"Preconcerted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... horses had been quickened into a trot, the wagon had gone down into the brook - through it - and was bounding up the opposite side - everybody was holding tightly to anything that came nearest to hand - when, at that fatal moment, little Mr. Bouncer gave the preconcerted push, which was passed on, unpremeditatedly, from one to another, until it had gained its electrical climax in the person of Miss Morkin, who, with a shriek, was propelled against Mr. Poletiss, and gave ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... that had yet occurred in this country was that of 1877, by the employees of the principal railway trunk lines, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the New York Central, and their western prolongations. At a preconcerted time junctions and other main points were seized. Freight traffic on the roads named was entirely suspended, and the passenger and mail service greatly impeded. When new employees sought to work, militia and United States troops had to be called out to preserve order. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... harmless, a useful and I will add, gentlemen, a comforting article of domestic furniture?" He then goes on ingeniously to suggest that it may be "a cover for hidden fire, a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion and which I am not in a position to explain?" Admirable indeed! One could imagine a city jury in their wisdom ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... conducted with great rapidity. On a signal given by a cannon-shot each furnace was to give vent to the molten iron and completely to empty itself. These arrangements made, foremen and workmen waited the preconcerted moment with an impatience mingled with a certain amount of emotion. Not a soul remained within the enclosure. Each superintendent took his post by the aperture ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... five of the bullock-drivers and two men, sent for water, were at that time there, and also the tribe of king Peter, it was evident that a collision had taken place between them. The arrival of the other tribe, who still lingered on our right front, made this appear like a preconcerted attack; and two of the tribe again came forward, just as the shots were echoing along the river, to ask for fire and something to eat. Their apparent indifference to the sound of musketry was curious, and as they had not yet communicated with those to whom they ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... manned by eight Mexicans, with a muffled figure in the stern sheets, now pulled out for the brig, and soon lay alongside. On being challenged, a preconcerted watchword was given in reply, and the oars being shipped, a couple of boat hooks held the boat fast at the foot of the starboard side-ladder. This done, the person in the stern sheets arose and prepared to ascend the ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Mary's account of the transactions at Dunbar is believed. Others think that the whole affair was all a preconcerted plan, and that the appearance of resistance on her part was only for show, to justify, in some degree, in the eyes of the world, so imprudent and inexcusable a marriage. A great many volumes have been written on the question without making any progress toward ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... challenged Thor to a test of strength and skill, but without waiting for a preconcerted signal, he flung a red-hot wedge at him. Thor, quick of eye and a practised catcher, caught the missile with the giantess's iron glove, and hurled it back at his opponent. Such was the force of the god, that the missile passed, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... their doubts about the precise locality of the station indicated in the letter, when suddenly a man started up from the ground, and greeted them with the words "St. Agnes! all is right," which had been preconcerted as the signal in the letter. This man was courteous and respectful in his manner of speaking, and had nothing of the ruffian voice which belonged to the bearer of the letter. In rapid terms he assured Paulina that "the young general" had not ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... in her way often enough to excite her suspicion that their meetings were preconcerted on his part, and even when he did overtake her or suffer her to overtake him, he avoided giving her offense by pressing his suit until another good opportunity should offer. This was not ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Julia smiled. "But the truth is," she added, "Jim has no preconcerted plan. He's made a very close man friend or two in Germany, belongs to a doctors' club. I know him so well! He lets the days, and the weeks, and the years go by, forgetting me and everything that concerns me as much as he can, and ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... waited the expected attack. The rebels at length appeared. Colonel Ross ordered the infantry to fire as they came within range; and then, at a preconcerted signal, Reginald and Burnett, leading on their troopers, desperately charged the rebel forces. Many on both sides went down, but the rebels, relying on their numbers, and knowing the weakness of the force opposed to them, refused to give way. The moon afforded sufficient light to enable the combatants ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... foremen and workmen awaited the preconcerted moment with impatience mixed with emotion. There was no longer any one in the inclosure, and each superintendent took his place near the aperture of ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... devoted Aide-de-Camp, Charles Terieu de la Perade, Sieur de Lanaudiere, Seigneur de Ste. Anne, and a lineal descendant of de Ramezay. The skiff silently pushed off, the Captain frequently communicating his orders in a preconcerted manner by silently touching the shoulder or head of the man next to him, who passed on the signal to the one nearest, and so on. "Their perplexity increased as they approached the Berthier Islands, from the knowledge that the enemy had taken up strong positions at this point, ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... battles—Grossbeeren, Hagelberg, Katzbach, Kulm, and Dennewitz. The allies could therefore contract that circumference, come into closer touch, and threaten his central intrenched camps at Pirna and Dresden. Yet still, in pursuance of a preconcerted plan, they drew back where he advanced in person. Thus, when he sought to drive back Schwarzenberg's columns into Bohemia, that leader warily retired to the now impregnable passes; and the Emperor fell back on Dresden, wearied and perplexed. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... they had two hundred and thirteen flatirons, one stand and a cow-bell. And now the Pottses have cut the Smiths and Browns and Johnsons and Thompsons and the rest entirely, for they are convinced that there was a preconcerted design to play a trick ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... France, and that all the French prisoners should be restored. This treaty was considered final as regards France; but there were other affairs of an extensive and complicated nature still to be settled, the greater part of Europe requiring reorganization, and her past misfortunes demanding some preconcerted defences for the future—and it was therefore agreed in a separate article that all the powers engaged in the late war should send plenipotentiaries to a congress to be held at Vienna, for the object of completing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... day, although without any preconcerted arrangement, Captain Aggett called at Mr Fluke's office, and desired to ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... a tongue the majority did not use, and then prevailing. They ceased their interruptions, and the old man, Arius, took up the debate. For a time all those impassioned faces were intent upon him; they listened as though they sought occasion, and suddenly as if by a preconcerted arrangement they were all thrusting their fingers into their ears and knitting their brows in assumed horror; some were crying aloud and making as if to fly. Some indeed tucked up their garments and fled. They ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... Munich. That text afforded the opportunity for a vague expression of what the Senate termed the necessities of France. To give greater solemnity to the affair the Senate proceeded in a body to the Tuileries, and one thing which gave a peculiar character to the preconcerted advances of the Senate was that Cambaceres, the Second Consul, fulfilled his functions of President on this occasion, and delivered the address to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... fusion of the arts in his music drama—only bad verse, foolish librettos, dealing with monsters and gods, and indifferent scene-painting. Moreover, this new music is not understood by the world. Even if the whole of mankind could be assembled on the roof of the world and at a preconcerted signal made to howl the Marseillaise, it would not be educated to the heights I imagine. Stage plays—Shakespeare has no message for our days; Ibsen is an anarchist—he believes in placing the torpedo under the social ark. Painting—it is an affair for ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... time, till the bastion pitched one of its periodical shots into Death's Alley; but no sooner had the shot struck, and sent the sand flying past the two lanes of curious noses, than Colonel Dujardin jumped upon the gun and waved his cocked hat. At this preconcerted signal, his battery opened fire on the bastion, and the battery to his right hand opened on the wall that fronted them; and the Colonel gave the word to run the gun out of the trenches. They ran it out into the cloud of smoke their ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... this, Aurelia," exclaimed Catiline, as if he were angry, although in truth the whole thing was carefully preconcerted. "Wherefore is Lucia thus strangely clad? Is it, I pray you, in scorn of our noble guests, that she wears only this ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... ask your attention, then, in the first place, to those appearances, on the morning after the murder, which have a tendency to show that it was done in pursuance of a preconcerted plan of operation. What are they? A man was found murdered in his bed. No stranger had done the deed, no one unacquainted with the house had done it. It was apparent that somebody within had opened, and that somebody without ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... found themselves inside the wall without a shot having been fired. More must have followed them, at any rate a considerable force must have gathered there before the Communists found out they had entered. There can be no doubt that it was a surprise, and not a preconcerted movement, for the batteries continue to fire on the place for some time ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... but embraced him tenderly. Russell had shown Lady Mary that her son had been the dupe of a preconcerted scheme to work upon his passions. She deplored his weakness, but she had been touched by his sufferings; and was persuaded that his remorse would guard him against future errors. Therefore not a word or look of reproach ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... days have opened since, with the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon; and the population had, at an early hour, poured into the streets of the place, with that determined zeal in the cause of merriment, which ordinarily makes preconcerted joy so dull an amusement. The chosen orator of the day had exhibited his eloquence, in a sort of prosaic monody in praise of the dead hero, and had sufficiently manifested his loyalty, by laying the glory, not only of that sacrifice, but all that had been reaped by so many thousands of his brave ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... distinct consciousness of the fate that was in reserve for the army of Chalons, deprived of its commander, destitute of any guiding principle of action, dragged purposelessly in this direction and in that, while the Germans went straight and swift to their preconcerted end with mechanical ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... thoroughly melted and amalgamated into the summer, as if it would go on indefinitely, though the body of the little creature were dried into dust. All this time the birds were silent and invisible, as if they would take no more part in the symphony of the year. Then, as if by preconcerted signal, they joined in: Crows cawed anxiously afar; Jays screamed in the woods; a Partridge clucked to its brood, like the gurgle of water from a bottle; a Kingfisher wound his rattle, more briefly than in spring, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the world to accept of such a destiny into the position of an unarmed man who, without any preparation, was to render himself into the hands of his armed adversaries, and cause a succession of surprises and acts of violence, which, by his own courage and dexterity, he would rule to a determined and preconcerted plan.'[14] ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... notwithstanding Boone's prediction; for no sooner did Joe fire, than they hastily retreated a short distance, scattering in every direction, and, without a moment's consultation, again appeared, advancing rapidly from every quarter. It was evident that this plan had been preconcerted among them; and had all fired, instead of Joe only, they might easily have scaled the palisade before the guns could have been reloaded. Neither had the besiegers been aware of the strength of the garrison. But they were soon made to understand that they had more than Glenn and his ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... in the cabal until she could avow it with a certainty of triumph. Perceiving the reluctance of Madame de Villars to take the initiative, she hastened to explain to her the suspicion which would naturally be engendered in the mind of the King, should he imagine that the affair had been preconcerted to satisfy her private animosity; and moreover suggested that the Duchess should, in her interview with the monarch, carefully avoid even the mention of her name. Encouragement and entreaties followed this caution; while a few rich presents ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... straggling up the incline, coming nearer and nearer the men in ambush, until the latter could see clearly that every driver was a half-breed and that every man of them had a rifle across his knees. When they were well within the line, the preconcerted signal—Howden's ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... a lover receives from his mistress, is a new era in his life. Again and again I kissed the precious paper, and almost wore it out in my bosom. We afterwards improved in this mode of intercourse, and, by various preconcerted signals, were able to carry on our correspondence altogether in the night. Not a day passed that we did not exchange letters, which, though they contained few facts, and always expressed the same sentiments, still repeated what we were never tired of hearing. To the moment at which ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... Casalverde deserved his death. I can quite understand that Del Ferice might in the excitement of the moment have lunged at me after the halt was cried, but I cannot understand how Casalverde could be so infamous as not to cross his sword when he himself called. It looked very much like a preconcerted arrangement. Casalverde deserved to die, for the safety of society. I should think that Rome had had enough of duelling for ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... time for the Mediterranean. But reaching the harbor of Leghorn was one thing, getting ashore quite another; an hour or more elapsed before any of us had permission to land. I was one of the two first who got off, through the preconcerted interposition of a powerful Leghorn friend who had procured a special permit from the Police, and at whose hospitable mansion we passed the night. I was unwell throughout; but an early bath in the Mediterranean was the medicine I required, and from ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... have been that," the trader said, "but it seems to me more likely that they intended to carry her off and hold her to ransom. I dare say that you are surprised at my being abroad with my daughter so late, but I believe now that it was a preconcerted plot. It was but ten days before I left London, three weeks since, that I hired a new man. He had papers which showed that he came from Chelmsford, was an honest fellow, and accustomed to the care of horses. I doubt ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... amuse themselves by troubling her heart and confusing her mind; they excite her vanity, they compass her round with homage, with flattery, with temptation, and when they grow tired of fooling her, they despise and insult her. Tell me, was this all a preconcerted plan? This love, this ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... left you. You read faces; well, I read circumstances. Matters are not as you thought," said she, with all a woman's tact. "I cannot explain, but you will see." She then gave Mrs. Triplet peremptory orders not to let her charge rise from the bed until the preconcerted signal. ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... circulation both at Alexandria and at Rome, though the mystery was never fully solved. Some said that there was an asp concealed among the figs which the servant man brought in in the basket; that he brought it in that manner, by a preconcerted arrangement between him and Cleopatra, and that, when she received it, she placed the creature on her arm. Others say that she had a small steel instrument like a needle, with a poisoned point, which she had kept concealed in her hair, and that she killed herself ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... of which he was the chief predominated strongly, as has been mentioned, in the Council of Ancients. It was through the instrumentality of that council, accordingly, that the conspirators resolved to strike their first blow. And how well their measures had been preconcerted, will sufficiently appear from the most naked statement of the events of the 18th and 19th Brumaire (Nov. 10 and 11, 1799), in the order ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... Little Belt to suffer so seriously for the misfortune of being taken for the Guerriere had caused a corresponding feeling of anger in the officers of the British frigate. The meeting of August 19th had the character of a preconcerted duel. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the box, and three persons on each of the other seats. On requesting that one of the sitters by my fat friend would share the vacant front with me, the Major informed me that the arrangement was preconcerted, as they knew I was not quite so well used to rough roads as they were, and had work before me on getting to my journey's end; begging me to fix myself comfortably on the seat, and try and sleep for an hour ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... advantage of a fait accompli. Of this there was no room to doubt, when, a little later, he took officially under his protection the fruit of that criminal aggression against which he had so loudly protested. Either from weakness or treachery he was an accomplice, and played a preconcerted game. At first he may have been sincere in threatening, in the hope of intimidating the revolution. But when there was question of acting, and he knew that it defied him, he recoiled. French historians ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... occasionally do demand the necessities of life without receiving them; but in that case they would also have known that such a misfortune would never fall upon a couple of lost children who confide their woes to the public. There was no preconcerted plan between them, no system. They acted without invention, premonition, or reflection. It was their habit to scream, while holding the breath as long as possible, whenever the universe was unfriendly, and particularly ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... offered by "thought-readers," etc., from the public platform, have really had nothing at all to do with thought-transference, have depended either on abnormal delicacy of tactile and other sensory perception, or on the adroit use of preconcerted signals. It is only when the observer has complete control of the conditions (which he never has in any public exhibition), that it is worth while to conduct experiments between two persons in ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... eyes from time to time towards heaven, her exceedingly pretty fingers, tipped with polished nails of rosy hue, writhing the while in preconcerted agonies—"Theodore, I am guilty before you—deeply guilty. I will say more—I am a criminal; but hear what I have to say. I am tortured by remorse; I have become a burden to myself; I can bear my position ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... simultaneously, by a preconcerted signal, the lights are out, and the black darkness has swallowed up the scene. In the momentary silence of astonishment, Andros feels himself violently shoved aside; the hand with which he would draw his sword is in an iron grasp, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... after an unprofitable detention of nearly two months at Arevalo, marched on Toro, which, by a preconcerted agreement, was delivered into his hands by the governor of the city, although the fortress, under the conduct of a woman, continued to maintain a gallant defence. While occupied with its reduction, Alfonso was invited to receive ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... the Rhine were preconcerted between king William and the prince of Baden, who had visited London in the winter. The dispute between the emperor and the elector of Saxony was compromised; and this young prince dying during the negotiation, the treaty ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... life of exertion was to dispose of the fruits of his labour according to his own will. This he felt, and he considered it unreasonable that what he supposed a boyish attachment on the part of Newton was to overthrow all his preconcerted arrangements. Had Mr Forster been able to duly appreciate the feelings of his nephew, he probably would not have been so decided; but Love had never been able to establish himself as an inmate of his breast. His life had been a ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... order of arrest, behind which crouched these crimes ready to rise and spring upon her, was suspended by Inspector Loup. For which tenderness and mercy Fouchette was merely to report to the Secret Service bureau in accordance with a preconcerted arrangement. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... for his white hat (the lode-star of faction), retired, a man suddenly waved a tricolour flag (it was the year, remember, of the Revolution in Paris), with the word "Reform" painted upon it, and a preconcerted cry was raised by the more violent of, "Now for the West End!" About one thousand men then rushed over Blackfriars bridge, shouting, "Reform!" "Down with the police!" "No Peel!" "No Wellington!" Hurrying along ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... name Weybehays, a lieutenant, had been despatched to another island to seek for water, and having discovered some after a search of twenty days he made the preconcerted signal by lighting three fires, but in vain, for they were not noticed by the people of Cornelis' company, the conspirators having during that time murdered those who were not of their party. Of these they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... libelled were committed by the panels, Wilson and Hall, it must have been done upon occasion of this purely accidental information, when they were insane from strong drink: it was more like a drunken frolic than a preconcerted robbery. As a further evidence of this fact, it appeared by the libel itself that they acted like persons in such a condition; for they, as well as the other panel Robertson, were all seized in an hour or two thereafter, before the effects of the liquor had worn off, and before ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... managed to relay information concerning him to their friends ashore by some set of preconcerted signals, possibly the regular steamer train to and out of ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... enough to the King William, which was the foremost of the fleet, to call upon her captain to surrender. But at that moment Governor Johnson, who was on board the Mediterranean, and could hear the insolent pirate shouting through his speaking-trumpet, gave a preconcerted signal. Instantly everything was changed. The covers were jerked off from the cannon of the pretended merchantmen, armed men poured up out of the holds, the flag of England was quickly raised on each one of them, and the sixty-eight guns of the combined fleet ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... 22, 1842, a notable meeting took place, between Hawthorne, Emerson, and Margaret Fuller, who came that afternoon to enjoy the inspiration of the place, without preconcerted agreement. Margaret Fuller was first on the ground, and Hawthorne found her seated on the hill-side—his gravestone now overlooks the spot—reading a book with a peculiar name, which he "did not understand, and could not afterward recollect." Such a description ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... and, for all the world as if by preconcerted action, the ladies disappeared. Dr. Dancer was on friendly terms with the household, and, his age being thirty, he was neither too old nor too young to address Henry as ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... of white ducks, walking delicately, with heads lifted high and timid eyes, in a long line, has the air of an ecclesiastical procession. The singers go before, the minstrels follow after. There is something liturgical, too, in the way in which, as if by a preconcerted signal, they all cry out together, standing in a group, with a burst of hoarse cheering, cut off suddenly by an intolerable silence. The arrival of ducks upon the scene, when the fowls are fed, is an impressive sight. They stamp wildly over the pasture, falling, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... most subtle organization; and the second upon the encouragement of a French invasion. And each of these insurrections had its own separate leaders and its own local agents. The first, though precipitated into action by fortunate discoveries on the part of the government, had been anxiously preconcerted for three years. The second was an unpremeditated effort, called forth by a most ill-timed, and also ill-concerted, foreign invasion. The general predisposing causes to rebellion were doubtless the same in both ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... suspected the visit, with which he was honoured, to have been preconcerted by his wife and the duke; and he now began to think her majesty was likewise connected with a plot destined to rob him of his peace and blight his honour. However, he was obliged to obey the queen's ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... up, at a venture, the folded papers, announces that the sublime Emperor, or some mandarin of exalted rank, has been so fortunate as to hold the winning number in the Annual State Lottery. So vengeance-laden and mournful was the combined and evidently preconcerted wail, that Yin was compelled to shield his ears against it; yet the inconsiderable Tsin-Su-Hoang, on whose account it was raised, seemed in no degree to be affected by it, he, doubtless, having become hardened by hearing a similar ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... called them friend in a tongue they knew? Now she began speaking, huskily at first, with tumultuous syllables and wide open vowels, and at the first pause they cheered. The inky multitude that had kept silence, by preconcerted plan, while Weedon Moore talked to them, lost control of itself and yelled. She went on speaking and they crashed in on her pauses with more plaudits, and presently she laid her hand on Jeffrey's ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... degrees she revived, gave three most doleful suspirations, and then, starting up, gazed wildly around her. Half of us were still laughing—my unfortunate self among the number; this the enraged landlady no sooner perceived than she imagined herself the victim of some preconcerted villainy. Her lips trembled with passion—she uttered the most dreadful imprecations; and had I not retired into a corner, and armed myself with the dead body of Jocko, which I wielded with exceeding valour, she might, with the simple weapons with which nature had provided her hands, have for ever ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Van Twiller was in some kind of trouble. Just as everybody suddenly takes to wearing square-toed boots, or to drawing his neckscarf through a ring, so it became all at once the fashion, without any preconcerted agreement, for everybody to speak of Van Twiller as a man in some way under a cloud. But what the cloud was, and how he got under it, and why he did not get away from it, were points that lifted themselves into ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... outward and what is the relation between them, and where do we draw the line by which we separate mind from matter, the soul from the body? Is the mind active or passive, or partly both? Are its movements identical with those of the body, or only preconcerted and coincident with them, or is one simply an aspect ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... done for any of us what it ought; quite the reverse. Even I am not in my usual form, if Mabel and Jane are right. They had let me alone for some time: last night they attacked me together—a preconcerted movement, obviously. ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... Barry, the latter in much agony from an old wound in the leg, the pain of which had been aggravated by the heavy irons which galled it. All the prisoners except Barry and Woolfe, readily acknowledged their participation in the attempt to seize the brig, but most solemnly denied any knowledge of a preconcerted plan to take her; or that they at least had attempted to throw the soldiers overboard. They were unwilling to be interrupted, and inveighed in the bitterest manner against some of their companions who had, they seemed to think, betrayed them, or at least had led them on, and ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... entering Manti. Watching the men, shuddering at the ominous aspect they presented, she saw a tremor run through them—as though they all formed one body. They came to a sudden stop. She heard a ripple of sound arise from them, amazement and anticipation. And then, as though with preconcerted design, though she had heard no word spoken, the group divided, splitting asunder with a precision that deepened the conviction of preconcertedness, ranging themselves on each side of the open space, leaving it gaping barrenly, unobstructed—a stretch ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... knows the story of the tragedy on Magus Moor. It will be enough here to remind my readers, once more, that it was no preconcerted plan, but a pure accident—or, as the murderers themselves called it, a gift from God. The men I have named, with a few others, were really after one Carmichael, who had made himself particularly odious by his activity in collecting the fines levied on the disaffected. ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... were needful. And if it should be said that vagueness was not altogether the least eligible feature in a speech whose very purpose was to confuse, and to leave no room for answer, we reply—true; but then it was the vagueness of art, which promised to be serviceable, and that of preconcerted perplexity, not the vagueness of incoherence, and a rhapsody of utter contradiction. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... head on one side, scrutinized her in every detail, and Elmore regarded her young beauty and delight with a pride as innocent as her own. A dim regret, evaporating in a long sigh, which made the others laugh, recalled him to himself, as the bell rang and Hoskins appeared. He was received in a preconcerted silence, and he looked from one to the other with his queer, knowing smile, and took in the whole affair without ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... 14th Floreal (3rd of May): "The senate considers that the interests of the French people will be greatly promoted by confiding the government of the republic to Napoleon Bonaparte, as hereditary emperor." By this preconcerted scene was ushered in the ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... of chemistry, and give no obscure promise of some one great constitutive law, in the light of which dwell dominion and the power of prophecy; if these discoveries, instead of having been, as they really were, preconcerted by meditation, and evolved out of his own intellect, had occurred by a set of lucky accidents to the illustrious father and founder of philosophic alchemy; if they had presented themselves to Professor Davy exclusively in consequence of his luck ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... sure it is his father. Look at them. That boy did spring from him; or never cast Came from the mold it fitted! It may be A preconcerted thing 'gainst such a chance. That they ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... not appear whether the wholesale breaking of bounds had been a preconcerted act or a spontaneous and infectious impulse on the part of the whole school. Whichever it was, directly dinner was over and the monitors had retired to their houses, a general stampede had been made for Shellport, and almost before ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... head-foremost out of the pulpit. Good old Mr. Landor would insist on sending me round in the carriage; he thought I should not be safe from the mob; but I got down at the Crossways. The row was evidently preconcerted by Dempster before he set out. He made ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... not been time for more; but these subjects, under the adroit handling of Father Jervis, had proved sufficient; and up to the preconcerted moment when Monsignor had uttered the sentence about his study of Mr. Manners' History of Twentieth Century Development which had drawn from the author the words recorded above, ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... that it was a preconcerted act by which the Christian was thus surrounded by his friends—not, as I afterward found, with his knowledge, but done at their own suggestion—so that if difficulty should arise, they, by a show of sufficient power, might rescue him, whom all esteemed in spite of his errors, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... around the long table, Mike Hogan arose and the men became quiet as if at some preconcerted signal. The Irishman gave a slightly embarrassed bob toward Leonard and began in an extra ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... Mere Michaud turned, and swinging high up in the air one end of a long wreath of feathery ground-pine, led off the procession. The rest followed in preconcerted order, till some forty men and women, all linked together by the swinging loops of the pine wreath, were in line. Then they suddenly wheeled and surrounded the bewildered Hetty, and bore her with them. The children, carrying ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... hand-to-hand conflict was at its height, a shrill cry was suddenly heard in rear of the enemy, and at once, as if by a preconcerted plan, those natives who were disputing the landing broke and fled, while, at the same moment, a body of some 300 cavalry debouched from the shelter of a clump of dwarf palms, and came down at full gallop on the troops, who ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... preconcerted arrangement, the local chiefs of the insurrection in Dublin and Meath, gathered with their men on the third day after the outbreak, at the historic hill of Tara. Here they expected to be joined by the men of Cavan, Longford, Louth ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... will add, gentlemen, a comfortable article of domestic furniture? Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) it is a mere cover for hidden fire—a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and which I am not in a condition to explain! And what does this allusion to the slow coach mean? For aught I know, it may be a reference ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... reduced to stratagem. Since the churches were closed to them, they opened their own houses. By arrangement with Mr Rose, service was held in the Lamb on the evening of the Coronation Day, safety being secured by a preconcerted signal-tap. About forty persons gathered, exclusive of the families of the host and the minister. A small congregation; but a congregation of live souls, who were ready to yield life sooner than faith. The majority ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... at Hetty, who was plucking the leaves from the filbert-trees and tearing them up in her hand. Her little plans and preconcerted speeches had all forsaken her, like an ill-learnt lesson, under the terrible agitation produced by Adam's words. There was a cruel force in their calm certainty which threatened to grapple and crush her flimsy hopes ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Spaniards had grown warlike in a day, but their victories had intoxicated them, and of military science they had only what they had learned by experience. There was no harmony among the generals—not even a preconcerted plan of operation. Accordingly the mass of the French army was directed toward Burgos to cut off and overwhelm Blake, while two corps under Soult were directed to intercept ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... likely to have the best effect. He had a quick and retentive memory, and a frankness of manner which precluded any suspicion of artifice. All his speeches were, in appearance, the unpremeditated effusions of an honest heart; and yet, in reality, they were preconcerted with so much skill, that the judges were, sometimes, not so well prepared, as they should have been, to withstand the force of them. His language, indeed, was not so refined as to pass for the standard ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... from the other trials!" proclaimed the Adjutant, in a voice so strong and confident that all the elder officers and the sergeants well understood that this failure was preconcerted, while all the younger gentlemen and the privates felt new encouragement to proceed on account of the evident impartiality with which the laws of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... seemed to me, and as though by some preconcerted plan, half the ships of the Baltic Fleet opened fire on the English fishermen, who seemed too surprised and horrified to do anything. I saw ball after ball crash into one luckless smack, which quickly ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... Else's eager words had made him indignant, almost incensed. This was certainly an attempt to take him by surprise. For a moment the suspicion even awoke that Thiel was in league with Frau von der Lehde, his warning, her demand were arranged, a preconcerted attack had been executed on both sides. True, he did not dwell long upon this thought, whose improbability he himself soon perceived, but he mentally repeated Frau von der Lehde's words again and again. No other woman saw him with eyes like hers! How did she know that? No woman on earth ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... gunshot there was a tense silence, lasting for perhaps half a minute, while searchlight after searchlight was turned upon us from the heights and from every ship so placed that they could be brought to bear. Then, as though at a preconcerted signal, the batteries on the heights and two gunboats anchored at the harbour entrance opened fire upon us, and the darkness of the night was stabbed and pierced by jets of flame, while the air ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... impossible to doubt that this has been a preconcerted measure and that the Duke of Wellington is prepared at once to form a Government. Peel is abroad; but it is not likely he would have gone away without a previous understanding one way or the other with the Duke, as to what he would do if ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... of convictors, were Babson and O'Brien, and woe unto that man who was brought before them. It was even alleged by the impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do or what O'Brien wanted him to do the latter communicated the information to his conspirator upon the bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But indeed no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in the drama was merely to sustain his colleague's objections and overrule those of his opponent, after which he himself delivered ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... project but for the woman Brigida informing him one day that a work-girl named Nanina was to be one of the attendants at the ball. He knew the count to have been in love with this girl, even to the point of wishing to marry her; he suspected that her engagement to wait at the ball was preconcerted; and, in consequence, he authorized his female accomplice to perform her ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... course of nature may be the material embodiment of a preconcerted arrangement; and if the succession of events be explained by transmutation, the perpetual adaptation of the organic world to new conditions leaves the argument in favour of design, and therefore of ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... to Bathsheba to explain here a little fact which did not come to light till a long time afterwards: that Troy's presentation of himself so aptly at the roadside this evening was not by any distinctly preconcerted arrangement. He had hinted—she had forbidden; and it was only on the chance of his still coming that she had dismissed Oak, fearing a ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... entrenchments were not to be carried in front, a subedar with thirty sepoys and the bugis-guard were ordered to endeavour to pass the swamp on the right, find out a pathway, and attack the enemy on the flank and rear, while the remainder should, on a preconcerted signal, make an attack on the front at the same time. To prevent the enemy from discovering our intentions the drums were kept beating, and a few random shots fired. Upon the signal being given a general attack commenced, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... gooseberries, and currants and raspberries! indeed there was no lack of anything; and what was most wonderful, nothing was forgotten, and there was a fair proportion of each joint or dish. I have been at a pic-nic where, from want of a preconcerted plan, everybody brought veal-pies, or chicken-pies, or hams, and there was no bread, or salt, or mustard. Somebody had a French horn or cornopean, and at its sound people came trotting pretty quickly in from all directions through the woodland glades and up the avenues leading ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the overloaded powder barrel to explosion. Who talks of Servia today, and who believes that France, England, and Japan are making war on Germany and on us because of Servia? The war broke out because Russia decided to shield Servia against the consequences of her provocations and because, owing to preconcerted arrangements, the situation in Europe was such that the action of one great power was bound to bring all or nearly all the others into the field. And again those preconcerted arrangements were the outcome of a mass of pent-up passions, of hatred, envy, and jealousy, the like of ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... anything so formal? Directly Archie announced that 'mamma was coming' Georgie pushed the gate open, and toddled to meet her, followed by all the rest of the boys, leaping, shouting, and laughing, forgetting all preconcerted speeches, and much too happy to be ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... crashing of shot against the walls of their bomb-proof forts. All day long the battle rages without intermission or material advantages to either side. As night approached, the fire slackened in all direction, and at dark Sumter ceased to return our fire at all. By a preconcerted arrangement, the fire from our batteries and forts kept up at fifteen-minute intervals only. The next morning the firing began with the same vigor and determination as the day before. Sumter, too, was not slow in showing her metal and paid particular ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert |
