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Perfidy   /pˈərfɪdi/   Listen
Perfidy

noun
(pl. perfidies)
1.
Betrayal of a trust.  Synonyms: perfidiousness, treachery.
2.
An act of deliberate betrayal.  Synonyms: betrayal, treachery, treason.






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"Perfidy" Quotes from Famous Books



... knew his power was gone, but Fear, The nurse of Vengeance, bade him wait the event— That perfidy and custom, gold and prayer, And whatsoe'er, when force is impotent, 3580 To fraud the sceptre of the world has lent, Might, as he judged, confirm his failing sway. Therefore throughout the streets, the Priests he sent To curse the rebels.—To their gods did they For Earthquake, Plague, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... will gain when, having come into your own property and being set up in your home (to which God will help with all misfortunes), it [your perfidy] will bob up again and come home to you, and you will find that where you have cheated or done injury to the value of one mite, you will have ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... deceives himself altogether,' pursued Mr. Snitchey, locking up the fireproof box, and putting it away; 'or, if he don't, a little bit of fickleness and perfidy is not a miracle, Mr. Craggs. And yet I thought that pretty face was very true. I thought,' said Mr. Snitchey, putting on his great-coat (for the weather was very cold), drawing on his gloves, and snuffing out one candle, 'that I had even seen her character becoming stronger and ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... Virgin to curse those two—Marie Cummins and Clarry O'Grady, the man and the girl who had cheated him out of love, out of home, out of everything he had possessed, and who were beating him now through perfidy and trickery. ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... "appertaining to rebels" who would join him "for the more speedy reducing this colony to a proper sense of their duty to his Majesty's crown and dignity."[2] In reply the Virginia press warned the negroes against British perfidy; and the revolutionary government, while announcing the penalties for servile revolt, promised freedom to such as would promptly desert the British standard. Some hundreds of negroes appear to have joined ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... worse. You'd better keep an eye on her. Sometimes they break their eggs a-purpose just to eat 'em." And having opened Peggy's eyes to the dark perfidy possible to the nature of the yellow hen, Joe departed whistling, and the gay party climbed aboard. Peggy sat on the front seat with Lucy, Dorothy snuggling between them, and reflected on the surprising distance from ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... village all his own; Whose rivers bound the province, and whose hills Touch the last cloud upon the level sky: No; better men still better love their country. 'Tis the old mansion of their earliest friends, The chapel of their first and best devotions; When violence or perfidy invades, Or when unworthy lords hold wassail there, And wiser heads are drooping round its moats, At last they fix their steady and stiff eye There, there alone—stand while the trumpet blows, And view the hostile flames above its towers Spire, with ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... has seen the results lamented by all, and by us most sincerely, for we appreciate as is due the valor and noble decision of those unfortunate men who go to battle ill-conducted, worse cared for, and almost always enforced by violence, deceit, or perfidy. We are witnesses, and we shall not be taxed with partiality as a party interested when we lament with surprise that the heroic behavior of the garrison at Vera Cruz in its valiant defense has been aspersed by the general who has just been routed and put to shameful flight at Buena Vista ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... Mekin," it said icily. "The fleet of Kandar is now destroyed. Kandar itself will be destroyed also as an example of the consequences of perfidy toward Mekin. But it should be a warning to others who would conspire against our world. Therefore, in part as penalty and in part as a reward to the men of the Grand Fleet, you will be allowed to land during a period of two weeks. You will be armed. You may confiscate, ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... to speak even very freely of him, in order to throw them the more off their guard, and afterwards to betray their secrets to him. Perez sought, or, at the very least, accepted this odious part. He acted it, as he himself relates, with a shameless devotion to the king, and a studied perfidy towards Don Juan and Escovedo. He wrote letters to them, which were even submitted to the inspection of Philip, and in which he did not always speak respectfully of that prince; he afterwards communicated to Philip the bold despatches of Escovedo, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... pale, and humbly held up her face, for she understood that at this moment her past perfidy wronged her present love. With a single blow Angelo slashed her face, then left her house, and quitted the country. The husband not having been stopped by reason of that light which was seen by the Florentines, found his wife minus her ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... fortresses which shortly before he had shown himself ready to open to the Swedes. By this stratagem, however, he delayed only for a brief interval the ruin of his bishopric. A Swedish general who had been left in Franconia, undertook to punish the perfidy of the bishop; and the ecclesiastical territory became the seat of war, and was ravaged alike by friends ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... was bred in his bones. Possibly it was part of his inheritance from that grandfather who had fought the Britishers in the wars of the Revolution. Possibly, too, he had heard as a boy, in his native Vermont village, tales of British perfidy in the recent war of 1812. At all events, he was utterly incapable of anything but bitter animosity toward Great Britain. This unreasoning prejudice blinded his judgment in matters of diplomacy, and vitiated his utterances on ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... of the west; whilst Genoa brings in those of the east. This is the source of our calamities. Carried away by the admiration of strange things, despising, I know not why, the good things which we find in our own climate, we sacrifice sound Italian faith to barbarian perfidy. Madmen that we are, we seek among venal souls that which we could ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... share in the matter would have to remain a profound secret. With all their great love for this boy, his clan would rather have seen him borne to the grave than living under the shadow of scandal in connection with this vicious woman. Her perfidy would add disgrace to grief, and deepen their woe ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... desertion, was obligated to retreat to York, where he was constrained, by the few sound and sober-minded that yet hovered around him, to try the effect of another negotiation with his insulted and indignant subjects. But as all the things which thence ensued are mingled with the acts of perfidy and aggression by which, under the disastrous influence of the fortunes of his doomed and guilty race, he drew down the vengeance of his English subjects, it would lead me far from this household memorial to enter more at large on circumstances so notour, though they have been ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... 39: The speech of Lord Aberdeen, to which the Queen here refers, had created a very unsatisfactory impression. On the 19th of June the venerable Lord Lyndhurst had denounced the aggressive policy and the perfidy of Russia; in the debate which followed, Lord Aberdeen spoke coldly, in a strain of semi-apology for Russia, and with an unlucky reference to the Treaty of Adrianople. Popular feeling against Russia being then at a white heat, the speech was considered indicative ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... your worst! Let us have an end of your serpent vigilance and perfidy!—better death than the constant sight of you! What! Have you not watched us long enough to make discovery easy? Do your worst, I ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... There is something corresponding to this case of human treachery in the sudden caprices of fortune. A danger, offering itself unexpectedly in some momentary change of blind external agencies, assumes to the feelings the character of a perfidy accomplished by mysterious powers, and calls forth something of the same resentment, and in a gladiatorial intellect something of the same spontaneous resistance. A sword that breaks in the very crisis of a duel, a horse killed by a flash of lightning in the moment of collision with the enemy, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... Her resolution to break with Hans is confirmed by an apparition of the queen of the gnomes, Hans Heiling's mother, surrounded by her attendant sprites, who warns her under fearful penalties to forswear the love of an immortal. Hans Heiling is furious at the perfidy of Anna, and vows terrible vengeance upon her and Conrad, which he is about to put into execution with the aid of his gnomes. At the last moment, however, his mother appears, and persuades him to relinquish all hopes of earthly love and to ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... past heavily. Mild September had seen the country greatly agitated; bountiful October had witnessed the recurrence and increase of violent measures; November now came, chilled with sleety storms, and vexed with man's perfidy and cruel attempt to crush conscience. More desperate efforts were again in progress by the king and those who supported him in his claim of supremacy over the Church and power to regulate her worship. The Covenanters were ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... rapture with another, struck him like the ghost of a departed mistress; and tho' he had never made any declaration of love either to the one or the other, yet his heart reproached him with a secret perfidy, and he durst scarce lift his eyes to her face, when with a timid voice he at last said, 'Madam, may I hope you take any interest in what your sister has been speaking of?'—'You may be sure I do,' replied she, 'in all that concerns the abbess; as to my farther sentiments on your staying ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... but an outline of that incomparable perfidy, which, after a career of seeming success, is brought to a close. Of a fallen man I would say nothing; but, for the sake of Humanity, Louis Napoleon should be exposed. He was of evil example, extending with ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... be no danger for them. If any one tried to meddle with the house, we might say we were friends of M. Darpent, and we should be secure. If the account of the soldiers outside were true, the people were determined not to yield to such perfidy; but he did not greatly credit it, only it was well ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... perfectly alone, he pointed to a seat, and frankly declared that I had been betrayed by a Judas to his sergeant of marines! I was taken perfectly aback, as I imagined myself almost free, yet the loss of liberty did not paralyze me as much as the perfidy of my men. Like a stupid booby, I stood gazing with a fixed stare at the captain, when the cabin door burst open, and with a shout of joyous merriment the hunters rushed in to greet ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... historical characteristics, it must be granted, of Scythians, Tartars, and Turks, down to this day; and Homer, perhaps, as other authors after him, was the more struck with such virtues in these wild shepherds, in contrast with the subtlety and perfidy, which, then as since, were the qualities of his own intellectually ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... greatest man in Europe, after the Pope. But to Schlegel the middle ages were something more. The glory of Germany to the patriot, they were the glory of Europe to the thinker. Modern wits have laughed at the enthusiasm of the Crusades. Did they weep over the perfidy of the partition of Poland? Do they really trust themselves to persuade a generous mind that the principle of mutual jealousy and mere selfishness, the meagre inspiration of the so called balance of power in modern politics, is, according to any norm of nobility in action, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... and liberty, on condition of immediately ceasing further hostilities. They accordingly consented to lay down their arms, and the impregnable fastness of the Pra du Tour, which had never been taken by force, thus fell before falsehood and perfidy. "The defenders of this ancient sanctuary of the Church," says Dr. Huston, "were loaded with irons; their children were carried off and scattered through the Roman Catholic districts; their wives and daughters were violated, massacred, or made captives. As for those that still remained, ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... fresh proof of her duplicity, Mr. Hastings could scarcely refrain from upbraiding her for her perfidy, but thinking the time had not yet come, he restrained his wrath, and when, next he spoke, it was to tell her of a foreign ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... Heracles, arriving at this critical moment, killed the monster by the aid of a fort built for him by Athene and the Trojans, so as to rescue both the exposed maiden and the people; but Laomedon, by a second act of perfidy, gave him mortal horses in place of the matchless animals which had been promised. Thus defrauded of his due, Heracles equipped six ships, attacked and captured Troy, and killed Laomedon, giving Hesione to his friend and auxiliary Telamon, to whom she bore the celebrated archer Teucros. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... "Ah, but perfidy seemed, somehow, in tone with an establishment wherein one concludes the evening's entertainment by physical assault upon the guests. Frankly, my dear"—I observed, with my most patronizing languor, —"your breeding is not quite that to which I have been accustomed, ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... care, And think accomplishments will win the fair: The fair, 'tis true, by genius should be won, As flow'rs unfold their beauties to the sun; And yet in female scales a fop outweighs, And wit must wear the willow and the bays. Nought shines so bright in vain Liberia's eye As riot, impudence, and perfidy; The youth of fire, that has drunk deep, and play'd, And kill'd his man, and triumph'd o'er his maid; For him, as yet unhang'd, she spreads her charms, Snatches the dear destroyer to her arms; And amply ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... within his breast, he was saying that she was vile and false. She knew that she had been false to him, and that he must have despised her when, with her easy philosophy, she had made the best of her own mercenary perfidy. He had called her a jilt to her face, and she had been able to receive the accusation with a smile. Would he now call her something worse, and in a louder voice, within his own bosom? And if she could convince him that to that accusation she was ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... and made them known to Lycas, who, his jealousy proving stronger than his lust, took steps to get revenge. Doris, however, forewarned by Tryphaena's maid, looked out for squalls and held aloof from any secret assignations. When I became aware of all this, I heartily cursed the perfidy of Tryphaena and the ungrateful soul of Lycas, and made up my mind to be gone. Fortune favored me, as it turned out, for a vessel sacred to Isis and laden with prize-money had, only the day before, run upon the rocks in the vicinity. After holding ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... like a lithe snake she turns on herself, and must be tracked in and out. Not being a girl to solve the problem with tears, or outright perfidy, she had to ease her heart to the great shock little by little—sincere as far as she knew: as far as one who loves may be. The day of the funeral came and went. The Jocelyns were of their mother's opinion: that for many reasons Juliana was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... step by step! England has not dared to receive her, exiled by me; Holland fears to be crushed by her; and my kingdom to receive her! No, no, such an idea could not have originated with himself! To recall my enemy! to recall his mother! What perfidy! He would not have dared to think ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... injured countrymen spoke loudly throughout the land he had betrayed. He was burned in effigy countless times, and a growing generation was told with wrath and scorn the abhorrent tale of his turpitude. Meanwhile, as if by defiant self-assurance to wipe away the perfidy of former acts, he issued a proclamation to "the inhabitants of America," in which he strove to cleanse himself from blame. This address, teeming with flimsy protestations of patriotism, reviling Congress, vituperating France as a worthless and sordid ally of the Crown's rebellious ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... Willis had become the love of a brother for a sister, and that he was engaged to be married to Miss Virginia Crumb, the only daughter of Hon. Cephas I. Crumb, owner and treasurer of the Astarte Metal Works, of Minnesota. Exit Sir Galahad! And following his perfidy Marion's imagination evoked a vision of revenge in which she figured as the plaintiff in a breach-of-promise suit, and had the fierce yet melancholy joy of confronting him and his new love face to face before a sympathizing judge and jury. But her New England conscience ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... comparison of authorities we can come to no other conclusion than that, for an Indian, reared among the customs and traditions of the Six Nations, Joseph Brant was a humane and kind-hearted man. No act of perfidy was ever brought home to him. He was a constant and faithful friend, and, though stern, by no means an implacable enemy. His dauntless courage and devotion to his people have never been seriously questioned. The charges of self-seeking and peculation which Red Jacket, "the ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... dagger into my soul to tell you verily who and what he is. Ay, child, I loved that man in mine early maidenhood, better than ever thou didst or wouldst have done. Dost thou think it was easy to stand up to the face that I had loved, and to play the avenging angel toward his perfidy? If thou dost, thou mayest know much of foolishness and fantasy, but very little ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... frank and liberal manners had secured him many—were no less disgusted than himself with the overbearing conduct of this new ally. They loudly complained that it was quite enough to suffer from the perfidy of Pizarro, without being exposed to the insults of his family, who had now come over with him to fatten on the spoils of conquest which belonged to their leader. The rupture soon proceeded to such a length, that Almagro avowed his intention to prosecute the expedition without further ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... alone! 10 O hapless Infancy! if aught could move The hardest heart to pity and to love 'Twere surely found in thee: dim passions mark Stern manhood's brow, where age impresses dark The stealing line of sorrow; but thine eye Wears not distrust, or grief, or perfidy. Though fortune's storms with dismal shadow lower, Thy heart nor fears, nor feels the bitter shower; Thy tear is soon forgotten; thou wilt weep, And then the murmuring winds will hush thy sleep, 20 As 'twere ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... and compliant charms. It was a year or so later, when his intercourse with Jean had burdened him with grief and shame, that the tender and romantic affection for Mary came into his life. She was yet at Coilsfield, and while he was in hiding—his heart tortured by the apparent perfidy of Jean and all the countryside condemning his misconduct—his intimacy with Mary was renewed; his quickened vision now discerned her endearing attributes, her trust and sympathy were precious in his distress, and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... with James! And plotting with Tyrone! It cannot be. His very pride disdains such perfidy. But is not Essex here without my leave! Against my strict command! that, that's rebellion. The rest, if true, or false, it matters not. What's to be done?—admit him to my presence? No, no—my dignity, my pride forbid it. Ungrateful man, approach me not; rise, rise, Resentment, ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... Athenians were engaged with a large part of their forces in carrying on operations against the revolted island of Thasos to prepare an invasion of Attica. But at the very moment when they were meditating this act of perfidy a double disaster fell upon them at home, demanding all their exertions to save them from ruin. Sparta was levelled to the ground by a terrible earthquake, in which twenty thousand of her citizens perished; and in the midst of the panic ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... though lost to sight behind the walls of what Emigration Jane designated the jug, still fondly dear to one whose pliant affections, rudely disentangled by the hand of perfidy from the person of That There Green, had twined vigorously about the slouching person of the young Boer. Letters were received, but not forwarded to suspects enjoying the hospitality of the Government, so communication with the object of her dreams was painfully impossible. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... years of debate, could compose. No one can read without a shudder the attempts that were made to extend the Inquisition in foreign countries. All Europe, Catholic and Protestant, was horror-stricken at the Huguenot massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve (A.D. 1572). For perfidy and atrocity it has no equal in the annals of ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... the county of Dorset, the very centre of Alfred's dominions. That prince so straitened them in these quarters, that they were content to come to a treaty with him, and stipulated to depart his country. Alfred, well acquainted with their usual perfidy, obliged them to swear upon the holy relics to the observance of the treaty [o]; not that he expected they would pay any veneration to the relics; but he hoped, that, if they now violated this oath, their impiety would ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... Cold and heat were indifferent to him: meat and drink he sought as supplies to the necessities of nature, not as gratifications of his voluptuous appetites. Waking or rest he used indiscriminately, by night or by day.—These great Virtues were balanced by great Vices; inhuman cruelty; perfidy more than punic; no truth, no faith, no regard ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... knight charge him, sotto voce, from the closet with perfidy and fear; Jacques was not to be turned back. He issued ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... Bruce? Would Isabella of Buchan be here, the only female in the Bruce's train—for I know that he is with thee—were loyalty and patriotism her only motive? Woman, I know thee! I know that thou didst love him, ere that false hand and falser heart were given to me; thy lips spoke perfidy when they vowed allegiance at the altar; and shall I have mercy on thy son, for such as thee? Mercy! ha, have ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... reserved for a more impressive fate. His domestic connection with the king and his former services seemed to render him safe against any punishment; but Henry, thoroughly aroused by his perfidy, determined to bring the full weight of his vengeance upon him. Clifford was directed to come privately to England, and cast himself at the foot of the throne, imploring pardon for his past offences, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... and flourished. This, if I may be pardoned the continued parallel, is our Manx Miranda. And indeed it is difficult to shake off the idea that Shakespeare must have known something of the early story of Man, its magicians and its saints. We know the perfidy of circumstance, the lying tricks that fact is always playing with us, too well and painfully to say anything of the kind with certainty. But the angles of resemblance are many between the groundwork of the "Tempest" ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine

... the Incas of Peru, who fell into Pizarro's hands through perfidy, and was strangled by his orders in 1533, that is, little short of a year after the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... love of gain Strikes like a pestilence from breast to breast; Riot, pride, perfidy, blue vapor's breath; And inhumanity is caught from man, From ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... flattering attentions. Old friends from New York and new friends from the West were there to cheer and help the prisoner. Andrew Jackson was conspicuously his friend and defender, declaiming in the streets upon the tyranny of the Administration and the perfidy of Wilkinson, Burr's chief accuser. Washington Irving, then in the dawn of his great renown, who had given the first efforts of his youthful pen to Burr's newspaper, was present at the trial, full of sympathy for a man whom he believed to be ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... punishment, though a just one; and I would also guard him from embarrassment and vexation. The king does not know that you are an Austrian spy, in the pay of the imperial court. May he never know it! He once loved you; and his anger would be terrible if informed of your perfidy. Yes, Count Manteuffel, this prince was young, inexperienced and trusting; he believed in your love and gave you his heart. Let us spare his youth; let us spare him the humiliation of despising and punishing the man he once loved. Oh, my God! it is hard to trample a ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... half-an-hour, my elbow leaning on the chest of drawers, considering what means I should adopt to restore my spirits, fagged with sleeplessness, to their ordinary tone—for I had no intention of getting up a scene with M. Pelet, reproaching him with perfidy, sending him a challenge, or performing other gambadoes of the sort—I hit at last on the expedient of walking out in the cool of the morning to a neighbouring establishment of baths, and treating myself to a bracing plunge. The remedy produced the desired effect. I came back at seven o'clock steadied ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... me. He never was undeceived as to my real position, nor is he even now. Let me do an honest man justice. I enclose you the extracts from your duplicates made by Mr Vanslyperken, written in his own hand, which I trust will satisfy you as to his perfidy, and induce you to believe in the innocence of the worthy syndic from the assurance of a man, who, although a Catholic, a Jacobite, and if you please an attainted traitor, is incapable of telling you a falsehood. I am, my lord, with every respect ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... behaviour, by which she would not be exposed to censure: If she had still persisted in solitude, the ill-natured world would have imputed to it a cause, which is not founded on virtue; besides, as the means of support were now removed, by the perfidy of Mr. Manley, she must have perished ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... made him put on the dress of a miller, and come in search of you? Ah, Preciosa! Preciosa! how plain it begins to be that you pride yourself on having more than one adorer. If this be so, finish me first, and then kill off this other, but do not sacrifice both at the same time to your perfidy." ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... tool, the arm that they placed at the end of their thoughts. These noble hearts would have delivered their country to the stranger, they would have erased the name of France from the list of sovereign nations. Nobles, they were bound to set an example of courage and loyalty—they have given that of perfidy and cowardice; well, you do not reply—you lower your eyes; if it be your poniard you seek, it is at your feet; take it up, there ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... He'd quit two or three months ago to take a trip back home, havin' been promised by the head steward that he could have his place again any time inside of a year. But imagine the base perfidy! A second cousin of the meat chef has drifted in meanwhile, been set to work at Popover's old tables, and the result is that when Mike reports to claim his job he gets the ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... think it possible that the woman who has but lately been as a wife to thee can now, in so short a time, doom thee to be basely done to death. Nay, answer not—I know all; and I tell thee this: thou hast not measured the depth of Cleopatra's perfidy, nor canst thou dream the blackness of her wicked heart. She had surely slain thee in Alexandria had she not feared that thy slaughter being noised abroad might bring trouble on her. Therefore has she brought thee here to kill thee secretly. For what more canst thou give ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... leaving behind him only his empty space upon the floor and his debt upon the books, which Rosenblatt kept with scrupulous care. Occasionally it happened, however, that, as in all bookkeeping, a mistake would creep in. This was unfortunately the case with young Jacob Wassyl's account, of whose perfidy Paulina made loud complaints to his friends, who straightway remonstrated with Jacob upon his return from the camp. It was then that Jacob's indignant protestations caused an examination of Rosenblatt's books, whereupon that gentleman laboured with great diligence to make abundantly ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor

... anxious to see my nephew not to accept eagerly of the invitation. If I can persuade Falkland to aid us, it will be by the influence of his name, his talents, and his wealth. It is not of him that we can ask the stern and laborious devotion to which we have consecrated ourselves. The perfidy of friends, the vigilance of foes, the rashness of the bold, the cowardice of the wavering; strife in the closet, treachery in the senate, death in the field; these constitute the fate we have pledged ourselves to bear. Little can any, who do not endure it, imagine ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... so cruelly. I assure you, my love increases every day. Besides, you might find your perfidy punished by meeting ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... "I hope you do not imagine that it was a matter arranged between us. Do you really suspect me of having some dark plot with Mme. de Lorcy! Do you believe me capable of being implicated in an act of perfidy?" ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... Erastianism, and arbitrary power, and pleading resolutely for the covenant liberties of the Church and nation, they proposed to themselves holy ends. Their faithful contendings; their stern denunciations of royal perfidy and tyranny; their organization of societies, and a general correspondence; their proclaiming open opposition to usurped authority; and, above all, their willing sacrifice of life rather than abandon ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston

... needed forgiveness, she took my mother from her dungeon, assumed the liveliest indignation at this horrible treatment, about which she appeared to have known nothing, wiped her tears, and by an abominable refinement of perfidy received the thanks of the victim whom ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... heart of stone. Alas! my every effort at reconciliation seemed to fail. An awful month passed; the false fronts and detached cuffs were all back again; the unhappy lover seemed to glory in their perfidy. At last, one gloomy evening, I found on opening his bundle that he had bought a stock of celluloids, and my heart told me that she had abandoned him for ever. Of what my poor friend suffered at this time, I can give you no idea; suffice it to say that he passed from celluloid to ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... Dimasangcay, [54] the king of Mindanao named Paguian Goan (a dangerous plan) in order to give himself power in the rivalry [with his brother]. The mother of Corralat, by name Imbog, was a Joloan, and with the communication indispensable to relationship easily infected Adasaolan with the perfidy of Mahomet, and the tyranny and violence of his law; and he, puffed up by the favor of the Mindanao king, and confident of his help, which their relationship promised him, planned to kill his cousin, in order that he might remain absolute master ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... assented to Doctor Bryerly's and my cousin's advice. Was I not departing from my engagement to my dear papa? Was I not consenting that my Uncle Silas should be induced to second my breach of faith by a corresponding perfidy? ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... now really angry, "but if you know me, I do not know you. You have too much advantage over me. Ah! you think you can enter, on some pretext, into the house of a princess, and go away and say, 'I succeeded in my perfidy.' Ah! monsieur, that is not the ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... and courtesy not merely make them liberal in giving, but almost lead them to live as though everything they possess were held in common. No one can want food while there is corn anywhere in the town." It is true that the missionaries often accuse the Iroquois of cruelty and perfidy; but the narrative shows that these qualities were only displayed in their wars, and apparently only against enemies whose cruelty ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... of Mr. Punch's poets, in prophetic and optimistic strain, has actually dared to speculate on the delights of life without "Dora"; Dickens, with the foresight of genius, wrote in "David Copperfield" how his hero "felt it would have been an act of perfidy to Dora to have a natural relish ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... that on no account were they to speak to him of the young man who visited the lodge while their father was away, and it was not until they were well grown and knew what the duty of wives should be that they resolved to disobey her. The hunter struck the woman dead when he learned of her perfidy. So greatly did her spirit trouble them, however, that they could no longer abide in their old home in peace and comfort, and they left the country and journeyed southward until they came to the Sault ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... garrison of Hong-Kong were startled by a deed of atrocity and perfidy on the part of the Chinese. On the 22nd of August the governor of Macao, who had acted more firmly towards the commissioner at Canton than his predecessors, was waylaid and assassinated. Proofs arose that the Chinese authorities ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... their just terrors. A chosen part of the Illyrian army encompassed them with levelled spears. Incapable of flight or resistance, they expected their fate in silent consternation. Severus mounted the tribunal, sternly reproached them with perfidy and cowardice, dismissed them with ignominy from the trust which they had betrayed, despoiled them of their splendid ornaments, and banished them, on pain of death, to the distance of a hundred miles from the capital. During the transaction, another detachment had been sent to seize their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... terrible razzias, which went on to the very close of the last century, have left their mark on the popular traditions of the coast. But the ruin which they began was consummated by the purposeless bombardment of San Remo by an English fleet during the war of the Austrian Succession, and by the perfidy with which Genoa crushed at a single blow the freedom she had respected for so many centuries. The square Genoese fort near the harbour commemorates the extinction of the liberty of San Remo in 1729. The French revolution found the city ruined and enslaved, and the gratitude of ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... thy perfidy hath made, To journey cheerless through the world's wide waste? Say, why so soon does all thy kindness fade, And doom me, thus, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... debauchery, gluttony, and meanness of any other profession than that of a bad churchman. In the tragic plot, we principally admire the general management of the opening, and chiefly censure the cold-blooded barbarity and perfidy of the young queen, in instigating the murder of the deposed sovereign, and then attempting to turn the guilt on her accomplice. I fear Dryden here forgot his own general rule, that the tragic hero and heroine should have so much virtue ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... "Venice fought for her own hand," let other nations as they might be led astray by illusory hopes of allies and friends bound by ties of gratitude. She well knew how to guard herself against the spirit of perfidy so active in the Middle Ages, as well as how to exercise that spirit in her ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... temples of Greece. When Alexander the Great had overthrown Darius, he utterly destroyed the city where the priests Branchidae had settled, of which their descendants were at that time in actual possession, punishing in the children the sacrilegious perfidy ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... night, and told Dickey of the important change they were about to make, he read them a very severe lesson on the sinfulness of extravagance. It was perhaps a trifle more pointed than it would have been if he had not just been made bankrupt by the perfidy of a friend. But it was both time and labor thrown away to try to induce him to become a fourth boarder at Mrs. Green's. He positively refused to listen to the scheme, after it had been described to him, ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis

... Tercero (for no provision was made for the spiritual instruction of the Gitanos), we prefer it in all points to that of Philip the Third, and to the law passed during the reign of that unhappy victim of monkish fraud, perfidy, and poison, Charles ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... pomp and perfidy I have only stayed until such a moment as my daughter and her youthful brother might more easily do without me. You will cherish them both; of that I have no doubt. Guide them, I beseech you, for the sake of your own glory and their well-being. May ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... has a significance not always considered. For when a man loses his intellectual equilibrium, a baseness of character which never broke through the crust of conventionality may be suddenly revealed; and when a wicked system goes mad, such depths of perfidy are disclosed as few imagined to exist. During the last two years, while our Southern sky has been aglow with the red light of the slave-masters' insurrection, few of us could probe and pry about among details of lesser ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... perfidy hath made. To journey cheerless through the world's wide waste? Say, why so soon does all thy kindness fade. And doom me, thus, affliction's ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... embodiments of sheer passion; love is the most selfish of passions, and placed as they are, realising that they live only for and in that passion, they have no thought for any one else, regarding the outer world, the world of daylight, as their foe. Isolda does not hesitate to remind Tristan of his perfidy in the days of light; and he, far from defending himself, finds it quite sufficient to remark that he had not then come under the sway of night: that is, they have no ordinary human affection for each other. If they had, neither would lead ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... comprehension of the feelings within her breast that made this impossible. The gentle irony of her reply to these self-constituted tutors (not one of whom showed himself her equal in conduct or reason), is as good as her indignant reproof at a later period to the general, whose perfidy ruined all. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... foretaste, as warm with presentiments, with what he would have called collapses—had all sorts of things out with Strether; and among them the fact that though there was never a moment of her life when she wasn't "due" somewhere, there was yet scarce a perfidy to others of which she wasn't capable for his sake. She explained moreover that wherever she happened to be she found a dropped thread to pick up, a ragged edge to repair, some familiar appetite in ambush, jumping ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... sailors, to whom the owners refused their wages, because the natives, on account of the villanous conduct of their captain, had kept them from their vessel by detaining them as prisoners on shore. This instance, he said, proved the dreadful nature of the Slave-trade, its cruelty, its perfidy, and its effect on the Africans as well as on the Europeans, who carried it on. The cool manner, in which the transaction was conducted on both sides, showed that these practices were not novel. It showed also the manner ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... almost invariably overthrown, sometimes even annihilated; and their sovereigns, the Dukes of Savoy, on whose memory there rests the indelible blot of having pursued this loyal, industrious, and virtuous people with ceaseless and incredible injustice, cruelty, treachery, and perfidy, finding that they could not subdue them, were glad to offer them terms of peace, and grant them new guarantees of the quiet possession of their ancient territory. Thus an invisible omnipotent arm was ever ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... thou judgest of others by thine own evil heart. Thou, at least, art unrivalled in perfidy, and standest alone—a base deceiver in the garb of virtue and religion—like a deep pit whose yawning mouth ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... the one before me had more than once changed the fate of the world. It might be now on its way only to change that fate once more. The cause, too, was a noble one. It was sustained by no aggression, perfidy, or desire of change. It was to protect a friendly nation, and to sustain an inspired cause. There was no taint of cruelty or crime to degrade the soldiership of England. We were acting in the character which had already ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... The unutterable perfidy of man! For the first time in his guileless life Septimus met it face to face. To read of human depravity in the police reports is one thing, to see it fall like a black shadow across one's life is another. It horrified him. Mordaunt Prince had ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... 1462, nearly two centuries and a half after the Tartar invasion. During all that period Russia had been the vassal of the khans. Only now was its freedom to come. It was by craft, more than by war, that Ivan won. In the field he was a dastard, but in subtlety and perfidy he surpassed all other men of his time, and his insidious but persistent policy ended by making him the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Falsehood, detraction, calumny, and other similar vices, injurious to the peace and reputation of others, as well as simulated friendship, and hypocrisy, may all be comprehended within the denomination of perfidy; and as an extreme and most distinct manifestation of perfidiousness is to be found in false testimony, hence the ninth commandment is addressed to this vice, and forbids the witnessing against our fellow-men ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio

... is true, did not long continue; the king was forced to recognize, with bitter regret, that the MAN Voltaire was not worthy the love which he bestowed upon the POET. He renounced the MAN, but the poet was still his admiration; and all the perfidy, slander and malice of Voltaire, had never changed Frederick. The remembrance of it had long since faded from his noble heart—only the memory of the poet, of the author of so many hours of the purest ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... rumble from his chest. He knew that his country was at war with Germany and that not only his duty to the land of his fathers, but also his personal grievance against the enemy people and his hatred of them, demanded that he expose the girl's perfidy, and yet he hesitated, and because he hesitated he growled—not at the German spy but at ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... vilely born, ignominiously educated, and practising a mean trade, in order that, when it shall be proved that he and his family were treated with every kind of indignity and contempt by the prisoner at your bar, the sympathy of mankind should be weakened. Consider, my Lords, the monstrous perfidy and ingratitude of this man, who, after receiving great favors from the Nabob, is not satisfied with oppressing his offspring, but goes back to his ancestors, tears them out of their graves, and vilifies ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... 1809 proved the wisdom of this policy, as they effectually prevented Prussia from joining Austria in rekindling the flames of war. And again in 1813, these works might have produced a decided influence on the campaign, had not the political perfidy of Austria, and the treason of the French generals, prevented Napoleon from profiting by the advantages of ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... which a man would be ashamed not to have been imposed on. There is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and without which men are often more injured by their own suspicions than they would be by the perfidy of others. But when men whom we know to be wicked impose upon us, we are something worse than dupes. When we know them, their fair pretences become new motives for distrust. There is one case, indeed, in which it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... some difficulties to surmount. We may well ask, for example, Would Hellas ever have accepted as her chief national hero such a man as David a man who in his life is conspicuous by his crimes not less than by his brilliant gifts, and who dies with the words of blood and perfidy on his lips, charging his son with the last slaughterous satisfaction of his hate which he had sworn before his God to forego? And though the great Hebrew prophets teach often a far loftier morality than this, they cannot have been nearly so representative ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... of extraordinary beauty and apparent value. In striking contrast with this rich attire were the features of the Turk, which were singularly repulsive. A low forehead receded from above a pair of bluish-grey eyes, in the glazed, hard look of which, perfidy, cruelty, and pride seemed to have taken up their abode. From between the eyes protruded a long nose, curved like that of a bird of prey, over an upper lip indicative of gluttony and the coarsest animal propensities; the mouth was large, the lower lip hung relaxed and slavering ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... the whitewashed wall. A blank wall—perfectly blank. A blankness to run at and dash your head against. Mrs Verloc remained immovably seated. She kept still as the population of half the globe would keep still in astonishment and despair, were the sun suddenly put out in the summer sky by the perfidy of a ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... you assumed to affirm, 'Upon your honour you were not the inventor and author of the letter,' is so much more vile that I shudder for you! Your own proceedings have conjured up a train of recollections that speak a concerted plan of perfidy. You mean mischief! But I once more tell you, sir, I do not fear you! I will not fear you! My fears indeed are strong, but they are for yourself. Beware! The more guilt you have committed, the more you will ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... which has so often been charged on Catherine as an act of perfidy, was rather an imperative necessity, if respite were to be had from the misery into which the land had fallen. Its conditions were honourably carried out, and Catholic excesses were impartially and severely repressed. Charles IX., who was now twenty years of age and strongly attached ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... another in the name of love, do we not specifically name certain offenses as unpardonable? Thus one man will say, "I can forgive anything but meanness," and another says, "no friendship can survive perfidy"; and in the relations between men and women unfaithfulness is held to cancel all bonds, however indissoluble they may seem. Now and again, it is true, some strange voice reaches us, keyed to a different music. Shakespeare, for example, in his famous ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson

... was thus thrust into a position where his every movement would be watched with distrust. The pretext for further action was soon given. An intercepted letter revealed that DeLassus had written to Governor Folch for an armed force. That "act of perfidy" was enough to dissolve the bond between the convention and the Commandant. On the 23d of September, under cover of night, an armed force shouting "Hurrah! Washington!" overpowered the garrison of the fort at Baton Rouge, and three days later the convention declared the independence ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... left behind us—the northern group was still unknown to the world. Captain Ingraham, of Boston, found Nuka-hiva in 1791, and called the seven small islets the Washington Islands. Twenty years later, during the war of 1812, Porter refitted his ships there to prey upon the British, and but for the perfidy,—or, from another view, the patriotism,—of an Englishman in his command, Porter might have succeeded in ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... the steamship, when, in a moment of chagrin, she had been so near throwing herself over; wondering to what fate her passion and impetuosity would hurry her now, if she knew; cursing myself for my weakness and perfidy; while Joseph kept asking me what I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... this perfidy came to a head, was at Finlayston-house, in the shire of Renfrew, with the Earl, his master, who, when he heard of such a breach of faith, smote the table, as he was then sitting at dinner, with his right hand, and said, "Since the false woman has done this, there is ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... enmity I could forego," pursued Anne vehemently, "but I cannot forgive him his duplicity and perfidy towards you. He has just proffered you his splendid palace of Hampton, and his treasures; and wherefore?—I will tell you: because he feared they would be wrested from him. His jester had acquainted him with the discovery just made of the secret hoard, and he was ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... of this incident, and the strained relations which resulted from her perfidy, that none of her erstwhile friends responded to her invitation to join her in a bath in a beaver dam of which Mr. Hicks told her when they camped early ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... his hypocrisy and burst out in acts of dishonesty and profanity, which disgraced and drove him from the State. He sought security from public scorn in the wilds of Florida; but all restraint had given way, and very soon the innate perfidy of his nature manifested itself in all his conduct, and he was obliged to retire from Florida. At that time Texas was the outlet for all such characters, and thither ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... disastrous epoch at which we are now arrived, we shall see the human mind rapidly descending from the height to which it had raised itself... Everywhere was corruption, cruelty, and perfidy.... Theological reveries, superstitions, delusions, are become the sole genius of man, religious intolerance his only morality; and Europe, crushed between sacerdotal tyranny and military despotism, awaits ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... rose to a level of rude eloquence—the outraged mother, holding the mangled and dying child in her arms, cursed the man who had brought this ruin upon her. Cursed him and his descendants, to the sixth and seventh generations, good and bad alike. Declaring, moreover, that as judgment on his perfidy and lust, no owner of Brockhurst should reach the life limit set by the Psalmist, and die quiet and Christianly in his bed, until a somewhat portentous event should have taken place—namely, until, as the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... lord, proceeded Sir Charles—An hospital for female penitents; for such unhappy women, as having been once drawn in, and betrayed by the perfidy of men, find themselves, by the cruelty of the world, and principally by that of their own sex, unable to recover the path of virtue, when perhaps, (convinced of the wickedness of the men in whose honour they confided,) they would willingly ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... unrepresented in its body, have meekly helped to pay, turned one's weeping eyes to Heaven, for, as Jean Paul says, "There above is everything he can wish for here below." But if the Native of other days has been sold by the perfidy of his Dutch allies of the day, the British soldiers and British taxpayer of the present day have been deceived by "we don't know who". They fought and died and paid to unfurl the banner of freedom in this part ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... walls. But after the downfall of the first fort a panic seemed to seize the Spaniards, and the French achieved an almost bloodless victory. After the death of Ribault and his followers nothing could be looked for but merciless retaliation, and De Gourgues copied the severity, though not the perfidy, of his enemies. The very details of Menendez's act were imitated, and the trees on which the prisoners were hung bore the inscription: "Not as Spaniards, but as traitors, robbers, and murderers." ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... any one hinder them from thinking according to their own free will. What follows hence? It is that men will think one way and speak another; that, consequently, good faith, so essential a virtue to a State, becomes corrupted; that adulation, so detestable, and perfidy, shall be held in honor, bringing in their train a decadence of all good and sound habitudes. What can be more fatal to a State than to exile, as malcontents, honest citizens, simply because they do not hold the opinion of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... Miss Fenton's nature, from which he formed the purpose of breaking with her; for Lord Elmwood still retained enough of the sanctity of his former state to have yielded up his own happiness, and even that of his beloved ward, rather than have plunged one heart into affliction by his perfidy. This, before he offered his hand to Miss Milner, he was perfectly convinced would not be the case—even Miss Fenton herself assured him, that her thoughts were more upon the joys of Heaven than upon those of earth; and as this circumstance would, she believed, induce her to retire into a convent, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... hand like some hypersensitive visual organ to which matter offers no obstruction. Or rather, baffled in their endeavour, they were evoking out of the unseen, heaven knew what fantastic structure of intrigue—scrawling over the innocent page with burning evidences of perfidy and collusion.... ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... sank again on her brother's shoulder. She shuddered, and leaned back faintly on the arm which he extended to support her. One of the female prisoners tried to help Trudaine in speaking consolingly to her; but the consummation of her husband's perfidy seemed to have paralyzed her at heart. She murmured once in her brother's ear, "Louis! I am resigned to die—nothing but death is left for me after the degradation of having loved that man." She said those words and closed her eyes ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... His perfidy commenced less than a week after I had given him my third best pantaloons and three sous to get his hair cut, thus making a man of him. And yet, you would scarcely believe it, in the matter of the secret documents he behaved toward ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... fugitives from the field of battle reached Choo Hoo, he could at first scarce restrain his indignation, for he had deemed the treaty in full force; he exclaimed against the perfidy of a Power which called itself civilised and reproached his host as barbarians, yet thus violated its solemn compacts. But recognising the gravity of the situation, and that there was no time to waste in words, he gave orders for the immediate assembly ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... Also, since you brings the matter up, Dan, I now gives notice that for myse'f I shall regyard success on their part as absoloote proof of perfidy. That settled, I sacks that hamlet of Red Dog, an' plows an' sows its deboshed ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... administrative ability and a skilled warrior; conquered the Deccan and the kingdom of Golconda, and generally raised the Mogul Empire to its zenith; his court was truly Eastern in its sumptuous magnificence; the "Peacock Throne" alone cost L7,000,000; died in prison, a victim to the perfidy of his usurping son Aurungzebe; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... hand she said no, that she could not marry his son, would he look on her decision as perfidy, and refuse to see her ever again, or—A man in a hansom swore softly with relief as she just escaped being knocked down by his horse, and quite unconscious of her danger, hurried ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... the tomb of the dead of Essling I am going to erect a monument which will be radiant with the splendor of victory, and on its frontispiece shall be read the word 'Vengeance!' The Emperor of Austria is lost. Had I defeated him in this battle, I should, perhaps, have forgiven his arrogance and perfidy; but as he defeated me, I must and shall annihilate him and ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... the guard-house at Fort Brady. Dr. Bagg pronounced the ball an ounce-ball, such as is employed in the U.S. service. The wad was the torn leaf of a hymn book. It was extensively reported by the diurnal press, that I had been the victim of this unprovoked perfidy.] ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... by the dreadful truth; but the wicked lovers did not dream of being overheard, and so I listened to the whole of their vile plot and then stole away to try and decide upon a course of action. When Everard came home, I charged him with his perfidy. Then—pity me, Edith—he boldly told me that he was weary of me; that he would pay me a handsome sum of money and I might take my child and go back to my parents! Oh! I cannot go into details, or tell you ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... like Empedocles in Etna. Non possum capere te, cape me, says the Aristotelian motto. Every diminutive of Beelzebub is an abyss, each demoniacal act is a gulf of darkness. Natural cruelty, inborn perfidy and falseness, even in animals, cast lurid gleams, as it were, into that fathomless pit of Satanic perversity which is a ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... against it, and was strongly convinced that it was the duty of every patriotic citizen to oppose its provisions. The firm resolve was declared by the state convention of Ohio, composed of men of all parties, that the institution of slavery should gain no advantage by this act of perfidy. It was denounced as a violation of a plain specific pledge of the public faith made by acts of Congress in 1820 and in 1850. With this feeling there ran current a conviction that the measure adopted was forced by southern domination, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... in the case of disputes, for the ascertaining the truth. Hence Hesiod makes the god of oaths the son of Esis or of contention. This, account differs but little from that of Polybuis, who says, that the use of oaths in judgment was rare among the ancients, but that, as perfidy ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... and thou. If thou throw me, set me on thy steed and take all of us to thy booty; but if I throw thee, thou shalt become under my command. Swear this to me, for I fear thy treachery: indeed it hath become a common saw, 'Where Perfidy is innate there Trust is a weakly mate.' Now an thou wilt swear I will return and draw near to thee and tackle thee." Answered Sharrkan (and indeed he lusted to seize her and said in his soul, "Truly ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... this time transporting large armies of foreign large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation works of death, destruction and tyranny already begun and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy unworthy the and perfidy scarcely head of a civilized nation. paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... in flattery, the military genius which he developed when occasion called, his generosity and sense of justice, his love of literature and art, make him a figure to be contemplated with admiration; and when you add his utter lack of scruple, his selfishness, his ingratitude, his perfidy, you have a character complex enough to satisfy ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... temptation, but was the end toward which his whole life had been tending. It seemed impossible that such a man could die without achieving infamy in some new and wondrous way. After reading these revelations of domestic treachery, we need not be surprised at the cool perfidy exhibited at West Point. Who but a monster of treason could have penned the papers found in Andre's boot? Thus, 'No. 3, a slight wood work—very dry—no bomb proof—a single abattis—no cannon—the work easily ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the words of the others, that the Jonesville Guards were indeed quite as heedless of international complications as was their commander. One and all were highly incensed at Longorio's perfidy, and, had Alaire suggested such a thing, it was patent that they would have ridden on to La Feria and exacted ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... the ingratitude, not to say the perfidy, of his behavior, and she fortified herself indignantly against it; but it was not her constant purpose, or the doctor's inflexible opinion, that prevailed with Kenton at last a letter came one day for Ellen which she showed to her mother, and which her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... was not admitted into this last council. The suspicion of her perfidy had gone around the circle and it was agreed that she was a horrid little tattletale and deserved to be left out of everything that went on thereafter. As Sahwah had overheard the plot, a large fire was to be built on the beach that night and then ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... seeming-artless grace? Ah me, How oft will he thy perfidy bewail, And joys all flown, and shudder at the sea Rough with the chafing ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... enterprise without accomplishing it; that they should consider it a disgrace if they abandoned the siege after commencing it; that it was better to endure every hardship than not to avenge the manes of the Roman citizens who perished at Genabum by the perfidy of the Gauls." They entrusted the same declarations to the centurions and military tribunes, that through them they ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... vacate the said licence. Intreating my said sub-dean and chapter to punish such vicars as shall ever appear there, as songsters, fiddlers, pipers, trumpeters, drummers, drum-majors, or in any sonal quality, according to the flagitious aggravations of their respective disobedience, rebellion, perfidy, and ingratitude. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... little, he was equally ready to save his party by putting an end to it with the loss of all that had been at stake. Franklin, however, decisively cut off that hope. America, he assured Hartley, would not forfeit the world's good opinion by "such perfidy;" and in the incredible event of Congress instructing its commissioners to treat upon "such ignominious terms," he himself at least "would certainly refuse to act." So Digges, whom Franklin described as "the greatest villain I ever met with," carried back no comfort from secret, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... frontier regions would now be safer; and the acquisition of the coveted Florida country was brought appreciably nearer. The popular sentiment on the latter subject found characteristic expression in a toast at a banquet given at Nashville in honor of the returning conqueror: "Pensacola—Spanish perfidy and Indian barbarity rendered its capture necessary. May our Government never surrender it from the ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... caziques of Cholula arrived with a larger body of levies than Cortes had demanded. He at once charged them with conspiring against the Spaniards after receiving them as friends. They were so amazed at his discovery of their perfidy that they confessed everything, laying the blame on Montezuma. "That pretense," said Cortes, assuming a look of fierce indignation, "is no justification; I shall now make such an example of you for your treachery that the report ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... when the cause for fear has passed, they will again be hostile. What? Are we to sacrifice the white men to the gods—the men who have fought with us side by side against our enemies, and who are now our guests? Were we to act thus, it would be an act of the grossest perfidy." ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... perfidy of the Emperor and the Romanists in their dealings with the Lutherans was characterized by Chancellor Brueck as follows: "The tactics of the opponents in offering a copy [of the Confutation] were those of the fox when he invited the stork to be his guest ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... his blasphemy, his perfidy were strongly exposed and unanimously condemned, and that he was denounced as a violator of law and propriety, false to the dignity of the Church, and faithless to the State, he implored the princes to accept his contrition, ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... out of your hands before I leave her," said Mr. Drew. "How dare you speak of perfidy when you saw her repulse me? You'd have found it easier to forgive, no ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... nothing had withered or corrupted and that love had exalted to excess, had now received a mortal wound. The perfidy of my mistress had struck deep, and when I thought of it, I felt in my soul a swooning away, a convulsive flutter as of a wounded ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... ladies, and defended by the king's seven vazirs, or counsellors, who each in turn relate to the king two stories, the purport of which being to warn him to put no faith in the accusations of women, to which the lady replies by stories representing the wickedness and perfidy of men; and that of the Bakhtyar Nama, in which a youth, falsely accused of having violated the royal harem, obtains for himself a respite from death during ten days by relating to the king each day a story designed to caution him against ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... La Place posted his ambuscade, and the Chevalier de Grammont engaged his man. The perfidy of Cerise, and the high-crowned hat, were still fresh in remembrance, and enabled him to get the better of a few grains of remorse, and conquer some scruples which arose in his mind. Matta, unwilling to be a spectator of violated hospitality, sat down in an easy chair, in ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... with social influences, and make the last hours of the day the cheerfullest; then he won't lie awake and think all night, as I suspect he has been doing of late. Sylvia, I should like to see that woman; though I could find it in my heart to hate her for her perfidy ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... pleased to know that he had paid the penalty of treason with his head. Her love and hate were so intermingled that she could not distinguish which had the upper hand. He passed close to where she was standing. But even had he been able to recognize her, he could not have suspected that her perfidy was the occasion of his misfortune. She had guarded her secret carefully. President Bagshaw had been true to his word. No rumor of the means by which the conspiracy was unearthed had ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... thought of the scene of their parting, the more sickening became the conviction that her anger at his use of an ugly word was merely a subterfuge to break their engagement. The perfidy and cruelty of such an act was too hideous for belief—yet if the thing were possible! He had left her to struggle alone with the first great temptation of life, and he began to feel that it was cowardly. He should have stood his ground and ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... carried to the pitch of making them think according to authority, so that the necessary consequences would be that men would daily be thinking one thing and saying another, to the corruption of good faith, that mainstay of government, and to the fostering of hateful flattery and perfidy, whence spring stratagems, and the ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza

... They made a fire in a level field, and Smith sat on a mat before it. A hideous noise and shrieking were suddenly heard in the adjoining woods. The English snatched up their arms, apprehending foul play. Pocahontas rushed forward, and asked Smith to slay her rather than suspect her of perfidy; so their apprehensions were quieted. Then thirty young Indian maidens issued suddenly from the wood, all naked except a cincture of green leaves, their bodies painted. Pocahontas was a complete picture of an Indian Diana: a quiver hung on her shoulder, and she held ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... although Maxwell had said that they must not count upon anything from him, except from hour to hour, his words conveyed a doubt that he felt no more than Louise. Now his gloomy wisdom was justified by a perfidy which she could paint in no colors that seemed black enough. Perhaps the want of these was what kept her mute at first; even when she began to talk she could only express her disdain by urging her husband to send back Godolphin's check to him. "We want nothing more to do with ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... upon the throne of the East, reduced to use a base and truckling course of policy—if he was sometimes reluctant to fight when he had a conscious doubt of the valour of his troops—if he commonly employed cunning and dissimulation instead of wisdom, and perfidy instead of courage—his expedients were the disgrace of the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... Joseph, in a manifesto to his troops, denounces Italy, and declares that his former ally's perfidy has ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... Great Charter. Richard was too young to remember the early days when his elder brothers had been companions, almost on equal terms, to their first cousins, the King's sons; his whole impression of his parents' relations with the court was of injustice and perfidy from the King and his counsellors, vehemently blamed by his mother and brothers, but sometimes palliated by his father, who almost always, even at the worst, pleaded the King's helplessness, and Prince Edward's honourable ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... promises kept according to the letter rather than the spirit: Uti lingua nuncupassit, ita jus esto,—"As the tongue has spoken, so must the right be," says the law of the Twelve Tables. Artifice, or rather perfidy, was the main element in the politics of ancient Rome. Among other examples, Vico cites the following, also quoted by Montesquieu: The Romans had guaranteed to the Carthaginians the preservation of their goods and their CITY,—intentionally ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... self-possession, and the political sagacity of a Cesar Borgia. But education had not bestowed upon him that nobility of conduct and ideas without which nothing great is possible in any walk of life. He was not regretted, because of the perfidy with which his adversary, who was a worse man than he, had contrived to bring him into disrepute. His death put an end to the exploits of the Order of Idleness, to the great satisfaction of the town of Issoudun. Philippe ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... back hurried word that she should have all the proof of Hubert Varrick's perfidy that ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey



Words linked to "Perfidy" :   dishonesty, double cross, treachery, double-crossing, disloyalty, sellout, perfidious, insidiousness, betrayal, knavery



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