"Deep-laid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... involved phraseology in which notaries and lawyers wrap up, intentionally, malicious schemes, and he was not the man to be taken in by it. He now began, furtively, to watch his brother notary and Madame Evangelista as they conversed with Paul, endeavoring to detect some clew to the deep-laid plot which was beginning to appear ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... custom-house officials of that place looked at it with alarm and suspicion. What was this white-faced stranger doing here, claiming to come from a land that had never seen a cotton-plant? It must have come from somewhere else, and this was only a deep-laid plot to get itself landed on English soil ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... acquisition of the already celebrated Diamond Necklace was first thought of, how, by the aid of willing tools, she matured and carried out her deep-laid and diabolical scheme, reads like an adventure from the "Arabian Nights." The personification of the Queen by a little dressmaker who happened to resemble her, the forgery of the Royal signature, the final attainment of the diamonds, all seemed so easy to this consummate trickster ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... speculative philosophers either as a set of artful and designing knaves who preach up ardent benevolence and draw captivating pictures of a happier state of society only the better to enable them to destroy the present establishments and to forward their own deep-laid schemes of ambition, or as wild and mad-headed enthusiasts whose silly speculations and absurd paradoxes are not worthy the ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... artillery three, in the Genie corps two, and in the navy three. Well-conducted men get from two to four months of their time. This is by no means a charity on the part of the authorities, but a well-thrashed and deep-laid scheme to circumvent the Reichstag as it gives the Emperor another 75,000 men. A certain class of men passing an examination called Einjahriges Zeugniss or possessing a diploma called Abiturienten Examen (the equivalent of a B. A.) serve only ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... undoubting self-confidence with which he entered upon this enterprise, is one of the most remarkable events in the whole of his extraordinay career. He took with him no armies to hew down opposition. He engaged in no deep-laid and wide-spread conspiracy. Relying upon the energies of his own mind, and upon the sympathies of the great mass of the people, he went alone, with but one or two companions, to whom he revealed not his thoughts, to gather into ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... His deep-laid plans seem all safe now. The local meshes of his golden net hold the District Judge firmly. It will be easy to postpone, to weary out, to harass this strange faction. He has stores of coin ready. They are the heaped-up reserves of his "senatorial ammunition." And yet ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... the utter reversal of all that he had declared would take place. No plundering, no insults, no violence. On the contrary, even his beloved routine might be resumed. He turned around to his wife and sister almost gasping, "Is this some deep-laid plot?" ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... the day before yesterday. Lucile ever since tries still more to hide the great love she bears my master, and desires he will only consider whatever he may see, and whatever favours she may show you, as the results of her deep-laid scheme, in order to prevent the discovery of their secrets. If, notwithstanding my protestations, you doubt the truth of what I have told you, Gros-Rene may come some night along with me, and I will show him, as I stand and watch, ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... sum of money. But the long delay caused many crusaders to set off to the Holy Land; so that when the main force arrived at Venice it was so diminished in numbers that the leaders could not raise the sum for which they had pledged themselves to Venice. Probably there was no deep-laid plot for the diversion of the crusading host from the first. But the Venetians suddenly found themselves with the practical direction of a formidable army; they had enemies in the Adriatic against whom they had hitherto been powerless; they had old causes of rivalry and enmity ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... banished, but little forgetful of all that had happened, and trusting in the favour of King Henry, were soon to show themselves at the head of expeditions hostile to Scotland across the Border. Were these two sudden disclosures of unexpected treachery the manifestations of a deep-laid plot which might have further developments—if with the bastard of Arran also perhaps in still more unlikely quarters? It is but a conjecture, yet it is one that might seem justified by two isolated events so extraordinary, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... repair at night in a very silent and secret manner to the gate which had been designated as the place where they were to be let in. It is asserted, however, by some writers, that this apparent treachery on the part of Tarpeia was only a deep-laid stratagem on her part to draw the Sabines into a snare; and that she sent word to Romulus, informing him of the agreement which she had made, in order that he might secretly dispatch a strong force to take their position at the gate, and intercept and capture the Sabine ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... realized that the man was in earnest. Her eyes flashed over the swarthy, villainous faces of the scowmen, and the seriousness of the situation dawned upon her. She knew, now, that the separating of the scows was the first move in a deep-laid scheme. Her brain worked rapidly. It was evident that the men on the other scows were not party to the plot, or Vermilion would not have risked running the Chute in the darkness. She glanced up the river. Would ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... stammered, "I'll never forgive myself for leading you and me into a trap, a confounded, diabolical, deep-laid trap, sir, a gin, a snare, a woman's wile. Let us get off anywhere, at Aurora, Newmarket, Holland Landing, Scanlans, anywhere to escape ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... wild rumors, for he had, in truth, come to England with no deep-laid scheme or motive, but simply because his daughter had ordered his doing so; for while Abraham Windsor ruled the shares market and the world of speculation, a certain young woman ruled him, and the hard-headed man ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... would expose themselves to the gravest risks. The apologists of Abdul-Kerim claim that such was his design, and that the signs of sluggishness which he at first displayed formed a necessary part of a deep-laid scheme for luring the Russians to their doom. Let the invaders enter Central Bulgaria in force, and expose their flanks to Abdul-Kerim in the Quadrilateral, and to Osman Pasha at Widdin; then the Turks, by well-concerted moves against ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... dig myself," with a deep-laid purpose in her mind, "and you may dig, too. You start another hole, right here. I'll dig this big one out more, and I'll be an incubus"—meaning nobody knows what—"and live in it, and you be little crabs trying to get out of my way in ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... the direction of the guard that night, with a charge from Othello to keep the soldiers from excess in drinking, that no brawl might arise, to fright the inhabitants, or disgust them with the new-landed forces. That night Iago began his deep-laid plans of mischief: under colour of loyalty and love to the general, he enticed Cassio to make rather too free with the bottle (a great fault in an officer upon guard). Cassio for a time resisted, but he could not long hold out against the honest freedom which ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... guard this secrecy seemed ominous of approaching evil. They comprehended too clearly the vengeful nature of their enemy to be lulled thus into any false security. Such skulking could be accepted only as a symptom of treachery, of some deep-laid plan for surprise. But what? Would Farnham, in his desperation, his anxiety to cover up all evidences of crime, resort to strategy, or to force? Would he utilize the law, behind which he was now firmly entrenched, or ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... no mere accident that brings her, but a part of a deep-laid plan, which perhaps not only concerns him, but one in whom he has taken the deepest ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... the preponderance of nature over will in all practical life. There is less intention in history than we ascribe to it. We impute deep-laid far-sighted plans to Caesar and Napoleon; but the best of their power was in nature, not in them. Men of an extraordinary success, in their honest moments, have always sung, 'Not unto us, not unto us.' According to the faith of their times they have built altars to Fortune, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... despite my oath, my vengeance unachieved! All my deep-laid schemes of no avail! Oh, Eliza! thou art indeed revenged! ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... races at the County Fair, to the scandal of the First Church. He not only won the race, but was at once offered a great deal of money to go with the victor to other races. To his plea the father, with deep-laid diplomacy, replied: ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... prepared to carry on his operations on a large scale; but the new works were scarcely finished when a mob of rioters, instigated by the charcoal-ironmasters, broke in upon them, cut in pieces the new bellows, destroyed the machinery, and laid the results of all his deep-laid ingenuity and persevering industry in ruins. From that time forward Dudley was allowed no rest nor peace: he was attacked by mobs, worried by lawsuits, and eventually overwhelmed by debts. He was then seized by ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... The Colonel might be as conservative as he pleased; but the old order was changing; Coton Manor was on the eve of a revolution. He saw it all clearly, that deep-laid plot of Mrs. Fazakerly's. He had been asked down at her suggestion to keep Frida Tancred out of the way for the moment, or, better still, forever. He had not risen to the occasion; his time was up, so Miss Chatterton was to be invited to take his place. Yet, when he came to think of it, so ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... would believe him guiltless, or uphold his fame? As he recalled his interview with Arbaces, and the causes of revenge which had been excited in the heart of that dark and fearful man, he could not but believe that he was the victim of some deep-laid and mysterious snare—the clue and train of which he was lost in attempting to discover: and Ione—Arbaces loved her—might his rival's success be founded upon his ruin? That thought cut him more deeply than all; and his noble heart was more stung by jealousy than appalled by fear. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... what Master Byles Gridley got out of Kitty Fagan. It was enough, yes, it was too much. There was some deep-laid plot between Murray Bradshaw and Cynthia Badlam, involving the interests of some of the persons connected with the late Malachi Withers; for that the paper described by Kitty was the same that he had seen the young man conceal in the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... describe the rakish traveler who had so unfavorably impressed her. She was looking her loveliest that evening. Jessie was radiant once more. A long letter had come from Marshall—sad because of the fate that had befallen his companions, stern because of the evidence of the deep-laid plot that so nearly made him a victim, but modestly glad of the official commendation he had received, and rejoicing over the surgeon's promise that he would be well enough to make the march with a command ordered back to Frayne. Red Cloud's people ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... allowed himself to suspect that the so-called Switzer-American could be other than he so frankly claimed; but somehow it began to dawn upon Rod that there may have been a method in his madness. What if it were all a part of a deep-laid scheme calculated to delay them, for some ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... he would go on with it for any earthly inducement. Had Angelika angled for him and landed him like a stupid fat fish? He had been absolutely unsuspicious. The whole affair had been without importance, until they met again at Copenhagen. Perhaps THAT, too, had been a deep-laid plan. ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... subjugating England and reconquering the Netherlands, by the same invasion, was slowly matured, were of deepest import for the future destiny of those two countries, and for the cause of national liberty. The deep-laid conspiracy of Spain and Rome against human rights deserves to be patiently examined, for it is one of the great lessons of history. The crisis was long and doubtful, and the health—perhaps the existence—of England and Holland, and, with them, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a statesman once, Melanthon; now, Grown dim with age, thy eye pervades no more The deep-laid schemes which Dionysius plans. Know then, a fleet from Carthage even now Stems the rough billow; and, ere yonder sun, That now declining seeks the western wave, Shall to the shades of night resign the world, Thou'lt see ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... knew nothing beyond house-keeping and crochet, and similar compliments. Now, however, in a certain animated conversation between Lawrence and Emma, the designing seaman thought he saw the budding of his deep-laid plans, and fondly hoped ere long to behold the bud developed into the flower of matrimony. Under this conviction he secretly hugged himself, but in the salon, that evening, he opened his arms and released himself ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... unprecedented display of his Sunday hat on a week-day were nothing but the outcome of a deep-laid scheme. Mrs. Clopton had been instructed to recommend the gentlemen to inspect the church, and the rest had been left to the wit of River Andrew, a man whose calling took him far and wide, and gave him opportunities ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... mocking spirit gleamed in his eyes. She had never felt less confident of him, less at her ease with him, than at that moment. She felt as if in some subtle fashion, wholly beyond her comprehension, he were playing some deep-laid game, as if he were weaving some intricate web too secret and too intangible to be understood or grappled with. Upon one point only was she quite clear. He would suffer no reference to their last meeting. Whatever the effect of that terrible punishment ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... know what a mad creature you are anyway, so we simply suspected some deep-laid twit. Now I come to ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... she said at last. (She had not given herself up to the love expressed in her face; her mind had been entirely absorbed by deep-laid schemes which she kept to herself.) "But that is not the question, dear." (The "angel" was only "that" by this time.) "Let us think of your affairs. Yes, we will go, and the sooner the better. Arrange it all; I will follow you. It is glorious to leave Paris and the world behind. I will set ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... rice-mortar, a pounder, a bee, and an egg, and together they devised a deep-laid plot ...
— Battle of the Monkey & the Crab • Anonymous
... certain other remarkable tales that had lately emanated from him. Some very strange things had occurred of late, and it was impossible to tell whether or not they were accidents, mere coincidents, or deep-laid, skilfully worked-out designs of the fun-loving cowboys. Certainly there had been great fun, and at the expense of her guests, particularly Castleton. So Madeline was at a loss to know what to think about Stillwell's latest elaboration. From ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... ideas as suggestions only. What the Kaiser purposed, what deep-laid schemes of international policy he entertained, will, perhaps, never be known. But if he was really responsible for the great war, as he was so widely accused of being, the responsibility he assumed was an awful one. If he was not responsible, as he declared and as some who ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... class, they were inferior in piety to other churchmen, and the readiness with which some of them suffered for the faith attests their Christian sincerity and resolution. Ambition, doubtless, soon began to operate; but their elevation was not so much the result of any deep-laid scheme for their aggrandizement, as of a series of circumstances pushing them into prominence, and placing them in a most influential position. The efforts of heretics to create division led to a reaction, and tempted the Church to adopt arrangements for preserving union by which its liberties ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... with his intimate friends. He wished it to be thought that he himself was yielding to compulsion; that he was far from wishing to usurp permanent power contrary to the Constitution; and that if he deprived France of liberty it was all for her good, and out of mere love for her. Such deep-laid duplicity could never have been conceived and maintained in any common mind; but Bonaparte's was not a mind of the ordinary cast. It must have required extraordinary self-command to have restrained so long ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... good fellow," said Purcel, "take care of what you are about. Don't be too certain that some of your neighbors won't find you, before you are much older, in the centre of a deep-laid conspiracy; and perhaps the government of the country may have an opportunity before long to thank and reward those who will have it exposed and broken up. Do you ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... was equally conspicuous, and his partial failure in the campaign was due to circumstances over which he had no control. His plan, as was always the case with him, was deep-laid, and every contingency had been provided for. He was disappointed in his aim by three causes which he could not foresee. One was the great diminution of his force, owing to the rapidity of his march, and the incessant fighting; another, the failure in obtaining recruits in Maryland; ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... European trip had melted away. Our share of the $20,000 got from Jay Cooke & Co. was fast going. Our deep-laid plot to win $240,000 had miscarried, and now the necessity was upon us of engaging in another illegitimate operation if we would continue in our ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... as they are called, were supposed by some to be the result of a deep-laid conspiracy on the part of those opposed to the war, and that the successful issue of Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania was to be the signal for open action. Whether this be so or not, it is evident that the outbreak in New York City on the 13th of ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... this assertion to be believed at present; it must rest for demonstration on the examination we are about to enter upon; yet, even without reference to any intricate or deep-laid truths, it appears strange to me, that any one familiar with nature, and fond of her, should not grow weary and sick at heart among the melancholy and monotonous transcripts of her which alone can be received from the old school of art. A man accustomed to the broad, wild seashore, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... guests. Count Munnich was very much devoted to the pleasures of the table, and, sitting near the regent, he gave himself wholly up to the cheerful humour which the excellent viands and delicate wines were calculated to stimulate. At times he entirely forgot his deep-laid plans for the coming night, and then again he would suddenly recollect them in the midst of his gayest conversation with his host, and while volunteering a toast in praise of the noble regent, and closing it by crying—"A long life and reign to the great regent, Biron von Courland!" ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... of this crafty monarch, foreign nations were crippled in the number of their subjects, and his own were greatly multiplied. He particularly petted these renegado strangers. But alas for the deep-laid schemes of ambitious princes, and alas for the vanity of glory. As the foreign-born Pretorians, unwisely introduced into the Roman state, and still more unwisely made favorites of the Emperors, at last insulted and overturned ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... whether it were actually an accident or a deep-laid scheme on the part of the weary Landy to end this period of torture. There may be some things even worse than a mere ducking—at least a stout boy like Landy ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... Cobbey, we'll see if we can't make you sniff a little without beef. "Pitcher was took with another fever,"—of course he was—"and being fetched by his friends, died the day after he got home,"—of course he did, and out of aggravation; it's part of a deep-laid system. There an't another chap in the school but that boy as would have died exactly at the end of the quarter: taking it out of me to the very last, and then carrying his spite to the utmost extremity. "The juniorest Palmer said he wished he was in Heaven." I really ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... little village on a hillside, almost within sight of Paris, which is only about twenty-five miles off; and on a clear day one can, I believe, see the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre. We could not make out why we were always thus retiring without fighting, and imagined it was some deep-laid plan of Joffre's that we perhaps were to garrison Paris whilst the French turned on the Germans. But no light was vouchsafed to us. Meanwhile the retirement was morally rather bad for our men, and ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... said, the stealing of Mr. Merkel's papers seemed to indicate some deep-laid plot to cheat him of his land that was ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... so, Don Juan," said Carlos, in a voice now husky with emotion; "but I did not expect this. What a deep-laid plan! They might have strayed back! and that—oh! horrible villain! My mother was right—it is he! ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... could do. Just as his other disappointment had given him his first stinging impression of the irony of life, that cunningly builds a hope and then smashes it; so now he felt for the first time something of the helplessness of man in the current or his destiny, driven by deep-laid desires he seldom understands, and ruled by chances he can never calculate. From love a man learns life in ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... created a great sensation. All the old theories about Tchitchikof revived; and the general opinion seemed to be, that it was all a deep-laid scheme of some irresponsible man in authority, the end whereof was to be suffering in some shape or other to the good people of Nikolsk; until the inspector of the hospital, the Nikolsk Socrates, proved clearly, by unassailable argumentation, that Tchitchikof ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... privy councillor. Have you no deep-laid, artful project in hand? Can you not plan and arrange something which may yet have the effect of accomplishing what at first seemed so very simple, but which has, from one unfortunate circumstance and another, become ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... had entered 'Lena's mind. She would write to Mr. Everett. There might yet be some mistake; she had read of such things in stories, and it could do no harm. Gradually as she wrote, hope grew strong within her, and it became impressed upon her that there had been some deep-laid, fiendish plot. If so, she dared not trust her letter with old Caesar, who might be bribed by his mistress. And how to convey it to the office was now the grand difficulty. As if fortune favored her plan, Durward, that very afternoon, called at Maple Grove, being as he said, on his way ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... down the room, melodramatically clutching at her hair and staring at Nan with her blue eyes. "It is a deep-laid plot, but it shall be foiled by Patricia Sherlock,—the only ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... that the stratagems which had won her heart were the results of a deep-laid plot proceeding from her lover. But clever women are apt to be rarely sharp-sighted in every matter which concerns themselves. She frequently determined that a third was in the secret. She therefore made no allusion ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... too. However, when I start for sheep, I get 'em. You can see by the deep-laid plan I set to catch help for the ranch, how there's nothing for fortune to do but lay down and holler when I ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... said Heathcote, not, however, without his suspicions. If any one had told him it was a fine morning, he would, in his present state of mind, have suspected the words as part of a deep-laid scheme to fool him. But, he reflected, he had not much to fear from this mock- heroic junior, and as long as he kept him in sight no great ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed |
