"Secret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tomb an Imp of Satan's getting, whom an Ancient legend says that woman Never bore—he owed his birth To Sin herself. From Hell to Earth She brought the brat in secret state And laid him at the Golden gate, And they named him Henry Vrooman. While with mortals here he stayed, His father frequently he played. Raised his birth-place and in other ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... the king ride continually on the backs of the feminine Eliphants, teaching them in this businesse. Euery hunter carieth out with him fiue or sixe of these feminines, and they say that they anoynt the secret places with a certaine composition that they haue, that when the wilde Eliphant doeth smell thereunto, they followe the feminines and cannot leaue them: when the hunts-men haue made prouision and the Eliphant is so entangled, they guide the feminines towards the Pallace which is called ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... take us for?" protested Tom indignantly "Don't we understand well enough that you're both trying to keep it close secret?" ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... made no secret of his doings. Perhaps he had a feeling that he could not justify himself in so strange a proceeding without absolute candour. He saw Mr. Mainwaring in the street as he left Bearside's office and told him all about it. "I just want, sir, to ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... lips that he had guided me to Sri Yukteswar. I lay prostrate before the deathless guru. He graciously lifted me from the floor. Telling me many things about my life, he then gave me some personal instruction, and uttered a few secret prophecies. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... thou hast learned my life's secret, but, ere thou dost judge me, hear this! Long ere thy princely father met thy mother, we loved, she and I, and in our love grew up together. Then came the Duke thy father, a mighty lord; and her mother was ambitious and very guileful— and she—but a maid. Thus was she ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... complexion, and he dressed her hair in the Paris fashion — he undertook to be her French master and her dancing-master, as well as friseur, and thus imperceptibly wound himself into her good graces. Clinker perceived the progress he had made, and repined in secret. — He attempted to open her eyes in the way of exhortation, and finding it produced no effect had recourse to prayer. At Newcastle, while he attended Mrs Tabby to the methodist meeting his rival accompanied Mrs Jenkins to the play. He was dressed ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Queen of all earth's flowers, and loveliest things appear Linked by some secret sympathy, in this mysterious sphere; The giver and the gift seem one, and thou thyself art nigh When this glory of the garden greets thy ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... harm by the use of a witch, it should be able to do so without any intermediary and so to harass all of mankind all of the time, he answered that the designs of demons are levelled at the soul and can in consequence best be carried on in secret.[11] To the argument that when one considers the "vileness of men" one would expect that the evil spirits would practise their arts not on a few but on a great many, he replied that men are not liable to be troubled by them till they have ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... iron bars, square and very strong. The said Duke also added, opposite S. Pietro Scheraggio, the walls of rustic work that are beside the palace, in order to enlarge it; and in the thickness of the wall he made a secret staircase, in order to ascend and descend unseen. And at the foot of the said wall of rustic work he made a great door, which serves to-day for the Customs-house, and above that his arms, and all with the design ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... feeble muscles I now have, my handwriting is still Eden's. These people about me will not let me go to the bank personally. It seems, indeed, that there is no bank in this town, and that I have an account in some part of London. It seems that Elvesham kept the name of his solicitor secret from all his household. I can ascertain nothing. Elvesham was, of course, a profound student of mental science, and all my declarations of the facts of the case merely confirm the theory that my insanity is the outcome of overmuch brooding upon psychology. Dreams of the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... turned, at the sound of the latch, to see Diana coming in, all the man's secret calculations and revolts were for the moment scattered and drowned in sheer pity and dismay. In a few short hours can grief so work on youth? He ran to her, but she held up a hand which arrested him half-way. Then she ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a great meeting at Apsley House; eighty Peers present, and four hours' deliberation. They kept their resolutions a profound secret, but as I knew what they were on Friday morning, I went to Melbourne and told him, in order that the Government might be prepared, and turn over in their minds how matters might be accommodated. The Tories adhered to the justices and wards, and abandoned the rest. I found ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... himself, and there is no secret," said he, curtly. "It is you with your imaginings that make a secret. Ta, ta, ta! I have no patience with ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a little there, in the wide, open door together, and looked out upon it; and then the Haddens went round into their sister's room, and Leslie was left alone in the rare, sweet, early air. The secret joy came whispering at her heart again: that there was all this in the world, and that one need not be utterly dull and mean, and dead to it; that something in her answered to the greatness overshadowing her; that it was possible, sometimes, and that people did reach out into a larger ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... be expressed by nothing but the bodily exertion of the Shout: the objectless dance of the dancer was a thing beyond their comprehension, dimly at first, and then positively, associated with sin. But she laughed them down with a gibe; she felt triumphant in the possession of her secret, known to none of them: her dance was not objectless, but the perpetual expression of all emotions, whether of beauty or joy or gratitude or praise. Some one at the house had given her a pair of little hoops with bells attached, which she was wont ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... instantly on the other side, and reached out his hand to where her fingers trailed limp from the arm of the chair. There he let them lie, white and cool, against the darkness of his palm. It was as if he sought in the hand for the secret of her power over the wolf-dog. She let her head rest against the back of the chair and watched the nervous and sinewy hand upon which her own rested. She had seen those hands fixed in the throat of Black Bart himself, ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... rose the golden morning Over the Porcian height, The proud Ides of Quintilis Marked evermore in white. Not without secret trouble Our bravest saw the foe; For girt by threescore thousand spears, The thirty standards rose. From every warlike city That boasts the Latian name, Fordoomed to dogs and vultures, That gallant army came; From Setia's purple vineyards, From ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... White Queen whispered: 'we'll often say it over together, dear. And I'll tell you a secret—I can read words of one letter! Isn't THAT grand! However, don't be discouraged. You'll ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... believe Maria could have had the actual time to write it, and yet it was so like her style; he at last exclaimed, "It must be Anna's. Anna has written this to please me. It is by some one we are interested in, Mary was so anxious I should read it." Miss Sneyd was in the secret, and had several times put it before him on the table: at last she told him it was Maria's. He was amused at the trick, and delighted at having admired the book without ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware—remained, however, more or less divided on the issue as it now presented itself. The governors of the first six of these were already so much engaged in the secret intrigues of the secession movement that they sent the Secretary of War contumacious and insulting replies, and distinct refusals to the President's call for troops. The governor of Delaware answered that there was no organized militia in his State which ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... but I required ample fees for my trouble. When we returned on board, we were very wet and cold, and the wine took no effect on us; but as soon as we thawed, like the horn of the great Munchausen, the secret escaped, for we were all tipsy. The captain inquired the cause of this the next day, and I very candidly told him the whole history. He was wise enough to laugh at it; some captains would have flogged every one of the men, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... would tend to diminish popular respect for government servants and to transform... transform, what a wealth of hidden things that word conceals. I cannot so much as pronounce it but a world of ideas and sentiments come thronging pell-mell to invade the secret recesses of my being." "I beg pardon, monsieur?" "What did you say, M. Boscheron?" "Please repeat, monsieur; I ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... in our times the solution of the long-hidden secret worked out amidst the icy solitudes of the Polar Seas cannot realize the excitement which for nigh 400 years vexed the minds of European kings and peoples—how they thought and toiled over this northern passage to wild ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... anything with it you like."—A strange contradiction, by the way, though the old admiral did not notice it.—"Put it in your pocket, and—Pst! Syd," he whispered, "whenever you want any more, write to me. Don't bother the dad. Our secret, ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the cause at once becomes manifest. (90) The Christian religion was not taught at first by kings, but by private persons, who, against the wishes of those in power, whose subjects they, were, were for a long time accustomed to hold meetings in secret churches, to institute and perform sacred rites, and on their own authority to settle and decide on their affairs without regard to the state, (91) When, after the lapse of many years, the religion was taken up by the authorities, the ecclesiastics were obliged to teach it to the ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... Crown work as a lawyer, to urge his suit for the Solicitorship; to trifle with the composition of "Formularies and Elegancies" (January 1595), to write his Essays, to try for the Mastership of the Rolls, to struggle with the affairs of the doomed Essex (1600-1), while always "labouring in secret" at that vast aim of the reorganisation of natural science, which ever preoccupied him, he says, and distracted his attention from his practice and from affairs of State. {281a} Of these State affairs the projected Union with ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... her lips, in the pause regarding me with a glance so significant of darkest mystery that against my very will I itched to share the fearful secret, "I ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... his thought into words. For an instant he had the idea that through thoughtlessness, by mistake, an involuntary one assuredly, his mistress had taken this document to wrap up her letters ... without suspecting. That was it! No doubt she had carried off with her this secret plan of mobilisation—but if the plan got lost? If it ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... my eyes he appeared a very handsome and a pleasing, amiable gentleman. But, Lord, what can you conclude of a man at a single glance, when every line in his face (of which he had a score and more) has each its history of varying passions, known only to himself, and secret ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... there, but an awe, or a fear, was wakened in me which was not mine, for I remember I could not explain it, even though, at the time, the anxious direct question was put to me. Nor can I now. It would puzzle a psycho-analyst most assured of the right system for indexing secret human motives to disengage one shadow from another in an ancestral darkness. That is why I merely put down here the names to be found on a chart of the North Sea, and say no more about it, being sure they will mean ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... charges that have been at various times, with more or less virulence and disinterestedness, brought against the Church of England, that of assuming to itself the divine attribute of searching the secret heart of many has, I believe, never been superadded. It has remained for men very far advanced indeed in spiritual knowledge and perfection, to assert the bold prerogative, and to venture, unappalled, beneath the frown ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... have heard of some most lively conferences in which the counsel of the companies were blackguarded heartily for being cowards, in not fighting the Commission. You certainly took advanced ground in 1882, ... —there can be no such thing as a business secret in a quasi-public corporation. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... her and she reached out her hands. What would women of that sort do? They were both of a kind. They got into each other's arms. After that there was nothing for us men but to wait. All women are the same, and Hilton's wife was like the rest. She must get the secret first; then the men should know. We had to wait an hour. Then Hilton's wife beckoned to us. We went inside. The girl was asleep. There was something in the touch of Hilton's wife like sleep itself—like music. It was her voice—that touch. She could ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... exaggerated gravity. "You have guessed my secret. I am a clerk, bookkeeper, stenographer, and office girl. My official title, of course, is a little more frilly, but ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... picked up at the shop of an obscure dealer in antiques in New York City for a ridiculously low price (two hundred dollars, it has been said), and which, according to a rumour started by himself, was worth a hundred thousand if it was worth a dollar, although he contrived to keep the secret from the ears of the county tax collector. He had married late in life, after accumulating a fortune that no woman could despise, and of late years had taken to frequenting the Club with a far greater assiduity than is customary in ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... So the secret was kept between me and the newly raised stone in Hopton churchyard. And I felt somehow that there was a link between us in the fact that my father had kept the matter of our quarrel from the mouths of gossips and tattlers, leaving it to my honour to obey or disobey him, ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... were doing good work for this abnormal young man. These cuts, made by the sword of truth, when wielded by the hands of Mr. Bright, laid open to "Dodd" Weaver the secret recesses of his own soul, and he saw there such foulness as he had never before suspected. Not one word had his former teacher said to him which was not true. His final refusal to permit him to say adieu to his family, "Dodd" felt was just and strictly in accordance ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... complaint he communicated to the Congress the ostensible instructions of Napoleon, in which he authorised his Minister to accede to the demands of the Allies. But in making this communication M. de Caulaincourt took care not to explain the private and secret instructions he had also received. The Allies rejected the armistice because it would have checked their victorious advance; but they consented to sign the definitive peace, which of all things was what ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... all possible discoveries by the way, but in place of that which they look for, in place of a common pedigree or of a few pedigrees for all organisms, finally only give additional strength to the permanence of species and the unapproachableness of the secret of their origin? Or can we derive from the reasons which the investigators urge in favor of the idea of an origin of species through descent and evolution, the hope that that mysterious darkness of prehistoric times upon which the works of our century have shed so much light, will ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... sentimental exaggeration; but you shall prove your words. If you have not confessed to me before three o'clock to-day all you know about the loss of my treasured dog Scorpion, I shall take you into your father's sick room, and in his presence dare you to keep your wicked secret to ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... time; and that, in order to be the better prepared for all events, it was necessary to set to work immediately, and to take it for granted, that the Centurion would not be able to put back (which was indeed the commodore's secret opinion;) since, if she did return, they should only throw away a few days application; but, if she did not, their situation, and the season of the year, required their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... secret indeed, a state secret, which none but so clever a man as the present king of Nomansland would ever have thought of. How he carried it out, undiscovered, I cannot tell. People said, long afterwards, that it was by means of a gang ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... pity, he would have felt, at seeing eminent powers and knowledge employed in ministering to the wretched love of gossip—retailing paltry anecdotes in dispraise of others, intermingled with outflowings of self-praise—and creeping into the secret chambers of great men's houses to filch out materials for tattle—at seeing great powers wasting and debasing themselves in such an ignoble task—above all, at seeing that the person who thus wasted and debased them was a scholar, and a philosopher whose talents he admired, with whom ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... therefore, present not merely the history of the external facts and results of Mr. Muller's life and labours, but could and would, by God's help, unfold, with the ardour and force of conviction, the secret springs of that life and ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... curious arts were only cultivated abroad, particularly in Italy, Holland, and the Netherlands. Ship-building and the founding of iron cannon were the sole in which the English excelled. They seem, indeed, to have possessed alone the secret of the latter; and great complaints were made every parliament against the exportation of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... with strong appetite; but his nature contained possibilities of refinement which, in a situation like the present, constituted motive force the same in its effects as either form of passion. He was suffering, too, from the malaise peculiar to men who suddenly acquire riches; secret impulses drove him to gratifications which would not otherwise have troubled his thoughts. Of late he had been yielding to several such caprices. One morning the idea possessed him that he must have a horse for riding, and he could not rest till the horse was purchased and in his stable. It occurred ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... mean? And why this insult? Was she then in ignorance of something, some secret, some shame? She was the only one ignorant of it, no doubt. But what could she do? She was frightened, startled, as a person is when he discovers some hidden infamy, some treason of a beloved friend, one of those ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... fortunes of the humble and the mighty. His lawful cabinet of advisers, filling all of the high posts in the government, he treated with scant courtesy, preferring rather to secure his counsel and advice from an unofficial body of friends and dependents who, owing to their secret methods and back stairs arrangements, became known as "the kitchen cabinet." Under the leadership of a silent, astute, and resourceful politician, Amos Kendall, this informal gathering of the faithful both gave and carried out decrees and orders, communicating the President's ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... never been the same since she came back from abroad, Perry. Some secret trouble—all these weeks it has been getting worse—she has sometimes seemed afraid of me—of me, Perry! At last I taxed her with it—begged she'd confide in me. She told me there was nothing, laughed it off and I believed it, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... brave wife had had a sad trial with him. From the day that provisions had began to be scarce he had been the same improvident laggard. Familiar with his failings, she was in the habit of hoarding food, the price of her own secret fastings, against such need as this. She now exerted herself to the utmost to rouse him, and induce him to press on and rejoin his comrades. It was long before she prevailed, and at last, when they started, the army had gone on, and Warner and his heroic wife ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... having gone beyond the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope, discovered the beautiful bay which he called Rio de Janeiro, and perhaps looked into the mouth of the River de la Plata. He had not discovered the "secret of the strait"—that passage through the land-mass which confronted all the voyagers from Columbus to Magellan; nor was it revealed until the last-named, in 1520, penetrated the great strait that now bears his name, and sailed through into ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... acts rightly, whether in secret or in the sight of men. That boy was well trained who, when asked why he did not pocket some pears, for nobody was there to see, replied, "Yes, there was; I was there to see myself; and I don't intend ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... preparations are those, the origin and composition of which is not kept secret, and which are known to serve a useful and legitimate purpose. Malted Milk is an example. Objectionable proprietary preparations, by far the largest group of the whole class, comprise all those which are aimed at under the medical code of ethics under the term ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... so she was a little doubtful of him, and had a mind to try him: so when they stopped to dine, and change horses, and all that, she said, 'Now, as I have a great regard for you, I dare say you have for me - so I will tell you a secret: I have got no fortune at all, in reality, but only 5,000 pounds; for all the rest is a mere pretence : but if you like me for myself, and not for my fortune, you won't mind that.' So the gentleman said, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... which was slaughtered at Agincourt, not one in twenty could write his name. All alike were cruel and had the instincts of barbarians. While the Duke of Burgundy, the richest prince in Europe, was starving his enemies in secret dungeons in the Bastille, his Orleans rival, Count of Armagnac, not having access to the Bastille, was decapitating Burgundians till his executioners ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... from girls especially, for girls ought to remain pure-minded and perfectly innocent until the hour their parents place them in the arms of the man who, henceforth, has the care of their happiness; it is his duty to raise the veil drawn over the sweet secret of life. But, if no suspicion of the truth has crossed their minds, girls are often shocked by the somewhat brutal reality which their dreams have not revealed to them. Wounded in mind, and even in body, they refuse to their husband ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... Junction in the black hours of the four-and-twenty. Mysterious goods trains, covered with palls and gliding on like vast weird funerals, conveying themselves guiltily away from the presence of the few lighted lamps, as if their freight had come to a secret and unlawful end. Half-miles of coal pursuing in a Detective manner, following when they lead, stopping when they stop, backing when they back. Red-hot embers showering out upon the ground, down this dark avenue, and down the other, as if torturing ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... Terrace. Heartsease. The Daisy Chain. Hopes and Fears. The Young Stepmother. The Clever Woman of the Family. The Trial. The Dove in the Eagle's Nest. The Little Duke. The Prince and the Page. The Lances of Lynwood. Countess Kate and the Stokesley Secret. ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... common. Bacon's body has never been found. Thomas Mathews tells us that Berkeley wished to hang it on a gibbet, but on exhuming his casket he found in it nothing but stones. It was supposed that the faithful Lawrence, probably in the dark of night, had buried the body in some secret place. ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... in heaven by way of intercession, urging and pleading as an Intercessor, the valuableness of his gifts for the pacifying of that wrath that our Father hath conceived against us for the disobediences that we are guilty of. 'A gift in secret pacifieth anger; and a reward in the bosom ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... place, and often made a butt of him, considering it quite fair to play off his sarcasms and jokes on one who had stolen a march upon him by coming into the world before him as heir of the family estate. And now that their mother—who had made no secret of her preference of Walter to her elder son—was removed from them, the cords of Mr Huntingdon's affections were wound tighter than ever round his younger son, in whom he could scarce see a fault, however glaringly visible it might be to others; while poor Amos's shortcomings ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... "strongly acted on by what was nearest,"—abound in his disposition, that, even with the casual acquaintances of the hour, his heart was upon his lips[1], and it depended wholly upon themselves whether they might not become at once the depositories of every secret, if it might be so called, of his whole life. That in this convergence of all the powers of pleasing towards present objects, those absent should be sometimes forgotten, or, what is worse, sacrificed to the reigning desire of the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of the front door, and the entrance lies at the back of an old-fashioned fireplace. A hole leads to a passage which opens into a cavernous recess beneath, to which there is ample room for anybody to descend. The local wiseacres declare that there is, or was, a communication between this secret chamber and another famous highwayman's inn, the old "Magpie" directly on the Bath road, and that those who preyed on travellers used to bolt from one house to the other like hunted rabbits. No one seemingly has himself ever explored this mysterious ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... for that thou art envious of Nathan's merit I greatly commend thee; for were many envious for a like cause, the world, from being a most wretched, would soon become a happy place. Doubt not that I shall keep secret the design which thou hast confided to me, for the furtherance whereof 'tis good advice rather than substantial aid that I have to offer thee. Which advice is this. Hence, perhaps half a mile off, thou mayst ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... to sing and to play and to draw. Of course I cannot have them come here, as Ernest's father could not bear the noise they would make; besides, I want to take him by surprise, and keep the whole thing a secret. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... allies, and in February of the following year (1711) Marlborough was despatched for the avowed purpose of carrying this policy into execution, the Commons being called upon to furnish supplies. Yet in the midst of all this Harley commenced opening secret negotiations for a peace with France, regardless of the interests of England's allies. By September (1711) these negotiations had so far progressed that preliminaries for a peace were actually signed, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... neither the battles nor the treaties between the French and English in Europe had really settled the question of their claim to the West in America, and both sides began to urge it in a time of peace by every kind of secret and open violence. As for the Miamis and their allies among the neighboring tribes, they believed that God had created them on the very spot where Celoron found them living, and when he asked them to leave their ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... The minister was preoccupied and impatient of any interruption of his thoughts. But his wife came to the table with a sweeter serenity than usual, and a calm upon her face that told of hidden strength. Even Maimie could notice the difference, but she could only wonder. The secret of it was hidden from her. Her aunt was like no other woman that she knew, and there were many things about her too deep for ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... the Secret Service agents of the States, aided by the agents of other nations, were unravelling German plots and collecting data of treachery so irrefutable that it had to be accepted. When all was ready the first chapters of the story were divulged. They ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... the imagination is actively exercised in constructing the ideal situations, as they are being presented in words by the book or the teacher. Nature study, likewise, by bringing before the child the secret processes of nature, as noting, for instance, the life history of the butterfly, the germination of seeds, etc., will call upon him to use his imagination in various ways. On the other hand, to deprive a young child of all such opportunities will usually ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... acceptance of Arnold Jacks was no unconsidered impulse. The ladies were interested, but felt this confidence something of an indiscretion, and did not comment upon it. They hoped she would not be tempted to impart her secret to persons less ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... down amid a hollow dale meanwhile AEneas sees A secret grove, a thicket fair, with murmuring of the trees, And Lethe's stream that all along that quiet place doth wend; O'er which there hovered countless folks and peoples without end: And as when bees amid the fields in summer-tide the bright ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... remarked in Byron's temper starts of suspicion, when he seemed to pause and consider whether there had not been a secret, and perhaps offensive, meaning in something casually said to him. In this case, I also judged it best to let his mind, like a troubled spring, work itself clear, which it did in a minute or two. I was considerably older, you will recollect, than my noble friend, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... professor pronounced, drawing a roll of paper from his pocket and adjusting his spectacles. "I have now a more or less correct translation of the sheets you left with me, a copy of which is at your disposal. Here it is:—'The formula is now enunciated and proved. The secret which has defied the sages of the world since the ages of twilight, has yielded itself to me, the nineteenth seeker after the truth in one direct line. One slight detail alone baffles me. So far as I have gone at present, the constituent parts, containing always the same elements ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... instinctive, the measure of human acts varies with nations and climates, and only civilization—the progressive education of the race—can lead to a universal morality.... The absolute escapes our contingent and finite nature; the absolute is the secret of God." God keep from evil M. Louis Raybaud! But I cannot help remarking that all political apostates begin by the negation of the absolute, which is really the negation of truth. What can a writer, who professes scepticism, have in common with radical views? What has he ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... I," said Sir Tom, putting his hand upon her shoulders; "you must have been up to some mischief, Jock and you, or you would not look so frightened. What is the secret?" he said, with his genial laugh. But when he looked from Jock, astonished but resentful and lowering, to Lucy, all trembling and pale with guilt, even Sir Tom, who was not suspicious, was startled. ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... very happiest and exceptional moments, when the dignity of nature as well as her charm seems specially to impress and impose itself upon the less serious painter. But Rousseau's selection seems instinctive and not sought out. He knows the secret of nature's pictorial element. He is at one with her, adopts her suggestions so cordially and works them out with such intimate sympathy and harmoniousness, that the two forces seem reciprocally to reinforce each other, and the result gains many fold in power from ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... It was a secret dispatch, addressed to all Commanders of detachments, ordering them to arrest me wherever I should be found, and to send me under a strong escort to Khasan, to the Commission of Inquiry appointed to try Pugatchef and ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... expected to return to England, but at Lisbon he received orders to proceed immediately to the Mediterranean on secret service. On October 27 he reached the Bay of Naples, where he found a British squadron of five ships under Sir ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... dangerous thing Above all things, avoid speaking of yourself Above the frivolous as below the important and the secret Absolute command of your temper Abstain from learned ostentation Absurd term of genteel and fashionable vices Advice is seldom welcome Affectation in dress Always look people in the face when you speak to them Ancients and Moderns Argumentative, polemical conversations As willing and as apt ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain. Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient interest in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost to all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have left their opera-glasses ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... celebrated portrait painter worked with such quickness and facility that he painted more than three hundred portraits in a year. When he was asked the secret of his rapid execution and of the faithfulness of the likeness, he replied, "When any one proposes to have his portrait taken, I look at him attentively for half an hour, while sketching his features on the canvas; ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... the trap was laid here, and he slipped through it. Got away through a certain room which Fernand would give a million to keep secret. At any rate the fellow has shown that he is slippery and has a sting, too. He sent a bullet a fraction of an inch past Fernand's head, at one point in the ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... went on, until another stone moved on the pressure of a secret spring, the action of which he explained to Gerrard, and gave entrance to a small unlighted vault, piled with gold in ingots, bars and bricks, and in one corner a heap of tiny skin bags containing, as he pointed out, fine pearls and other precious stones. That the value of what was stored ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... dangerous power in the hands of Chinese grandees, if, through the leverage of families within their grasp, and by official connivance on our part, they could reach and govern a set of agents in Hong-Kong. No sympathy with our horror of secret murders by poison, under the shelter of household opportunities, must be counted on from the emperor, for he has himself largely encouraged, rewarded, and decorated these claims on his public bounty. The more necessary that such nests of crime as Canton, and such suggestors of ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... that respect he differed from the rest of my neighbours, unless I am much deceived in them. Of course there may be more of envious feeling abroad in the village than I know about. It is the sort of thing that would keep itself secret; and perhaps this old man's contemporaries, who shared his recollections, silently shared his bitterness too. But if so, I do not believe that they have passed the feeling on to their children. The impression is strong in me that the people have never learnt to look upon ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... Captain Layton would gladly have accompanied them, but a long tramp on shore did not suit his legs, he observed; and he had moreover to look after the ship and to be ready to protect Cicely and Mistress Audley and Lettice. The expedition had been kept as secret as possible, that the natives might not hear of it and give information to ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... drop in to dinner with us, and of an evening he had the run of the smoking room. After ten p.m. the 'open sesame' to our door was a rattle on the letter box and Louis' fancy for the mysterious was whetted by this admittance by secret sign, and we liked his special rat-a-tat for it was the forerunner of an hour or two ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... knew that in their short stay in Paris Philip had spent an hour in the office of the military governor of the city, and his business must be of great importance to require an hour from a man who carried such a fearful weight of responsibility. But whatever Lannes' secret might be, it was his own and he had no right to pry into it. If the time came for his comrade to tell ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... than surprised. He knew who was there. But when the words spoken outside reached the ears of Carlos Santander, first, in openly exchanged salutations and then whispers seemingly secret and confidential, he could no longer keep his seat, ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... of those first hours of friendship, the memory of those first conversations through which we have been able to unveil a soul, of those first glances which interrogate and respond to the questions and secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation of opening our hearts to those who are willing to open theirs ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... did not keep Johnnyboy's secret, but related the scene I had witnessed to some of the lighter-hearted Crustaceans of either sex, with the result that his alliterative protest became a sort of catchword among them, and that for the next few mornings ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... forced to dwell within its gates. If we would test the quality of our faith, we must watch the images and pictures that rise habitually before our mind's eye in our hours of reverie; for they faithfully represent the secret affections of the heart. If these images are forms of purity and goodness, it is well with us; the kingdom of heaven is truly there; but if they represent only forms of things that belong to this world, if dress and equipage and social distinction haunt our ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... the top of the documents contained in an iron chest, a little scrap of paper, the back of an ancient letter, on which was written a note of the amount of all his wealth. There you saw at once a secret which in life he would have confided to no one. I remember the precise arrangement of all the little piles of papers, so neatly tied up in separate parcels. I remember the pocket-handkerchiefs, of several different kinds, each set wrapped up by itself in a piece of paper. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... see this as she prepared the letters for the post, and whatever the ambiguous word might be meant for, she had rather not have seen it, for she really was ashamed of her secret annoyance at Fergus's devotion to Aunt Jane, knowing how well it was that Stebbing should have a rival in his affections. Yet she could not help being provoked when the boy followed his aunt to the doors of her ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Saints had had such visions, I was so much the more afraid, and did nothing but cry; for I did not think it possible for me to see what they saw. At last, though I felt it exceedingly, I went to my confessor; for I never dared to keep secret anything of this kind, however much it distressed me to speak of them, owing to the great fear I had of being deceived. When my confessor saw how much I was suffering, he consoled me greatly, and gave me plenty of good reasons why I should have ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... But it was possible to undo and then retie the knots in just the same way as before, so that nobody would be any the wiser. To an honourable man, indeed, the mere knowledge that another's secret was concealed therein which he was bidden to guard would have been as invincible an impediment as unbreakable bolts and bars; but the worthy fellow reassured himself with the reflection that, after all, he was not going ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... had an unerring instinct as to what should and what should not appear in the paper; not alone on the ground of "good taste," as it was then understood, but of public feeling. This invaluable quality was acknowledged by the rest of the Staff, and was probably the secret of Lemon's ability to retain his position so long and with so much dignity, and to impose his will—suaviter in modo as was his habit—on men who would brook such imposition from no one else. It was his moral balance they admired—that judgment which ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... upon him, and he read all his secret thoughts; and he pitied his weakness, for that holy man was full of pity for the weak: so he chid him not; but, bowing his knees again on that flat roof, he prayed unto his God to open the eyes of his affrighted ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... friend, could not brook the idea of being limited to six lines, when he had so much to communicate; so resorting to the use of invisible ink, he comfortably filled the sheet with 'soft and winning words,' and then fearing lest his inamorata would not discover the secret he added this postscript: ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... actions by men, and never men by their actions Arms which are not tempered by laws quickly become anarchy Associating patience with activity Blindness that make authority to consist only in force Bounty, which, though very often secret, had the louder echo Civil war is one of those complicated diseases Clergy always great examples of slavish servitude Confounded the most weighty with the most trifling Contempt—the most dangerous disease of any State Dangerous ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... impulse with all murderers to conceal the traces of their guilt. They dig holes in the earth and bury it, they carry it into the wilderness and hide it, they sink it in the depths of the sea. But the earth will not contain it, the wilderness betrays the ghastly secret, the waves ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... here?" he asked himself. "But where could she be? No; Hercules cannot be mistaken. Then, again, he must have learned the secret designs of Negoro and Harris; yet they, too—I ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... contradiction of this gloomy theory. The "Orphic Mysteries," those secret religious rites which have gained such a hold in many parts of Greece, including Athens, probably hold out an earnest promise to the "initiates" of a blessed state for them hereafter. The doctrine of a real elysium for the good and a realm of torment for ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... tremors doubled by the sight of his lowering face. "Mr. Dale, I've come up to keep house for you to-day, seeing—seeing Persis has been called away." She blushed, realizing that Joel was undoubtedly in the secret of that errand. After forty years in a world where birth is the one inevitable human experience, aside from death, she had never been able to rid herself of the impression ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... practise stealing from your boyhood upward, and that it is held no way base, but even honorable, to steal such things as the law does not distinctly forbid. And to the end that you may steal with the greatest effect, and take pains to do it in secret, the custom is to flog you if you are found out. Here, then, you have an excellent opportunity to display your training. Take good care that we be not found out in stealing an occupation of the mountain ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... information to warrant me in doing so. After the melancholy event, from which I borrowed the idea of the Strawberry Hill massacre, it is known for a fact that the blacks mysteriously disappeared from the country; while the squatters were out in arms for weeks scouring the bush, and made no secret of their enrollment for a mutual protection. At the same time I have heard a settler of the district, and one of considerable means and standing, when alcohol had stimulated his nerves and courage, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... great kindness, detained him some days, inquired into the affairs of his Order, and said to him on the subject of his journey: "Francis, your Order is still in its infancy. You know the opposition it met with in Rome, and you have still there some secret enemies; if there is not some one there to watch over your interests, it will be an easy matter to cause all you have obtained to be revoked. Your presence will go a great way in upholding your work, and those who are attached ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... inevitable. Now, however, what with the difficulty he found in settling the Shapetsky affair, what with Letty's demands for the house, and his revived dread of what his mother might be doing, together with his overdrawn account and the position of his colliery property, a secret fear of embarrassment and disaster began to torment him, the offspring of a temperament which had never perhaps possessed ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Pyramus with love inspired Pierces the wall, with equal passion fired: Cupid from distant Cyprus thither flies, And views the secret breach with ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... THE WHISPERING CHARM or The Secret from Old Alaska Whether engrossed in thrilling adventures in the Far North or occupied with quiet home duties, the Linger-Not girls could work unitedly ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... the poor stage properties we have grown to trust. No blood, if you please. Therefore, in Botticelli's Judith, nothing but the essentials are insisted on; the rest we instantly imagine, but it is not there to be sensed. The panel is in a tremor. So swift and secret is Judith, so furtive the maid, we need no hurrying horsemen to remind us of her oath,—"Hear me, and I will do a thing which shall go throughout all generations to the children of our nation." Sudden death in the air; nature has been outraged. But there is no drop of blood—the thin ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... horror, and a vain yearning to hide myself from all human eyes, and weep out my life in secret, overcame me. Then, these subsided; and ONE THOUGHT slowly arose in their stead—arose, and cast down before it every obstacle of conscience, every principle of education, every care for the future, every remembrance of the ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... more of Isaura. He had avoided all chance of seeing her; in fact, the jealousy with which he had viewed her manner towards Rameau, and the angry amaze with which he had heard her proclaim her friendship for Madame de Grantmesnil, served to strengthen the grave and secret reasons which made him desire to keep his heart yet free and his hand yet unpledged. But alas! the heart was enslaved already. It was under the most fatal of all spells,—first love conceived at first sight. He was ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Lycaon, and of men who, tasting the meat of a mixed sacrifice, put human flesh between their lips unawares.(2) This aspect of Greek religion, then, is almost on a level with the mysterious cannibal horrors of "Voodoo," as practised by the secret societies of negroes in Hayti. But concerning these things, as Pausanias might say, it ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... the scouts? Well, I guess that's because the heliograph is so much more secret. You see, with the heliograph the flashes are centered. You've got to be almost on a direct line with them, or not more than fifty yards off the centre line, to see them at all, even a mile away. But anyone can see flags, and read messages, unless ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... Malta at 6 p.m. en route for Alexandria, as I am told by the captain, who says it is no longer a secret. This is evidently to be the place of concentration of the 29th Division. Another transport, the "Kingstonia," left half an hour before us, amidst great cheering from the warships and us. We too had a right royal send-off from all the warships we passed, their decks being packed with cheering ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... cocked-hat, lies pitching headforemost down into the trough of a calamitous sea under the bows—but I will not have him put on his legs again, till I get on my own; for between him and me there is a secret sympathy; and my sisters tell me, even yet, that he fell from his perch the very day I left home to go to sea on ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... flashed through his mind. Sidney might grow to like her and bring her to the house. Sidney might insist on the thing she always spoke of—that he visit the hospital; and he would meet her, face to face. He could have depended on a man to keep his secret. This girl with her somber eyes and her threat to pay him out for what had happened to her—she meant danger of a sort that ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... but her tender heart was chiefly caring to know how much he had been hurt, and so the whole story was unfolded by due questioning; and the Earl had full and secret enjoyment of the signal defeat of his dear sister-in-law, the one satisfaction on which every one ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... empty and the house empty! And they stood amazed. But the two cousins of the lord, who had been the hottest in seeking his death, put all the rest to the door, and were themselves alone in the house; for the secret was known to them who were of the blood of the Stefanopouloi. Unto me, the bard, it is not known. Yet men say they went beneath the earth, and there in the earth found the lord. And certain it is they slew him, for in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various |
