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Denouement   /dˌeɪnˌumˈɑn/   Listen
Denouement

noun
1.
The outcome of a complex sequence of events.
2.
The final resolution of the main complication of a literary or dramatic work.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Denouement" Quotes from Famous Books



... his fatherland. But yet, how far are all the influences which we can trace, from accounting for the forceful energy, the clear-sighted sagacity, and the dominant genius of the man! As far as we can judge at this distance, his personality was the mightiest element that entered into the denouement of that bloody world-drama, the Thirty Years' War. Had he been other than he was, had he been a man of less heroic mould, it would seem that Protestantism must have perished in Central Europe, or been confined, at least, to England and the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... one, the climax or catastrophe, when the goal is reached; there may also be a fourth,—the working out of the consequences of this last. Illustrations of this mode of unity are: the course of a story or a play from the introduction of the characters and the complication of the plot to the denouement or solving of the problem; the development of a character in a novel from a state of simplicity or innocence through storm and stress into maturity or ruin; the evolution of a sentiment in a sonnet towards its final statement in the last line or two; the melody, in its departure ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... strange!" said the old gentleman. "Do you remember our conversation on that evening when I first had the unlooked-for pleasure of receiving you as a guest into my house? At that time I spoke to you of a strange family story, of which there was no denouement, such as a novel-writer would desire, and which had remained in that unfinished posture for more than two hundred years! Well; perhaps it will gratify you to know that there seems a prospect of that ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... is concluded, that the day of bondage and of fetters has dawned, that the inexorable One, who alone in all the millions of created men is able, is even now present with, the gyves of her slavery in his hand. But the denouement is never at the bridal altar. Our host entertaineth us with no loves of Strephon and Phillis, nor leads beneath shady arcades to a vine-clad cottage, wherein is love and rich cream and homemade butter. The three sisters, the dread Moirae, in their darksome cavern, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... an approaching denouement. Louise married not many months after her very disturbing visit to Chicago, and then the home property was fairly empty except for visiting grandchildren. Lester did not attend the wedding, though he was invited. For another thing, Mrs. Kane died, making a readjustment of ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... he received no news of any kind from Dorothea; and, climax of it all, Herr Weisskopf notified him that his note for one thousand marks, with interest, was due. Doederlein saw that there was nothing to be done about it all except to recognise the denouement as a fact and not as a stage scene. And one day he hobbled up the steps of the house ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... dolorous grimace; she succeeded only in convulsing her contracted visage with the sobs that she sought to restrain. Overcome at last, humiliated, powerless, she broke into tears, and this unforeseen denouement put an end at once to all the ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... tranquil and attentive to his duty, to produce a fine effect. After the hurly-burly was over, he left the actors mute with their arms crossed. He opened the scenery! and not an actor could enter on it! The pit, more clamorous than ever, would not suffer the denouement! Such was the conduct, and such the intrepidity, of the army employed to besiege the Arsacides! Such was the cause of that accusation of tediousness made against a drama, which has most evidently ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... the last two acts is false and disappointing. But there is the old Sudermann pyrotechnical virtuosity, the fireworks dazzle with their brilliancy, and you think of Paris, and also that some drama may be divorced from life and literature and yet be interesting. Insincere as is the denouement, the note of insincerity was absent in the acting of the cast. The honours were easily borne away by a pretty Viennese actress from the Volks Theatre there, Elsa Galafres by name, whose methods are Gallic, whose personality is charming. Critical Berlin has taken her ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... as a good ground for an extra premium upon the torso. Besides, it is hard to see how any proper end could be devised for a paper of this nature, reciting a few incidents, sad and gay, from the records of a half-forgotten childhood, unless by putting the child to death; for which denouement, unhappily, there was ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... any further zoological fact were needed to verify the denouement of "The Pipe," it might be the general statement that lizards are abnormal brutes anyhow. Consider the chameleons of unsettled hue. And what is one to think of an animal which, when captured by the tail, is able to make its escape by willfully ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... two boys who had waited the Hun had profited cunningly by the brawl. They had approached at its beginning—a fight was anybody's to watch—they had applauded its denouement with shrill and hearty cries, and ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... of that purpose the reader will learn if only he will have the patience to read this prefatory narrative (which, lengthy though it be, may yet develop and expand in proportion as we approach the denouement with which the present work is destined to ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... interest begins to deepen. Next we have the climax, in which the struggle, and consequently the interest, are at their height; and this in turn is followed by the resolution, where the resolving force works and the knot begins to be untied. Finally there is the denouement or conclusion. ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... that the chief witch-doctor was doing the same thing, reflected swiftly and desiring to make an impression, repeated Bakahenzie's mystic phrase which he had overheard whilst hiding in the jungle previous to the denouement: ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... There, the contest will be inaugurated, which will declare Isabel Valois a nameless child of poverty. This is the last golden lock to the millions of Lagunitas, The poor puppet he has set up to play the contestant is under his control. He had wished to see Natalie homeward bound before this denouement. It must be. He muses. Kill her! Ah, no; too dangerous. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... so carefully concealed. With the astonishment of this rediscovery, there flashed across him again the fatefulness of the inspiration which had decided him not to go in the coach. His presence there would have no doubt warned the stranger, and so estopped this convincing denouement. It was quite possible that her companion, by relays of horses and the advantage of bridle cut-offs, could have easily followed the Three Pine coach and joined her at Stockton. But for what purpose? The lady's trunk, which had not been disturbed during the first part of the ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... and absorbing interest. Its plot, which is constructed with great skill, is decidedly unconventional in its development, and its denouement, although unanticipated until near its climax, really comes as an agreeable surprise.... As a literary work, 'A Moral Dilemma' will take ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... so interesting a denouement as the actual capture of this prodigy of the wilds, I was up early and off the following Sunday to Newark, where in Peter's apartment in due time I found him, his rooms in a turmoil, he himself busy stuffing things into a bag, outside an automobile waiting and within it ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... many, Leverrier picked out six; not then deciding that all the other observations related to still other large, planetary bodies, but arbitrarily, or hypnotically, disregarding—or heroically disregarding—every one of them—that to formulate at all he had to exclude falsely. The denouement killed him, I think. I'm not at all inclined to place him with the Grays and Hitchcocks and Symonses. I'm not, because, though it was rather unsportsmanlike to put the date so far ahead, he did give a date, and he did stick to it with ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... struggling men grappled below him had no notion of how long they had fought. It seemed an age, and the denouement yet another age deferred. But to them came the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... Stair' is interesting from the first sentence to the last; the characters are vital and are, also, most entertaining company; the denouement unexpected and picturesque and cleverly led up to from one of the earliest chapters; the story moves swiftly and without a hitch. Robert Burns is neither idealized nor caricatured; Sandy, Jock, Pitcairn, Danvers Carmichael, and the Duke of Borthewicke are admirably relieved against ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... who echoed her laugh, for, indeed, the story did sound like an absurd fable. All eyes were turned on Nell, and all waited for her to bring about with a denial the satisfactory denouement. Drake did not laugh, for his heart was burning with fury against the audacity, the shameless insolence, of Lady Luce; but he smiled in a grim fashion as his eyes still rested on ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... not know where it was all leading to, or what it was leading up to as a final denouement, but he was inured to the taking of desperate chances. Peril was a pastime to him. He was ever watchful and always prepared ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey

... us end the lovers' comedy, after a good precedent, with supper as the denouement. Chacun ira souper: la comedie ne peut ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... calli—with shallow baskets of fish upon their heads and under either arm, and cry their soles and mackerel to the neighborhood, stopping now and then at some door to bargain away the eels which they chop into sections as the thrilling drama proceeds, and hand over as a denouement at the purchaser's own price. "Beautiful and all alive!" is the engaging cry with which they hawk ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... decidedly glad to learn that her friend no longer languished back of those gray walls on Victoria Embankment. With excitement that increased as she went along, she followed Colonel Hughes as—in the letter—he moved nearer and nearer his denouement, until finally his finger pointed to Inspector Bray sitting guilty in his chair. This was an eminently satisfactory solution, and it served the inspector right for locking up her friend. Then, with the suddenness ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers

... that the pair began to muse on the denouement. Could this be a member of the firm or an employe? This hypothesis jeopardized the success of the night's adventure, unless, when they had permitted the prisoner to emerge, they bound ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... a short one. I had not seen the beginning of it, but I soon witnessed the denouement. As I turned, the trapper had forced his adversary against the parapet, and with his long, muscular arm was bending him over its edge. In the other hand, uplifted, he brandished ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... leave the reader to imagine the effect of the next morning's denouement. Everyone was in a fury except Jack, who did nothing but laugh. The captain wanted to return to obtain Miss Hicks, Gascoigne to obtain Azar, and the vice-consul to obtain his liberty—but the wind was foul for their return, and Jack soon gained the captain on his side. He pointed out ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... son etat soit toujours fort grave et plein de perils. Je ne puis naturellement faire dans une pareille situation de projets a longue echeance. Non seulement tout plan de voyage est abandonne pour le moment, mais je vis au jour le jour, toujours pret a partir au recu d'une depeche annoncant le denouement fatal. Aussi ne puis-je dans ce moment insister pour vous engager a faire au Chateau d'Eu cette visite dont je me promettais tant de plaisir et d'interet, mais qui, dans les circonstances actuelles, risquerait fort d'etre brusquement interrompue. ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... themselves, but they had fallen upon the young Curate's ears with startling significance. He had given this significance to them himself,—in spite of himself,—and then all at once he had fallen to wondering why it was that he had never thought of such a possible denouement before. It was so very possible, so very probable; nay, when he came to think of it seriously, it was only impossible that it should not be. He had often told him-self, that some day a lover would come who would be worthy of the woman he had not even ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... when saying this, just as though he had made up his own mind to hasten the denouement; but of that he did ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... boyish trick of his that had survived when he wished some expected pleasure to spring suddenly upon him. How would she address him? The memory of their last meeting gave him courage, and he opened his eyes. The denouement was disconcerting. Directly under the tiny white monogram she had begun without heading of ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... the frightful denouement. It ensued almost without warning. At the time I felt absolutely positive that I was seasick. I would have sworn to it. If somebody had put a Bible on my chest and held it there I would cheerfully have laid my right hand on it and taken a solemn oath that I was seasick. Indeed,I believed ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... that the work lays claims to one kind of interest which I certainly never desired to effect for it—viz., in exemplifying the glorious uncertainty of the Law. For, humbly aware of the blunders which Novelists not belonging to the legal profession are apt to commit, when they summon to the denouement of a plot the aid of a deity so mysterious as Themis, I submitted to an eminent lawyer the whole case of "Beaufort versus Beaufort," as it stands in this Novel. And the pages which refer to that suit were not only written from the opinion annexed to the brief I sent in, but submitted ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... judge judges but as the sun failing round helpless thing, As he sees the farthest he has the most faith, His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent, He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement, He sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and women as dreams ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... tragical plot whose interest is slightly marred by triteness and improbable situations. Of the latter we must point out the strained coincidence whereby four distinct things, proceeding from entirely unrelated causes, give rise to the final denouement. The culmination of the aged father's resolve to kill his enemy, the conditions which make possible the return of the son, the presence of the enemy's hat and coat under the wayside tree, and the storm which prompts the son to don these garments, are all independent ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... drink it. Her eyes flashed with excitement, her faded face flushed. And, with it all, as I look back, there was an air of suppressed excitement that seemed to have nothing to do with my narrative. I remembered it, however, when the denouement came ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... which affected to believe that there was no popular love for Shakespeare, to render whom palatable he arranged Romeo and Juliet for the stage, with a double denouement—one serious, the other hilarious. If your heart were too sensitive to bear the deaths of the loving pair, you had only to go on the succeeding afternoon to see them wedded, and set upon the way of a ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater

... De Coude, and the two others who had been playing, stood looking expectantly at the count. Several other passengers had drawn toward the scene of the altercation, and all awaited the denouement. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... away with a little sigh. The tragedy which a few minutes ago she had seen looming up, eluded her. She had courted a denouement in ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... she has been able to elude all Baltimore's attempts at conversation—has refused all his demands for a dance, yet this same knowledge that the night will not go by without a denouement of some kind between her and him is terribly present to her. To-night! The last night she will ever see him, in all human probability! The exaltation that enables her to endure this thought is fraught with ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... thrilled at the prospect of a denouement to the story of Harboro's eccentricity. They used no harsher word than that. They liked him and they would have deplored anything in the nature of a misfortune overtaking him. But human beings are all very much alike in one respect—they find life ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... His last significant act is to dissuade the faction from attempting to assassinate the King, before being reduced to a minor role in the closing scene where he only has five short speeches and plays no significant part in the denouement. The character then, is something of a patchwork affair, playing different roles as the play progresses before being effectively ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... endpoint, last, omega; extreme, extremity; gable end, butt end, fag-end; tip, nib, point; tail &c (rear) 235; verge &c (edge) 231; tag, peroration; bonne bouche [Fr.]; bottom dollar, tail end, rear guard. consummation, denouement; finish &c (completion) 729; fate; doom, doomsday; crack of doom, day of Judgment, dies irae, fall of the curtain; goal, destination; limit, determination; expiration, expiry^, extinction, extermination; death &c 360; end of all things; finality; eschatology. break up, commencement de ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... conveyed. She said she not only was sometimes amused at the fresh treatment I would give an author's subject, but, when I gave some new and sudden turn to the plot of the story, often grew interested and even excited in listening to hear what kind of a denouement I would bring about. But I am sure this was not due to dullness, for I made rapid progress in both my music ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... persons who examined the thing seriously, there remained in people's minds a suspicion, which time alone could disperse: this depended on what might happen to the Marquis de Precy, who was threatened that he should be slain in the first engagement; thus every one regarded his fate as the denouement of the piece; but he soon confirmed everything they had doubted the truth of, for as soon as he recovered from his illness he would go to the combat of St. Antoine, although his father and mother, who were afraid of the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... bold, and the denouement—the time and place in which the hero of it existed, considered—not much out of keeping; yet it must be confessed, that it required a delicacy of handling both from the author and the performer, so as not much to shock the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... pause of inscrutable regard of the Sepoy, who, despite the embarrassing denouement, managed to maintain a fair degree of composure, Gratz, addressing the man ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... place while the room centred its eyes upon him, scenting some unexpected denouement. He saw it, and in concession to a natural vanity and dramatic instinct, he threw back his head and stuffed his hands into his coat-pockets while the crowd waited. He grinned insolently at the Judge and ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... felt in a good humour. The play was so peculiarly hers, the intimate quality which had made the book "go" had been wonderfully retained, so that spontaneous laughter marked her progress through the comedy. It was all so true and universal, the characters so well drawn, the denouement so happy! At the climax of the third act the company broke into irresistible and ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke

... Mac. Edit. "Shahrazad" and here making nonsense of the word. It is regretable that the king's reflections do not run at times as in this text: his compunctions lead well up to the denouement. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... appearance on the stage, and have been hustled off to make room for others, but so unerringly are they drawn that we feel that we are in the presence of living people. Take Colette Willy, for example, who comes in on page 2656 at a time when the denouement is clearly at hand. The author, who is working up to his great scene —the appointment of Dr. Norman Wilsmore to the International Commission for the Publication of Annual Tables of Physical and Chemical Constants— ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne

... Raffaelle's "Death of Ananias;" the event, in Sapphira, is intimated and suspended. "Though," says Mr Burnet, "the painter has but one page to represent his story, he generally chooses that part which combines the most illustrative incidents with the most effective denouement of the event. In Raffaelle we often find not only those circumstances which precede it, but its effects upon the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... first—mentioned very remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to discover that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error respecting the fate of the vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, as that fate is depicted in the "Arabian Nights"; and that the denouement there given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... far as the place where Ethel was. Now, you know, all this time I was doomed to inaction. But at this juncture I strolled carelessly along, pretending not to see any thing in particular; and so, taking up an easy attitude, I waited for the denouement. It was a terrible position too. That child-angel! I would have laid down my life for her, but I had to stand idle, and see her rush to fling her life away. And all because I had not happened to have the mere ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... and with a beautiful damsel as a present for their father-in-law. In the -Casina-, which was received with quite special favour by the public, the bride, from whom the piece is named and around whom the plot revolves, does not make her appearance at all, and the denouement is quite naively described by the epilogue as "to be enacted later within." Very often the plot as it thickens is suddenly broken off, the connecting thread is allowed to drop, and other similar signs of an unfinished art appear. The reason of this is to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... to the city lasted two hours; we were alone in my vis-a-vis and we overtaxed nature, exacting more than it can possibly give. As we were getting near Rome we were compelled to let the curtain fall before the denouement of the drama which we had performed to the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... at mystification are immensely entertaining; but are there to be many more of them, before you can permit our little comedy to reach its happy denouement?" ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... Rachel is in love with you. Well, I can't blame her. I'm horribly jealous, but it doesn't matter." An incongruous sanity warned him to avoid confessions, so he contented himself by rolling the situation over on his tongue, tasting the jealousy of his wife, the drama of the denouement, and remaining peacefully smiling in his ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... Norse scholar. But, if he does, might I beg him to translate it some day, as none but he can translate? It is so sad, that no tenderness less exquisite than his can prevent its being painful; and, at least in its denouement, so naive, that no purity less exquisite than his can prevent its being dreadful. But the Rime is as worthy of Mr. Longfellow as he ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... interposed Mr. Littell, lowering himself carefully to the window seat, for he had been standing all this time and his foot began to pain again. "After she knows you a little better, Bobby, she will expect this sort of denouement to follow whatever you undertake. I say we ought to have some dinner, Mother, and then ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... too much space in his pieces. His characters are sketched with a few bold and strong touches. His plots are simple in the extreme: he did not understand the art of enriching and varying an action, and of giving a measured march and progress to the complication and denouement. Hence his action often stands still; a circumstance which becomes yet more apparent, from the undue extension of his choral songs. But all his poetry evinces a sublime and earnest mind. Terror is his element, and not the softer affections, he holds ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... such uses. I still think that the story, as above given, might easily and successfully be dramatized, giving it a mixed character—that of the melo-dramatic opera, and only softening the close to a less tragical denouement.] ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various

... climactic denouement; the rapturous moment of the younger brother's revealing was at hand; Judah, the older brother, was now holding the centre of the stage and making that thrilling appeal, than which nothing more moving is to be ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... few moments, and Jack sat silent, wondering what the denouement to the strange story would prove. At length Mr. Richard Townsend after ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey

... C'est a mon instance que vous avez prolonge d'un an votre sejour en Grece. Dans cet espace, et surtout dans l'ete dernier, la peste et les maladies qui vinrent augmenter nos malheurs et nos souffrances, vous ont fourni l'occasion de co-operer par un noble denouement a l'accomplissement des mesures sanitaires qui a l'aide de la Providence ont conjure les manx majeurs, dont la ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... short time, the population of the capital was increased by three hundred thousand souls. Foreigners also arrived in crowds; but, less intoxicated by the prevailing madness than the French, they foresaw the fatal denouement, and, for the most part, extricated themselves in time from its effects."—(Vol. i. pp. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... be sentenced for life to walk up to his front door between two rows of whitewashed rocks, to live surrounded by a picket fence, and to die behind a pair of neat green blinds? But mostly his thoughts were a jumble of Sprudell, of his insincere cordiality and the unexpected denouement when Abe Cone's call had forced his hand; of Dill and his mission, and disgust at his own carelessness in ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... himself as gracious and benign when addressing Francesca, and she, moved by his friendly attitude, tells the story of her intrigue, in lines justly regarded as the most beautiful ever written in verse. The reader will not fail to observe that the fatal denouement is only hinted, not told—the line, "that day we read no more," making what is admitted to be the finest ellipsis in all the ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... the denouement of his visit: he only wished it had come sooner, and spared him a certain waste of emotion. As he went out into the wintry night, New York again became vast and imminent, and May Welland the loveliest woman in it. He turned into his florist's to send her the daily box ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... beyond his hopes. The coming of Van Dorn and the acquaintance formed with Lindlay would be of untold value to him in his work. A little later, Van Dorn would come to his assistance without arousing suspicion, not being known as a mining expert, and when the time came for the final denouement, Lindlay would accompany Mr. Cameron to the mines, as he was a skilled expert, and having already visited the mines, could furnish testimony as to the fraud ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... decision to make the world safe for democracy was the crisis of civilization. Victory on the fields of France has been the satisfactory denouement. The question naturally arises: Shall there be a happy ending of the great drama for the white American and a tragic ending for the Negro? Or, rather, as the American brotherhood gathers about the charmed circle and smokes the pipe ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... my name with you," he said. "It is probable that you will be put to some inconvenience. I can only regret that this—denouement did not come some months ago. You are likely to suffer more than I, because I do not care what the world thinks of me. Therefore you may tell the world what you choose about me—that I drink, that I gamble, that I am lacking in—honour! Anything ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... novel of considerable ability. The story is exciting and interesting, the scenes varied, the descriptions vivid, and the denouement well imagined and sustained. There are no dull pages in the book. There is much to praise, but something also to regret. There is a want of calm, of continuity in the style. The sentences are short and closely cut, falling upon the ear more like the broken rattling ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the men in the box, watched every move, every shade of expression which passed across the face of the Jewish proprietor. None knew for certain. But all guessed. And the guess of everybody was of a denouement which would serve the city with a topic of interest ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... dog-watch—seven o'clock in the evening—the entire afternoon having passed away so rapidly while those on board were anxiously watching the struggle of the vessel against the wind and sea in her endeavours to weather the cape, that, in their intense excitement as they awaited the denouement which would solve all their hopes and fears, they took no heed of the flight of time. It seemed really but a few brief minutes, instead of hours, from the period when Captain Dinks had taken the sun at noon to the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... sallow countenance of the sick woman stood out like a figure of Christ imperfectly gilded and fixed upon a cross of tarnished silver. The flickering rays shed by the blue flames of a crackling fire were therefore the sole light of this sombre chamber, where the denouement of a drama was just ending. A log suddenly rolled from the fire onto the floor, as if presaging some catastrophe. At the sound of it the sick woman quickly rose to a sitting posture. She opened two eyes, clear as those of a cat, and all present eyed her in astonishment. She ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... unprepared for such a denouement, shot a searching glance at Carolina. She bowed her head ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... which is altogether a pleasant assemblage of historical facts, aided by the imaginative garniture of the author, the denouement is brought about by the explosion of a gunpowder vault which destroyed part of the mansion; and on the marriage of his hero and heroine Brambletye House was abandoned to its fate; "and the time that has intervened since its desertion," says our author, "combining ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various

... told him, "I understand, and I'd gladly take another beating like this one to escape this wretched denouement." ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... "shockers," he had a large and increasing public who were fascinated by the wholesome and thrilling stories he wrote, and who held on breathlessly to the skein of mystery until they came to the denouement ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... a bit of a romanticist, as all historians are, and he no doubt thought it would be a fine denouement to life's play to capture the daughter of his old sweetheart, and avenge himself on Fate and the unembarrassed Madame Necker and the unpiqued husband, all at one fell stroke—and she would not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... entirely covered with mountains is a much greater and more difficult task than where a denouement may be accomplished by a decisive battle in the open country; for fields of battle for the deployment of large masses are rare in a mountainous region, and the war becomes a succession of partial combats. Here it would be imprudent, perhaps, to penetrate on a single ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... his breast. What an affectionate, self-sacrificing sister would she be, thus kindly to relieve her brother at her own expense! But, just as this plan began to ripen for execution, she was counter-plotted, or fancied herself to be, which led to the same denouement. Winnie Morris came to pass a vacation with her brother, Wayland, and the fore-doomed bachelor, Augustus Lester, most audaciously dared to fall in love with the cackling girl. So Miss Mary declared; and to remain ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... health disturbed his repose—began a conversation of a peculiar kind, and asked me whether I was not a Freemason. Darkness, and the distance I was from him, induced a studiedly cautious reply. But a denouement the next day followed. This incident was the only explanation the unwonted and wholly unexpected remittance admitted. A stranger, traveling to a southern and sickly city to embark for a distant State, perhaps never to return—the ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... quite knew how the crowd in the church broke up and dispersed itself after this denouement. For a few minutes the crush of people round the pulpit was terrific; all eyes were fixed on the young black-browed peasant who had so nearly been a parricide,—and on the father who publicly exonerated him,—and then ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... corner, and the strollers shrugged their shoulders and strove to appear at their ease. But the only person who felt the indifference which they assumed was La Font; who, obnoxious to none of the annoyances which I foresaw, could hardly restrain his mirth at the DENOUEMENT which he anticipated. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... and when he had gone a little further, turned to take another look at her, and found, startled, that she too was looking at him. There, at opposite ends of the long corridor, father and daughter stood interrogatively at gaze, each feeling a little guilty, each wondering what, at the denouement, the other would say. Then the charming Charlotte blew him a kiss from her hand, and his Majesty did likewise; and, off to the fulfilment of her destiny went the Princess; and off to his fulfilment of her destiny went he; each quite sure ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... reasons. The lesser, but not negligible, reason is that we possess no convenient English word for the unknotting or disentangling of a complication. Denouement itself cannot be plausibly Anglicized, and no native word has as yet, by common consent, been accepted as its equivalent. I sometimes wish we could adopt, and print without italics, the excellent and expressive Greek word ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... "thinking," was done entirely by Raffles, who did not always trouble to communicate his thoughts to me. His reticence, however, was no longer an irritant. I began to accept it as a necessary convention of these little enterprises. And, after our last adventure of the kind, more especially after its denouement, my trust in Raffles was much too solid to be shaken by a want of trust in me, which I still believe to have been more the instinct of the criminal than the judgment ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... he had that day written the final chapter, but he hadn't. The final chapter he was to write the next day, following hard upon a denouement, which to Mr. Tompkins, he with his own eyes having seen what he had seen, was so profound a puzzle that ever thereafter he mentally catalogued it under one of his favorite headlining phrases: "Deplorable ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... exposition, description, argumentation, and pleading; the care exercised in the arrangement of material so as to produce a strong effect at the close (climax); the very general practise of concealing the "point" (denouement) of a story until the effective moment; and the careful suppression of needless, and therefore ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... sure what he was going for. Yet that he, who had only a moment before fully determined to leave the rancho and her, was now going to her father to demand her hand as a contingency of his remaining did not strike him as so extravagant and unexpected a denouement as it was a difficult one. He was only concerned HOW, and in what way, he should approach him. In a moment of embarrassment he hesitated, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... remarked Hardin, "Now let us adjourn to the dinner-saloon and drink a merry bout over fortunate denouement." ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... Willoughby, as he had called himself, spending the greater part of every morning with Mrs. Allen, and hiding himself from curious eyes, during the afternoons, in his room at the "White Swan." Then came the denouement to this exciting ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... in this wise. Mr. Child had been admitted to the bar and had opened an office in Boston. One evening about nine o'clock he rode out to Watertown on horseback and called at the Curtises' where Miss Francis then was. "My mother, who believed the denouement had come," says Mr. Curtis, "retired to her chamber. Mr. Child pressed his suit earnestly. Ten o'clock came, then eleven, then twelve. The horse grew impatient and Mr. Child went out once or twice to pacify him, and ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... singular recital the young man's mind, stimulated by the eerie perplexities and the unhappy denouement, had ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... away?" he heard the Taoist inquire. To this question the Buddhist replied with a smile: "Set your mind at ease," he said; "there's now in maturity a plot of a general character involving mundane pleasures, which will presently come to a denouement. The whole number of the votaries of voluptuousness have, as yet, not been quickened or entered the world, and I mean to avail myself of this occasion to introduce this object among their number, so as to give it a chance to go through the span ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... these remarks it was to be inferred that the princess had the depth of a precipice, the grace of a queen, the corruption of diplomatists, the mystery of a first initiation, and the dangerous qualities of a siren. The two clever men of the world, incapable of foreseeing the denouement of their joke, succeeded in presenting Diane d'Uxelles as a consummate specimen of the Parisian woman, the cleverest of coquettes, the most enchanting mistress in the world. Right or wrong, the woman whom they thus treated so lightly was sacred to d'Arthez; his desire to meet her needed no ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... I defer a denouement that will rejoice them all? Dorothy loves me—loves me for myself, and for nothing but myself. Who could have offered deeper proof of it? She has come to me in the face of her mother, in the face of poverty; she is willing to abandon everything to become ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... it till you have turned the last page."—Cleveland Leader. "Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution, almost takes one's breath away. The boldness of its denouement is sublime."—Boston Transcript. "The literary hit of a generation. The best of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly story."—St. Louis Dispatch. "The story is ingeniously ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... possible a tragic denouement might have followed the dialogue, had there not come just at that moment a startling interruption to ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"

... excited an agitation perfectly astonishing. The emotion was so great as to produce universal tremour, which attracted the notice of the company (there was a room full); I was exceedingly alarmed and perplexed, having imagined the denouement of last summer to have been conclusive, in good faith. Undoubtedly there is some secret agent, some underwork, perhaps restraint, of which I am ignorant. I strongly suspect that she has done violence to her feelings. Shall I or shall I not investigate ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... for carelessness, for almost criminal negligence in thus leaving the girl. And yet one might as soon reckon on the dead coming to life, as for this denouement. It was clear that he was dealing with no ordinary man, but he should have known this after the display of nerve he had witnessed as Sorez had climbed the stairs in his own house. He was a man with an iron will, with the ability to focus whatever energy ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... his hands together enthusiastically, "I, for one, want to be 'in at the death' on this, for it will simply be the finest piece of work, the grandest denouement, of any case that has ever come within my twenty years of ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... seemed to him that he was an impostor: that Ruth believed him to be one Howard Spurlock, when he was only masquerading as Spurlock. If ever the denouement came—if ever the Hand reached him—Ruth would then understand why he had rebuffed all her tender advances. The law would accord her all her previous rights: she would return to the exact status out of which in his madness he had taken her. She ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... either. A dull excitement possessed him, resembling suspense—as though he were awaiting a denouement; as though there was yet some ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... at the happy denouement of that fearful tragedy that she could only protest, "Helen, Helen, why do you ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... write to the place you came from, if, indeed, such a spot can be found?—for I believe you sometimes book yourself from one town and sometimes from another. But depend upon it you had better take my advice and keep still, and in the denouement which follows, I alone shall be blamed for a slight stretch of truth which you can easily excuse as 'one of dear ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... Chariclea as the child which he had confided, ten years before, to the care of Charicles. At this juncture Charicles himself appears, having come to Egypt to reclaim his lost child from Calasiris, and thence having been sent on by Oroondates to the court of Ethiopia:—and the denouement, as far as the heroine is concerned, is now complete. Theagenes, however, still remains doomed, and Hydaspes seems unwilling to relinquish his victim; but, after an interval of suspense, during which he incidentally performs various ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... dissensions and grumblings. The story is a long one. It reached its tragic denouement just below the summit of the Sierras, on the shores of Donner Lake. The words of McGlashan may now ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough

... rather tonelessly. An ardent supporter of the local motion-picture palace, she had hoped for a slightly more gingery denouement, something with a bit ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... background. Balzac had first to pay off his debts, and Mme. Hanska, as a Polish subject of the Czar Nicholas, was not in a position to marry from one day to another. The growth of their intimacy is, however, amply reflected in these volumes, and the denouement presents itself with a certain dramatic force. Balzac's letters to his future wife, as to every one else, deal almost exclusively with his financial situation. He discusses the details of this matter with all his correspondents, who apparently have—or are expected ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... which spread, no one knows how, from one end of the ship to the other, two or three days before the official orders arrive, and which generally turn out tolerably correct. What will the last act of my little Japanese comedy be like? the denouement, the separation? Will there be any touch of sadness on the part of my mousme, or on my own, just a tightening of the heart-strings at the moment of our final farewell? At this moment I can imagine nothing of the sort. And then the adieux of Yves and Chrysantheme, what will ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... sharp in the morning everything was ready for departure, as she had ordered. We left the little Carpathian health- resort in a comfortable light carriage. The most interesting drama of my life had reached a point of development whose denouement it was ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

... theory, and of religious passion to erotic passion. In the introduction she apologizes for her realistic descriptions of erotic passion, which she says was necessary for the argument implicit in her plays. She introduces God as a character, and miracles as a means of bringing about the denouement at which she wants to arrive. It became the custom in mediaeval drama to reach, by introducing a miracle, the moral result which current dogma required.[2093] The situations and intrigue are generally very unedifying. To our taste the plays seem very unfit ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... all the various words which might have been used instead of "defect," as want, absence, poverty, deficiency, lack. This moment I, who had not been attending to the progress of the argument (as the denouement will show) starting suddenly up out of one of my reveries, by some unfortunate connection of ideas, which the last fatal word had excited, the devil put it into my head to turn round to the Nabob, who was sitting next me, and in a very marked manner (as it seemed to the ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... self-congratulation he would have found ample opportunity for approbation in the excellent manner with which his plan for the rescue of Elise was working out. The companionship of Elise and Miss Hartwell had become almost constant in spite of the unpropitious denouement of their first meeting. This pleased Firmstone greatly. But there was another thing which this companionship thrust upon him with renewed interest. At first it had not been prominent. In fact, it was quite overshadowed ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... whole correspondence was on the table, and Mr. Holdfast laid it out in order, like a map, and went through it, taking notes. "What a comedy," said he. "All but the denouement. Now, Mr. Bayne, can any other manufacturers show me a correspondence ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... the Senate" and his satellite were dumfounded. Firmly believing that Langdon could find no way to pass the bill for Altacoola and yet spoil their crooked scheme, they were totally unprepared for any such denouement. To think that a simple, old-fashioned planter from the cotton fields of Mississippi could originate such a plan to outwit the two ablest political tricksters ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... closely, an amused expression hovering on his face. After all, it was not so much he who had desired this match as Roberts, and as long as the senator was willing to withdraw, he could make no objection. He wondered what part, if any, his son had played in bringing about this sensational denouement to a match which had been so distasteful to him, and it gratified his paternal vanity to think that Jefferson after all might be smarter than he ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... look, there's Mrs. Delacour leading Miss Portman off into the trictrac cabinet, with a face full of business—her hand in hers—Lord, I did not know they were on that footing! I wonder what's going forward. Suppose old Hartley was to propose for Miss Portman—there would be a denouement! and cut his daughter off with a shilling! Nothing's impossible, you know. Did he ever see Miss Portman? I must go and find ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... and on the Crimean war as but the prologue to a fearful drama—all the more fearful because none knows its purpose, its plot, which character will be assumed by any given actor, and, least of all, the denouement of the whole. All that they feel and know is that everything which has happened since 1848 has exasperated, not calmed, the electric tension of the European atmosphere; that a rottenness, rapidly growing intolerable alike 'to God and the enemies of God,' has eaten ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley

... conditions of the weather had of course been accompanied by disasters; there had been earthquakes of astonishing violence, a ripple had wrecked not less than twenty-five towns in America; an island or two had disappeared, and that bewildering Vesuvius seemed to be working up for a denouement. But no one knew really the explanation. One man had been wild enough to say that some cataclysm had taken place in the centre of the earth.... So she had heard from her nurse; but she was not greatly ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... The denouement I cannot relate, as the artful bird, followed by her ardent suitor, soon flew away beyond my sight. It may not be rash to conclude, however, that she held out no ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... do all in his power to belittle the work of his old chief, Burton was naturally incensed, and the disputation promised to be a stormy one. The great day arrived, and no melodramatic author could have contrived a more startling, a more shocking denouement. Burton, notes in hand, stood on the platform, facing the great audience, his brain heavy with arguments and bursting with sesquipedalian and sledge-hammer words to pulverize his exasperating opponent. Mrs. Burton, who had dressed with unusual care, occupied a seat on the platform. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... the abundant tide of his flowing and leisurely utterances, he would have more time to bestow on really exciting and dramatic episodes, instead of going off into a little corner and carefully embellishing it, while the denouement waits and the interest grows cold. Neither can he write a page without sending a sly bolt of amused perception through it, in which he discovers some foible or pricks some bubble of pretension, but always tenderly, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... declare," exclaimed Polly, reaching this denouement in a delightfully roundabout way, ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... and having done his duty, he went outside and stood by the gate, the centre of seven marvelling Silvas, who watched him as they would have watched a curiosity in a side-show. All about the carriage were gathered the children from a dozen blocks, waiting and eager for some tragic and terrible denouement. Carriages were seen on their street only for weddings and funerals. Here was neither marriage nor death: therefore, it was something transcending experience and well worth ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... mourned his decease as if he had actually died. For Christ's sake he had been an outcast from his people and was twice dead to his beloved. This experience has been repeated a thousand times in India in the case of Christian converts. But, in this particular instance, there was a remarkable denouement. The young man, deserted, divorced, and ceremonially buried by his wife, married a Christian woman, with whom he lived happily for many years. But after her death he returned to his first love and remarried the widow of his youth, who, in the meanwhile, had relented and become a Christian. ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... and sat down. Suddenly the full conception of what this meant came to his mind—the man had gone mad. The strained cords of that diseased brain had snapped in the presence of imagined terrors, and now all was chaos. The horror of it overwhelmed Hampton; not only did this unexpected denouement leave him utterly hopeless, but what was he to do with the fellow? How could he bring him forth from there alive? If this stream was indeed the Tongue, then many a mile of rough country, ragged with low mountains and criss-crossed by ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... story-teller introduces this last instance with considerable art as a preface to the denouement. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton



Words linked to "Denouement" :   termination, resultant, solvent, resolution, result, outcome, answer, solution, final result



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