding, that were kept in this chamber, as matters ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... left only yesterday, after exhausting every effort of intrigue, and every artifice which Malays can ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... No sooner was the decree of Bourges rescinded than the Pope resumed and enforced his claim to the provision of benefices in France. Simony and the whole train of concomitant abuses reappeared more scandalously than ever; and Louis found himself despised by his subjects as the dupe of papal artifice. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... no longer. Love, I take it, is a battle, and I use a military simile because there is war about us. If a good general wishes to take a position, and if he fails in the direct charge—if he is repelled with loss—he does not on that account retreat; but he resorts to artifice, to stratagem, to the mine, to the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... except on the supposition of treachery." But this was only a faon de parler with him: the idea of secret perfidy, that was constantly moving under ground, gave an interest to the progress of the war, which else tended to the monotonous. It was a dramatic artifice for sustaining the interest, where the incidents might happen to be too slightly diversified. But that he did not believe his own charges was clear, because he never repeated them in his "General History of the Campaigns," which was a resum, or recapitulating ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... That there would be some trouble in arranging the matter she had expected. But the extreme dolefulness of Mrs. Newt had already perplexed her; and the prompt, simple way in which she answered this question precluded the suspicion of artifice. Something was clearly, radically wrong. She knew that Alfred had six hundred a year from his father. She had no profound respect for that gentleman; but men are willful. Suppose he should take a whim to stop it? On the other ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... springe, which the farmer had planted there for that end. The Cock, at a distance, saw what happened, and, hardly yet daring to trust himself too near so dangerous a foe, approached him cautiously, and peeped at him. Reynard addressed himself to him, with all the designing artifice imaginable. "Dear cousin," says he, "you see what an unfortunate accident has befallen me here, and all upon your account: for, as I was creeping through yonder hedge, in my way homeward, I heard you ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop |
