"Threat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feet on the bed by some supernatural gymnastic power excitement lent him, and seeing him so moved, the vindictive orator came back at him fiercer than ever, to launch some master-threat the world has unhappily lost; for as he came with his whisking train, and shaking his fist, Gerard hurled the bolster furiously in his face and knocked him down like a shot, the boy's head cracked under ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... and sixpence for the one which the dog had killed. Now, although he was welcome to advice, money was quite another thing; so he went one way muttering something about law, and I another, with Caesar at my heels, taking no notice of his threat. Well, sir, in a few days my servant came up to say that somebody wished to see me upon particular business, and I ordered him to be shown up. It was a blackguard-looking fellow, who put a piece of dirty paper in my ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... transporting Negroes from the South. In their appeal they threatened to take action themselves if the city officials did not do so. It happened that the latter failed to act, and, therefore, the unionists and their sympathizers, true to their threat, took complete control of the situation and resorted to mob law as a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... was a weak, watery blue, appeared the ice-plumes of the cirro-stratus clouds, the true mares'-tails, flung out across the vault, their ends stretching to the centre of the storm. At the horizon, a wicked, dull glare gave threat of the typhoon's approach. All as yet was soundless, only the far-flung clouds told of the fury which was hurling them ahead of ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... blessing, "Thou shalt surely live." And we know, undoubtedly, that both the good and the bad to whom Ezekiel spoke died alike the natural death of the body. But the peculiar force of the promise, and of the threat, was, in the one case, Thou shalt belong to God; in the other, Thou shalt cease to belong to him; although the veil was not yet drawn up which concealed the full import of those terms, "belonging to God," and "ceasing to belong to him": nay, can we venture ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... lovingly; he had put all his art and all his time into it; he had given ten thousand francs worth of labor, and he felt that in so doing he had been the dupe of his vanity: the contractors therefore had little trouble in seducing him. The irresistible argument and threat, fully understood, of injuring him professionally by calumniating his work were, however, less powerful than a remark made by Lourdois about the lands near the Madeleine. Birotteau did not expect to hold a single house upon them; he was speculating only on the value of the land; but architects ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... was incurable, or one which had not yet been healed. Later in the year, when the battle of Bunker's Hill had been fought, when our forts on Lake Champlain had been taken from us, and when Montgomery and Arnold were pressing on our possessions in Canada, Lord Dunmore carried his threat into execution. Having established his headquarters at Norfolk, he proclaimed freedom to all the slaves who would repair to his standard and bear arms for the King. The summons was readily obeyed by the most of the negroes who had the means of escape to him. He, at the same time, issued a ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... be a virtue any more than fear; one fears and one hopes, according as one receives a promise or a threat. As for charity, is it not what the Greeks and the Romans understood by humanity, love of one's neighbour? this love is nothing if it be not active; doing good, therefore, ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... me with the chill of the early morning air. Had anything happened to Enriquez? I had always looked upon his extravagance as part of his playful humor. Could it be possible that under the sting of rejection he had made his grotesque threat of languishing effacement real? Surely Miss Mannersley would know or suspect something, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... with scorn and insult upon his lips, believing her the basest of the base, the meanest of the mean, she told herself. The full significance of his last words she was unable to understand, but it seemed to her that they veiled a threat. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... to be concerned, He was almost distracted while listening to the rambling of this prosing old Woman. He interrupted her, and protested that if She did not immediately tell her story and have done with it, He should quit the Parlour, and leave her to get out of her difficulties by herself. This threat had the desired effect. Jacintha related her business in as few words as She could manage; But her account was still so prolix that Ambrosio had need of his patience to bear him to ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... after, at a time when the plague was raging through Edinburgh, a Barbary corsair sailed boldly up the Firth of Forth and sent a message ashore to the Lord Provost, demanding twenty thousand pounds ransom, and on a threat, if it were not paid within twenty-four hours, to burn all the shipping in the firth and along the quays. He required, meanwhile, a score of hostages for payment, and among them the Lord ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... pretext to bring in food for his own men. The Austrian general who may have hoped that a refusal would compel Massna to send back the three thousand soldiers, whom he probably intended to use again, turned down this philanthropic proposal, and Massna then carried out his threat. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... acts of the burlesque, Ousca Iscar, in order to make a study of love in company of a young fellow of seventeen, who had just entered the university. The novelty and difficulty of their performance, revived and agitated the curiosity of the public, for there seemed to be an implied threat of death, or, at any rate, of wounds and of blood in it, and it seemed as if they defied danger with absolute indifference. And that always pleased women; it holds them and masters them, and they grow pale ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the House of Lords; you are for ever displacing it from its supremacy as a co-ordinate estate of the realm; and whether you succeed in passing your bill by actually swamping our votes by a batch of new peers, or by frightening a sufficient number of us out of our opinions by the threat of one,—equally you will have superseded the triple assent which the constitution requires to the enactment of a valid law, and have left the king alone with ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... and brought his head in sudden violent contact with the ceiling. Then, before the indignant ceiling could carry out its threat of a moment before, he slipped out of bed and stood on a floor which was in its place one moment and ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... family,—but she had now come upon a task which taxed all her strength to the utmost. She had told her mother that she would tell "Frederic" what she thought about his proposed bride, and she had now come to carry out her threat. She had asked her brother to come and dine with her, but he had declined. His engagements hardly admitted of his dining with his relatives. She had called upon him at the rooms he occupied in Victoria Street,—but of course she had not found him. She could not very well ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... of the hasty expression the moment it passed his lips, so he turned to Jefferson and handed him the drawing for inspection. Sam Scott remained seated. Whether he felt that Ned was thoroughly capable of putting his threat in execution or not we cannot tell, but he evinced no feeling of anger ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... "A fig for your threat," said Vincent, and instantly addressed the stranger. "Buy a watch, most noble northern Thane—buy a watch, to count the hours of plenty since the blessed moment you left Berwick behind you.—Buy barnacles, to see the English gold lies ready for your gripe.—Buy what you will, you shall have credit ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... "ces satanes Allemands"—these Sisters and nurses of the front have seen sights to dry up the last drop of sentimental pity—but through all the horror of those fierce September days, with Clermont blazing about her and the helpless remnant of its inhabitants under the perpetual threat of massacre, she retained her sense of the little inevitable absurdities of life, such as her not knowing how to address the officer in command "because he was so tall that I couldn't see up to his shoulder-straps."—"Et ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... he was not on board, and the evidence of a smoking-room steward, who testified that at one o'clock he had left Mr. Blagwin alone on deck, gazing "mournful-like" at Fire Island, seemed to prove Jimmie had carried out his threat. When later the same passenger the steward had mistaken for Jimmie appeared in the smoking-room and ordered a drink from him, the steward was rattled. But as the person who had last seen Jimmie Blagwin alive he had gained melancholy interest, and, as his oft-told tale was bringing ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... whose young manhood has taken the oath which ours has taken. This isn't the time for peace. I am not speaking in the dark when I tell you that we have a great movement pending in the West which may completely alter the whole military situation. Give us a chance. If you carry out your threat, you plunge this country into revolution, you dishonour us in the face of our Allies; you will go through the rest of your lives, every one of you, with a guilt upon your souls, a stain upon your consciences, which nothing will ever obliterate. You see, I have kept my word—I ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this burrow, with the speed of a rabbit, while his wife sung out, "tu gastas calzones, eh? para que, damelos damelos, yo los quitare?" and if she had caught the worthy man, I believe she would really have shaken him out of his garments, peeled him on the spot, and appropriated them to herself as her threat ran. "I am a cat, a dog, and the devilhoo—hoo—hoo—let me catch you, you miserable wretch, you forked radish, and if I don't peel off your breeches,—I shall wear them, I shall wear them,—Ave Maria." Here she threw herself into a chair, being completely blown; but after a ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... standing on the Brentford hustings, when Wilkes asked his adversary, privately, whether he thought there were more fools or rogues among the multitude of Wilkites spread out before them. "I'll tell them what you say, and put an end to you," said the Colonel. But, perceiving the threat gave Wilkes no alarm, he added, "Surely you don't mean to say you could stand here one hour after I did so?"—"Why (the answer was), you would not be alive one instant after."—"How so?"—"I should merely say it was a fabrication, and they would destroy you ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... during the struggle. When he returned to his residence for the purpose of doing this, however, he found that the hostile Indians had seized his family and his negroes as hostages, and, under the compulsion of their threat that they would kill his wife and children if he should dare to remain at peace, he joined in the war against the whites, becoming the fiercest of all the chieftains. He planned and led the assault upon Fort Mims, and was everywhere foremost in all ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... if to deprecate any remonstrance or threat on my part, and bowed as politely to my companion as if I had just given him a ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Lincoln's election, Governor Gist had stated that in that event the State would undoubtedly secede, and demand the forts, and that any hesitation or delay in giving them up would lead to an immediate assault. Active preparations were now in progress to carry out this threat. In the first week of December we learned that cannon had been secretly sent to the northern extremity of the island, to guard the channel and oppose the passage of any vessels bringing us re-enforcements by that entrance. We learned, too, that lines of countervallation had been quietly marked out ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... placard of 1756, and of course the designs of their High Mightinesses, are scrupulously observed, in that they have not disposed of or changed anything, and that when they depart they may be recaptured. I require for the future every order or threat in writing, in order to send copies to the General Congress and to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... of the night and the angels of dawn—the first thinking of revenge and the others dreaming of equality, liberty and fraternity. For 400 years the Bastille had been the outward symbol of oppression. Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a perpetual threat. It was the last and often the first argument of king and priest. Its dungeons, damp and rayless, its massive towers, its secret cells, its instruments of torture, denied the existence of God. In 1789, on the 14th of July, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... for grands coups entre gentilshommes; but that the feeling of hatred treasured up in the mind, instead of being diffused abroad, was still hatred all the same; that a smile was sometimes as full of meaning as a threat; and, in a word, that to the fathers who had hated with their hearts and fought with their arms, would now succeed the sons, who would indeed hate with their hearts, but would no longer combat their enemies save by means of intrigue or treachery. As, therefore, it certainly ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... associates; and Graham added emphatically that he intended to come himself some day and see that it was obeyed. "Tell them to go into the army and become straightforward soldiers if they wish, but if I ever hear of another outrage I'll never rest till the general's threat is carried out." ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... consideration the action of the pickets in advising passers-by not to patronize the establishment and in distributing boycott circulars constituted intimidation. Also, since the $1000 fine was obtained by fear induced by a threat to continue the unlawful injury to Theiss inflicted by the "boycott," the case was one of extortion covered by the penal code. It made no difference whether the money was appropriated by the defendants for personal use or whether it was turned over to their ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... as proposed by a weekly paper, did not materialise. The husbands' threat to employ black-legs (alleged silk) appears ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... like my receiving attention first, and he liked still less the off-handed way in which the solitary man received us. We were told his name was Suliman ben Saoud. He acknowledged my greeting. He and old Anazeh glared at each other, barely moving their heads in what might have been an unspoken threat and retort or a nod of natural recognition. Anazeh turned on his heel and ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... through the day without her countless ministrations; he had leaned on her more than she on him; and yet the stupefying certainty was that now his face cleared and he actually smiled as he accepted her threat as a sensible solution ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... This awful threat had so much power over the rest of the party that we sat out to the bitter end, leaving the medium at last still in her trance, with husband and son hovering over her in an anxiety which, if acted, showed ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... small income her boy's labour had produced was not to be cut off, proved a great relief to the mind of Mrs. Foster; but, in a little while, her thoughts went back to the landlord's threat and the real distress and hopelessness of their situation. To the period of her husband's return she looked with no feeling of hope; but, rather, with a painful certainty, that his appearance would be the signal for the landlord to put his threat ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... With this threat they withdrew to one of their usual places of resort, until darkness should again give them an opportunity of marauding on the community ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... days from that night; that you thereupon played again and lost four hundred and odd more, so that your debt amounted to nine hundred and fifty-five dollars; that the ten days passed without payment; that, wanting money, I pressed you and even resorted to a threat or two; and that, seeing me in earnest, you swore that the dollars should be mine within five days; that instead of remaining in Boston to get them, you came here; and that this morning at a very early hour you telegraphed that the funds were ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... 'A threat implies that the thing to be done to the person threatened is painful or at least disagreeable. Doesn't it? I'm only a Greek, of course, and I don't pretend to know English well! I wish you would sometimes correct my mistakes. It would be so kind ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... Kingozi had disappeared. The men stretched and began to rise to their feet slowly. The short rest had stiffened them and brought home the weariness to their bones. They grumbled and muttered, and only the omnipresence of Cazi Moto and the threat of his restless whip roused them to activity. Down the ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... conspiracy has obtained the support of the Government by means of a promise, in return, not to ratify the proposed nomination to the Archiepiscopal See of Turin of a person very obnoxious to the Quirinal. Do not yield. Do not abandon the Holy Father and your mission. The threat concerning the affair at Jenne is not serious; it would not be possible to proceed against you, and they know it. The person who may not write to you discovered all this, and has asked me to write this note; she will make ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... you till we meet again, Keep love's banner floating o'er you, Smite death's threat'ning wave before you, God be with ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... almost certain that Mr. Hubert Varrick must have heard something of what was said, for one of the girls saw him standing in the door-way, listening intently. Before she could utter a word of warning he turned, with something very like a muttered threat on his lips, and strode down ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... dark with threat'ning clouds, And fiercely on the raging sea, The roaring tempest wilder swept, ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... was sleeping there, and was on the point of raising the covers and reaching for Philippina's breast. Philippina ceased snoring, woke up as if she had been struck in the face by the rays of a magic lantern, opened her eyes, and looked at Dorothea with a speechless threat. Not a muscle of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... its rightful place in the constitution of this country. Political power will no longer be centred in the House of Commons; it will be vested in organizations outside Parliament, which will only meet to carry out their bidding. At the General Election of 1906 the mere threat of a three-cornered fight was sufficient to induce many Free Trade Unionists to retire from the contest; the purging was completed at the election of January 1910, and it would seem that in the future only those politicians who can with alacrity ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... Wazya's star, [62] That shone through the shadowy forms afar, She northward hurried with silent feet; And long ere the sky was aflame in the east, She was leagues from the place of the fatal feast. 'Twas the hoot of the owl that the hunters heard, And the scattering drops of the threat'ning shower, And the far wolf's cry to the moon preferred. Their ears were their fancies,—the scene was weird, And the witches [63] dance at the midnight hour. She leaped the brook and she swam the river; Her ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... Gipsies may be imagined from the following facts: many of them, and especially the women, have been burned, by their own request, in order to end their miserable existence; and we can give the case of a Gipsy, who, having been arrested, flogged, and conducted to the frontier, with the threat that if he re-appeared in the country he would be hanged, resolutely returned after three successive and similar threats at three different places, and implored that the capital sentence might be carried out, in order that he ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... missive of Fouche, of Real, Desmarets, Veyrat, and of all those on whom it rested to make his people appear to the Master as enthusiastic and contented, or at least silent and submissive. They felt that the letter was not all bragging; they saw in it Georges' plan amplified; the same threat of a descent of Bourbons on the coast, the same assurance of overturning, by a blow at Bonaparte, the immense edifice he had erected. In fact, the belief that the Empire, to which all Europe now seemed subjugated, ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... Valencia; oil and urban pollution of Lago de Maracaibo; deforestation; soil degradation; urban and industrial pollution, especially along the Caribbean coast; threat to the rainforest ecosystem from ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... complained of the Stamp Act, and no less of the amendments to the Acts of Trade, which, they said, would "render them unable to purchase the manufactures of Great Britain." In these memorials there is no threat of resistance, but the general attitude of the colonies showed that it was unsafe to push ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... let them deceive me; and I shall see them in any case. I want my children! I gave them life; they are mine, mine!" and he sat upright. The head thus raised, with its scanty white hair, seemed to Eugene like a threat; every line that could ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... they could lay hands on, civil no less than military, as their enemies had done and should do unto them; and the deliberate murder of two troopers of the Life Guards in the following month had shown (what, to be sure, can have needed very little proof) that this was no idle threat.[58] An Act, therefore, was hastily passed to the effect that, "Any person who owns or will not disown the late treasonable declaration on oath, whether they have arms or not, be immediately put to death, this being always done in the presence of two witnesses, and the person or persons having commission ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... the time aroused but mild comment; the idea was a new one, and the question immediately arose as to whether such action would be within the limits of international law. For the time being, however, Von Tirpitz's words remained nothing more than a threat. It was not until months later that the threat was made good, and the consequences must form a separate part of this narrative, to be given ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... long held in menace over the head of Archibald Armstrong—suspended, as it were, by a thread, like the sword of Damocles—is to be put into execution. Darke has demanded immediate payment of the debt, coupled with threat ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... passed him by. With the threat of help from Earth for Cathay, he had been forced to delay while larger fleets were built. His reign had been drawing to a close and he had almost resigned himself to the law that would turn the ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... us again seriously until the end of September, though during the whole month the floes were seldom entirely without movement. The roar of pressure would come to us across the otherwise silent ice-fields, and bring with it a threat and a warning. Watching from the crow's-nest, we could see sometimes the formation of pressure- ridges. The sunshine glittered on newly riven ice-surfaces as the masses of shattered floe rose and fell away from ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... If this threat to civilization was thus met by Europe how much more serious was the aspect which it presented to us in Japan! We were more than mere participators in this civilization. We had grafted upon our ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Venusberg scene in Tannhaeuser, it was his firm resolve to give up his long crusade against Ibsen, emigrate to Norway, and change his name to that of John Gabriel Borkman. A prolonged sojourn in Poppyland, however, resulted in the withdrawal of this dreadful threat, and, some few weeks after the extinction of the Wenuses, his reconciliation with the dramatic profession was celebrated at a public meeting, where, after embracing all the actor-managers in turn, he was presented by them with a magnificent silver ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... give the Pope my villas: perhaps a threat founded on the custom of Julius II and other popes, according to Burckhardt, of enlarging their power "by making themselves heirs of the cardinals and clergy . . . Hence the splendor of tile tombs of the prelates ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... in peaceful methods. You have as yet no real following at all. The Progressists will never make a Revolution, for all their festivals and fanfaronades. This National League of theirs is only a stage-threat." ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... his head if he behaved firmly; that he should only answer their interrogatories by declaring he received the letters from different persons; that some were given, and some were bought. P. T. reminds one, on this occasion, of Junius's correspondence on a like threat with his publisher. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... me it appeared that the habit of menacing dissolution, was the result of every one's knowing, and intimately feeling, the importance of hanging together, which induced the dissatisfied to resort to the threat, as the shortest means of attaining their object. It would be found in the end, that the very consciousness which pointed out this mode as the gravest attack that could be made on those whom the discontented wish to influence, would awaken enough to consequences ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was so powerful, that mucous matter poured from my eyes and nose all the rest of the afternoon, in such abundance, that I had to hold my head over a basin for an hour. The sting is very virulent, producing inflammation; and to punish a child with "Mealum-ma" is the severest Lepcha threat. Violent fevers and death have been said to ensue from its sting; but ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... an enemy, a rival sorcerer, whom he charged with having caused by charms the disease that afflicted him. He therefore announced that he should kill him. As the rival dwelt at Gasp, a hundred leagues off, the present execution of the threat might appear difficult; but distance was no bar to the vengeance of the sorcerer. Ordering all the children and all but one of the women to leave the wigwam, he seated himself, with the woman who remained, on the ground in the centre, while the men ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... the ease with which he made this monstrous threat, but it seemed to have a soporific influence on his companion, for he gave out an "aw gwan" ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... quickly raised his head again, and turning his fine face, from which the smile did not vanish for a moment, toward the emperor, he waited in respectful silence for the latter to address him. Napoleon cast a menacing glance of hatred upon him; but Metternich did not seem to perceive his threat. He fixed his large blue eyes with perfect calmness on the face of the emperor, and awaited the ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... vengeance on the cards, which he tore, and committed to the flames with many execrations; threatening to make us redeem our loss with a large glass and quick circulation; and indeed we had no sooner supped, and my charmer withdrawn, than he began to put his threat in execution. Three bottles of port (for he drank no other sort of wine) were placed before us, with as many water glasses, which were immediately filled to the brim, after his example, by each out of his respective allowance, and emptied in a trice to the best in Christendom. ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... desire to show determination on my part to do a certain thing, or when I exercise my authority over another, or express promise, command, or threat, will is used in the first person and shall in the second and third; as, I will read, We will read, You shall read, You shall read, He shall ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... like the great stone face of Hawthorne's tale. Even a chair can reach this estate. For instance, let it be the throne of Wodin, illustrating some passage in Norse mythology. If this throne has a language, it speaks with the lightning; if it shakes with its threat, it moves the entire mountain range beneath it. Let the wizard-author-producer climb up from the tricks of Moving Day to the foot-hills where he can see this throne against the sky, as a superarchitect ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... great pay and many of their ships bought." The States-General strongly remonstrated against this proceeding, and threatened to "board the French ships wherever they found them, and hang all Flemings found in them." This threat appears to have been effectual, and the project was abandoned. A little later, in 1614, the French again projected taking part in the East India trade, and accounts were current in London concerning ships and patents from King Louis, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... excluded Bute, they urged the King to let them, in the most marked manner, exclude the Princess Dowager also. They assured him that the House of Commons would undoubtedly strike her name out, and by this threat they wrung from him a reluctant assent. In a few days, it appeared that the representations by which they had induced the King to put this gross and public affront on his mother were unfounded. The friends of the Princess in the House of Commons moved that her ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... inherent right was not one merely of words; if the prince could claim the regency as of right, parliament could not restrict his power without his consent. The effect of Fox's false move was heightened by the folly of Sheridan who raised a storm of indignation by a threat of the danger of provoking the prince to assert his claim. Once again Fox made Pitt the champion of the king and the nation against the pretensions of a whig faction. The character of the struggle was understood, and bills were posted ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... was far from sure that this was not what it would come to, in the end, for he reflected that he had not only a tremendous accumulation of evidence with which to face Captain Stewart, but also a very terrible weapon to hold over his head—the threat of exposure to the old man who lay slowly dying in the rue de l'Universite! A few words in old David's ear, a few proofs of their truth, and the great fortune for which the son had sold his soul—if he had any left to sell—must pass ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... presentiment (Ahnung) of something that is to come. A superb example of this occurs at the end of Die Walkuere. Wotan has laid his daughter to rest, and surrounded her with a barrier of fire. "Let none cross this fire who dreads my spear," he cries, and at once the threat is answered by a defiant blast from the trombones uttering a strain which has not yet taken definite form, but which we learn from the sequel is the theme proper to Siegfried the hero, who is destined to bring to an end the ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... of the Danube, to the principality as compensation. The indignation in Rumania was indescribable and has never entirely subsided. The Senate in the Chamber declared the resolve of the country to defend its integrity by force. The Czar threatened to disarm the Rumanian Army—a threat which drew from Prince Charles the proud reply: "The Rumanian Army, which fought so gallantly before Plevna under the eyes of the Czar, may be annihilated, but will never be disarmed." But he nevertheless recognized the futility of resistance to the Russian demand, ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... all, I am in hopes that she will have better considered of every thing by the evening; that her threat of a week's distance was thrown out in the heat of passion; and that she will allow, that I have as much cause to quarrel with her for breach of her word, as she has with me for breach of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... rather a plebeian action, to attack a man's castle, and then, if captured, crawl behind a drastic threat like this." ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... was passed there must be another immediately upon it; in the meantime most violent pledges would be taken as to Reform if a general election were to take place now. Lord Derby concurred in all this, and said he advised the threat particularly in order to render the reality unnecessary; when she persisted in her refusal, however, on the ground that she could not threaten what she was not prepared to do, he appeared very much ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Langres (Jan. 22), Metternich and the more timorous among the generals opposed any further advance into France, and argued that the army had already gained all it needed by the occupation of the border provinces. It was only upon the threat of the Czar to continue the war by himself that the Austrians consented to move forward upon Paris. After several days had been lost in discussion, the advance from Langres was begun. Orders were given to Bluecher, who had ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... threat of physical violence and ninepence for executing the same," Roger murmured. "I'll ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... had fallen asleep, Eden, feeling quite free from all anxiety, was sleeping more soundly and sweetly than he had done for a fortnight, when a blaze of light, flashing suddenly upon his eyes, made him start up in his bed. Harpour and Jones were taking this opportunity to fulfil their threat of frightening him. At the foot of his bed stood a figure in white, with a hideous, deformed head, blotched with scarlet; bending over him was another white figure, with an enormous black face, holding over its head a ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... arrests were made, the remaining groups were charged by the soldiers, and presently the square lay bare as a storm-swept plain, though the people still hung on its outskirts, ready to disband at the first threat ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... volumes, would be accounted ipso jure excommunicate, and liable to prosecution by the Inquisition on a charge of heresy.[120] Booksellers, printers, merchants, and custom-house officials received admonition that the threat of excommunication and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... consistent with my character, as a clergyman and a loyal citizen, any longer to conceal the fact that he was keeping back information that might lead to the apprehension of the murderer. This frightened him, and between the fear of the threat and the fear that you might already know more than he suspected, he authorised me—he was even eager about it—to come and see you; always, of course, under a pledge of strict ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... had been out of a certain tower, and she was believed to be either dead or inchanted. The King ordered her a cover, but could not furnish her with a case of gold as the others, because they had seven only made for the seven Fairies. The old Fairy fancied she was slighted, and muttered some threat between her teeth. One of the young Fairies, who sat by her, overheard how she grumbled; and judging that she might give the little Princess some unlucky gift, went, as soon as they rose from the ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... know how the old man passed the night. But little sleep, I warrant, came to his old eyes, for he was as timid as a child, and easily frightened, and a threat against his own life would have disturbed him less than one against the life of his dog. But whether he slept or not, the hours of the night wheeled along their dark courses without stopping, and speedily ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... Sorsogon, fattening on the waste thrown overboard after each meal, circled around the ship aimlessly, uttering unpleasant cries. The young sun mounted swiftly in a cloudless sky, hot on the trail of the cool morning breezes, white in its threat of blistering punishment of all ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... suspicion of foul play was instantly confirmed. When the performance was over, I traced her back to Mr. Robert Graywell's house. He and his wife were both absent at a party. I was too indignant to wait till they came back. Under the threat of charging the wretch with stealing her mistress's clothes, I extorted from her the signed confession which you have in your hand. She was under notice to leave her place for insolent behaviour. The personation which had been intended to deceive me, was an act ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... a last threat of future revenge, took up his sword, wiped it, put it back in its sheath, and disappeared ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... last threat!—laugh on! 'He who laughs best, laughs last!' says the old proverb. There is such a thing as training one's features, isn't there, as well as one's setters? Miriam, I shall develop slowly; I am still in my very downiest adolescence as to looks. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... found you," said Huffman, "if we had not run on one of the gang who under the threat of death piloted ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... believe thee, whether thy small headpiece be sound or cracked, my boy. But whether this scurvy ruffian be thy father or no, 'tis all one, he shall not have thee to beat thee and abuse, according to his threat, so thou ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... threats nor persuasions, however, could induce her to yield to their designs; defiantly did she repulse the advances of the crawling Finch; nobly did she spurn his persuasions; firmly did she, heedless of his threat to acquaint Pringle Blowers of her whereabouts, bid him be gone from her door. The fellow did go, grievously disappointed; and, whether from malice or mercenary motives we will not charge, sought and obtained from Pringle Blowers, in exchange for his valuable discovery, a promise of the original ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... of the assailants were paralysed by the threat. Confusion reigned throughout the fortress. The fleet kept up their fire with great vigour; judging, by the feebleness of the reply, that something unusual must be happening within the walls. The gunners, disheartened by finding their pieces useless, and unable ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... hereafter may be able to say, I struck thee unwarned, or took thee unawares. Know, that night doth not more surely or more swiftly follow day, than I and my vengeance will follow on the messenger who carries this threat: whom I have bidden to reach thee with his utmost speed, so as to allay my thirst for thy life; since every day that I wait seems to me longer than a yuga. And I will slay thee with no other weapon than my two ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... the circumstance which procured Chatterton's release from his irksome apprenticeship—his threat of suicide. He had often been heard to speak approvingly of suicide, and there is a story, which has, however, little authority, that once in a company of friends he drew a pistol from his pocket, put it to his head, ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... the interview with Mrs. Armine in the saloon, and how he had forced his way, by a stratagem, to the after part of the vessel. Then he told of the contest with Doctor Hartley, already influenced by Mrs. Armine, and of the final victory, won—how? By a threat, which could only ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... love,' said the diplomatist, as soon as he could make himself heard amidst the unearthly howling consequent upon the threat and the tumble. 'It all arises from his great flow of spirits.' This last explanation was ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... sight—not by some occult instinct such as is often attributed to it. When within a zone where imminent danger threatens, it may remain wholly submerged for a long period of time, but when so submerged, it is not in any degree a threat to other craft. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... a fine, wise manager! A threat, eh?" Cappy laughed—a short, scornful laugh. "Huh! ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... In this third election they were still upheld by the people. Hence when the Lords resisted the Parliament Bill, King George stood ready to create as many new Peers from the Liberal party as might be necessary to pass the offensive bill through the House of Lords. It was in face of this threat that the Lords yielded at last, and voted most unwillingly for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... itself, is an element, materially, not formally, and what merely appears to be a unit. Suppose that during a great brawl a man was stabbed and that A confesses to the stabbing. Now a witness testified that A had first uttered a threat, then had jumped into the brawl, felt in his bag, and left the crowd, and that in the interval between A's entering and leaving, the stabbing occurred. In this simple case the various incidents must be evaluated, and each must be considered ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... with bitter hate and malignity were the tones of the witch doctors voice and the expression of his burning eyes that, despite his sober common sense, Dick could scarcely repress a shudder at the veiled threat conveyed by the man's parting words; but his attention was quickly diverted by the voice of the king commanding Ingona, Lambati, and Moroosi to listen to him while he announced ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... obscure expression seems to imply a threat of taking vengeance, or making reprisals at sea, for the oppressions of the Mogul ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... vote. He took no notice of their request, but remained quietly seated, when some of the men opened the carriage door with cries of, "Pull him out! Pull him out!" and were proceeding to carry out their threat, when his servant, who was standing behind the carriage, sprang up to the roof, and, waving his hat, shouted: "What! don't you know my master, Squire Buller? Why, he's always for the people!" Whereupon the door was closed again with a bang, the coachman told to drive on, and "Squire Buller" reached ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... threat, and the vindictive bitterness and resolution with which the young man had delivered it, struck terror into the gentle Parkin, and shook even Grotait. The latter, however, soon recovered himself, and it became a battle for life or death between him ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the American tragedian, with a broken voice and with tears in his eyes, "You have thrown down my idol." Two at least of those great moments in acting that everybody remembers were furnished by Booth in this character—the defiance of the masked assailant, at Rouel, and the threat of excommunication delivered upon Barradas. No spectator possessed of imagination and sensibility ever saw, without utter forgetfulness of the stage, the imperial entrance of that Richelieu into the gardens of the Louvre and into the sullen presence of hostile ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... be told; he was awakened by a tight hand grasping his throat, and a fierce voice whispering into his ear something which he rightly understood to be an admonition, a warning and a threat. ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... the Marquis of Montferrat, the barons of Rome, all were won by his lavish pay. The alliance of Sicily was established by the betrothal of his daughter with its king. The states of the Pope were being gradually hemmed in between Henry's allies to north and south. The threat of an imperial alliance was added to hold his enemies in awe. In the spring of 1168 his eldest daughter was married to the Emperor's cousin, Henry the Lion, the national hero of Germany, second only to Barbarossa in power, Duke of Bavaria, Duke of Saxony, Lord of Brunswick, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... with an expression almost approaching to horror on her gentle face, and for some moments made no reply. Then I remembered that if I carried out that insane threat I should indeed lose Yoletta, and the very thought of such a loss was more than I could endure; and for a moment I almost hated the love which made me so helpless and miserable—so powerless to oppose their stupid and barbarous practices. It would have been sweet ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... end to the stories of individual atrocities. One is that Monsieur Wasseige, director of one of the banks, was seized by the Germans, who demanded that he should open the safes. He flatly refused to do this, even under threat of death. Finally he was led with his two eldest sons to the Place d'Armes and placed with more than one hundred others, who were then killed with machine guns. Monsieur Wasseige's three youngest children were brought to ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... had wetted the old ladies' hired pillows, as under the threat of a provincial visitation they had tossed sleepless in similar solicitude, and their wigs, had they not been wigs, would have turned grey of themselves. Their only consolation had been that neither outdid the other, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... He had filled every crevice in the rear wall and was working on the front when he heard the thunder of running horses and saw those figures, dim in a cloud of dust, flying up the road again. He thought of the threat of Bap McNoll. It occurred to him that he would be in a bad way alone with those ruffians if they were coming for revenge. He stepped into the door of the house and stood a moment debating what he would best do. He ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... in June he entered the pulpit in a Sinai mood, determined to read the Church Rules and to apply them severely. He began by selecting a condemnatory Psalm, took his text simply as a threat from Jeremiah in one of his bad moods, and after a severe hymn and a mournful Rachel prayer he arose, folded his spectacles and fixed his eyes burningly upon the innocent faces of his congregation, which had a "What have we done?" ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... tore about in the most distracted manner. Aube had dreamed of vast rooms and huge kitchens, but the obstinacy of the people already living in the same building could not be conquered, and as yet he had not obtained the space he desired. They resisted every offer and every threat he made. He could have borne it better had these refractory persons been tenants whose vicinity added eclat to his establishment. But it was not so. These tenants were a man known as Iron Jaws, a rope dancer called Fanfar, a girl ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... Lords, that heard him can forget The deep impression of that awful threat, "I quit your house!!"—midst all that histories tell, I know but one ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... some long letters to the Directors in England denouncing the laxity of the conduct of the Company's employees and deploring the influence that Roman Catholic priests had been allowed to obtain in Fort St. George. Finally, he went back to England, with the threat that he was going to interview the Directors on various matters pertaining to Madras; and that he succeeded in making himself heard is to be seen in the fact that in the following year the Directors sent a Protestant schoolmaster ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... light of a fire, or of candles, streamed through the joints of the door. The threat at length appeared to have the desired effect. A poor decrepid old man undid the bolt and let us in. "Ohon a reel Ohon a reel What make you all this boder for—come you to help us to wake poor ould Kate there, and bring ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... forces into Greece and the occupation of Fort Rupel and other strategic points, with the connivance of the Hellenic Government, constitute for the allied troops a new threat which imposes on the three powers the obligation of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... is simply a threat to punish the States by reducing their representation on the floor of Congress, should they disfranchise any of their male citizens, and can not be construed into a sanction to disfranchise female citizens, nor does it ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... fishing as if nothing unusual had occurred, and after they had been out some hours they were met by eight or ten canoes from Taritai, which were also engaged in fishing. The moment they were within speaking distance the Taritai men inquired whether Krause had fulfilled his threat, and carried Tematau away. The Utiroa people affected great surprise, and said that they had seen nothing of him, but that most probably he had thought better of doing such a foolish and offensive thing, and had returned to Taritai again. The two fleets of canoes remained together for some little ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... was approaching. The valor of the patriots, which fled at the first threat of danger, had returned. The enemy was now almost at their doors; their helpless families might soon be at the mercy of the ruthless savages; when General Herkimer, a valiant veteran, called for recruits, armed men flocked in numbers to his standard. He was quickly at the head ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's, and walked haughtily out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the window looking after them; prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey's reappearance, to carry her threat ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... had to be disabled. They gradually skulked away, and I ordered the fire built up again, asserting that I would be back in half an hour to see the trains move. But the men notified the engineer that they would kill any man who undertook to take the train out, and in the fact of that threat no one could be prevailed upon the man ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... statute of reconciliation with Rome, with which, in the inability to obtain a better, the legate was compelled to be satisfied, and to reconsider his threat of ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... He'd no right to insult her by passing her like that in the street when they'd kissed as they did on the cliff top. She'd given him up, but she was going to be treated properly—not like a girl who had done something of which they were both ashamed. And again the helpless threat: "I aren't ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... with all the venom of a savage threat, and before Holden could make reply the Medicine Man was speaking loudly to ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... We move with rapid strides in our time. That which was a threat, scoffed at by many, has become a present and dreadful peril in half a dozen brief years. We took a short cut to make it that when we tried to drain the pool of police blackmail of which the Lexow disclosures had shown us the hideous depths. We drained it into ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... that you say?" he said eagerly, and the threat fled from his face. "The sovereignty of Italy? Ah! it is a great prize! Who shall deny it to us? Are we not the second city? Have we not allies the strongest in the world?—a general the greatest? and when all is over, who so fitting to rule as the first man of the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... their wrong-doing known among their friends, try to keep from being written up by saying they are unwilling to make any kind of statement for publication, but that they will do so in court if anything is published about them. The reporter will not let such a threat daunt him. He will get the facts and present them to the city editor with the person's hint of criminal action, then let the city editor determine the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... those in which the bacteria survive in, and is transmitted through, water; always a serious threat in areas ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... don't have to fight about it, you know. I guess it's bad enough for Uncle Tooter to leave me to-morrow, without a threat of fisticuffs. Not that I care a hang about the social mesalliance he's committing in marrying the Countess's maid, but the fact of his implication in the robbery ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... even violent act on the bent head of suffering is a tyrant, not a judge. At all events, though he knew many of the number, having recognized them during the latter part of the attack when day began to dawn, he let them daily pass him on street and road without notice or threat. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the Neens have at last made good their threat to come down upon us with their great hordes. The Neens were once men like ourselves, who would have none of Him"—and Artur glanced toward the gleaming ship upon the dais—"nor His teachings. They did not like the new order, ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... long sigh and shook her head. "It won't do, Roddy. Can't you see you're giving way practically under a threat—because I'll go away if you don't? But think what it would mean if I did stay, on those terms. The thing would rankle always. And if anything did happen to one of the babies because the new nurse wasn't quite so good, you'd never forgive me—not ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... that the latter, properly armed, should be in readiness to be summoned to it. It was at S——'s house that this plan was formed. S—— himself immediately afterwards ran to Napoleon, and disclosed the whole to him. A threat from the latter was quite sufficient to keep the conspirators in order; not one of them dared show his face at the Council, and the next day the revolution of the ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... ague fit so near, His nails already are turn'd blue, and he Quivers all o'er, if he but eye the shade; Such was my cheer at hearing of his words. But shame soon interpos'd her threat, who makes The servant bold in ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... ever-present reminder of her duty first to herself, secondly to her employer. If she had written nothing, and but for Mrs. Standish would have kept her counsel till the last minute, the latter's threat of denunciation had lent the temper of the girl another complexion altogether; as Sally saw it, she no longer had any choice other than to find Mrs. Gosnold as quickly as possible and make complete the revelation of last night's doings. And her ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Gibbs said this, he did not frown and look at Dick as though the threat was meant for him at all; no matter what the cashier thought, the head of the establishment seemed to be ready to pin his faith on the messenger boy, as though his ability to read character told him there could be no guile in those clear eyes ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... temporarily buried beneath the ruins, and Peter himself losing both eyebrows? And when an old lady living next the school laid a vicious complaint against Speug and some other genial spirits for having broken one of her windows in a snowball fight, he made no sign and uttered no threat, but in the following autumn he was in a position to afford a ripe pear to each boy in the four upper forms—except the Dowbiggins, who declined politely—and to distribute a handful for a scramble among the little boys. There was much curiosity about ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... taking the piece of paper, and feeling very serious, since he knew that it contained a threat. But as soon as he grasped its contents—looking at them as a well-educated lad for his days, fresh from the big town grammar-school—he slapped his thigh with one hand, and burst into a roar of laughter, while his father looked ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... disappointed, Mr. Campbell darkly intimated that should her opposition continue he would procure from two pliant physicians a certificate of her insanity and have her confined in that most terrible of prisons, a mad-house. The fear that he would carry his threat into execution nerved Florence to a bold movement. Being mistress of a fortune of thirty thousand dollars, left by her mother, she had funds enough for her purpose. She fled to New York, where chance made her acquainted with our hero, Ben Stanton, under whose escort she safely reached San Francisco, ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... would do it; this was no empty threat. Mechanically she took her hat and cloak and put ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... heresy, until she grew quite flushed. I have heard the reverse process going on between a Scots-woman and a French girl; and the arguments in the two cases were identical. Each apostle based her claim on the superior virtue and attainments of her clergy, and clinched the business with a threat of hell-fire. "Pas bong pretres ici," said the Presbyterian, "bong pretres en Ecosse." And the postmaster's daughter, taking up the same weapon, plied me, so to speak, with the butt of it instead ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but it ended in victory on the part of the Marchioness. The young lady, when she was told that, if necessary, the postmistress in the village should be instructed not to send on any letter addressed to George Roden, believed in the potency of the threat. She felt sure also that she would be unable to get at any letters addressed to herself if the quasi-parental authority of the Marchioness were used to prevent it. She yielded, on the condition, however, that one letter should be sent; and the Marchioness, not at all ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... applaud him; and what is yet more interesting, who justify him not on pacifist and idealistic, but on patriotic and even military grounds. It is especially insisted by some that his demonstration, which seemed futile as a threat against Mexico, was a very far-sighted preparation for the threat against Prussia. But in so far as the democracy did disagree with him, it was but the occasional and inevitable result of the theory by which the despot has ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... odds against any such attempt. If only the night were to be dark; if only Mrs. Clover were not to wait up for her husband and her employer; if only the woman were not her superior physically, so strong that Eleanor would be like a child in her hands; if only there were not that awful threat ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... alarmed at the threat of a question being brought forward on Henry's appointment to Switzerland, which, it is contended, ought to be left only to the care of a charge d'affaires. At any other period than the present I should think nothing of it, and even now I do not ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... sent it yelping away. Captain—was passing at the time, and, angry at the treatment his dog had received, declared that he would shoot Rosswell if it ever happened again. Knowing that Captain—would certainly fulfil his threat, the elder lady, who was of determined character, and instigated by regard for Rosswell, called the dog to her, and began belabouring him with a stout stick, pronouncing the name of the little dog all the time. Rosswell received the castigation with the utmost humility; and from that day forward ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... that ode that on the morrow the Lord Giovanni came to me with a second bribe and a second threat of torture. I gave him a sonnet of Petrarchian manner which went near to outshining the merits of the ode. And now, these requests of the Lord Giovanni's assumed an almost daily regularity, until it came to seem that did affairs continue in this manner ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... all very dashing when we went off. Poor Dill's wife was, too. Very plucky! She threw roses at him in the train and she'd been his wife for only two months." He chuckled disdainfully and clenched his teeth, fighting hard to suppress the tears burning in his threat. "Roses! He-he! And 'See you soon again!' They were all so patriotic! Our colonel congratulated Dill because his wife had restrained herself so well—as if he were simply going ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... The threat was familiar to me; I was silent. He then began to fold up my shadow. I turned pale, but allowed him to continue. A long silence ensued, which he was the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... flatly asked her to marry him, and that she flatly refused him," she continued, ignoring my implied threat. "I understand that Mr. LaHume is going to ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... Fire, Talk of all tongues, at last begin to tire; One fear prevails, all other frights forgot,— White lips are whispering,—hark! The Popish Plot! Happy New England, from such troubles free In health and peace beyond the stormy sea! No Romish daggers threat her children's throats, No gibbering nightmare mutters "Titus Oates;" Philip is slain, the Quaker graves are green, Not yet the witch has entered on the scene; Happy our Harvard; pleased her graduates four; URIAN OAKES ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... commands in such a peremptory tone, what security, she said, should she have for my not playing the tyrant afterwards? She, therefore, not only felt it to be her duty to refuse, but really I had so alarmed her, that she could not give her consent under any such sort of threat; as her compliance would appear to come rather from terror than inclination. This was followed by her bursting into tears, occasioned by the exertion she had made to tell me her resolve. I repeated my protestations, and did every thing to soothe her fears, and, as she was now summoned by ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... that moment less horrified by her husband's threat than by his base ingratitude to herself and by the accusation he seemed to make against her. Worn out with the emotions of fear and anxiety, she had barely the strength to close and fasten the window. Then she sank ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... by, and serious occurrences had compelled them to postpone the wedding, though without undue suffering on his part. Indeed, the certainty that she was waiting for him had sufficed him, for his life of hard work had rendered him patient. Now, however, all at once, at the threat of losing her, his hitherto tranquil heart ached and bled. He would never have thought the tie so close a one. But he was now almost fifty, and it was as if love and woman were being wrenched away from him, the last woman ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... very heroic perhaps. A few idlers caught in an illicit act and under threat of arrest. The consequences—of a truth—would not be vastly severe for the frequenters of this secret club; fines mayhap, which most of those present could ill afford to pay, and at worst a night's detention ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... little he had seen of her ladyship had left him no taste to see more. He knew, however, that the omission would weigh heavily against him were it known; and as he had hopes from my lady's aristocratic connections, and need in certain difficulties of all the aid he could muster, he found the threat not one to be sneezed at. His laugh ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... by Mr. Cave, 1739; first published in the Gent. Mag. of July 1787. (See post under Nov. 5, 1784, note.) Cave had begun to publish in the Gent. Mag. an abridgment of four sermons preached by Trapp against Whitefield. He stopped short in the publication, deterred perhaps by the threat of a prosecution for an infringement of copy-right. 'On all difficult occasions,' writes the Editor in 1787, 'Johnson was Cave's oracle; and the paper now before us was certainly written on that occasion.' Johnson argues that abridgments are not only legal but also justifiable. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... entered the room than the door was locked on her. Degraded and abased in her own eyes, all her moral feelings revolting against the abominable indignity imposed on her, yet the threat which had been uttered made her tremble. She had vowed implicit obedience. With loathing at her heart, with a feeling too bitter to allow her tears to flow, she performed the debasing act, forgetting that the marks she was thus making on the ground ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... "That threat will prove very effectual. I will meet you here, bringing the little money I have, and will keep this awful day a secret from all but God, who never fails ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson |
