"Perfidious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consistent member of the Roman church. In harmony with his general character, his religious views were always moderate, never betraying him into excesses, or into any merely partisan zeal. Born during the profligate, cruel, and perfidious reign of Charles IX., he was, perhaps, too young to be greatly affected by the evils characteristic of that period, the massacre of St. Bartholomew's and the numberless vices that swept along in its train. His youth and early manhood, covering the plastic and formative period, stretched ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... deceives you, what wonder? He is utterly ignorant that there is any sin in falsehood. But what of the Christian who does the same? The Barbarians,' he says, 'are better men than the Christians. The Goths,' he says, 'are perfidious, but chaste. The Alans unchaste, but less perfidious. The Franks are liars, but hospitable; the Saxons ferociously cruel, but venerable for their chastity. The Visigoths who conquered Spain,' he says, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... good and loving wife wast thou, But all, alas! is altered now. What terror can have seized thy breast To make thee frame this dire request, That Bharat o'er the land may reign, And Rama in the woods remain? Turn from thine evil ways, O turn, And thy perfidious counsel spurn, If thou would fain a favour do To people, lord, and Bharat too. O wicked traitress, fierce and vile, Who lovest deeds of sin and guile, What crime or grievance dost thou see, What fault in Rama or in me? Thy son will ne'er the throne accept If ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the use of irony to be "unintelligent." In support of this amazing statement she quotes some wandering phrase of Sainte-Beuve. By the light of recent revelations, whether Sainte-Beuve was ironical or not, he was certainly perfidious. But, to waive that matter, does Mrs. Humphry Ward consider that Swift and Lucian and Machiavelli were, as she puts it, "doomed to failure" because they used irony as a weapon? Was Heine and is Anatole France ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... surrounding existences, that to him shall for ever remain irrealisable, unseen and enviable. He had a desire to assert his importance, to break, to crush; to be even with everybody for everything; to tear the veil, unmask, expose, leave no refuge—a perfidious desire of truthfulness! He laughed in a ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... echoed the perfidious Amelie, "Nais is well enough pleased. A young man's love has so many attractions—at her age. A woman grows young again in his company; she is a girl, and acts a girl's hesitation and manners, and does ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... But take the side of the people. What caprice, what ingratitude! You have professed so much in theory, that you can never accomplish sufficient in practice. Moderation becomes a crime; to be prudent is to be perfidious. New demagogues, without temperance, because without principle, outstrip you in the moment of your greatest services. The public is the grave of a great man's deeds; it is never sated; its maw is eternally open; it perpetually craves for more. Where, in the history ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... headlong in. Falsehood more leisurely undrest, And, laying by her tawdry vest, Trick'd herself out in Truth's array, And 'cross the meadows tript away. From this curst hour, the fraudful dame Of sacred Truth usurps the name, And, with a vile, perfidious mind, Roams far and near, to cheat mankind; False sighs suborns, and artful tears, And starts with vain pretended fears; In visits, still appears most wise, And rolls at church her saint-like eyes; Talks very much, plays idle tricks, While ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... sake only of an interesting variety of language,—and at all events without intimation of any causes of so great a change in the national character,—we find Mr. Gibbon in his next volume suddenly adopting the abusive epithets of Procopius, and calling the Franks "a light and perfidious nation" (vii. 251). The only traceable grounds for this unexpected description of them are that they refuse to be bribed either into friendship or activity, by Rome or Ravenna; and that in his invasion of ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... I expected, although I had stayed in Persia double the time I had intended. Maybe this can be accounted for by my having spent most of my time in parts not so much frequented by Europeans. Indeed, if the Persian is to-day the perfidious individual he is, we have to a great extent only ourselves to blame ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Mr. Soames commence his career of duplicity at the flat of Henry Leroux; and for some twelve months before the events which so dramatically interfered with the delightful scheme, he drew his double salary and performed his perfidious work with great efficiency and contentment. Mrs. Leroux paid four other visits to Paris during that time, and always returned in much better spirits, although pale and somewhat haggard looking. It fell to the lot of Soames always to meet her at Charing Cross; ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... many of his alleged cruelties were to be set down to his namesake H. Monomachus. 21-23. perfidia plus quam Punica. 'This does not seem to have been anything worse than a consummate adroitness in laying traps for his enemies.' —Church and Brodribb. Cf. 'Perfidious Albion.' 23. nulla religio no scruples, i.e. no force binding (re ligare) or restraining ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... be struggling, by this holy light, 'Tis struggling with a vengeance (quoth the knight): So Heaven preserve the sight it has restored, As with these eyes I plainly saw thee whored; Whored by my slave—perfidious wretch! may hell 770 As surely seize thee, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... thundered, his jaw setting sternly again. "I, I, who you thought to dupe. I, who have seen through your perfidious plan from the first ('Oh, oh!' thought Dick, 'that's for the benefit of the police.') I, who you would have made the scapegoat for your villainy at the cost of my name and ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... even have lifted her lashes, which seemed suddenly to have become so heavy that she felt the burden of them weighing over her eyes. All the picturesque phrases she had planned to speak at their first meeting had taken wings with perfidious romance, yet she would have given her dearest possession to have been able to say something really clever. "He thinks me a simpleton, of course," she thought—perfectly unconscious that Oliver was not thinking of her wits at all, but of the wonderful ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... I sometimes regret that fortune Made me not a pagan born, That I might, in my wild folly, Think he must have been some god, Such as he was, who in golden Shower wooed Danae, or as swan Leda loved, as bull, Europa. When I thought to lengthen out, Citing these perfidious stories, My discourse, I find already That I have succinctly told thee How my mother, being persuaded By the flatteries of love's homage, Was a fair as any fair, And unfortunate as all are. That ridiculous excuse ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... placed upon the table; and, intercepting her retreat from the room threw his arm round her neck with a gesture as though he meant to kiss her. This was evidently what she herself anticipated, and endeavored to prevent. Her horror may be imagined, when she felt the perfidious hand that clasped her neck armed with a razor, and violently cutting her throat. She was hardly able to utter one scream, before she sank powerless upon the floor. This dreadful spectacle was witnessed by the boy, who was not asleep, but had presence ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood, on the scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and virtue; this is my hope—I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High, which displays its powers over man as over the beasts of the forest, which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, against the throat ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... dissembling; you would then have sounded the death-knell of my hope; but my heart could have blamed fortune alone. But to see my love encouraged by a deceitful avowal on your part, is so treacherous and perfidious an action, that it cannot meet with too great a punishment; I can allow my resentment to do anything. No, no, after such an outrage, hope for nothing. I am no longer myself, ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... properties, which are the present felicities and glories of this nation."[34] He seems to reckon all these evils as matters fully determined on, and therefore falls into the last usual form of despair, by threatening the authors of these miseries with "lasting infamy, and the curses of posterity upon perfidious betrayers ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... not in a merciful mood. He provoked one by his contradictory indiscretions. "It is unfortunate you didn't know beforehand!" I said with every unkind intention; but the perfidious shaft fell harmless—dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as it were, and he did not think of picking it up. Perhaps he had not even seen it. Presently, lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged. I was holding up my lamp along the angle-iron ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... moved thee, nor a regard for my sister, nor my virgin state, nor the laws of marriage? Thou hast confounded all. I am become the supplanter of my sister; thou, the husband of both of us. This punishment was not my due. Why dost thou not take away this life, that no villany, perfidious {wretch}, may remain {unperpetrated} by thee? and would that thou hadst done it before thy criminal embraces! {then} I might have had a shade void of {all} crime. Yet, if the Gods above behold these things, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... was what he meditated: 1, upon the Russian Cabinet, for having undervalued his own pretensions to the throne; 2, upon his amiable rival, for having supplanted him; and 3, upon all those of the nobility who had manifested their sense of his weakness by their neglect or their sense of his perfidious character 5 by their suspicions. Here was a colossal outline of wickedness; and by one in his situation, feeble (as it might seem) for the accomplishment of its humblest parts, how was the total edifice to be reared in its comprehensive grandeur? He, a ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... So, too, when Montsurry first tells her of the suspicions which Monsieur has excited in him, she protests with artfully calculated indignation against the charge of wrong-doing with this "serpent." But the brutal and deliberate violence of her husband when he knows the truth, and the perfidious meanness with which he makes her the reluctant instrument of her lover's ruin, win back for her much of our alienated sympathy. Yet at the close her position is curiously equivocal. It is at her prayer that Bussy has spared Montsurry when "he hath him down" in the final struggle; but when ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... Cargill united themselves more closely together, and thus entered into a new bond pledging themselves to be faithful to God and to each other in asserting their civil and religious rights, which they believed could only be secured by driving from the throne that "perfidious covenant-breaking race, untrue both to the most high God and to the people over whom for their sins ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... chivalrous generosity, he ceased not to exalt himself on the ruined reputation of his late commander? Even as Ajax prayed for light, the people cried aloud for one week of fair weather: no more was wanted to crush and utterly confound the hopes of Rebels, Copperheads, and perfidious Albion. Every illustrated journal was crowded with portraits, of Fighting Joe and his famous white charger; it was said, that horse and rider could never show themselves without eliciting a burst of cheering, such as rang out near the Lake ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... so-called Mrs. Blair, in full flight, with all her belongings, and under the care and guidance not only of the Colonel, that of course, but also of the perfidious Jules l'Echelle. He had sold me! All doubt of his treachery disappeared when on rushing to the door I found I had been locked into ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... others being shot by sentinels; and one of their friends, who was supposed to have been accessory to their escape, was carried on shore to behold the destruction of his house and effects, which were burned in his presence, as a punishment for his temerity and perfidious aid to his comrades. The prisoners expressed the greatest concern at having incurred his Majesty's displeasure, and in a petition addressed to Colonel Winslow intreated him to detain a part of them as sureties for the appearance of the ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... disastrous effects for several generations, into a succession of national victories. This professional jealousy, as one may call it, among the French military leaders was fomented and aggravated by the perfidious counsellors about the King. The only class who thoroughly appreciated and were really worthy of the Maid and her mission, were the people. And it is still by the people that everlasting gratitude and love of the heroic ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... out his arms toward the stage. "Never! Let us swear it together on the sacred altar of our native land! Perish, perfidious Albion! ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... and Mistresses of such Houses live in continual Suspicion of their ingenuous and true Servants, and are given up to the Management of those who are false and perfidious. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... they did, as he read the above letter,—a masterpiece, perhaps, in the line of what may be termed the "d—d civil" of epistolary favours. "Insufferable arrogance!" he muttered within his teeth. "I will live to repay it. Perfidious, unfeeling woman: what an escape I have had of her! Now, now, I am on the world, and alone, thank Heaven. I will accept Aspeden's offer, and leave this country; when I return, it shall not be as a humble ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his dishonorable task by some strong and angry passion, the sight of the open escritoire checked and startled him for a moment. Violated privilege, invaded secrecy, base, perfidious espionage upbraided and stigmatized him, as the intricacies of the outraged sanctuary opened upon his intrusive gaze. He felt for a moment shocked and humbled. He was impelled to lock and replace the desk where he had originally found it, ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... must confess, are great; Yet still, I fear, you know not half his falsehood. Who, that had eyes to look on beauty; Who, but the false, perfidious Essex, could Prefer to Nottingham a Rutland's charms? Start not!—By Heaven, I tell you naught but truth, What I can prove, past doubt; that he received The lady Rutland's hand, in sacred wedlock, The very night before his ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... received that six or seven hundred strange Indians from the mountains had come down and seated themselves near the falls of the James. The March Assembly, considering how much blood it had cost to "expell and extirpate those perfidious and treacherous Indians which were there formerly," and considering how the area lay within the limits "which in a just warr were formerly conquered by us," ordered the two upper counties under Col. Edward Hill to send 100 men to remove the intruders peacefully, making war only ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... on the fifth floor, however, as soon as he opened the door there came a rustle, and he sprang forward to intercept the perfidious one; but it was only the air stirring the folds of garments hanging on ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... together a body of men, and carefully furnished them with all necessaries, and designed them as auxiliaries for Antony. But Antony said he had no want of his assistance; but he commanded him to punish the king of Arabia; for he had heard both from him, and from Cleopatra, how perfidious he was; for this was what Cleopatra desired, who thought it for her own advantage that these two kings should do one another as great mischief as possible. Upon this message from Antony, Herod returned back, but kept his army with him, in order to invade Arabia immediately. So when his army ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... extend a gladder welcome than all to the Ice-crowned monarch, but alas, not a drop of Tasmanian blood runs in human veins! Cape Good Hope has now a sub-arctic climate, and the heart of the wild Kaffir and Zulu rejoices that the sceptre of "perfidious ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... the United States, St. Augustine, were laid with solemn religious rites by the toil of the first negro slaves; and the event was signalized by one of the most horrible massacres in recorded history, the cold-blooded and perfidious extermination, almost to the last man, woman, and child, of a colony of French Protestants that had been planted a few months before at the mouth of the St. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... no means reconciled to the loss of Silesia, and she began to lay her plans for expelling the perfidious Frederick and regaining her lost territory. This led to one of the most important wars in modern history, in which not only almost every European power joined, but which involved the whole world, from the Indian rajahs of Hindustan to the colonists of Virginia and New England. ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... can deceive a lover? Rumor bore the report to Dido, who, mad with grief, reproached Aeneas. "Perfidious one! didst thou think to escape from me? Does not our love restrain thee, and the thought that I shall surely die when thou art gone? I have sacrificed all to thee; now leave me not lonely in ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... eager to press it at once, however imprudent and out of place such action might be. He was, moreover, utterly unconscious of the fact that he was nothing but a tool which both Tyope and the Naua wielded to further their perfidious designs. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... his enemies could suggest. Under such painful circumstances, the royal youth might not always be able to compose his behavior, or suppress his discontent; and we may be assured, that he was encompassed by a train of indiscreet or perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and who were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of his resentment. An edict of Constantine, published about this time, manifestly indicates his real or affected ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... intrepidity of spirit he guessed at a glance. But the other was too deeply moved by emotion to notice the progress of these reflections. As soon as the door was closed upon them, he said, with the accent of a stage hero addressing the perfidious seducer, "M. de Gery, I am not yet ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... dark and lost, interposed for our rescue, and their efforts will be baffled. Low must we sink, and blotted from our hearts must be the memory of that deed, before we can become faithless to the Redeemer's cause, and perfidious ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Choate, addressing a jury in a case of marine insurance, where the defence was the unseaworthiness of the vessel. I had just time to hear this sentence, and shut the door and hurry to my train: "She went down the harbor, painted and perfidious—a ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... unduly hampered by a hectoring diplomacy from Whitehall, he will succeed in establishing that goodwill and mutual confidence which between Governments is of more value than all the paper engagements ever signed. One word more of the Afghans. There is an idea that they are a treacherous and perfidious people. This, I believe, is wicked slander, so far as the rulers are concerned. In 1857, during the Indian Mutiny, the Amir Dost Muhammed was true to his bond, when he might have been a thorn in our side; and during the Great War ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... suit I scorned, to listen to that of the perfidious being whose name I bear. I am a miserable victim. Life is unsupportable to me. Next spring, if my husband does not return, like the prodigal, remorseful and repentant, I shall become a missionary, and give my life for the ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... misunderstanding between him and her, and she had gone alone, he would have followed her to the ends of the earth, and have had everything made clear. But as it was now, he would not pursue her an inch. Let her go! False and perfidious! Why should her ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... effort she controlled herself; though there was still an agitation in her voice, which the audience and the singers thought to be the perfection of acting. Again she glanced at Fitzgerald, and there was terrible power in the tones with which she uttered, in Italian, "Tremble, perfidious one! Thou ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... are thy senses gone? And where the wisdom, once of high repute 'Mid strangers, and 'mid those o'er whom thou reign'st? How canst thou think alone to seek the ships, Ent'ring his presence, who thy sons hath slain, Many and brave? an iron heart is thine! Of that bloodthirsty and perfidious man, If thou within the sight and reach shalt come, No pity will he feel, no rev'rence show: Rather remain we here apart and mourn; For him, when at his birth his thread of life Was spun by fate, 'twas destin'd that afar From home and parents, he should ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and virtue, this is my hope: I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of this perfidious Government, which upholds its dominion by blasphemy of the ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... the creation. "The earth was WITHOUT FORM AND VOID."(34) This is saying but little: it was wholly polluted and impure, (the reader will observe that I speak here of the heathens), and appeared to God only as the haunt and retreat of ungrateful and perfidious men, as it did at the time of the flood. "The earth was corrupt before God, and was filled ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... breathless incidents of the plot giving but little scope for musical treatment. The first act shows the death of Vladimir, the police investigation and Fedora's vow to discover the murderer. In the second Fedora extorts from Loris Ipanoff a confession of the vengeance that he wreaked upon the perfidious Vladimir, and, finding Loris innocent and Vladimir guilty, in a sudden revulsion of feeling throws herself into Loris's arms, bidding him stay with her rather than leave the house to fall into the hands of spies. In the third act Fedora, certain of detection, confesses ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... thought, might attach him more strongly to your cause; and I could not think he would repay me with ingratitude. But I marvel that you, who are so habitually wary and discerning, should have been deceived by his pretensions; the friend, or servant, who has once proved perfidious, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... from his being accounted impious, perfidious, and cruel, these disadvantages resulted; but, on the other hand, there accrued to him one great gain, noticed with admiration by all historians, namely, that in his army, although made up of men of every ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... and snare: Our foes are traitors, taught to bind The trusting creatures of their kind." Still, still, shall blessings flow from cows,(926) And Brahmans love their rigorous vows; Still woman change her restless will, And friends perfidious work us ill. What though with conquering feet I tread On every prostrate foeman's head; What though the worlds in abject fear Their mighty lord in me revere? This thought my peace of mind destroys And ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... of study, which the university imposed on us, as the condition of admitting us to the professional study of medicine? Surely, then, to cheat that lady out of her Hope Scholarship, when she had earned it under conditions of study enforced and unfavorable, was perfidious and dishonest. It was even a little ungrateful to the injured sex; for the money which founded these scholarships was women's money, every penny of it. The good Professor Hope had lectured to ladies fifty years ago; had taken their fees, and founded his scholarships ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... did not many years ago, but which still had real influence in deteriorating moral judgment, was the career of a late sovereign of France. Some apparent advantages followed for a season from a rule which had its origin in a violent and perfidious usurpation, and which was upheld by all the arts of moral corruption, political enervation, and military repression. The advantages lasted long enough to create in this country a steady and powerful ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... cost To you, with malice aforethought, To send (and with intent to kill him, And on this blessed day, when nought But Saturnalian joys should fill him) Your friend Catullus such a set Of murderous authors; but the debt I'll pay, be even with you yet— For no perfidious friend I spare. At early dawn, ere the sun shine, I Will rise, and ransack shop and stall, Collect your Caesii and Aquini, And that Suffenus: and with care And diligence, will have all sent To you, for a like punishment. Hence, poets! with your jingling chimes: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... at the injustice of fate, and cast the blame on men, on all men, because nature, that great, blind mother, is unjust, cruel and perfidious, and he ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... from the buffoon who had hidden under the table, to dispose their plans for the future (for Ottavio and Anna, marriage in a year; for Masetto and Zerlina, a wedding instanter; for Elvira, a nunnery), and platitudinously to moralize that, the perfidious wretch having been carried to the realm of Pluto and Proserpine, naught remained to do save to sing the old song, "Thus do the wicked find their end, dying as they ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... at the rising of the smiling sun, the perfidious Lustucru presented himself before Mother Michel in order to ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... the remarkable instances of this kind are Edgar's meeting with his old blind father; the deception he practises upon him when he pretends to lead him to the top of Dover-cliff—'Come on, sir, here's the place,' to prevent his ending his life and miseries together; his encounter with the perfidious Steward whom he kills, and his finding the letter from Gonerill to his brother upon him which leads to the final catastrophe, and brings the wheel of Justice 'full circle home' to the guilty parties. The bustle and rapid ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... described geometrical circles and rhomboids between the gaping rails that formed the backs of venerable chairs. One large black spider—who was probably the oldest inhabitant, and held possession of the best place by the window, ready to offer perfidious welcome to every winged itinerant who might be tempted to turn aside from the high road for the sake of a little cool and repose—rushed from its innermost penetralia at the entrance of Kenelm, and remained motionless in the centre of its meshes, staring at him. It did ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him? To go now was to kiss and ride away. Surely, since the world of sex decreed that often the same men should love the one woman, and therefore that perfidy should immediately enter into such a triangle—surely, it was the lesser evil to be perfidious to the ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... anxiety to preserve the frontier of Virginia from desolation and death, (the object of his visit to Point Pleasant,) all conspired to win for him the esteem and respect of others; while the untimely and perfidious manner of his death, caused a deep and lasting regret to pervade the bosoms even of those who were enemies to his nation; and excited the just indignation of all towards his inhuman and barbarous murderers." The ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... on the Po at Cremona, and in the marshes of Caravaggio. In 1454, Venice, the first of the states of Christendom, humiliated herself to the Turk; in the same year was established the Inquisition of State, and from this period her government takes the perfidious and mysterious form under which it is usually conceived. In 1477, the great Turkish invasion spread terror to the shores of the lagoons; and in 1508 the league of Cambrai marks the period usually assigned as the commencement of the decline of the Venetian power; the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... had waited till he was so entangled that he could not escape, or in future refuse to obey the orders of the Jacobite party—you had seduced him, Nancy Corbett—you had intoxicated him—in short, Nancy, you had ruined him, and then you threw him over by this insidious and perfidious letter. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... in a furious rage. He had completed all his calculations about Nerina, but that perfidious satellite had totally disappeared. The astronomer was frantic at the loss of his moon. Captured probably by some larger body, it was revolving in its proper ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... cried Amelia. "You first inspired me with the thought which led to my childish and contradictory behavior, and which for some days made me the jest of the court. You are a false friend, a faithless sister! I stood in your path, and you put me aside. I understand now your perfidious counsels, your smooth, deceitful encouragement to my opposition against the proposition of the Swedish ambassador. I, forsooth, must be childish, coarse, and rude, in order that your gentle and girlish grace, your amiable courtesy, might ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... invading Belgium and Luxemburg on the way to attack France with the utmost speed and fierceness, the war is really a war of defense against Russia, which might desirably pass over, after France has been crushed, into a war against Great Britain, that perfidious and insolent obstacle to Germany's world empire. The answer to this explanation is that, as a matter of fact, Germany has never dreaded, or even respected, the military strength of Russia, and that the recent wars and threatenings of war by Germany have not been directed against ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... having changed tactics, as he saw us all ready to stand on the defensive, sent back his hongo; but, instead of using threats, said he would oblige us with donkeys or anything else if we would only give him a few more pretty cloths. With this cringing, perfidious appeal I refused to comply, until the sheikh, still more cringing, implored me to give way else not a single man would remain with me. I then told him to settle with the chief himself, and give me the account, which amounted ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... said Piff-Paff. "All Americans are perfidious. But the traitor of traitors is General An-drrew Jack-son. Be quiet, my son. Do you ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... guard against the use of them, for purposes favorable to the interests and views of the enemy, further provisions on that subject are highly important. Nor is it less so that penal enactments should be provided for cases of corrupt and perfidious intercourse with the enemy, not amounting to treason nor yet embraced ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison
... German government was authority for the statement that the Lusitania had been armed with guns. And when Norwood hooted at this, every German in the room was up in arms. What did he have to disprove it? The word of the British government! Was not "perfidious Albion" a byword! ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... everyone's heart that you have been untrue to your father. They are becoming dishonest, false knaves, untrue to their promises, the very scum of the earth, because of their credulity and broken vows; but what am I to say of you? You will have been as false and perfidious and credulous as they. You will have thrown away everything good to gratify the ambition of some empty traitor. And you will have done it all against your own father." Here she paused and looked at him. They were roaming at the time round the demesne, and he walked on, ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... Lily were a dozen of her stoutest warriors, and they suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing down upon them. Fell from their eyes then the film through which they had looked at victory. No more would they torture at the stake. For them the happy hunting-grounds now. They knew it; but as their fathers' sons they acquitted themselves. ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... merchandize. And such rubbish was offered in exchange for a group of God's creatures, with his divine image stamped upon them! At length the progress of the bargain came to what might be called a crisis. The Soudanese merchants jumped up suddenly, with shouts and curses, as if they had discovered a perfidious fraud, and rushed to the door, pulling their miserable slaves after them. I felt shocked at the sight, and my horror must have been depicted in my countenance. For Haj Ibrahim, who well knew I disapproved ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Lieutenant Castries, seeking for the blood of his perfidious son-in-law to be. He said things—vulgar and "impossible" things which showed the raw rough "ranker" below the "Honorary," and I fancy Peythroppe's eyes were opened. Anyhow, he held his peace till the end; when he spoke briefly. Honorary Lieutenant Castries asked for a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... brought, And therefore the deduction's naught, And must have contrary effects, To what her treacherous foe expects. In proper season Pallas meets The Queen of Love, whom thus she greets, (For gods, we are by Homer told, Can in celestial language scold:)— Perfidious goddess! but in vain You form'd this project in your brain; A project for your talents fit, With much deceit and little wit. Thou hast, as thou shall quickly see, Deceived thyself, instead of me; For how can heavenly ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... for recreation and pleasure is their just due, and they will have it. Adolphus, robbed of his paseo, reported that his grandmother was dying, and demanded an evening off to visit her. His mistress happened to take a walk that evening and beheld Adolphus the perfidious, not sitting by a dying grandmother, but tripping the light fantastic in a nipa shack, eight by twelve. She forthwith discharged Adolphus, and even levied on the services of a friendly constabulary officer to thrash him with a stingaree, or sting ray cane. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... dreaded Dick's going abroad, well knowing what a designing perfidious slut his sister was, from her very infancy.—Her parents drew down a curse by their blind indulgence:—even her nurse was charg'd not to contradict her; she was to have every thing for which she shewed the ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... from a field of blood into peaceful habitations, and when they came home told what had happened to their nation. The flame soon spread through the upper towns, and those who had lost their friends and relations were implacable, and breathed nothing but fury and vengeance against such perfidious friends. In vain did the chieftains interpose their authority, nothing could restrain the furious spirits of the young men, who were determined to take satisfaction for the loss of their relations. The emissaries of France among them added fuel to the flame, by telling them that the English intended ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... 'had I not entirely freed myself from all party feeling, I might adduce the success of my perfidious and worthless relative as very good demonstration that the spirit of the age is nothing better than an ignis fatuus. Nevertheless, we must discriminate. Even the success of Jupiter, although he now conducts himself in direct ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... perfidious woman! now I see and know your treason! And would not a squire and a knight suffice you, but you must give yourself up to a priest? This vexes me more than all the ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... goe himselfe on shore with thirtie men, much against the will of our captaine, and hee and 16 of his company, together with one boat which was all that we had, and 16 others that were a washing ouer against our ship, were betrayed of the perfidious Moores, and in our sight for the most part slaine, we being not able for want of a boat to yeeld them any succour. [Sidenote: Zanzibar Iland.] From thence with heauie hearts we shaped our course for Zanzibar the 7 of Nouember, where shortly after we arriued and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... who should handle a golden apple, set with precious stones, held in the hand of a bronze statue of Kenneth that stood in the centre of a room. She invited him to become her guest—an invitation he accepted. After dinner, the perfidious woman conducted him into the tower, professedly to see and admire the exquisite furnishings with which it was decorated. In his fondness for grandeur, he lingered to admire the elegant figures and flowers; the rich tapestry, interwoven with gold; and ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... offices and favours from the inhabitants of our Capital, they murdered in cold blood upwards of two thousand people, for no other reason than their having defended their insulted brethren, what could we expect from them, had we submitted to their dominion? Their perfidious conduct towards our king and his whole family, whom they deceived and decoyed into France under the promise of an eternal armistice, in order to chain them all, has no precedent in history. Their conduct towards the whole nation is more iniquitous, than we had the right to expect from a horde ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... placarded with offers of a small reward to any one who would bring back the noxious or unclean animals that had escaped from it. In the garden, in the open air, the most extravagant proposals were made. "People," said one of these orators, mounting on a chair, "it will be unfortunate, should this perfidious king be brought back to us,—what should we do with him? He would come to us like Thersites to pour forth those big tears, of which Homer tells us; and we should be moved with pity. If he returns, I propose that he be exposed for three days to public derision, with the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... acknowledge its legality." And this was done, too, after Norfolk navy yard, with its immense stores of munitions of war, twenty-five hundred pieces of heavy ordnance, and all its ships, save one, had been doomed to destruction by the perfidious officers who surrounded and advised its loyal but too credulous commander. It was ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge. Saith he, "If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... and again for his rearing, he must become a slave. Kindness is shown at the cost of liberty. Although that was general throughout the islands, in this island it is excessive, as it is a tenet of the perfidious sect of Mahomet; and its cruelty has left no liberty that it has not opposed. Therefore, there is not in this nation the middle class that is found in the others which forms the common people out of the freemen; for there are no freemen, nor any mean between chiefs and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... did Bernadotte welcome the perfidious Saxons into his ranks, but he used their artillery to bolster up his own, which the former Marshal ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie, and Louvet's Chevalier de Faublas. Noteworthy Books; which may be considered as the last speech of old Feudal France. In the first there rises melodiously, as it were, the wail of a moribund world: everywhere wholesome Nature in unequal conflict with diseased perfidious Art; cannot escape from it in the lowest hut, in the remotest island of the sea. Ruin and death must strike down the loved one; and, what is most significant of all, death even here not by necessity, but by etiquette. What a world of prurient corruption lies visible in that ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Campeador, by slaying the enemy's champion in single combat. In the quarrel between Sancho and his brother Alphonso, Rodrigo Diaz espoused the cause of the former, and it was he who suggested the perfidious stratagem by which Sancho eventually obtained the victory and possession of Leon. Sancho having been slain in 1072, while engaged in the siege of Zamora, Alphonso returned from exile and occupied the vacant throne. One of the most striking of the passages in the Cid's legendary history is that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... said. "It is that I treat you English heretic dogs just as you English heretic dogs have treated Spaniards upon the seas—you robbers and thieves out of hell! I have the honesty to do it in my own name—but you, you perfidious beasts, you send your Captain Bloods, your Hagthorpes, and your Morgans against us and disclaim responsibility for what they do. Like Pilate, you wash your hands." He laughed savagely. "Let Spain play the part of Pilate. Let her disclaim responsibility for me, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... prevailed in Italy. The "Prince" is the best known of his political works, and from the infamous principles which he has here developed, though probably with good intentions, his name is allied with everything false and perfidious in politics. The object of the treatise is to show how a new prince may establish and consolidate his power, and how the Medici might not only confirm their authority in Florence, but extend it over the whole of the Peninsula. At the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... better on many accounts not to mention the subject to your father. It would only distract his mind, and prevent him from duly discharging the painful task he has undertaken. Were I in your place, Amabel, I would not only forget my present perfidious lover, but would instantly bestow my affections on ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Jack, followed by a score of seamen, rushing up the stage, disappeared behind the side scenes. We heard a tremendous row going on of mingled cries and shouts and shrieks. Presently the seamen returned, dragging with them the perfidious heroine, and well-nigh a dozen of the brigands whom they had captured. In vain the latter protested that they were not really brigands, but simply scene-shifters and labourers, who had been hired to represent those formidable characters. ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... "I would give the world to make you happy, my child!" he said, with perfidious truth, and a sigh that came from the bottom of his soul. "Sit down here by me," he said, moving to the sofa; and with whatever obscure sense of duty to her innocent self-abandon, he made a space between them, and reduced her ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... competition has so effectually limited the profits, that every rapidly made fortune is the result of chance, or of a discovery, or of some legalized robbery. The lower grades of mercantile enterprise have retorted on the perfidious dealings of higher commerce, especially during the last ten years, by base adulteration of the raw material. Wherever chemistry is practised, wine is no longer procurable; the vine industry is consequently waning. Manufactured ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... his curse. We mark Pickle furtively scribbling after midnight in French inns. We note Charles hiding in the alcove of a lady's chamber in a convent. We admire the 'rich anger' of his Polish mistress, and the sullen rage of Lord Hyndford, baffled by 'the perfidious Court' of Frederick the Great. The old histories emerge into light, like the writing in sympathetic ink on the secret despatches of ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... The life of the dumb cattle I must lead. Thou, Lord, alone, Creator of mankind, Dost know the hidden thoughts of every heart. O Prince of glory, if it be thy will 70 That with the sword's keen edge perfidious men Put me at rest, I am prepared straightway To suffer whatsoever Thou, my Lord, Who givest bliss to that high angel-band, Shalt send me as my portion in this world, A homeless wanderer, O Lord of hosts. In mercy grant to me, Almighty God, Light in this life, ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... occasions such a desire of peace as hindered him from ever enjoying it. Having no spirit of order, he never looked forward,—content by any temporary expedient to extricate himself from a present difficulty. Rash, arrogant, perfidious, irreligious, unquiet, he made a tolerable head of a party, but a bad king, and had talents fit to disturb another's government, not to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... gare: the deadly salle d'attente, the insufferable delays over one's luggage, the porterless platform, the overcrowded and illiberal train. How many a time did I permit myself the secret reflection that it is in perfidious Albion that they order this matter best! How many a time did the eager British mercenary, clad in velveteen and clinging to the door of the carriage as it glides into the station, revisit my invidious dreams! The paternal porter and the responsive hansom are among the best gifts of the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... of my expected arrival in Liverpool, Reardon, who was kept informed of all my plans by my perfidious clerk, personated me with such success that even Alice was deceived. He met her in a room very dimly lighted, and under the pretense that he was very much hurried by the captain, who wished to avail ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... river. In the warmth of my youthful enthusiasm, I used to clothe it with moral attributes, and almost to give it a soul. I admired its frank, bold, honest character; its noble sincerity and perfect truth. Here was no specious, smiling surface, covering the dangerous sand-bar or perfidious rock; but a stream deep as it was broad, and bearing with honorable faith the bark that trusted to its waves. I gloried in its simple, quiet, majestic, epic flow; ever straight forward. Once, indeed, it turns aside for a moment, forced from its course by opposing mountains, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... room, saying to himself, with a secret delight, "Perfidious king! traitorous monarch! I cannot reach thee. I do not wish it; for kings are sacred objects. But your friend, your accomplice, your panderer—the coward who represents you—shall pay for your crime. I will kill him in thy name, and, afterwards, we will bethink ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... revealed by himself in this sentence: "I experience more pain from a single thorn, than pleasure from a thousand roses." And elsewhere, "The best society seems to me bad, if I find in it one troublesome, wicked, slanderous, envious, or perfidious person." Now, taking into consideration that St. Pierre sometimes imagined persons who were really good, to be deserving of these strong and very contumacious epithets, it would have been difficult indeed to find a society in which he could have been happy. He was, therefore, wise, in seeking ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... that they press and oblige them humbly to offer their most ardent and daily prayers at the throne of grace, for the preservation of our Sovereign Lord King Charles from the attempts of open violence and secret machinations of perfidious traitors; that the defender of the faith, being safe under the defence of the Most High, may continue his reign on earth till he exchange it for that of ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... expected from the emotional East, exaggerate these views. Women are mostly "Sectaries of the god Wuensch"; beings of impulse, blown about by every gust of passion; stable only in instability; constant only in inconstancy. The false ascetic, the perfidious and murderous crone and the old hag-procuress who pimps like Umm Kulsum,[FN341] for mere pleasure, in the luxury of sin, are drawn with an experienced and loving hand. Yet not the less do we meet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... enlightened him further as to the perfidious intent of those who were for equalizing property and partitioning the land, abolishing wealth and poverty and establishing a happy mediocrity for all. Misled by their specious maxims, he had originally approved their designs, which he deemed ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... affairs. Lord North's peace commissioners had already arrived, and were seeking to win back the Americans into free colonial relations with the mother country, and away from their new-formed friendship with perfidious France. With what energy Patrick Henry was prepared to reject all these British blandishments, may be read in the passionate sentences which conclude ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... great lack of discretion in all this, and her ladyship was entirely overcome with her passion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow her to quit the house with me, but made her sup with her as usual that night, calling her sometimes a perfidious baggage, and at other times, forgetting her delirium, speaking to her as kindly as ever. At night, Kate as usual helped her ladyship into her bed, (this she told me with tears in her eyes next morning;) and when Lady Macadam, as was her wont, bent ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... Minister of State under the reign of Hoei-tsong, of the Song dynasty. He occupied himself wholly in weaving perfidious plots. He died in exile at Mo-tcheou. Sometime after, while the Emperor was hunting, there fell a heavy rain, which obliged him to seek shelter in a poor man's hut. The thunder rolled with violence; and the lightning killed a man, a woman, and a little ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... depended on their master's vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of flattery reminded him that by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the Nemaean lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods and an immortal memory among men. They only ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... mockery went out of her song and she sang of love alone. Such a love as women know who love one man forever and hold all his love in return, yet the words were the same as those of false Giuletta when she fled with the perfidious Dapertutto. ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... drawing sword for her Hungarian Majesty. In the end, he was brought to it, by a stroke of British Art,—such to the admiring Gazetteer and Diplomatic mind it seemed;—equal to anything we have since heard of, on the part of perfidious Albion. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... contradictory orders, and nobody dreaming of obeying any single one of them. The surprise was complete; and when our lads followed me over the ship's bulwarks, with drawn cutlasses, we found as our opponents only a shouting, shrieking, gesticulating mob, who reviled us for our perfidious mode of fighting in one breath, and in the next passionately conjured us not to overlook the fact that they surrendered. It was as amusing a bit of business as I had been engaged ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... vehemently against the traitors, the supporters of the foreigner in their midst. Vergniaud, from the tribune of the assembly menacing the Austrian princess of the Tuileries, exclaimed: "Through this window I perceive the palace where perfidious counsels delude the Sovereign. . . . Terror and panic have often issued from its portals; this day I bid them re-enter, in the name of the Law; let all its inmates know that it is the King alone who is inviolable, that the Law will strike the guilty without distinction, and that no head on which ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... therefore have somehow bestowed 'the power of the Sword' on the baillies and town council of Perth, I presume, for the Regent, Mary of Guise, when she entered the town, dismissed these men from office, which was regarded as an unlawful and perfidious act on her part. Again, in the summer of 1560, the baillies of Edinburgh—while Catholicism was still by law established—denounced the death penalty against recalcitrant Catholics. The Kirk also allotted ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang |
