"Pretext" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unceasingly did the tide of war flow over the plain of Flanders, an English army, commanded by Henry Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, landed at Calais under the pretext of supporting the partisans of Pope Urban VI., who then occupied the Holy See, against the adherents of Pope Clement VII., who had established himself at Avignon. The burghers of Ghent flocked to the English standard, and the allies ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... Prince Ivan Ivanovitch having a country villa, I had related simply because I could find no other pretext for mentioning both my relationship to the Prince and the fact that I had been to luncheon with him that day; yet why I had said all I had about the balustrading costing 380,000 roubles, and about ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... safe return; but she had fears And doubting sorrows, which implored my stay; While I, though all was ready, dried her tears, And found fresh pretext for ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... the fun of the thing, and in hope of adventures, or for the love of a young and beautiful actress. I could tell you of several notable instances; and it is thought to be rather to a man's credit than otherwise in fashionable circles. Isabelle is a very good pretext for you; she is young, beautiful, clever, modest, and virtuous. In fact many an actress who takes like her the role of the ingenuous young girl is in reality all that she personates, though a frivolous and frequently licentious public will not credit ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... satisfaction. But though Lord Lufton was thus doing his duty, and going through his work, he was not doing it with his whole heart,—as the head groom perceived very well. He was fretful about the nags, and seemed anxious to get them out of his sight as soon as he had made a decent pretext of looking at them. "How are you, Lufton?" said Robarts, coming forward. "They told me that you were down, and so I ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Spain he would be given his liberty. This he refused to do. He had not very much faith in the Spaniards, and he was not sure that it might not be a trap which they were setting for him. He feared that if he declared himself guilty, they would make it a pretext for ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... watchmen of the quarter of the town I frequented; one, whom I had unwittingly offended, giving the word to the whole pack. You can scarcely conceive the tyranny exercised by these wretches: considering themselves as the instruments of the very laws they violate, the pretext which steels their conscience, hardens their heart. Not content with receiving from us, outlaws of society (let other women talk of favours) a brutal gratification gratuitously as a privilege of office, they extort a ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... Ushaw and Ware, it is impossible to deny that he injured the work with which his name will ever be associated, by his disastrous intercourse with Father Parsons. Known as a sharer in that plotter's schemes, he gave a reasonable pretext to Elizabeth's government for regarding the seminaries as hotbeds of sedition. That they were not so is abundantly proved. The superiors kept their political actions secret from the students, and would not allow such matters even to be talked about or treated as ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and Rodney said that she would be doing him an extraordinary favour if she would get up some hours earlier and sit to him from eight till ten. It was amusing to do the bust, but the bust was only a pretext. What he wanted her to do was to sit for the nude, and he could not help trying to persuade her, though he did not believe for a moment that he would succeed. He took her to the museum and he showed her the nude, and told ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... wanted to show her. It had proved to be not much of a book after all, and even while standing with him in the library, while he turned the musty leaves for her and pointed out the funny old illustrations he had been telling her of, Althea had felt that the book was only a pretext for getting her away to himself. He had led her back to the drawing-room and he had said, 'Don't let's go out again, it's much nicer here. Please sit ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... wherever she goes. Sit down a moment, Sam, and let me think." The doctor stroked his chin reflectively. "I'm afraid if I go to their house on the pretext of giving Miss Metoaca medicine I will be searched, and if that paper is incriminating we will all swing together. Here, let me read the message, and then I can repeat it to Miss Nancy at ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the evening. Towards nine he went out on the pretext of seeing to a cow that had lately calved and was in a weakly state. He gave the animal her food and clean litter, doing everything more clumsily than usual. Then he went into the stable and groped about for a lantern that stood in ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... college. He inherited his father's good looks, but his mother's predilections apparently; for he set out in life with the determination to be Parisian amongst Parisians—of a certain class, be it understood; and having some talent for drawing, as indeed he had for most things, he used it as a pretext, announced that he intended to be an artist, and furnishing a room in the Quartier Latin, with an easel and a pipe, he began the wild Bohemian life which he found most in accordance ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... carrying out the plans of civilization which his powerful mind had formed;(291) and it was his indifference to a crusade, induced probably by other causes, which led the Pope to impute to him the blasphemy just quoted. The contact with the East, half a century later, in like manner afforded the pretext for fastening a charge of unbelief on the Knights Templars.(292) Contact with Mahometans had thus, we have reason to believe, created a latitude of thought in many parts ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... enter religion, because children are not bound to support their parents except in cases of necessity, as stated above. He that has already made his profession in religion is deemed to be already dead to the world: wherefore he ought not, under pretext of supporting his parents, to leave the cloister where he is buried with Christ, and busy himself once more with worldly affairs. Nevertheless he is bound, saving his obedience to his superiors, and his religious state withal, to make points efforts ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... she said, "by promoting the happiness of others, that we can secure our own." When they left, she generally presented them with some little article they seemed to fancy, enforcing their acceptance of it by some delicate pretext, that she might not appear to know they were in want. If she remarked that their clothes were much tattered, she obtained her mother's permission to give them some of her own, and then sent Paul to leave them, secretly at their cottage ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... my brother officers, fellows beside whom I was nobody, and there was my uncle's blindness getting confirmed. Was not that enough to sicken one with being stuck up for a lion, and constantly poked up by the showwoman, under pretext ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... considered almost as much a matter of course that a Cambridge undergraduate should go to the Derby as that a Member of Parliament should do so. Against this three or four rigid disciplinarians had raised their voices,—and as a result, no young man up at Trinity could get leave to be away on the Derby pretext. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... place, her meekness and extreme sweetness of temper rendered it almost impossible in a family where her own qualities predominated, to find any deviation from duty which might be seized upon without harshness as a pretext for inculcating those precautionary principles that were calculated to strengthen the weak points which her character may have presented. Even those weak points, if at the time they could be so termed, were perceptible only in the exercise of her virtues, so that it was a matter ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... he was not deceived. The Ottoman Porte had, indeed, been persuaded that the conquest of Egypt was not in her interest. She preferred enduring a rebel whom she hoped one day to subdue to supporting a power which, under the specious pretext of reducing her insurgent beys to obedience, deprived her of one of her finest provinces, and threatened ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... selling the vegetables. Then her third child was born, and she was sick for a long time afterward: she had been working too hard, poor thing! His old employers took William on with the rest of the men when the strike ended, but very soon found a pretext for discharging him; and, in short, they used up all their little savings, and the house went. William thought he had been ill-used, and became ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... continued dexterously to watch the brothers of Montreal. Under pretext of imparting to the Italian volunteers the advantage of their military science, he separated them from their mercenaries, and assigned to them the command of the less disciplined Italians, with whom, he believed, they could not venture to tamper. He himself assumed the lead of the Northmen—and, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... exposed to on going out, of the old man—sly, miserly, and intelligent— popping out upon us from his room, close to the left hand of the door, with some civility which we learned to distrust as a mere pretext for extorting more money, yet which it was difficult to refuse: such as the offer of any books out of his library, a great temptation, for we could see into the shelf-lined room; but just as we were on the point of yielding, there was a hint of the "consideration" ...
— Round the Sofa • Elizabeth Gaskell
... had been signally defeated at Nezib by that of the rebel Egyptian viceroy, Mehemet Ali; and the Turkish fleet was at the same time on its way to Alexandria, where it was handed over by its commander, Ahmed Pasha, to the same enemy, on the pretext that the young sultan's advisers were sold to Russia. But through the intervention of the European Powers Mehemet Ali was obliged to come to terms, and the Ottoman empire was saved. (See MEHEMET ALI.) In compliance with his father's express instructions, Abd-ul-Mejid set ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... individual. The General who crushes the soul out of his command by exacting infamous punishments for trivial offences, is but a short remove from the commander who would basely surrender it to the enemy on the barest pretext. Punishment has too often been connected with prejudice against Volunteers in the Army of the Potomac, controlled as it has been too much by martinets. That a nation of freemen could have endured so long the contumely of a proud military leader when his incapacity was so apparent, ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... real or not, it served as a pretext for the action taken, and the report regarding the unhappy princess was soon common property. When Isabella drew her last breath in 1504, Fernando artfully convoked the Cortes, formally renounced any interest in the succession to the throne of Castile, and ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... powerful friends, Each was jealous, and his ends Would attain whate'er might be. I was fearful a collision Would ensue if they should meet, So I thought it more discreet Not to come to a decision. So with this intent I sought Some pretext, Justina's face To expel from out this place, But I could discover nought. But since this event to-day, With her damaged character, Gives a right to banish her, Nay, to take her life away, Let them be released. No fear Need you have about their ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... savings have all been used up from her bank account in New York. She is determined to go to her father in Kentucky. I'll have a talk with her, bring her over to the bungalow, show her through it on the pretext of its model construction and then you can tell her that you built it with your own hands for her and the baby. You might be loafing around ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... silence. Both were thinking a good deal; thinking of what war might mean, and wondering what part they themselves might play if it came. Of one thing they were sure. All Belgium would rise to repel the invader, no matter what the pretext ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... and there are always a dozen of 'em ready to swear that the man you've got isn't the one." I was startled to reflect that I, too, could not have conscientiously sworn to either jailor or the tortured prisoner—or perhaps even to my cheerful companion. The police, on some pretext, made a raid upon the premises a day or two afterwards, but without result. I wondered if they had caught sight of the high-class, first-chop individual, with the helplessly outstretched fingers, as that story ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... master, and carried away twelve thousand persons, and sold them as slaves. This conduct of Kamrau furnished Mohammed Shah, the Persian monarch—who had recently ascended the throne by tire assistance of British officers, and supplies of money from the English treasury—with a pretext for endeavouring to make himself master of Herat. There was an existing treaty between England and Persia, which stipulated "that if war should ensue between the Persian and Affghan governments, the English government should take no part in it; nor should give assistance to either party, except ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... him in his palace, from, which he fled by a secret passage to an adjoining monastery, in the disguise of a priest. But the premier, to whom he was presently betrayed, had him put to death, on the pretext that he might cause still greater scandal and disaster, but in reality to establish himself in undisputed possession of the throne, which he now usurped under the title of P'hra-Phuthi-Chow-Luang, and removed the palace from the west to the east bank of ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... there, my puir bairn,' said the Bishop. 'These men—save perhaps the young Master of Angus—only seek your hands as a pretext for demands from your brother, and for spuilzie and robbery among themselves. And I for my part would never counsel his Grace to yield the lambs to the wolves, even to ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the part of the Reformed and Crypto-Calvinists, the Preface to the Book of Concord remarks: "To these disadvantages [the slanders of the Romanists] there is also added that, under the pretext of the Augsburg Confession [Variata of 1540], the teaching conflicting with the institution of the Holy Supper of the body and blood of Christ and also other corruptions were introduced here and there into the churches and schools." (11. 17.)—Thus the changes made in the Augsburg Confession ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... masculinity. It may be very absurd to read of two Irish gentlemen trying to kill each other for trifles, or of two Irish-American millionaires trying to ruin each other for trash. But the very pettiness of the pretext and even the purpose illustrates the same conception; which may be called the virtue of excitability. And it is really this, and not any rubbish about iron will-power and masterful mentality, that ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... of Valois. Catherine had four sons, three of whom successively mounted the throne of France, but all were childless. Although the king of the petty state of Navarre was a Protestant, and Catherine was the most fanatical of Catholics, she made this marriage a pretext for welding the two houses; but actually it seems to have been a snare to lure him to Paris, for it was at this precise time that the bloody Massacre of St. Bartholomew's day was ordered. Henry himself escaped—it is said, through ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... when ill, he felt to be an unpardonable breach of his Eliza's rights, and his loyalty rebelled. So, although he treated Mrs. Croix with politeness while she remained, he gave orders to Dr. Stevens to keep her away upon any pretext he chose. "I am too nervous to be bothered with women," he added; ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... love me, Basil. The least whisper of this, and, innocent as I am, I should be separated from him and disgraced. It is from this I want you to save me. If I were married to a noble, generous man, I should go to him at once, and tell him the truth. If Lord Lisle knew it, he would use it as a pretext for separating himself from me. Basil, you are my knight—you must save me; you must get ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... came to estate "Northside," where we met the owner and his family who had remained there during the whole tumult. They told us that during the forenoon of the same day, they had been attacked by the negroes from the neighbouring estate of "Ham's Bay," who under the pretext of wanting to take the overseer's weapons from him, attempted to force the dwelling house. The negroes of the estate defended them and prevented the intended violence. From that place we went to "Ham's Bay," where we found it difficult ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... and David together between performances in a most satisfying manner by taking the former to visit a fortune-teller whose home was quite a distance from the show lot, first having sent David there on a perfectly plausible pretext. The young people met on the sidewalk in front of the house bearing the number Mademoiselle Denise had given to David. To say that he was surprised at seeing Christine under the same umbrella with the older woman would be ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... miscarriages of such as are known to have more wit shall very hardly obtain a pardon; nay, when a wise man comes to sue for an acquitment from any guilt, he must shroud himself under the patronage and pretext of Folly. For thus in the twelfth of Numbers Aaron entreats Moses to stay the leprosy of his sister Miriam, saying, alas, my Lord, I beseech thee lay not the sin upon us wherein we have done foolishly. Thus, when David spared ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... succeeded again and again in preserving a certain independence from the Turks. Now, however, Kao-ch'ang had to submit to the western Turks, whose power was constantly increasing. China made that submission a pretext for war. By 640 the whole basin of Turkestan was brought under Chinese dominance. The whole campaign was really directed against the western Turks, to whom Turkestan had become subject. The western Turks ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... accepted a situation as governess in Lord Kingsborough's family, where she was much loved by her pupils; but their mother, who did little to gain their affection herself, becoming jealous of the ascendency of Mary over them, found some pretext for dismissing her. Mary's contact, while in this house, with people of fashion inspired her only with contempt for their small pleasures and utterly unintellectual discourse. These surroundings, although she was treated much on a footing of equality ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... goods seized or detained under pretense of securing the duties, or for the nonpayment of duties, or under any process, order, or decree, or other pretext contrary to the intent and meaning of the ordinance may be recovered by the owner or consignee by "an act of replevin;" that in case of refusing to deliver them, or removing them so that the replevin can not be executed, the sheriff ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... have thought," continued Sybell, "that he would have behaved in that way because I was one little half-hour late. And of course the pretext of urgent business is too transparent, because there is no Sunday post, and the telegraph-boy had not been up. I asked that. And he was so anxious to finish the sketch. He almost asked to ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... and helpless, and the loss of the outlets for their energy soon brought corruption and decay with the swift consequence of dissolution. All through the history of the great Orders we find the Kings of Europe on the lookout for a chance to seize their possessions: any excuse or pretext is used, sometimes most shamelessly. An Order of Knighthood that failed to perform the duties for which it was founded ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... contemplate this policy. She could not define beforehand the limits which she would observe in defending Russia's cause. But she knew, as we now know, that a war with Russia meant, to German statesmen, only a pretext for a new attack on France, even more deadly in intention than that of 1870. France could not do without the help of Russia. How then could she afford to forfeit Russia's friendship by declaring, at Germany's command, that she would ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... force, and so they might return from exile to their own land: and he, thinking that if by his means they should return to their own State, he would be ruler of Naxos, but at the same time making a pretext of the guest-friendship of Histiaios, made proposal to them thus: "I am not able to engage that I can supply you with sufficient force to bring you back from exile against the will of those Naxians who have control of the State; for I hear that the Naxians ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... sickness. His life was for a long time despaired of, but he finally recovered, and shortly afterwards the term of imprisonment to which the child-stealer (for such the public persisted in considering Tully) had been condemned, expired. There was no pretext for detaining him, and he was set at liberty. Clarke was advised to endeavour to obtain from him, by money and good treatment, some information concerning the child. Both father and mother threw themselves at the man's feet, implored him to name his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... to break the chains that bound him, and yet to-night he had said to himself that he would make the effort—the state of his affairs furnished him with a sufficiently good pretext for broaching ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... distance from Konchai, two days from Zinder, is, according to a report come in this afternoon, the place or theatre of the present razzia. The pretext is—for I now hear of a pretext—that they will not pay tribute to the Sheikh. Korgum consists of three villages and a town, upon and under some rocky hills, which are visible during three days' march. The district is the residence of a sultan. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... early ages of Christianity in the island, the bishops, priests, and monks, were often called upon to exercise their authority and power against princes and chiefs of clans, accustomed to plunder, destroy, and kill, on the slightest pretext, and unused to control their fierce passions, inflamed by the rancor of feuds and the pride of strength and bravery. Some of those chieftains even opposed the progress of religion; and it is said that Eochad, King of Ulster, cast his two daughters, whom Patrick had baptized and consecrated to ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the first in Abraham, marking the epoch of the Father; the second in Christ, who began the epoch of the Son; and the third in Amalric and his disciples, who inaugurated the era of the Holy Ghost. Under the pretext that a true believer could commit no sin, the Amalricians indulged in every excess, and the sect does not appear to have long survived the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... thought that he had captured this proud beauty, could scarce contain himself for joy. He had no difficulty in keeping his assignation, for he had a good pretext in an old promise to advise with the Commander of the Chesters Camp. Thus he rode out joyously next afternoon from Corstopitum, and as dusk drew on and the time for the moon's rising came near, he dismounted below the limestone crags and led his ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... to Rome, on the pretext of taking part in the solemnity, but really, as we shall see later, with the view of serving as a new instrument for her father's ambition. As the pope was not satisfied with an empty triumph of vanity and display for his son, and as his ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... from pressing home questions. He did not condemn the policy which led to the occupation of Egypt by England, but he declared that even if it was inevitable it was a misfortune, and that we ought to 'see that we do not on any pretext, however plausible, get that Egyptian millstone tied permanently round our necks.' He was very sceptical about Imperial Federation, and entirely incredulous about the possibility of an Imperial Zollverein. ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... human life, there does not appear to have existed from the earliest ages of the world to the present moment the smallest permanent symptom or indication of increasing prolongation. The observable effects of climate, habit, diet, and other causes, on length of life have furnished the pretext for asserting its indefinite extension; and the sandy foundation on which the argument rests is that because the limit of human life is undefined; because you cannot mark its precise term, and say so far exactly shall it go and no further; ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... 28th, the order was issued that the gates were to be closed and that no one was to be allowed to pass out under any pretext whatever. No one doubted that the long-expected sally was to be carried out. Bodies of troops marched through the streets, trains of wagons with munitions of war moved in the same direction, and in an hour all Paris knew that the sortie was to take place somewhere across the ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... treasures excited the jealousy of men. The ancestor of Pi-Lo nearly destroyed our entire clan by fire. My ancestors had to fly and hide themselves. And not long ago, our enemy Pi-Lo himself wanted to deliver an imperial letter in the cave of the Sea of Dungting. Under the pretext of begging for pearls and treasures, he wished to enter the dragon-castle and destroy our family. Fortunately a wise man saw through his treacherous purpose, and Lo-Dsi-Tschun and his brothers were sent in his ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... March came rumours of a forward move. The nominal pretext was an improvement of our line. Other motives may possibly have been influencing the higher authorities, such as keeping the initiative in our hands, fostering an aggressive spirit, and feeling the strength ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... intolerabili post se relicto foetore abiit." Splendidly dressed, with two companions, he frequented an honest man's house at Rothenberg. He brought with him a piper or fiddler, and contrived feasts and dances under pretext of wooing the goodman's daughter. He boasted that he was a foreign nobleman of immense wealth, and, for a time, was as successful as an Italian courier has been known to be at one of our fashionable watering-places. But the importunity of the guest and his friends ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... last night had been a disappointment. Beauclerk's determination to propose to her—to put his fortune to the touch and to gain hers—failed. Either the fates were against him, or else she herself was in a willful mood. She had refused to leave the dancing room with him on any pretext whatever, unless to gain the coolness of the crowded hall outside, or the ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... of eight surgeons was nominated; their decision was unanimous in my favour, and the soldier was accordingly discharged. This reparation not quite satisfying me, I presented an appeal to the governor, who would not receive it, upon the strange pretext that the decision of the medical committee could not annul his. I confess that I did not understand this argument. This method of reasoning, if reasoning it was, appeared to me specious in the extreme. ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... at the gate which looks toward Pistoia, accompanied by the Palandra and about one hundred persons, all armed. Their confederates within the town also armed themselves, and one of them asked the governor for the keys, alleging, as a pretext, that some one from the country wished to enter. The governor not entertaining the slightest suspicion, sent a servant with them. When at a convenient distance, they were taken by the conspirators, who, opening ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... creek which ran down through the strip of meadow was a fruitful cause of dissension and litigation between the families. "It is as ungovernable as a Hampden's temper, sir," once said Major Drayton, On the mere pretext of a thunder-storm, it would burst forth from its banks, tear the fences to pieces and even change its course, cutting a new channel, now to one side and now to the other through the soft and loamy soil. A lawsuit arose over the matter, in which the costs alone amounted to ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... intention of doing that, but I did not say so. As we crept forward to where I saw that the tunnel made a bend, with the fortified gate just beyond it, there was in my mind that now I would do my best to separate from Migul, using this guard as my pretext, for he would doubtless pass me, but not the Robot. The palace was occupied, I assumed, by friendly humans. I could get them to locate Tina and Larry.... Then the flaws of this plan made themselves ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... them and to punish them with death. Not only did Commissioner Lin and the Canton authorities claim the right to condemn and punish British subjects, but they showed in the most insolent manner that they would take away their liberty and lives on the flimsiest and falsest pretext. Captain Elliot, weak and yielding as he was on many points, declared that "this law is incompatible with safe or honorable continuance at Canton." Apparently the Chinese authorities acted on the assumption that ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Germany. It will form a pretext and a clear road to France and England," Lord Coombe ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... again the same feeling for the beauties of nature. How Giorgione has revelled in the glories of the setting sun, the long shadows of the evening twilight, the tall-stemmed trees, the moss-grown rock! The figures are but a pretext, we feel, for an idyllic scene, where the story is subordinated to the ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... necessarily became their watchfulness, and the greater their distrust of each other. It was enough that the Emperor was ruled by Jesuits, and was guided by Spanish counsels, to excite the apprehension of the Protestants, and to afford a pretext for hostility. The rash zeal of the Jesuits, which in the pulpit and by the press disputed the validity of the religious peace, increased this distrust, and caused their adversaries to see a dangerous design in the most indifferent measures of the Roman Catholics. Every step taken in the hereditary ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... assumed white hoods, which was the mark peculiar to the members of the commune when they assembled under their flags; so that the Count found himself reduced to assuming one, for he was afraid of being kept captive at Ghent, and, on the pretext of a hunting-party, he lost no time in gaining his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... overwhelming. He resolved to break up his establishment at Chelsea, and to seek a remedy in flight from present evils to a foreign residence. Dickens went to hibernate on the Riviera upon a somewhat similar pretext, though fortunately without the same cause, as far as ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... fear that Mr. Wrighter had at last sunk into this extreme category, it is remarkable that neither he nor Paget ventures to reckon Atheists among the existing Sects. Probably, therefore, there was no body of persons to whom, with any pretext of plausibility, the name could be applied. But we are advised of individuals here and there whom their neighbours suspected of Atheism; and, if Edwards is to be believed, there was alive a certain John ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... of paper were put into a hat, and the shortest was drawn by Captain Asgill, who exclaimed, "I knew how it would be; I never won so much as a hit of backgammon in my life." As Greville told the story, he was selected to sit up with Captain Asgill, under the pretext of companionship, but, in reality, to prevent him from escaping, and leaving the honour amongst the remaining three. "And what," inquired Smith, "did you say to comfort him?" "Why, I remember saying to him, when they left us, D—— it, old fellow, never ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... of Beauty breathed into waking life. I loved,—I believed myself beloved. I confided all my heart to this friend,—this more than brother; he undertook to befriend and to aid my suit. On that very pretext he first saw this ill-fated girl, saw, betrayed, destroyed her; left me ignorant that her love, which I had thought mine, had been lavished so wildly on another; left me to believe that my own suit she had fled, but in generous self-sacrifice,—for she was poor and humbly born; that—oh, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and, went up to my room. What had my clumsy intrusion gained for me, after all? A pretext, she had said; clearly she had seen through it all. Disgusted with myself, I vowed that for the future I would leave things ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... for Goodwood, and the chief difficulty had been to excuse her own neglect of that favourite Meeting. She had fallen back on the half-truth that Eustace wanted her in Town; and, since Lord and Lady Valleys had neither of them shaken off a certain uneasiness about their son, the pretext sufficed: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the talk, followed him as he toiled back to his room. He rested on the landing and faced round toward me. There was something in his eye which said, Stop there! So we finished our conversation on the landing. The next day, I mustered assurance enough to knock at his door, having a pretext ready.—No answer.—Knock again. A door, as if of a cabinet, was shut softly and locked, and presently I heard the peculiar dead beat of his thick-soled, misshapen boots. The bolts and the lock of the inner door ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... own part. Holland and Zealand were to remain as they were, both in the matter of religion and otherwise. His Highness was not to permit that any one should be examined or molested in his house, or otherwise, in the matter or under pretext of religion. He was to procure the assistance of the King of France for the Netherlands. He was to maintain a perfect and a perpetual league, offensive and defensive, between that kingdom and the provinces; without; however, permitting any incorporation of territory. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... out to the time of more usquebagh, who but Moshup was called in to negociate for a less quantity? If a father said, "It shall not be," and Moshup could be prevailed on to say, "It shall be," the father was sure to find a pretext for changing his mind. If a young woman was beloved by one, and she pouted and pretended indifference, three words from Moshup were sure to make her reasonable. And, when women were much given to scolding, he had, somehow, a singular knack at taming them. Taking every circumstance into view, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... to keep his army fighting and winning battles, while Europe is helplessly waiting for his answer. After the Powers had asked for an armistice he used this pretext to delay answering for ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 30, June 3, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... back, thinking it over. There had been a sweetness in her face as she said, "Yes, you're very silent." Had she seen through me and my pretext for reading to her? Of course she had. She was no fool. I was the fool, nobody else. I should have driven a sportsman to despair. Some practice the sport of making conquests and the sport of making love, because they find it so agreeable; I have never ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... Under the pretext of diminishing the expenses, he sent out invitations to his friends for the day when his wife received hers, so that they associated together, or rather they did not—they formed two groups. Madame, with her escort of artists, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... name of Christ to be Anathema. Who taught them that? The men who made Christianity a curse to them: the men who made the name of Christ a symbol for the spirit of vengeance, and, what was worse, made the execution of the vengeance a pretext for satisfying their own savageness, greed, and envy: the men who sanctioned with the name of Christ a barbaric and blundering copy of pagan fatalism in taking the words "His blood be upon us and on our children" ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... and an enlarged view of the principles of government, before a republic could be established in France. Napoleon, catching the spirit of the times, gratified his ambition by obtaining the mastery of national affairs and leading the French people against foreign nations under the pretext of overthrowing despotism in Europe. In so doing he established absolutism once more in France. He became the imperial monarch of the old type, with the exceptions that intelligence took the place of bigotry and ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... dollars and get out so that I might have a bed. I did this and went to my boarding house. I secured the services of a lawyer, Mr. Buckley. I was fined ten dollars which was afterwards remitted. This republican, rum-soaked police force make it a point to arrest me on every pretext. They have told me that if I win they will lose their jobs. Eighteen months before this I had been put in jail at Pittsburg, making three times all for doing my duty ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... through St. Petersburg, that a dead man had taken to appearing on the Kalinkin Bridge, and its vicinity, at night in the form of an official seeking a stolen cloak, and that, under the pretext of its being the stolen cloak, he dragged, without regard to rank or calling, every one's cloak from his shoulders, be it cat-skin, beaver, fox, bear, sable, in a word, every sort of fur and skin which men adopted for their covering. One of the ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... of Robert of Belleme. 1102.—Henry knew that the great barons wished well to Robert, and on one pretext or another he stripped most of them of power. Robert of Belleme, the strongest and wickedest of them all, rose in revolt. After capturing many of his castles, Henry laid siege to his great fortress at Bridgenorth. The barons who ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... letter. As she has not yet written (only telegraphed) to announce to the Emperor the birth of our grandson (we being in the habit since we know the Emperor and Empress personally to communicate to one another reciprocally family events), the Queen has an opportunity or a pretext for writing to the Emperor, and is therefore prepared to do so to-morrow. But as the terms to be used are of the most vital importance, she would wish Lord Malmesbury to consult forthwith with ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... his knocker. Our position merely is, that in such a case, the magnetism which must exist between a man and his knocker, would induce the man to remove, and seek some knocker more congenial to his altered feelings. If you ever find a man changing his habitation without any reasonable pretext, depend upon it, that, although he may not be aware of the fact himself, it is because he and his knocker are at variance. This is a new theory, but we venture to launch it, nevertheless, as being quite as ingenious ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Englishmen who have been arrested are, to my certain knowledge, connected with our Secret Service, and they have been arrested, in many cases, where there are no fortifications worth speaking of within fifty miles, on one pretext or another. The fact of the matter is that things are going on in Germany, just at the present moment, the knowledge of which is of ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... persecutions. I knew that to my sister, as to myself, his presence was disagreeable, but there was no help for it. I could not have him removed. In all matters of military duty he took care to act so that there should be no pretext for a charge against him. Besides, I soon found that he was in favour with one of the Government dignitaries. Though I did not then know why, I learnt it afterwards; and why he, of all others, had been ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... why had Doctor Ox made the proposition to light the town at his own expense? Why had he, of all the Flemings, selected the peaceable Quiquendonians, to endow their town with the benefits of an unheard-of system of lighting? Did he not, under this pretext, design to make some great physiological experiment by operating in anima vili? In short, what was this original personage about to attempt? We know not, as Doctor Ox had no confidant except his assistant Ygene, who, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... know what you are going to fight about," said the Englishman, quietly; "for there appears to be much diversity of opinion. However, if you are determined to cut each others' throats, perhaps one pretext is as good as another, and a dozen better than ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... this day Aldous headed the outfit up the valley. On the pretext of searching for game MacDonald rode so far in advance that only twice during the forenoon was he in sight. When they stopped to camp for the night his horse was almost exhausted, and MacDonald himself showed signs of tremendous ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... in any case, Brand could not have borne the distress of waiting in all day, on the chance of her reply coming. He had to be moving. He walked up to Lisle Street, and saw Reitzei, on the pretext ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... to be ill in an emigrant train let those declare who know. I slept none till late in the morning, overcome with laudanum, of which I had luckily a little bottle. All to-day I have eaten nothing, and only drunk two cups of tea, for each of which, on the pretext that the one was breakfast, and the other dinner, I was charged fifty cents. Our journey is through ghostly deserts, sage brush and alkali, and rocks, without form or colour, a sad corner of the world. I confess I am not jolly, but mighty ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... servant might have been in the next room listening when Richards revealed the secret to his wife that he knew of Burgess's innocence; next Richards began to imagine that he had heard the swish of a gown in there at that time; next, he was sure he had heard it. They would call Sarah in, on a pretext, and watch her face; if she had been betraying them to Mr. Burgess, it would show in her manner. They asked her some questions—questions which were so random and incoherent and seemingly purposeless that the girl felt sure that the old people's minds had been ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... ladies came to them with appetites sharpened by the incomparable air of those real Lobster Cove days which were all cloudless skies and west winds, and by the vigorous automobile exercise of getting to one another's cottages. They seized every pretext for giving these feasts, marked each by some vivid touch of invention within the limits of the graceful convention which all felt bound not to transcend. It was some surprising flavor in the salad, or some touch ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... the rapid development of that section. New England, where the rise of industrial towns necessitated an increasing number of laborers, took fright, or had never ceased to be alarmed, at the westward movement of population; and Eastern members of Congress, under one pretext or another, opposed every demand which came up from the West, every petition of the "squatters" on the public domain. In the Middle States the building of numerous canals, turnpikes, and railways called for both skilled and unskilled laborers. But if everybody ran off ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... then began to tell him that the lady had devised a means of having the principal door of the house left open that night, availing herself as a pretext of the illness of one of her brothers for whose requirements it was necessary to send into the town at all hours. He might enter the courtyard, but he was to be careful not to go up by the principal staircase. Instead of this he was to ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre |
