"Plot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fortune disgusted Max, sickened him so utterly that he could not bear to think of her reigning in Jack Doran's house. She was torn between pleasure in the prospect of being rich, and suspicious that there was a plot to kidnap her, like the heroine of a sensational novel. She did not want to go to America. She wanted to stay in Sidi-bel-Abbes and triumph over all the women who had snubbed her. She boasted of her ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... remainder of the dialogue. It doesn't much matter perhaps, as the excitement aroused by the story is not violent, and the mistake of giving somebody else's card for your own does not occur here for the first time as the motive of a plot. CUTHBERT BEDE's name is to a "Christmas Carol," and Mr. JOHN LATEY's to a dramatically told tale called "Mark Temple's Trial," in which the imaginary heroine pays a visit to a very real person of the name of Madame KATTI LANNER, whose pupils ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... was a rude wooden structure that stood near the banks of the river, on a vacant plot of ground that bordered the city on the east and skirted the fields. It had a gallery that sloped upwards from the pit, and the more conspicuous seats in it were draped in crimson cloth. The stage, which went out as a square chamber from one side of the circular auditorium, was lighted by lamps ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... acquiescence afforded also the evidence that there was a strong under-current of aversion. Willing apostasy from allegiance to the Union needed no terrorizing from mobs or murders. The ruffianism of the South had been fully armed in advance of the full disclosure of the plot to secede. Loyalty had been as carefully disarmed by the same active influences. It had nothing to oppose to arms but its unprotected sentiments. As soon as the law of force was invoked by the conspirators, the day of reasoning was wholly past. Flight or conformity became ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... "By laying a plot for him; forget to lock your studio door occasionally, lay prepared paper inconspicuously about, and powder your tables and floor with fine dust. The thief will leave ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... grievance—and a plot. He, too, was a Corrigan hater, and had been primed to see ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... legislator! (Legislator, n. One who makes laws for a state: vide dictionary) believing at last that his face must in fact be swollen, since several other travellers, who were in the plot, also spoke to him of his shocking appearance, got up from the table and went out to the barroom to consult the looking glass, such luxuries not being placed in the chambers. But there was no glass there. After some time he found ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... practical advantage of being governed by the man of their choice, the discontented nobles conceived the idea of conferring the crown on a son of Zames, a boy named after his grandfather Kobad, on whose behalf Zames would naturally be regent. Zames readily came into the plot; several of his brothers, and, what is most strange, Chosroes' maternal uncle, the Aspebed, supported him; the conspiracy seemed nearly sure of success, when by some accident it was discovered, and the occupant of the throne took prompt and effectual measures to crush it. Zames, Kaoses, and all ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... jest, ask Beethoven to sign the paper, thus committing him to a definite course. These praise-worthy intentions were carried out with so much tact and skill that Beethoven not only saw through their innocent ruse, but discovered in the whole proceeding a deep-laid plot on the part of these arch-conspirators, whereof he was to be the victim of villainy and treachery. This dawned on him shortly after the friends had taken their departure, upon which he wrote the following notes, leaving them on the ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... of them should answer his signal. Much alarmed, he went softly down into the yard, and going to the first jar, while asking the robber, whom he thought alive, if he was in readiness, smelled the hot boiled oil, which sent forth a steam out of the jar. Hence he suspected that his plot to murder Ali Baba, and plunder his house, was discovered. Examining all the jars, one after another, he found that all his gang were dead; and, enraged to despair at having failed in his design, he forced the lock of a door that led from the yard to the garden, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... and Sir Francis Inglefield, were carried by Gifford to Secretary Walsingham; were deciphered by the art of Philips, his clerk; and copies taken of them. Walsingham employed another artifice, in order to obtain full insight into the plot: he subjoined to a letter of Mary's a postscript in the same cipher; in which he made her desire Babington to inform her of the names of the conspirators. The indiscretion of Babington furnished Walsingham ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... machinery, no pit, box, and gallery, no box-lobby; and, what might in poor Scotland be some consolation for other negations, there was no taking of money at the door. As in the devices of the magnanimous Bottom, the actors had a greensward plot for a stage, and a hawthorn bush for a greenroom and tiring-house; the spectators being accommodated with seats on the artificial bank which had been raised around three-fourths of the playground, the remainder being left open for the entrance and exit of the performers. Here sate ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... has ever known. He thought blank verse was verse only to the eye, and found the "numbers" of Lycidas "unpleasing." He did not believe that anybody read Paradise Lost for pleasure, and said so with his usual honesty. He saw nothing in Samson Agonistes but the weakness of the plot; of the heights and depths of its poetry he perceived nothing. He preferred the comedies to the tragedies of Shakespeare: felt the poet in him much less than the omniscient observer of universal life: and indeed, if we may judge ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... report, in his sublimest style, describing the manner in which all laws, human and divine, had been trodden under foot—how the majesty of himself, the mayor, and of the priest had been flouted and insulted, and how Colonel della Rebbia had put himself at the head of a Bonapartist plot, to change the order of succession to the throne, and to excite peaceful citizens to take arms against one another—crimes provided against by Articles 86 and ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... heartbeat of the street's ancient glory still survives in a corner occupied by the Cafe Carabine d'Or. Once men gathered there to plot against kings, and to warn presidents. They do so yet, but they are not the same kind of men. A brass button will scatter these; those would have set their faces against an army. Above the door hangs the sign board, upon which has been ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... King's visit to the City. The Chancellor seemed almost to take fire at the idea of this, but the Duke very quietly begged him to hear the letters before he decided. The Duke then read various letters he had received, all warning him against going, as there was a plot to assassinate him, and raise a tumult. One of them was from Pearson, a Radical attorney. There was one from a coachmaker, saying he was satisfied, from what his men told him, there was such a design, and offering to come with eighteen of his ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... astonishing thing about the Bible is the way that people have of talking about themselves in it. No other nation that has ever existed on the earth would ever have thought of daring to publish a book like the Bible. So far as the plot is concerned, the fundamental literary conception, it is all the Bible comes to practically—two or three thousand years of it—a long row of people talking about themselves. The Hebrew nation has been the leading power in history because the Hebrew man, in spite of all his faults has always ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... thousand pounds would not tempt a Highlander who has naught in the world save the plaid in which he stands up; but these money grubbing citizens of Glasgow would sell their souls for gain. And now what do you think had best be done in the matter, so that the plot may be put a stop to, and that without suspicion falling upon Andrew? It would be easy to have a dozen men hiding in the yard behind the house and cut down the fellows as ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... how useful it is to have friends of all sorts! Your employer, Olga Damitroff, was well advised when she once told me when and where the Nihilists gather together in Paris to plot ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... Scapin, if you could find some scheme, invent some plot, to get me out of the trouble I am in, I should think myself indebted to you for ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... began to recover from the confusion of their flight, and to collect their scattered senses. Their hunger being appeased, and many of their garments thrown aside for the better opportunity of dressing their wounds, the gang began to plot measures of revenge. An hour was spent in this manner, and various expedients were proposed; but as they all depended on personal prowess for their success, and were attended by great danger, they were of course rejected. There was no possibility of approaching the troops by surprise, their ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... not slept very soundly, tormented as she was the whole time by her fears, and by wondering from whence the warning came. It was quite certain that it must have proceeded either from Miss Cordsen or Madeleine, for the windows of both rooms were open. If it were Madeleine, the plot had become so involved that she did not dare to think of it. If it were Miss Cordsen, it was bad enough, but still not so desperate. From the sound she guessed that it must be a glass of water, or something of that ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... lamps to twilight softness, and tried to wait with patience. How long the hours seemed! Surely it must be past midnight. What if Aunt Debby had been detected in her plot? What if the master should come, in her stead? Full of that fear, she tried to open the windows, and found them fastened on the outside. Her heart sank within her; for she had resolved, in the last emergency, to leap out and be crushed on the pavement. Suspense ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... wish we five, who now love one another in our Lord, had made some such arrangement as this: as others in these times have met together in secret [9] to plot wickedness and heresies against His Majesty, so we might contrive to meet together now and then, in order to undeceive one another, to tell each other wherein we might improve ourselves, and be more pleasing unto God; for there is no one that knows himself as well as ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... part, reading these, I formed the idea (entirely wrong) that the book would be in some way pretentious and affected; whereas it is the simple truth to call it the most mercilessly impersonal piece of fiction that I think I ever read. There is far too much plot for me to give you any but a suggestion of it. The story is of the lives of two sisters, Frances and Minnie; mostly (as the title implies) of Minnie. To say that no one but a woman would have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... conspirators made their way from the traitor's cabin. No one saw them go and the success of the plot seemed assured as the U-16 continued on her journey, Lord Hastings, Frank, Jack and the other British aboard ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... to be with you tomorrow at the equal rights convention in New York and to know this minute whether Phillips has consented to take the high ground which sound policy, as well as justice and statesmanship require. Just now there is a plot here to get the Republican party to drop the word "male," and canvass only for the word "white." A call has been signed by the chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, for a meeting at Topeka on the 15th, to pledge the party to that single issue. As soon as ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... formed the corner of the new wing, had two windows, the one immediately above the gravel path looking out over the rosery, the other round the corner of the house giving on the same path, beyond which ran a high hedge of clipped box surrounding the so-called Pleasure Ground, a plot of smooth grass with a sundial in ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... and moving, than he had even seen them before, and he would have stood looking at them for a long while if he had not had to find Ellen. She was at the furthest end of the garden, where he had never been, beyond the rosary, beyond the grass-plot, and she was walking up and down. She seemed to have a fishing-net in her hand. But how could she be fishing in her garden? Ned did not know that there was a stream at the end of it; for the place had once belonged to monks, and they knew how to look after their bodily welfare ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... good plot; it abounds in action; the scenes are equally spirited and realistic, and we can only say we have read it with much pleasure from first ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... spoken at all while they were at the dueling ground. "He was grateful to you for sparing his life, but his gratitude will go like the wind, and then he will hate you. And he will have the powerful friends, of whom the captain spoke, to plot against you and us." ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... he'll be happy. He'll believe that there's a plot against him to write him down. He'll believe that he's Keats. He'll believe anything. You needn't be sorry for him. If only you or I had Nicky's hope of immortality—if we only had the joy he has even now, in the horrible act of creation. Why, he's never ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... no more on't. I know 'tis false, and see the plot betwixt you.— You needed not have gone this way, Octavia. What harms it you that Cleopatra's just? She's mine no more. I see, and I forgive: ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... for to escape from the worst predicament; and whereas each moment had been formerly filled with nothing but its own adventure and surprised emotion, each now makes room for the lesson of what went before and surmises what may be the plot of the whole. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... I answered, with deliberate vagueness. Nancy had suddenly become demure. I did not dare look at her, but I had a most uncomfortable notion that she suspected the plot. Meanwhile we had begun to walk along, all three of us, Tom, obviously ill at ease and discomfited, lagging a little behind. Just before we reached the corner I managed to kick him. His departure was by no ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Parliament of Paris, arrived at Basel and, by dint of tears and entreaties, brought with him his brother Louis, who repented, made his abjuration, and was shortly after elected archdeacon, a dignity disputed with him by Renaudie, who was to be used by the Reformation for the execution of the plot ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... interest in his heart vanished; but how this may be, it is needless for us to inquire, for that same night introduced another character into her romance for whom she was perfectly unprepared, and whose appearance totally disorganised its plot. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... when, with the most anxious expectation, he awaited the intelligence from Prague, he suddenly received information of the loss of that town, the defection of his generals, the desertion of his troops, the discovery of his whole plot, and the rapid advance of Piccolomini, who was sworn to his destruction. Suddenly and fearfully had all his projects been ruined—all his hopes annihilated. He stood alone, abandoned by all to whom he had been a benefactor, betrayed by all on whom he had depended. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... culture, must present a consistent and logical hypothesis as to how they attained their present plots and forms. These could not come by accident, even if the plots are not good—as all the world held that they were, till after Wolf's day—but very bad, as some critics now assert. Still plot and form, beyond the power of chance to produce, the poems do possess. Nobody goes so far as to deny that; and critics make hypotheses explanatory of the fact that a single ancient "kernel" of some 2500 lines, a "kernel" altered at will by any one who pleased during four centuries, became ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... consented. I got her some beautiful dresses, and after having married her, we embarked and set sail. During the voyage, I discovered so many good qualities in my wife that I began to love her more and more. But my brothers began to be jealous of my prosperity, and set to work to plot against my life. One night when we were sleeping they threw my wife and myself into the sea. My wife, however, was a fairy, and so she did not let me drown, but transported me to an island. When the day dawned, she said ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... wholly unsuspected of anything approaching crime. They were to be my murderers! Even in that moment of crisis I found myself unconsciously wondering who the driver of the car could be, for obviously he too must be implicated in this plot, and a member of the gang. Another thought flashed through my mind. Which of all these criminals had done poor Churchill to death? Which had assassinated Preston on board the boat, leaving the impression that he had intentionally hanged himself? ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... naval confinement or custody, or legally held to bail, either before or after conviction, and all persons who were engaged, directly or indirectly, in the assassination of the late President of the United States or in any plot or conspiracy in any ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... always a preoccupation with ancient life, sometimes freely expressed as in "Imperial Purple," but more often suggested by plot, phrase, or scene. He kills more people than Caligula killed during the whole course of his bloody reign. Murders, suicides, and other forms of sudden death flash their sensations across his pages. Webster and the other ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... spirit arose. Mr. Wilson informs us that the artillery threatened to blow the officers to pieces, and a written notification to that effect was sent to the General. Gordon at once summoned the non-commissioned officers, who he knew were at the bottom of the plot, and threatened to shoot every fifth man if the name of the writer of the notice were not revealed. Immediately they all commenced to groan, one corporal making himself specially conspicuous by groaning very loudly. Whether Gordon ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... it true that the plot had included a hiding of the plunder on the shore and the delivery of the documents—if any had been found—to some official ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... from the Criminal Insane Asylum, Olmstead returned to Chicago and demanded his testicles from the City Postmaster, whom he accused of being in a systematized conspiracy against him. He asserted that the postmaster was one of the chief agents in a plot against him, dating from before the castration. He was then sent to the Cook Insane Hospital. It seems probable that a condition of paranoia ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Isle, a wonderful fairyland inaccessible to the scholars save on rare occasions, the river path meets the angle of the Station Road, where the coach makes its first turn. Then the path grows indistinct, merges into a broad ten-acre plot whereon are the track, gridiron, baseball ground, and the beginning of the golf links. This is the campus. And here is Stony Bunker, and beyond it is the bluff and the granite ledge; and lo! here we are back again at the point from which we started ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... lay in the count's power, he satisfied all the fancied wants of his revered friend, who on every other subject was perfectly reasonable; but at last he became so absorbed in this chimerical plot, that other conversation, or his meals, seemed to oppress ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... done in our days, when it is deemed desirable to effectually conceal state secrets known to men of his kind and presumably unsafe in their keeping. Judas probably was simply hanged, by Pilate's order, to prevent the possibility of his some day revealing that the plot of which Jesus was a victim had been ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... we came suddenly upon a cleared space; a most beautiful spot of ground, where, in the centre of a green plot of velvet grass, intersected with numberless small walks, gravelled from a neighbouring rivulet, stood a large one—story wooden edifice, built in the form of a square, with a court—yard in the centre. From the moistness of the atmosphere, the outside of the unpainted weatherboarding ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... had been writing steadily since seven. The scenario was done; the villain had lighted his last cigarette, the hero had put his arms protectingly around the heroine, and the irascible rich uncle had been brought to terms. All this, of course, figuratively speaking; for no one ever knew what the plot of that particular play was, insomuch as Warrington never submitted the scenario to his manager, an act which caused almost a serious rupture between them. But to-night his puppets were moving hither and thither across the stage, pulsing with life; they were ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... taken a few of their closest friends of the nine into their confidence, but they kept matters so quiet that none of the Upside Downs suspected that a plot of vengeance was afoot. While the first-year boys did not ask any of the other male pupils of the school to the dance, they were not so strict with the girls, and a number from all the classes of the institution ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... Because the Americans are the greatest of individual property owners. The sense of possession is satisfied. And woe to the fool who suggests they surrender this. Little wooden houses, thousands and thousands of them, with a small plot of ground in the rear where a man in the springtime may dig his hands into the soil and say gratefully to God, 'Mine, mine!' I, too, am a Russ. I thought in the beginning that you would take this country as an example, a government of ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... styled in your copy of the Old Version, or what is known as "King James' Bible"—loved the Christmas festivities, cranky, crabbed, and crusty though he was. And this year he felt especially gracious. For now, first since the terror of the Guy Fawkes plot which had come to naught full seven years before, did the timid king feel secure on his throne; the translation of the Bible, on which so many learned men had been for years engaged, had just been issued from the press of ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... point of fact, we do find in his plays, year by year, a strengthening sense of the realities of human nature, despite their frequently idealistic method of portraiture, the verbalism and factitiousness of much of their wit, and their conventionality of plot. Above all things, the man who drew so many fancifully delightful types of womanhood must have been intensely appreciative of the charm of sex; and it is on that side that we are to look for his first contacts ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... sudden vigour and significance. "If he lives!" And he sat up. "Whilst we plan and plot, and our plans and plots come to naught save to provoke the anger of my father, we might be better employed in ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... actual problem. Nine times out of ten the issue is direct, and once permit side issues to draw their tracks across it, once admit metaphysical lines of reasoning, the result will be confusion and a problem increasing in complexity at every stage. Only in romances, where a plot is invented and then complicated by deliberate art, shall we find the truth ultimately permitted to appear in some subordinate incident, or individual, studiously kept in the background—that is the craft of telling detective stories. But, in truth, one needs to lay hold of the problem ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... a short one-act piece, with a sufficiently good plot, and every part in it a character, except "Parker, the Maid"—and here let me enter a solemn protest against the further use of "PARKER" as the name of a lady's-maid in farce or comedy. PARKER is played out. Let her be united to "CHARLES, his Friend," ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... leather ball beneath the window where the old man stood; and as the child ran, laughing, to recover it, De Vac's eyes fell upon him, and his former plan for revenge melted as the fog before the noonday sun; and in its stead there opened to him the whole hideous plot of fearsome vengeance as clearly as it were writ upon the leaves of a great book that had been thrown wide before him. And, in so far as he could direct, he varied not one jot from the details of that vividly conceived masterpiece of hellishness ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... away with gloomy retrospection! I shall say but one word more of the past. Your majesty has been watched, and your visit here discovered. I was told that you were seeking to identify the queen with her mother's empire—using your influence to make her forget France, and plot dishonor to her husband's crown. I resolved to prove the truth or falsehood of these accusations myself. I thank Heaven that I did so; for from this hour I shall honor and regard you as ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... assumed a new and terrible interest now. As far as the scene of the Countess's soliloquy, the incidents of the Second Act had reflected the events of his late brother's life as faithfully as the incidents of the First Act. Was the monstrous plot, revealed in the lines which he had just read, the offspring of the Countess's morbid imagination? or had she, in this case also, deluded herself with the idea that she was inventing when she was ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... And therefore contented like others to fare, To the shades of Elizium I strait did repair; Where Dryden and other great wits o' the town, To reward all their labours, are damn'd to write on. Here Johnson may boast of his judgment and plot, And Otway of all the applause that he got; Loose Eth'ridge presume on his stile and his wit, And Shadwell of all the dull plays he e'r writ; Nat. Lee here may boast of his bombast and rapture, And Buckingham rail to the end of the chapter; Lewd Rochester lampoon ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... out, but nevertheless persisted in his story, adding desperately, "It is a plot, my lord, to assassinate you and the king on ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... At first he praises them highly, but of one of the later ones—Tryphon—he writes:—'The play, though admirable, yet no pleasure almost in it, because just the very same design, and words, and sense, and plot, as every one of his plays have, any one of which would be held admirable, whereas so many of the same design and fancy do but dull one another.' Pepys's Diary, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Corduba (Cordova), in Spain, about the beginning of the Christian era. While the date of his birth is a matter for conjecture, the circumstances of his death are notorious. He was a victim of Nero's jealousy and ingratitude in 65 A.D., when the emperor seized upon a plot against himself as the pretext for sentencing Seneca to enforced suicide. In the vivid pages of the historian Tacitus, there are few more pathetic descriptions than that recounting the slow ebbing of the old philosopher's life after his veins had been opened. Seneca had known many vicissitudes ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... Athens becomes the sovereign of Hellas. Beneath the calm of Aristides I detect his deep design. In vain Cimon affects the manner of the Spartan; at heart he is Athenian. This charge against Gongylus is aimed at me. Grant that the plot which it conceals succeed; grant that Sparta share the affected suspicions of the Ionians, and recall me from Byzantium; deem you that there lives one Spartan who could delay for a day the supremacy of Athens? Nought save the respect the Dorian Greeks ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... through two gateways—the first leads from the Rue Taitbout (close to the Rue St. Lazare), into a small out-court with the lodge of the principal concierge; the second, into the court itself. In the centre is a grass plot with four flower-beds and a fountain; and between this grass plot and the footpath which runs along the houses extends a carriage drive. As to the houses which form the square, they are well and handsomely built, the block opposite the entrance making even some architectural pretensions. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... by twelve o'clock noon; that's the plot; that's what they've schemed. Three days ago, I heard. I got a man free from trouble North—he was no good, but I thought he ought to have another chance, and I got him free. He told me of what was to be done at Bindon. There'd been a strike ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... know, Mr. Oak," Ravenhurst continued, "is who is behind this plot, whether an individual or a group. I want to know identity ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... years ago there was no town in England better supplied with gardens than Birmingham, almost every house in what are now the main thoroughfares having its plot of garden ground. In 1731 there were many acres of allotment gardens (as they came to be called at a later date) where St. Bartholomew's Church now stands, and in almost every other direction similar pieces of land were to be ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... done this, charged her brothers carry the rest of the plot into execution, wherefore, stealing softly out of the chamber, they made for the great square and fortune was more favorable to them than they themselves asked in that which they had a mind to do, inasmuch as, the heat being great, the bishop had enquired ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... when the P. will come. Was Captain Sw——n a Prisoner on Parole, to be catechised? David's Opinion of like Times. The Seeds of the plot may rise, though the leaves fall. A Perspective, from the Blair of Athol, the Pretender's ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... their use in the service of other pursuits, sketching and photography also have many votaries for their own sake, though the former is usually more dependent on encouragement from above. Then there is gardening. The tenure of a plot of ground is a joy to many children; and in the opinion of the writer, some experience, and some experimental work, in the growing of the most necessary food plants, as well as flowers, should form part of the education of all at a certain stage, ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... having no other resemblance to a child, than in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and methodical.—Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments' free observation of the entrance and ground-plot of the house—and was hardly there, when Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a look of escape.—Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... by irony's commended here, Sooth'd, that her weakness may the more appear. Thus fools, who trick'd, in red and yellow shine, Are made believe that they are wondrous fine, When all's a plot t' expose them by design. The largesses of Folly here are strown. Like pebbles, not to pick, but trample on. Thus Spartans laid their soaking slaves before The boys, to justle, kick, and tumble o'er: Not ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... a fable is.—The fable or plot of a poem defined.—The epic fable, differing from the dramatic.—To the resolving of this question we must first agree in the definition of the fable. The fable is called the imitation of one entire and ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... dealings with Lord Rintoul are frightfully unconscientious. You should never write about anybody until you persuade yourself at least for the moment that you love him, above all anybody on whom your plot revolves. It will always make a hole in the book; and, if he has anything to do with the mechanism, prove a stick in your machinery. But you know all this better than I do, and it is one of your most promising traits ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... combining fact and fantasy with skill. Her characters are lifelike and vivid, and the plot of this, her first book, is fantastically exciting and exceptionally outstanding. With power and imagination Lynd Ward has illustrated the book with over eighty drawings ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... to the quarter of the town in which Mrs. Catherick lived, and on reaching it found myself in a square of small houses, one story high. There was a bare little plot of grass in the middle, protected by a cheap wire fence. An elderly nursemaid and two children were standing in a corner of the enclosure, looking at a lean goat tethered to the grass. Two foot-passengers were talking together on one side ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... the way of fighting, but the allies received an important addition of strength by the accession of Portugal to their ranks. In 1704 the allies made an attempt upon the important city of Barcelona. It was believed that the Catalans would have declared for Charles; but the plot by which the town was to be given up to him was discovered on the eve of execution, and the English force re-embarked on their ships. Their success was still less on the side of Portugal, where the Duke of Berwick, who was in command of the forces of King Philip, ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... It was sudden, violent, desperate; but the loyalty and bravery of the guards was more than a match for the assassins, aided too by the powerful arm of the Queen herself, who was no idle spectator of the fray. It was a well-laid plot, and but for an accidental addition which was made at the walls to the Queen's guard, might have succeeded; for the attack was made just at the Persian gate, and the keeper of the gate had been gained over. Had the guard been overpowered but for a moment, they would ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... And then, too, Cupid, without you had prevented the fountain. Alas, poor god, that remembers not self-love to be proof against the violence of his quiver! Well, I have a plot against these prizers, for which I must presently find out Crites, and with his assistance pursue it to a high strain of laughter, or Mercury hath ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... himself, when inventing the plan of a work, as lying silent on his back for two whole days on the deck of a yacht in a Mediterranean port. At the end of the two days he arose and called for dinner. In those two days he had built his plot. He had moulded a mighty clay, to be cast presently in perennial brass. The chapters, the characters, the incidents, the combinations were all arranged in the artist's brain ere he set a pen to paper. My Pegasus won't fly, so as to let me survey the field below me. He has no wings, he is ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long in one of his new plays a principal character was set apart for the popular comedian. The drama was a tragi-comedy called 'Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen,' and an additional interest was attached to its production from the king having suggested the plot to its author, and calling it 'his play.'"—Cunningham's Story of Nell Gwyn, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... their authority and reputation in the city vanished with their wealth, and others in possession of their honors and places, convened privately at a house in Plataea, and conspired for the dissolution of the democratic government; and, if the plot should not succeed, to ruin the cause and betray all to the barbarians. These matters being in agitation in the camp, and many persons already corrupted, Aristides, perceiving the design, and dreading the present juncture of time, determined neither to let ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... of foreigners and the shogun declared that his tolerance of international commerce was only temporary. This was regarded as a victory for the shogunate. But the Yedo envoys, during their stay in Kyoto, discovered evidences of a plot to overthrow the Bakufu. Great severity was shown in dealing with this conspiracy. The leaders were beheaded, banished, or ordered to commit suicide; the Mito feudatory being sentenced to perpetual confinement ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... that her Jason should not as yet be quit of his Medea. So she made her plot. She would herself go down to Rufford and force her way into her late lover's presence in spite of all obstacles. It was possible that she should do this and get back to London the same day,—but, ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... out of the honestest souls. It is done oftener than any except close students of human nature realize. When kings and emperors do this, the world cries out with sympathy, and holds the plotters more innocent than the tyrant who provoked the plot. It is Russia that stands branded in men's thoughts, and ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... to disparage the work of the playwright; the plot is often well laid and the actors, especially the prima-donna, execute their parts admirably. I am considering the matter, at the moment, from the view-point of a play-goer. What benefit does he receive ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... to look for a convenient spot. I led them up the hill, and we found a plot of grass enamelled with daisies, and shaded ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and footmen, and easily overcame them, because they were unarmed men; of these many were slain in the fight, but some were taken alive, and brought to Catullus. As for Jonathan, the head of this plot, he fled away at that time; but upon a great and very diligent search, which was made all the country over for him, he was at last taken. And when he was brought to Catullus, he devised a way whereby ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... plot against Madeleine and elaborated it carefully, both as to what Carrington should say and how he should say it, for Sybil asserted that men were too stupid to be trusted even in making a declaration of love, and must be taught, like little children to ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... it was revived with Lovaas as Falstaff, the reception given it by the press was about what it had been a quarter of a century before. Aftenposten's[16] comment is characteristic: "The play is turned upside down. The comic sub-plot with Falstaff as central figure is brought forward to the exclusion of all the rest. More than this, what is retained is shamelessly altered." Much more scathing is a short review by Christian Elster in the magazine Kringsjaa.[17] The play, he declares, has obviously ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... Amyas, who suspected some plot on the old man's part. "He'll take care of himself, I'll ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... cannot be adopted during the reign of the Bourbons."[514] Neither he nor Castlereagh doubted the imminence of the danger. "It sounds incredible," wrote the latter, "that Talleyrand should treat the notion of any agitation at Paris as wholly unfounded."[515] A plot was believed to exist, which embraced as one of its features the seizing of the Duke, and holding him as a hostage. He himself thought it possible, and saw no means in the French Government's hands adequate to resist. "You ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... accounts put the figure as high as 3000 souls. Several English people lost their lives in that brief but terrible upheaval, and as many of the bodies as were recovered from the wreckage were laid to rest in the little cemetery outside the town, a plot of ground overhanging the sea, and shaded by cypress and eucalyptus trees. Many and impressive are the stories still to be heard from the lips of the present inhabitants, who are wont to date all events ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... much as by your leave, and, generally speaking, things moved. Mr. HARRISON has a delightful style, a perfect sympathy with the times of which he writes, and no small gift of characterization. Frankly, I don't believe he attaches any more importance to his plot than I do, for he is quite content to leave it to itself for ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... sharp conversation which I did not hear, and Marat finally went away uttering the most insulting threats, and leaving every one in a state of mortal terror. The next day the newsboys were shouting "the discovery of a great plot by Marat, the Friend of the People! Great meeting ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... green spattered with dirty white which variously simulated a daisy-field, a mountainside, and that part of Central Park directly opposite the Fifth Avenue residence of the millionaire counterfeiter, who, you remember, always comes out into the street to plot with his confederates. Carl hated with peculiar heartiness the anemic, palely varnished, folding garden bench, which figured now as a seat in the moonshiner's den, and now, with a cotton leopard-skin draped over ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Antigone is the most affecting part of the tragedy of "Oedipus Coloneus:" her sisterly affection, and her heroic self-devotion to a religious duty, form the plot of the tragedy called by her name. When her two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, had slain each other before the walls of Thebes, Creon issued an edict forbidding the rites of sepulture to Polynices, (as the invader of his country,) ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... who had been accustomed to say that he was too great a man to have to live in a fashionable neighborhood, that any neighborhood in which he settled would thereby become fashionable, had bought a very generous plot of land nearly on the crest of the Viminal Hill and had there built himself a dwelling which was at once noted among the dozen finest private dwellings in the Eternal City. In one respect it was preeminent. From its lofty position ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... to the Plaza, since called Portsmouth Square. At that time it was a wind-swept, grass-grown, scrubby enough plot of ground. On all sides were permanent buildings. The most important of these were a low picturesque house of the sun-dried bricks known as adobes, in which, as it proved, the customs were levied; a frame two-story structure known as the Parker House, and a similar ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... Whether or not he would have the assurance to return to the shanty would depend upon whether he had waited in ambush to see the result of his villany; for if he had done so, and had witnessed the at least partial failure of his plot, there was little chance of his ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... Gibellins, in their townes; and however they never suffered them to spill one anothers blood, yet they nourish'd these differences among them, to the end that the citizens imployd in these quarrels, should not plot any thing against them: which as it proved, never serv'd them to any great purpose: for being defeated at Vayla, presently one of those two factions took courage and seizd upon their whole State. Therefore such like waies argue the Princes weakness; for in a strong principality ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... ten minutes, during which Arthur took Aleck to a fountain there was in the centre of a grass plot in front of the house, and washed his many wounds, none of which, however, were, thanks to the looseness of his hide, very serious. Just as he had finished that operation, a gardener arrived with a wheelbarrow to fetch ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... I've moved away from that window they'll think they've got me going, then I'll be warned of another plot, and another, and another. It might work with some people." The speaker's lips curled in ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... sword slashes, all great ones, two all but taking his head off," wrote a contemporary chronicler. He staggered back into the banqueting hall, blood pouring from him. There was at once great confusion. The Ministers not in the plot, fearing that some ill was intended against them, threw away their hats of state, turned their coats, and concealed themselves amongst their coolies. Fortunately for Min, just as the palace doctors were about to attempt to stop his wounds by pouring boiling wax on them, a modern surgeon came ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... that expression of interest which only comes on a human face when it is following a human relation. A mere splash of colour would bore him; still more a mere medley of black and white. The story may have a very simple plot; it may be no more than an old woman sitting on a chair, or a landscape, but a picture, if a man can look at it all, tells a story right enough. It must interest men, and the less of a story it tells the less it will interest ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... hopes of finding him out, though so long absent from Paris. I will now explain why. Some months ago, one of my colleagues engaged in the political department (which I am not) was sent to Lyons, in consequence of some suspicions conceived by the loyal authorities there of a plot against the emperor's life. The suspicions were groundless, the plot a mare's nest. But my colleague's attention was especially drawn towards a man not mixed up with the circumstances from which a plot had been inferred, but deemed in some way or other a dangerous enemy to the Government. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... staff, who joined the pioneers at Borth, the school medical officer had come down to meet us, and reported on what lay within his province. Meanwhile two of the party were conducted by mine host to explore a "cricket-ground" close to the hotel, or at least a plot of ground to which adhered a fading tradition of a match between two local elevens. The "pitch" was conjecturally identified among some rough hillocks, over the sandy turf of which swept a wild northwester, "shrill, chill, with flakes ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... heretofore, continue to crowd together towards the gate. The keeper, who is at once gravedigger and church beadle (thus making a double profit out of the parish corpses), has taken advantage of the unused plot of ground to plant potatoes there. From year to year, however, his small field grows smaller, and when there is an epidemic, he does not know whether to rejoice at the deaths or ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... convinced. Battleships are not in the habit of blowing themselves up, and it is the expectation that the establishment of American authority in Cuba will be followed by the unraveling of this murderous plot. Undoubtedly an anecdote told of Captain Robley D. Evans (Fighting Bob) of the navy expresses ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... matron or a maid, a blooming girl or a withered hag: any woman may conceive directly by the entrance into her of one of these disembodied spirits; but the natives have shrewdly observed that the spirits shew a decided preference for plump young women. Hence when such a damsel is passing near a plot of haunted ground, if she does not wish to become a mother, she will disguise herself as an aged crone and hobble past, saying in a thin cracked voice, "Don't come to me. I am an old woman." Such spots are often stones, which the natives call child-stones ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... value. - Developing dial a setting ordnance capable of destroying all hardened targets. - Detecting and tracting (destroying at will) all targets of value including mobile targets. - Detecting and targeting key threat launch systems before launch. - Detecting plot and simultaneously destroying an employed mine field (land & sea). - Making threat submarine movements transparent to targeting ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... limitation again served Brassfield. He recognized the name as the one mentioned by the professor on the street. Why this conspiracy to bring him to this strange woman at the hotel? Was it a plot? Was it blackmail ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... his thoughts to the work which was at his hand. The sapphire waters of the South had quite lost their sparkle and enchantment. Here, here, was the place of life! The exhilaration of his task, its importance, the glow of thankfulness when some real advantage was won, a plot foiled, a scheme carried to success—these matters were all banished from his mind. Even the war-risk of it was forgotten. He thought with envy of the men in trenches. Yet the purpose of his yacht was long since known to the Germans; ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason |
