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Intrigue   /ɪntrˈig/  /ˈɪntrig/   Listen
Intrigue

noun
1.
A crafty and involved plot to achieve your (usually sinister) ends.  Synonym: machination.
2.
A clandestine love affair.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Intrigue" Quotes from Famous Books



... Duke of Sachsen-Gotha, contented to be obscure, and quietly do what was still do-able in that enigmatic situation. He is Uncle to our George III.;—his Sister is the now Princess-Dowager of Wales, with a Lord Bute, and I know not what questionable figures and intrigues, or suspicions of intrigue, much about her. His Duchess, Louisa Dorothee, is a Princess of distinguished qualities, literary tastes,—Voltaire's Hostess, Friedrich's Correspondent: a bright and quietly shining illumination to the circle she inhabits. Duke is now fifty-eight, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... state. Heretofore he had felt, and had been, secure in the might of his millions. But now— He had a feeling of dread, close kin to fear, as he measured this peril, this man strong with a strength against which money and intrigue were as futile as bow and arrow ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... do? Why! what I do everywhere else, busy myself about other people's affairs, make myself useful to the community in general, and profit as much as I possibly can by the small talent I possess. Must we not live by our wits in this world? and what other resources have people like me but intrigue and cunning? ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere

... the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi. Considering that our hero be the same—considering that we had the same materials from which to choose our several stories—I trust I shall be found to have little, if at all, trespassed upon ground previously occupied. With the single exception of a love-intrigue between a relative of Rienzi and one of the antagonist party, which makes the plot of Miss Mitford's Tragedy, and is little more than an episode in my Romance, having slight effect on the conduct and none ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... however, highly pleased with his argument) began to bewail the misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist each other in their necessities; but what vexed him, he said, most, was the cruelty of the fair: for he intrusted Wild with the secret of his having had an intrigue with Miss Theodosia, the elder of the Miss Snaps, ever since his confinement, though he could not prevail with her to set him at liberty. Wild answered, with a smile, "It was no wonder a woman should wish to confine her lover where she might be sure of having him entirely to herself;" but added, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... whom intrigue, founded on the knowledge of private history, was as the very breath of her being: she could not exist in composure without it. Wherever she went, therefore—and her changes of residence had not been few—it was one of her first cares ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... Strange that now in its old age this dark business should have cast its shadow upon the venerable walls! And yet those strange, peaked roofs and quaint, overhung gables were a fitting covering to grim and terrible intrigue. As I looked at the deep-set windows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured, water-lapped front, I felt that no more fitting scene could be set for such ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... of those charming bodies who knows everybody's business, and manages it. She lives in a world of intrigue, but without a thought of intriguing for her own benefit. She has always a match to make, a disconsolate lover to comfort, a young artist to bring forward, a refugee to conceal, a spendthrift to get out of a scrape; and, like David in the mountains, "every one that is discontented, and ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... good grace, though, I dare say, with rage and disappointment inwardly—not that his heart was very seriously engaged in his designs upon this simple lady: but the life of such men is often one of intrigue, and they can no more go through the day without a woman to pursue, than a fox-hunter without his ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... anniversaries at the Holy Places. Disturbances of a fierce nature at last rendered the interference of the Turkish authorities necessary, who acted with impartiality. The French ambassador resorted to menace and intrigue on behalf of the proteges of France—the professors of the Latin rite; and the sultan, intimidated, yielded everything which French violence demanded. The English ambassador in vain advised moderation on the one hand, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... prerogative, will be as near the ideal democracy as is possible. That change will be in itself our most potent guarantee against all future wars. No democracy ever encouraged bloodshed. It is, to my mind, a clearly proved fact that all wars are the result of court intrigue. There will be no more of that. The passing of monarchical rule in Germany will mean the doom ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Bromley was again a candidate for the same office in 1710, and Marlborough evidently hoped to get from St.-Omer documentary proof of the 'papistry' of his foe. The second Duchess of Hamilton came, I think, of a Catholic family, and may have thought she had a clue to these documents. The intrigue, however, failed, and Bromley was elected Speaker without ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... "I give you your choice; either you break with Rosalie, or, dreadful as it is to me to think of it, you break with me. If you do not by to-morrow evening give me an assurance that this intrigue is at an end, I go ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... son; for the President was unable to fathom many of the social views propounded by Alexis III. This unheralded advent of the King's parents, too, betokened some secret move. He was sure of that, and, being a man to whom political intrigue was the breath of life, he saw that a gossip with Prince Michael might convey information of much possible value in the near future. So the Princess Delgrado was ushered to a room by Madame Nesimir with all possible ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... Stefan paused a moment to question the concierge. Yes, monsieur's note had been left that afternoon, Madame remembered, by une petite Chinoise, bien chic, who had asked if Monsieur lived here. Madame's aged eyes snapped with Gallic appreciation of a possible intrigue. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... to regret the suppression of lotteries, it is the whole tribe of play-writers and authors. Never will there be found again a "Deus ex Machina," so serviceable or so unfailing as the lottery. If your plot wanted a solution, or your intrigue a denoument, or your novel a termination, you could always cut through all your difficulties by the medium of a lottery-ticket. The virtuous but impoverished hero became at once a very Croesus, and the worldly-minded ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... hearing from the Colonel; it was a shame that he did not have over his letters from Belgium and answer that one which she had honoured him by writing. By some information, received who knows how? our host was aware of the intrigue which Mrs. Pendennis was carrying on; and his little wife almost as much interested in it as my own. She whispered to me in her kind way that she would give a guinea, that she would, to see a certain couple made happy together; that they were born for one another, that they were; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... fear and wariness, and hid distrust under a most deferential civility. They knew, it seemed, that I had guessed their secrets. But I was not afraid of them, for I was no more their rival in the field of intrigue or in their assault upon the King's favour. I longed to say to them, "Be at peace. In an hour from now you will see my face ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... story of love and adventure and Russian political intrigue. A revolution, the recall of an exiled king, the defence of his dominion against Turkish aggression, furnish a series of exciting ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... inevitable result was a trial for high treason, a trial of which no one could doubt the purpose and end. The examination of accomplices revealed speeches, proposals, projects, not very intelligible to us in the still imperfectly understood game of intrigue that was going on among all parties at the end of Elizabeth's reign, but quite enough to place Essex at the mercy of the Government and the offended Queen. "The new information," says Mr. Spedding, "had been immediately communicated to Coke and Bacon." Coke, as Attorney-General, of course ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... Tagus, and ride on a mule, and procure eggs and wine. He was delighted with Cadiz, to him a Cythera, with its beautiful but uneducated women, where the wives of peasants were on a par with the wives of dukes in cultivation, and where the minds of both had but one idea,—that of intrigue. He hastily travelled through Spain on horseback, in August, reaching Gibraltar, from which he embarked for Malta ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... think Bob Lovelace himself, who glories so much in intrigue, a very formidable man among the ladies, if we except his potions and his doses of opium, which an apothecary's 'prentice could have managed better than either mother Sinclair or him. He possibly might have taken all the freedoms he did with Clarissa, except the last shocking one, and not ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous

... Court (WARD, LOCK) Mr. FRED M. WHITE contrives effectively to entangle our interest in one of those webs of facile intrigue from which the reader escapes only at the last line of the last page, muttering at he lays the volume down and observes with concern that it is 2.30 A.M., "What rot!" The title of the story is misleading. There is no Court, and nobody ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various

... men belong: it offers a means of refreshment, of self-expression, of personal display, of political manipulation and boasting, and, if the pastor happens to be interesting, of discreet and almost lawful intrigue. In the course of a life largely devoted to the study of pietistic phenomena, I have never met a single woman who cared an authentic damn for the actual heathen. The attraction in their salvation is always almost purely social. Women go to church for the same reason ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... Pompey's life. Who in the senate-house accused others, but before the people named Lucullus, as if he had been suborned by him to kill Pompey. Nobody gave heed to what he said, and it soon appeared that they had put him forward to make false charges and accusations. And after a few days the whole intrigue became yet more obvious, when the dead body of Vettius was thrown out of the prison, he being reported, indeed, to have died a natural death, but carrying marks of a halter and blows about him, and seeming rather to have been taken off by those who suborned him. These things kept Lucullus at ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... vanity of decorative ribbonry and tinware, especially when, as too often happens, intrigue degrades the honor conferred; but, coming as it did, that bit of ribbon is precious to me. It is a relic, not an object for show. I keep it ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... opportunity. "Monsieur," I said, "I should like an understanding. Remember how little all this can mean to me,—a trader,—and do not think me churlish if I try to keep myself free from this intrigue. I will go to the prisoner now, if you wish; but, that done, I beg you to hold me excused of any further service ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... next year Lord Selkirk came to Canada, raised a force, and arrested most of the leading officials of the Northwest Company, sending them to Quebec for trial. And how the Hudson Bay Company held its own against rivalry and intrigue, how it protected its rights, the reader will find set down in ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... out a powerful expedition, and against the Queen's orders took it to sea himself; returning in a few months, after capturing the Madre de Dios, containing a cargo estimated at the value of half a million. He was committed to the Tower in July for having carried on an intrigue with Elizabeth Throgmorton, and he retired to Sherborne in the same year. In 1593 Raleigh and his friends Harriot and Marlowe incurred the suspicion of the government as atheists, and an inquiry was held, of which the results are not known. In February ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... of social tattle. His feminine turn of mind made him a capital letter-writer; and his correspondence, particularly with Sir Horace Mann, English ambassador at Florence, is a running history of backstairs diplomacy, court intrigue, subterranean politics, and fashionable scandal during the reigns of the second and third Georges. He also figures as an historian of an amateurish sort, by virtue of his "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," "Anecdotes of Painting," and "Historic Doubts on Richard III." ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... the well-known prince-officio of a voluptuous dwelling, where dazzling licentiousness fills his pockets with the spoils of allurement. This man has several counterparts, whose acts are no secrets to the public ear, and who turn their office into a mart of intrigue, and have enriched themselves upon the bounty of espionage and hush-money, and now assert the dignity of their purse. It may be asked, why are these men kept in office?—or have these offices become so disgraced that honest men will ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... intrigue," exclaimed Mirandola. "The freedom of Venice is the price of the slavery of Rome. I heard of ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... striking and the most interesting. The Hohenzollern are as unique in the history of royalty as the Rothschilds are unique in the history of finance. The history of other dynasties has been largely a history of Court scandal and intrigue, providing inexhaustible material to the petty gossip of Court chroniclers. We are all familiar with the amorous episodes of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., with the mysteries of the Grand and Petit Trianon and of the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... retired to Shikarpoor, which the Ameers of Sinde ceded to him; where, in place of conducting himself with prudence, he was so addicted to low intrigue with those about him, that his enemies availed themselves of this propensity to effect his ruin, and drove him from Shikarpoor, when, crossing the Indus, he fled through the desert by Juydalmeer, and returned to Loodiana. "The fitness," says Lieut. Burnes, "of Shah Shooja-ool-Moolk ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... our Liberties are employing all their Influence to divide the people, partly by intimidating them for which purpose a fleet of Ships lies within gun Shot of the Town & the Capital Fort within three miles of it is garrisond by the Kings Troops, and partly by Arts & Intrigue; by flattering those who are pleasd with Flattery; forming Connections with them, introducing Levity Luxury & Indolence & assuring them that if they are quiet the Ministry will alter their Measures. I fear ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... of Governor Henry during his second term of office has so touching an interest for us now, as has the course which he took respecting the famous intrigue, which was developed into alarming proportions during the winter of 1777 and 1778, for the displacement of Washington, and for the elevation of the shallow and ill-balanced Gates to the supreme command ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... coincident with this publication was the discovery of the scandal relating to Julia, daughter of the emperor. It is probable that the proximity of these two events tended to intensify the imperial displeasure, and when some time later there was made public the intrigue of the emperor's granddaughter, the indignation of Augustus gave itself vent in ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... shall demand right, not tolerance. Israel shall walk erect. And he, Israel's spokesman, will not juggle with diplomatic combinations—he will play cards on table. He has nothing to say to the mob, Christian or Jewish, he will not intrigue with political underlings. He is no demagogue; he will speak with kings in their palaces, with prime ministers in their cabinets. There is a touch of the hubris of Lassalle, of the magnificence of Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo Da ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... foe. We have not met on terms of speech for many years; our servants fight at chance encounters on the road. It is but five years since I held the post of Governor which he now occupies. When, by means of calumny and foul intrigue against me at Stamboul, he managed to supplant me, I swore a solemn oath that I would never recognise the Government nor seek its sanction so long as he remained its representative. And now ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... terrible idea then occurred to him. The room he occupied had been that of Gaetano Brignoli. Had this young girl, apparently so pure and modest, had the White Rose of Sorrento, any secret amour or intrigue? The young man who had seen the companion of her infancy might know of it. Could this charming flower be already scorched by the hot breath of passion? Maulear reproached himself as with a crime, for the mental ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... Jew was represented by the Scribes and Pharisees. They believed implicitly that the law of Moses and the tradition of the elders had a divine sanction, and that to live in accordance with it, not to take part in political intrigue, was the way of Life. Their main object was to interpret the Law in such a way as to make it possible to follow, and to extend its explanation so as to cover every possible problem in practical life. They were opposed to Jesus ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake

... apart from the other. Then the doctor resumed: "I will tell you of a fancy which has often haunted me. Suppose we admit that Bernadette was not the shy, simple child we knew her to be; let us endow her with a spirit of intrigue and domination, transform her into a conqueress, a leader of nations, and try to picture what, in that case, would have happened. It is evident that the Grotto would be hers, the Basilica also. We should see her lording it at ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... mechanical ideals, its one preeminent ambition to teach as many years as it was necessary to obtain a pension. There were the superintendents, the supervisors, the special teachers, the principals—petty officers of a petty tyranny in which too often seethed gossip, scandal, intrigue. There were the "soft places"; the deceitful, the easy, the harsh principals; the teachers' institutes to which the poor teacher was forced to pay her scanty dollars. There were bulletins, rules, counter-rules. As she talked, Sommers caught the atmosphere of the great engine ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... deceit. The one and safer for the operator is the suggestive, in which appearances are made by consummate tact and artful flattery to excite the imagination of the buyer so that he is led to believe what he desires without compromising the agent. The other is positive intrigue and absolute lying, so nicely done that the wealthy amateur is fleeced often in a fashion that confers a pleasure, and which, though he may subsequently detect it, gives him but a lame chance at redress. In most instances ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... Well, it will be known to all the world very soon. The Count, it seems, was suspected of some hand in the late intrigue with Spain—" ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens

... laid in the Malay Peninsula and nearby islands. They describe the strange life of these regions, and show how it reacts in various ways upon white men who live there. The Green Half Moon is a story of mystery and diplomatic intrigue, the scene partly in the Orient, partly ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... State of Ohio of my political faith who might rightfully aspire to the dignity of the office of Senator of the United States. I was very willing to give way to any of them, but you have thought it best to continue me in this position. It comes to me without solicitation or intrigue, or any influence that is not honorable to you and to me. I trust it will not prove injurious to any portion of the people of the State of Ohio, whether they agree with me ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... assistant had to say, and to what Gerald Leslie, the "coke" fiend, had to say. All these, and others, had friends on the outside, people who were "in the know." Some told one thing, and others told exactly the opposite; but Peter put this and that together, and used his own intrigue-sharpened wits upon it, and before long he was satisfied that ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... is someone else," she said, with the same calm decision. "No, it is not one of the women here; it is a girl in the place; a farmer's daughter, I think. It is only a liaison, a vulgar intrigue—" ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... him how no hand but his own could strike that enemy down; if he fell, it must be through the son of Falworth. Sometimes it seemed to Myles as though he and his blind father were the centre of a great web of plot and intrigue, stretching far and wide, that included not only the greatest houses of England, but royalty and the political balance of the country as well, and even before the greatness of it all he ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... Spanish family, he had lost all of his money by reason of a lack of aptitude for business, and made his living as a sort of professional political henchman. He was a bearer of secret messages, a maker of deals, an eavesdropper. The Latin aptitude for intrigue he had in a high degree. He was capable of almost anything in the way of falsehood or evasion, but he had that great capacity for loyalty which is so ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... been done with the sternest calm, with dignity capable of shaming her guilt. As it was, he had spoilt his chances in every direction. Perhaps Monica understood this; he had begun to esteem her a mistress in craft and intrigue. ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... describing the art society of the day, writes: "The painters in Rome are divided by a broad line of demarcation into two parties—the one consisting of our friends and their adherents, the other of the united phalanx of those who are of the world, a set who intrigue and lie and backbite; they intend there shall not be light, come what will. The former are exemplary in their lives; the latter display the old licentiousness which characterised the German artists in Rome thirty years ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson

... Ahura-Mazda himself is "true," "the father of all truth," and his worshippers are bound to conform themselves to his image. Darius, in his inscriptions, protests frequently against "lies," which he seems to regard as the embodiment of all evil. A love of finesse and intrigue is congenital to Orientals; and, in the later period of their sway, the Persians appear to have yielded to this natural inclination, and to have used freely in their struggle with the Greeks the weapons of cunning and deception; but, in the earlier ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... document on his knee, "where is the mother who ever lacked heart and wit and yearning to such a degree as to fall below the inspirations suggested by her animal instinct? A mother is as cunning to get at her children as a girl can be in the conduct of a love intrigue. If your Marquise really wanted to give her children food and clothes, the Devil himself would not have hindered her, heh? That is rather too big a fable for an ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... the good-will of the people, severed, at once, all relations with the viceroy. There was in the Audience a lawyer, named Cepeda, a cunning, ambitious man, with considerable knowledge in the way of his profession, and with still greater talent for intrigue. He did not disdain the low arts of a demagogue to gain the favor of the populace, and trusted to find his own account in fomenting a misunderstanding with Blasco Nunez. The latter, it must be confessed, did all in his power to aid his counsellor ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... greatest curiosity is felt and certainly the one whose doings are the best advertised. "Der Rosenkavalier," in spite of all these things, must stand on its merits—as a comedy with music. The author of its book has invited a comparison which has already been suggested by making it a comedy of intrigue merely and placing its time of action in Vienna and the middle of the eighteenth century. He has gone further; he has invoked the spirit of Beaumarchais to animate his people and his incidents. The one thing which he could ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... and I foresee the future. What friend of this country would wish to survive the moment when he could no longer serve it,—when he could no longer defend innocence against oppression? Wherefore should I continue in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over truth; where justice is mocked; where passions the most abject, or fears the most absurd, over-ride the sacred interests of humanity? In witnessing the multitude of vices which the torrent of the Revolution has rolled in turbid communion with its ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... a period when her strength and splendour were put to the severest tests. The hero, the son of an English trader who has taken up residence in the city, displays a fine sense and manliness which carry him safely through an atmosphere of intrigue, crime, and bloodshed. In his gondola on the canals and lagunes, and in the ships which he rises to command, he is successful in extricating his friends and himself from imminent dangers, and contributes largely to the victories of the Venetians at Porto d'Anzo and Chioggia. ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... the reign of Agis, Alkibiades arrived in Lacedaemon as an exile, having made his escape from the army in Sicily, and, after a short sojourn, was universally believed to be carrying on an intrigue with the king's wife, Timaea, insomuch that Agis refused to recognize her child as his own, but declared that Alkibiades was its father. The historian Douris tells us that Timaea was not altogether displeased at this imputation, and that when nursing the child among her attendants she was wont ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... be extremely sorry if my purple were stained with the least drop of blood spilt in the civil wars; that I was resolved to clear my hands of everything that savoured of intrigue before I would make or suffer any step which had any tendency that way; that he knew that for the same reason I would neither accept money nor abbeys, and that, consequently, I was engaged by the public declarations ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... get out," he said again to himself with an impatient movement. It was beginning to weary him, this commonplace intrigue which had been so new and alluring a year ago. He did not own it to himself, but he was tired of it. Perhaps the reason why good resolutions have earned for themselves such an evil repute as paving-stones is because they are often the result, not of repentance, but of the restlessness ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... birth. If history is a grave study, poetry may be said to be a graver: its materials lie deeper, and are spread wider. History treats, for the most part, of the cumbrous and unwieldy masses of things, the empty cases in which the affairs of the world are packed, under the heads of intrigue or war, in different states, and from century to century: but there is no thought or feeling that can have entered into the mind of man, which he would be eager to communicate to others, or which they would listen to with delight, that is not a fit subject for poetry. It is not a branch ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... exactness on the declamation, a constitution very agreable, and a delightful voice. What you say of the comedy? Have her succeded? It was a drama; it was whistted to the third scene of the last act. Because that? It whant the vehicle, and the intrigue it was bad conducted. So that they won't waited even the upshot? No, it was divined. In the mean time them did diliver justice to the players which generaly have play very well. At the exception by a one's self, who had land very much hir's part. It want to have not any indulgence ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca

... sometimes visited her; and when she talked in favour of the royal cause, would throw napkins at her, and say that he would not dispute with his aunt, although afterwards, as we have seen, her spirit of political intrigue compelled him to make her a prisoner in her own house. The poet took up his residence near her at Hall-barn, a house of his own erection, and on the walls of which he hung up a picture of Saccharissa, whence he hoped, it may be, draw consolation for the past, and inspiration for the future. ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... amount of money might have been imagined to perform any one of a thousand things. With riches merely surpassing those of any citizen, it would have been easy to suppose him engaging to supreme excess in the fashionable extravagances of his time—or busying himself with political intrigue—or aiming at ministerial power—or purchasing increase of nobility—or collecting large museums of virtu—or playing the munificent patron of letters, of science, of art—or endowing, and bestowing his name upon ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... royal cause, while there was hope in military means. That it was his determination to hazard all things rather than chill the coalition. But this let me impress upon your Ministry," said he, with his powerful eye turned full on me; "that if intrigue in the German cabinets, or tardiness on the part of yours, shall be suffered to impede my progress, all is at an end. I know the French; if we pause, they will pour on. If we do not reach Paris, we must prepare to defend Berlin and Vienna. If the war is not ended within a month, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... specimen is given by McKenney, in an amusing story of one who went to Washington, and acted her part there in the "first circles," with a tact and sustained dissimulation worthy of Cagliostro. She seemed to have a thorough love of intrigue for its own sake, and much dramatic talent. Like the chiefs of her nation, when on an expedition among the foe, whether for revenge or profit, no impulses of vanity or wayside seductions had power to turn her aside from carrying out her plan as ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... a shade of vexation. "That wouldn't do. You couldn't have a scene, or, at least, not a whole act, without women. Of course I understand that. Even if you could keep the attention of the audience without them, through the importance of the intrigue, still you would have to have them for the sake of the stage-picture. The drama is literature that makes a double appeal; it appeals to the sense as well as the intellect, and the stage is half the time merely a picture-frame. ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... But, if he did as he purposed doing and attended the Peace Conference, he would lose the unique position which he held and would have to submit to the combined will of his foreign colleagues becoming a prey to intrigue and to the impulses arising from their hatred for the ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... of pecuniary gain. From some passages, however, I cannot but infer that the writer did not mean to bring it before the public, but wrote it rather as a series of private memoranda, to aid his own recollection of circumstances and dates. The Duc de Lauzun's account of his intrigue with Lady Sarah goes so far as to allege, that he rode down in disguise, from London to Sir Charles B.'s country seat, agreeably to a previous assignation, and that he was admitted, by that lady's confidential attendant, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... while he must conciliate, or outwit, the opposition headed by the ayah. If he cannot do this there will be factions, seditions, open mutiny, ending in appeals to you, to which if you give ear, you will foster all manner of intrigue, and put a premium on lies and hypocrisy; and it will be strange if you do not end by punishing the innocent and filling the guilty with unholy joy. In this country there is only one way of dealing with the squabbles of domestics and ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... setting foot on the rocky island, they had become members of the vast family of Napoleon's enemies—of the brethren who had united against his power—of the conspirators whose sworn duty it was to oppose Napoleon with the weapons of cunning as well as force—of intrigue creeping in the dark, or ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... Blades. They must e'en sit and palpitate while the Blade flashes. The accomplished Blade goes through life looking unspeakable wickedness at everything feminine he meets, old and young, rich and poor, one with another. He reeks with intrigue. Every Blade has his secrets and mysteries in this matter—remorse even for crimes. You do not know all that his handsome face may hide. Even he does not know. He may have sat on piers and talked to shop-girls, kissed housemaids, taken barmaids to music halls, conversed with painted wickedness ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... abhors and despises duplicity, art, and disguise; but Female Friendship, which consists in little else than a mutual disposition on the part of the friends, as they call themselves, to abet each other in obscure fraud and petty intrigue." ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... ever on his sword. With him the blow quickly followed the word or the thought. The hand of Louis—"the universal spider," as his contemporaries named him—was ever on the web of intrigue which he had woven around him, feeling its filaments, and keeping himself in touch with every movement of his foes. He did not like war. That was too direct a means of gaining his ends. It was his delight to defeat his ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... affair of the Elector Palatine; which might be accomplished, if the Prince would only declare, that he had not proposed to himself any views on the Duke of Weymar's army but with the King's consent, whom he designed to consult; and if he would promise to carry on no intrigue for the future in that army without the approbation of the Queen of Sweden and the French King; that he might then be permitted to remain at Paris, after giving his parole, and engaging the English Ambassador ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... liberty, and forced loans menaced every man's property. The generality of the citizens had declared themselves against a pentarchy devoid of power, justice, and morality, and which had become the sport of faction and intrigue. Disorder was general; but in the provinces abuses were felt more sensibly than elsewhere. In great cities it was found more easy to elude the hand of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... affairs; since they mistrusted the government of the senate and people, on account of the contentions among the great and the avarice of the magistrates: while the protection of the laws was enfeebled and borne down by violence, intrigue, and bribery. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... is creating another piece of machinery. He has set about his job in just the same spirit that he set about overcoming the difficulties of the Panama Canal. He has been used to overcoming the obstinacies of Nature; the human obstinacies of his new task intrigue him. I believe that, just as in peace times big business was his romance and the wealth which he gained from it was often incidental, so in France the job as a job impels him, quite apart from its heroic object. After all, smashing the Pan-Germanic Combine is only another form ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... familiar language made it not strange that in the Court of Elizabeth, the most high-flown sentiments should be in every one's mouth about the sublimities and refinements of love, while every one was busy with keen ambition, and unscrupulous intrigue. The same blinding power kept him from seeing the monstrous contrast between the claims of the queen to be the ideal of womanly purity—claims recognized and echoed in ten thousand extravagant compliments—and the real licentiousness common all round her among her favourites. ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... doubtless wore the aspect of criminality in his view. He sternly replied, that no palliation could avail; that my motives were sufficiently notorious. He accused me of treating him ill, of rendering him the dupe of coquetting artifice, of having an intrigue with Major Sanford, and declared his determination to leave me forever, as unworthy of his regard, and incapable of love, gratitude, or honor. There was too much reason in support of his accusations ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... great adviser. If Leopold is prudent, however, he will not hurry over here at the very first moment, which would look like an impatience to establish his influence, and if he does, the first result will be every sort of jealousy and discord between him and the Duchess of Kent. The elements of intrigue do not seem wanting in this embryo Court. Besides the Duchess of Kent and Leopold, and Conroy of course, Caradoc[8] is suspected of a design and an expectation to become a personage; and Lord Durham is on his way home, and his return is regarded ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... first love-letter which had passed between them. She, therefore, tore it in pieces, and sent for me, and screamed for Kate; in short, went, as it were, off at the head, and was neither to bind nor to hold on account of this intrigue, as she, in her wrath, stigmatised the innocent gallanting of poor Kate and ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... Marquees are then erected on the lawn, and all the military bands in the town attend. The day is consumed in dancing, which is often protracted so late in the night, as almost to trespass on the day following. These kind of parties are perhaps too favourable for intrigue, to suit English or American manners, but they are certainly delightful in a degree, and recall to one's fancy the images ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... them all; and he that strives to evade such Satisfaction as the Husband demands, lives daily in Danger of his Life; yet when discharg'd, all Animosity is laid aside, and the Cuckold is very well pleased with his Bargain, whilst the Rival is laugh'd at by the whole Nation, for carrying on his Intrigue with no better Conduct, than to be discover'd and pay so dear for ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... every woman would yield to the slightest desire he might deign to manifest. He, therefore, thought it a mere matter of course that women fell in love with him. M. de Stainville had a hand in marring the success of that intrigue; and, soon afterwards, the Marquise de C——, who was confined to her apartments at Marly, by her relations, escaped through a closet to a rendezvous, and was caught with a young man in a corridor. The Spanish Ambassador, coming out of his ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... will always make a repenting tradesman; and those stolen matches, a very few excepted, are generally attended with infinite broils and troubles, difficulties, and cross events, to carry them on at first by way of intrigue, to conceal them afterwards under fear of superiors, to manage after that to keep off scandal, and preserve the character as well of the wife as of the husband; and all this necessarily attended with a heavy expense, even before the young man is out of his time; before he has set a foot forward, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... himself very evidently low-born and low-bred, and compared with the former one, so poor a specimen, that the greater popularity of the former is not to be wondered at. From all we have heard, they are contemptible rulers, as they appear to do nothing but intrigue for power among themselves. Changes are hence excessively frequent, and were they attended with much bloodshed, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... fair sex; with many of whom, even persons of fortune and character, of sense, wit, and learning, I was become,' he continues, 'a great favourite, and might, if I could have overcome my natural sheepishness and fear of a repulse, have been more successful either by way of matrimony or intrigue.' He goes on:—'I may truly say, that hardly any man who might have enjoyed so great a variety ever indulged himself in so few instances of the unlawful kind as I have done.' He concludes this passage in his writings by 'thankfully acknowledging that there must have been ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Floretta's song (im Volkston) are so beautiful that once heard they can never be forgotten. The bolero-rythme and the 3/8 measure are typical of the Spanish style, which flows through almost all the songs and recitations giving sparkling piquancy to the opera. In the last act, where love conquers intrigue and gaiety the music reaches its ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... contractors, political generals, generals as meek as missionaries. You have seen the worst of it—the worst. But my dear Penhallow, there is one comfort, Richmond is just as foul with thieving contractors, extravagance, intrigue, and spies who report to us with almost the regularity of the post; and, as with us, there is also honour, honesty, religion, belief in their cause." The Secretary had spoken at unusual length and in an unusual mood. When once, before ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... Machiavels in the art of loving. I wish I did not know an instance.—Well, scandal now began to be as busy with me as it had before been with my aunt; and some good ladies did not scruple to affirm that Mr Fitzpatrick had an intrigue with us both. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... shall my thoughts suppress Of Oroonoko, and presume him less: What though we wrong him? Isabella's woe Waters those bays that shall for ever grow. Our foes confess, nor we the praise refuse, The drama glories in the British muse. The French are delicate, and nicely lead Of close intrigue the labyrinthian thread; Our genius more affects the grand, than fine, Our strength can make the great plain action shine: They raise a great curiosity indeed, From his dark maze to see the hero freed; We rouse th' ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... the considerations which were so plain to Father and are so plain to me and Lutorius and Numisia. They will say it makes no difference whether you went to Aricia because of solicitude for Almo or on account of an intrigue with Vocco. They will hold that such a manifestation of interest in Almo proves you almost as unfit to be a Vestal as if it were certain that ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... a still more dangerous longing for adventure and excitement. She realised that there were other men in the world who admired her besides her Marcus, and that she was pretty and still quite a young woman. At thirty Yvette was a mistress of the art of intrigue—had engineered several dangerous affaires, and might have come to serious grief had not Marcus been a singularly wise, ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... Historians" assembled by Mr. Creel to instruct the plain people in the new theory of American history, whereby the Revolution was represented as a lamentable row in an otherwise happy family, deliberately instigated by German intrigue—a posse which reached its greatest height of correct indignation in its approval of the celebrated Sisson documents, to the obscene delight of ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan

... pardoning and setting at large, within its territory, a proclaimed outlaw, and notorious rebel and most dangerous incendiary; and that it felt bound in duty to guard the public peace from the hazard of further interruption, through the violence or intrigue of so desperate and atrocious an offender; and to annul that part of the engagement which absolves Eesa Meean from his guilt in the Bareilly insurrection, since the Resident and his Assistant went beyond their powers in pledging their Government to such ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... was thankful that she should take so op optimistic a view, and quick to perceive O'Moy's charitable desire to leave her optimism undispelled. But he was no less quick to perceive the opportunities which the circumstances afforded him to further a certain deep intrigue upon which he ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... showing of the noblesse of France, fresh from the most brilliant court of Europe, that they are worth a short description. They are interesting, if from nothing else, from the fact that they are the men who appear on the page of history one day steeped in the enervating luxury and intrigue of Versailles and Marly, the next fighting and dying with the courage of the lionhearted Henri de la Rochejaquelin in Vendee, leaving as an epitaph on their whole generation the words of the Chouan chief, "Allons chercher l'ennemi! ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... rise to nearly as many heart-burnings in Egypt as in modern courts. Uni acquitted himself so dexterously, that he was called upon to act in a still more delicate capacity. Queen Amitsi was the king's chief consort. Whether she had dabbled in some intrigue of the palace, or had been guilty of unfaithfulness in act or in intention, or had been mixed up in one of those feminine dramas which so frequently disturb the peace of harems, we do not know. At any rate, Papi considered ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... People, or with their Secretaries if bribable; nay, with the Dutch Government itself ("through channels which I have opened,"—with infinitesimally small result); his spyings ("young Podewils," Minister here, Nephew of the Podewils we have known, "young Podewils in intrigue with a Dutch Lady of rank:" think of that, your Excellency); his preparatory subtle correspondings with Friedrich: his exquisite manoeuvrings, and really great industries in the small way:—all this, and much else, we will omit. Impatient ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... said Eames with the quiet confidence of twelve years of intrigue. 'Everything with us comes from the man on top to the people just round him: I am the man on top, and I shall tell the people ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... of modern country-house life Mr. Benson mingles mystery, intrigue, and comedy with the skill of which ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... had very good reasons, apart from training, in sending us there. There can be no doubt whatever that the majority of the Egyptians were pro-Turkish if not pro-German. The educated Egyptian, like the Babu in Bengal, is specially fitted by nature for intrigue, and if he sees a chance to oppose whatever government is in power and keep his own skin, it is his idea of living well. Egypt was immediately put under martial law, but there was plenty of scope for a while for the ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... Secretary, he could foment a war and add a new empire to England; he could not overcome his love of Oxford, the antithesis of all sordid financial intrigue and political marauding. Athens was after all a dearer name than Groot-Schuurr. He ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... found in Khan Singh's box were some which clearly inculpated the Maharani, and it was at once decided to deport her beyond the region of effective intrigue. The lady was, under arrangements made for her by the Government, at this time residing in one of the late Maharaja's palaces at Sheikapura about twenty-three miles from Lahore. To Lumsden and his men was entrusted the duty of arresting and deporting the firebrand princess. As taking part in ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband

... years, Catherine had cherished the simple-hearted desire that the affairs of Christ's people be put in the hands of His truest followers. Now, in this last period of her life, surrounded by the corruption and intrigue of the papal court, her thoughts turned more and more wistfully to the reserves of spiritual passion and insight that lingered in the hearts of obscure "servants of God" living in monasteries or ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... covered his face with his hands. Aged and childless, Zoroaster and Nehushta were to him children, and he loved them with his whole soul. Moreover, he knew the Persian Court, and he knew that if once they were taken into the whirl and eddy of its intrigue and stirring life, they would not return to Ecbatana; or returning, they would be changed and seem no more the same. He was bitterly grieved and hurt at the thought of such a separation, and in the grand simplicity of his greatness he felt no shame at shedding tears for them. Zoroaster ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... disguised Italian stockbroker, gaining "points" from the unguarded conversation of "operating" customers; he was a political refugee with capital; he was a fugitive Sicilian bandit, investing his ill-gotten gains in California; he was a dissipated young nobleman, following some amorous intrigue across the ocean, and acting as his own Figaro or Leporello. I think a majority of us favored the latter hypothesis, possibly because we were young, and his appearance gave it color. His thin black mustaches and dark eyes, we felt, were Tuscan ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... warped: his body requires moistening with the freshest and the earliest dews of many an "incense-breathing morn," ere it can resume the full elasticity and joyous lightness of rustic activity; and his soul wants a long oblivion of all conventional preoccupation, all trouble and all intrigue, ere it can recover the tone ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... Salisbury. In the villanous transaction of the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, in King James's time, much mention was made of the art and skill of Dr. Forman, another professor of the same sort with Lamb, who was consulted by the Countess of Essex on the best mode of conducting her guilty intrigue with the Earl of Somerset. He was dead before the affair broke out, which might otherwise have cost him the gibbet, as it did all others concerned, with the exception only of the principal parties, the atrocious authors of the crime. When the cause was tried, some little ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... and delicate threads of intrigue, how frail they are, and how much depends upon every one of them, be it in the warp or the woof of a scheme! We have seen that in this case, one of them gave way under the rough handling of Sir Philip Hastings, and the whole fabric was in ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... allegiance to the King. In contrast to him is Sir Tristram, who, despite his prowess, in jousts on the tilting-field, is "one to whom faith is foolishness, and the higher life an idle delusion." The climax is reached in 'Guinevere,' whom, in spite of her faithlessness and guilty intrigue with Lancelot, Arthur, with his great high soul, pityingly loves and forgives. The end comes with the sad though shadowy 'Passing of Arthur,' the royal barge mysteriously carrying him out into the beyond, whence issue sounds of hail and greeting ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... could dream away his days to the music of the west wind, the gurgling stream, the song of birds, and the low murmuring of insects. Peter Ruff stood like a man turned to stone, for, even as he looked, these things passed away from before his eyes, the roar of the world beat in his ears—the world of intrigue, of crime, the world where the strong man hewed his way to power, and the weaklings fell like ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... necessity it is to become much larger. By necessity the whole of the Serbian race is to be freed and united. By necessity the Southern-Slav state and the Balkan Federation are to be realised. Some of our neighbours may be against that, but all their opposing effort will be in vain. Every intrigue against the Serbian ideals of freedom and unity cannot effect a suppression, but only a short prolongation of the period of its realisation. Behold, the time has come, the fruit has grown ripe. All the Serbian ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic

... much of a penance for Reid. There he would have found intrigue, whispering, plottings; a hundred shadowy diversions to keep his perverted mind clear and sharp. Here he met only the silence of nature, the sternest accuser of a guilty soul. Reid could not bear the accusation of silence. ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... it up; but a good dinner at a near-by restaurant restored him something of his self-confidence. After all, this was America. Europe might be honeycombed with intrigue and over-run with spies, but they would find their occupation gone on this side of the water! And he himself would explode a bomb in the morning's Record that would shake them up a little! So it was a fairly confident and self-controlled young man who mounted the steps of the German consulate ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... made a pleasant allusion to —— of ——. He has a high forehead and what you would term an intelligent face, but not one you would pick out as that of a great man; and from a study of his work I should say that he is of a class of advanced politicians, clever in political intrigue, quick to grasp the best situation for himself or party; a man of high moral character, but not a great statesman, only a man with high ideals and sentiments and the faculty of impressing the masses that he is great. The ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... trials were not yet over; but the worst were to come, at a time when she thought them at an end, and that she was returning to her father: for when her master found her virtue was not to be subdued, and he had in vain tried to conquer his passion for her, being a gentleman of pleasure and intrigue, he had ordered his Lincolnshire coachman to bring his travelling chariot from thence, not caring to trust his Bedfordshire coachman, who, with the rest of the servants, so greatly loved and honoured the fair damsel; and having given him instructions ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... immortal declaration of war, he formally declared that "no autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within a partnership of nations or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one, would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only a free people can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interests ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne

... Angelique nor himself. His wily spirit was contriving how best to give an impetus to his intrigue with her without committing himself to any promise of marriage. He resolved to bring this beautiful but exacting girl wholly under his power. He comprehended fully that Angelique was prepared to accept his hand at any moment, nay, almost demanded it; but the price of marriage was what Bigot ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... people has not its own, and what wise men do not disdain these fables? Their prophecies? Have we not shown their falsity? Their morals? Are they not often infamous? The establishment of their religion? but did not fanaticism begin, and has not intrigue visibly sustained this edifice? The doctrine? but is it not the height ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... an episode in which ignoble intrigue and treachery have so large a share, it is restful for a moment to pause before the modest figure of General Mejia, whose loyalty was unflinching to the bitter end. The brave Indian had for many months faithfully defended this important post. As true to his flag as President Juarez was to his, he ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... preserve the colonies from the scourge of arbitrary authority, from the excesses of power, which always accompany abuses, injustice, and corruption. When favor and caprice are the only laws that are attended to; when intrigue supplies the place of merit; when cupidity succeeds to honorable industry; when vice and meanness are titles to distinctions, and the true means of making a fortune; when honours are no longer synonimous with honour; then society presents ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard

... almost at the end of the silliest book that ever she read in her life. But the best of it is that it serves to dispose of a good deal of her spare time. She tells you all romances are sad stuff, yet she is very impatient till she can get all she can hear of. Histories of intrigue and scandal are the books that Julia thinks are always too short. The truth is, she lives upon folly and scandal and impertinence. These things are the support of her dull hours. And yet she does not see that in all this she is plainly telling you that she is in a miserable, disordered, reprobate ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte



Words linked to "Intrigue" :   seize, romance, secret plan, interest, plot, love affair, matter to, grab, fascinate, game, scheme, connive, priestcraft



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