"Perpetrate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thus act, did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate such atrocities as were brought to light during the Andover inquiry, such cold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of their principles. Oh yes, Christians are forward to judge of every tree ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... scoundrel subterfuges by which the lowest dealers of this world purchase Bank-stock and rear their own pine-apples—the common, innocent iniquities (innocent from their very antiquity, having been bequeathed from sire to son) which men perpetrate six working-days in the week, and after, lacker up their faces with a look of sleek humility for the Sunday pew—consider all this locust swarm of knaveries annihilated by the purifying spirit of Christianity, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... two of his sisters to perpetrate a duet. He gave occupation to the Misses Sympson. The elder ladies were conversing together. He was pleased to remark that meantime Shirley rose to look at the pictures. He had a tale to tell about one ancestress, whose ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... from the camp, according to their custom. A Judas, tempted by the high reward of the French for killing him, officiously pretended to take great care of him. While Red Shoes kept his face toward him, the barbarian had such feelings of awe and pity that he had not power to perpetrate his wicked design; but when he turned his back, then gave the fatal shot. In this manner fell this valuable brave man, by hands that would have trembled to attack him on ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... his career he had contracted vicious habits, the most pernicious for him being that of drink, for when sober he was in his right mind, but the moment the drink was in his common sense departed, and he became a raving maniac, ready to fight or perpetrate any other act of folly. Up to this time he had never been tempted to steal only in order to supply ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... could never be "discovered" on the stage and were forced to make an exit at the end of every scene. Plays were produced by daylight, under the sun of afternoon; and the stage could not be darkened, even when it was necessary for Macbeth to perpetrate a midnight murder. ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... Confining all her trouble within her own consciousness. To this innocent girl, holding the knowledge of Miriam's crime within her tender and delicate soul, the effect was almost the same as if she herself had participated in the guilt. Indeed, partaking the human nature of those who could perpetrate such deeds, she felt ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... glacial rifts appeared as in a dream the Eeka mountains which enfold the Iao valley, broad fields of cane 8000 feet below, the flushed palm- fringed coast, and the deep blue sea sleeping in perpetual calm. But according to the well-known fraud which isolated altitudes perpetrate upon the eye, it appeared as if we were looking up at our landscape, not down; and no effort of the eye or imagination would put things ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... would revisit my mind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But that could not be. Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author of unalterable evils, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness. I had an obscure feeling that all was not over and that he would still commit some signal crime, which by its enormity should almost efface the recollection of the past. There was always scope for fear so long as anything ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... 138,000. Mormonism in forty-four years counted 250,000. It seems incredible, nevertheless it is a fact. In this brief space of time it has also been able to nullify our laws, oppose our institutions, openly perpetrate crimes, be represented in Congress, boast of the helplessness of the nation to prevent these things, and give the Church supremacy over the State and the people. Bills introduced in Congress adequate to their overthrow have been ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... perfectly irresistible by day; and, from this time forward, a change came over the spirit of John Dounce's dream. He bought shirt-pins; wore a ring on his third finger; read poetry; bribed a cheap miniature-painter to perpetrate a faint resemblance to a youthful face, with a curtain over his head, six large books in the background, and an open country in the distance (this he called his portrait); 'went on' altogether in such an uproarious manner, that the three Miss Dounces went off on small pensions, he having ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the historian, who had cautiously evaded it, stumbles over it at Bunker Hill. And why? Because it is not political, but moral,—because it is not local, but national,—because it is not a test of party, but of individual honesty and honor. The wrong which we allow our nation to perpetrate we cannot localize, if we would; we cannot hem it within the limits of Washington or Kansas; sooner or later, it will force itself into the conscience and sit by the hearthstone of ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... dubious flag—I made the latter from descriptions furnished by Monsieur Auguste and The Young Pole himself—intended, I may add, to be the flag of Poland. Underneath which beautiful picture I was instructed to perpetrate the flourishing inscription ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... pushed her before me. The husband stood at the head of the stairs and my object was to carry her down to the lower story. The stairs were narrow, and by keeping up a good watch, I contrived to force him to give ground, using his spouse as a sort of battering-RAM—not to perpetrate a pun at the expense of the genders—which, I happened to know, had always been successful in making him give ground on all previous occasions. His habitual deference for the dame, assisted me in my purpose. Step by step, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... surgeons were debating the propriety of amputating it in his hearing, he begged them to spare the leg, as it was very valuable, being an "imported leg." He was of Irish birth, and this well-timed piece of wit saved his leg, for the surgeons thought, if he could perpetrate a joke at such a time, they would trust to his ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... such striking instances of the effects of honouring or neglecting the deity, do you perceive what an act of impiety we are about to perpetrate, scarcely emerging from the wreck of our former misconduct and calamity? We possess a city founded under auspices and auguries; not a spot is there in it that is not full of religious rites and of the gods: the days for the anniversary ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... accused the executive, before the tribunal of the people, on those specific points, from its decisions respecting which he was said to have threatened the appeal. As if the offence lay, not in perpetrating the act, but in avowing an intention to perpetrate it, this demonstration of his designs did not render his advocates the less vehement in his support, nor the less acrimonious in reproaching the administration, as well as Mr. Jay ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... murders to please her lover. She was now anxious to perpetrate another on her own account. She wished to marry Sainte Croix; but, though separated from her husband, she was not divorced. She thought it would be easier to poison him than to apply to the tribunals for a divorce, which ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... dare perpetrate that," said Mae. "You are thinking of the famous old sob song, 'Oh, Fair Dove, oh, Fond Dove'. But please forget it. It does not fit ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... is customary with a good many of our later philosophers, who protest against the assumption of premisses; but having so protested neglect the ambiguity of terms, and leave their middles undistributed, and perpetrate illicit process with a gaiety of heart which is extremely edifying, or who fancy that they are building systems of philosophy when they are in reality constructing dictionaries of terms. But his argument ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... land are against it. Other punishments, such as detention and impositions, are ineffectual, and are generally regarded by the culprit as unjustly interfering with his liberty. Consequently the masters have not much hold over the boys, who might, if they chose, perpetrate endless mischief without fear of painful consequences so long as they did nothing to warrant expulsion; but the young Hollander does not appear to have much enterprise in that direction. Perhaps he is sometimes kept out of mischief by his devotion to the fragrant weed, for he generally ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... he was so to a much greater degree, and his position and his influence made him responsible for the mischief he had driven the boys to perpetrate. It would have been better for them, as a body, to submit until redress could be obtained in a better way—as by the circular addressed to their parents, which was even then in the hands of the printer. I palliate, I do not justify, the conduct ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... the doctor treats you less severely than you deserve, it will be because you have made this reparation, instead of carrying out the act of dishonesty you had it in your mind to perpetrate." ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... complains, the course of the world now is such that both young and old are altogether dissolute and beyond control, have no reverence nor sense of honor, do nothing except as they are driven to it by blows, and perpetrate what wrong and detraction they can behind each other's back; therefore God also punishes them, that they sink into all kinds of filth and misery. As a rule, the parents, too, are themselves stupid and ignorant; one fool trains [teaches] ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... Army and Navy. An example of what I mean is the reference to R.F.C. officers, during a Parliamentary debate, as "the super-heroes of the war,"—a term which, for ungainly absurdity, would be hard to beat. To those who perpetrate such far-fetched phrases I would humbly say: "Good gentlemen, we are proud to have won your approval, but for the Lord's sake don't make us ridiculous in the ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... skirted round, avoiding it by a narrow inch. His breathing was quick and distressed, gasp tumbling over gasp, but still his eye was alert and his hand unerring. He had but a few moments' more effort left in him: it was enough if he could reach his goal and perpetrate the trick on which his mind, fertile in every base device, was set. For it was towards the mantelpiece that his retreat, seeming forced, in truth so deliberate, led him. There was the letter, there lay the revolvers. The time to think of risks was gone by; the time to boggle over what ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... succeeded to such an extent and in such detail as no examining magistrate could have accomplished. And there now lay before him letters, explanations, evidence, which the deponent was ready to swear to, besides letters from Angelika herself: imprudent letters which this impulsive creature could perpetrate in the midst of her schemes; or deeply calculated letters, which directly contradicted others which had been written at a different period, based on different calculations. These documents were only the accompaniment of a clear ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... to the same. In the first place, Juan Soto, whom you hired to locate it, is not an American citizen and therefore his claim is void. In the second place the transfer for the nominal sum of ten dollars proves collusion to perpetrate a fraud. And in the ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... and unsubstantial phantom of a Doorauni kingdom vanished at once and for ever—and the only remaining alternative was, (as we stated the case in our number of last July,) "either to perpetrate a second act of violence and national injustice, by reconquering Affghanistan for the vindication (as the phrase is) of our military honour, and holding it without disguise as a province of our empire—or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... revelled in discreditable tricks Until he reached the comfortable age of thirty-six, May then for half an hour perpetrate a deed of shame, Without incurring ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... Secolo of the 27-28 June, and distributed by thousands in Milan as a manifesto, and which was not mentioned by either the Conservative or the Progressive newspapers, who tried by their silence to perpetrate the confusion between ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... situation. The absence of it made him more angry than before. He stormed and hurled denunciations at the offender; he rehearsed the mischief he had done during the day, and alluded in strong terms to that which he intended to perpetrate in the "dead watches of the night"—which was the poetical rendering of half-past six in the evening; for the squire ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... pathetic elements. Prince Saho, elder brother of the Empress, plotted to usurp the throne. Having cajoled his sister into an admission that her brother was dearer than her husband, he bade her prove it by killing the Emperor in his sleep. But when an opportunity offered to perpetrate the deed as the sovereign lay sleeping with her knees as pillow, her heart melted, and her tears, falling on the Emperor's face, disturbed his slumber. He sought the cause of her distress, and learning it, sent a force to seize the rebel. Remorse drove the Empress to die with Prince Saho. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the instrument, went over the keyboard from bottom, to top and back again with a series of curious modulations. Then opening his bag and beginning to get out his tools, he said, "Before I went into the army, there was a man named Bernstein in these parts, who used to perpetrate outrages like ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... a Mighty Shadow, came that dark thought over her soul. Myriads of beautiful demons, all bearing the semblance of Montoni, seemed to gather around her, and urge her to perpetrate a deed of—murder! ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... Is there not a good that I can do thee? Must I perpetrate unmingled evil? Is the province assigned me that of an infernal emissary, whose efforts are concentred in a single purpose, and that purpose a malignant one? I am the author of thy calamities. Whatever misery is ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... amused me. But, to return to Colonel Barthelmy, he is going very shortly to Italy with his regiment; therefore, I need not care what fables he thinks of me—or repeats. The few persons whose opinion I care for will not believe him; as for the others—pah! Come, your hand on it! Let us perpetrate this joke. If I am willing to run the risk, you surely need ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... dramatic narrative, and said the miscreant must have lowered himself by a rope from the parapet, and passed the powder inside without entering. "He periled his life to perpetrate this crime; and he also risked penal servitude for ten years. That he was not deterred by the double risk, proves the influence of some powerful motive; and that motive must have been either a personal ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... studied the face of my presumed uncle, the better I liked him, though perhaps I was biassed by the relationship. He looked like a very substantial man, though I should have regarded it as dangerous to perpetrate a joke upon him. On the whole, therefore, I was entirely satisfied to have him turn out to be the brother of my mother. In about an hour the train stopped; and by this time I was ready to sit down. But only one gentleman left the car in which I was riding; and he sat directly ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... indignantly exclaimed: "It is a modest word, this 'check' for massacring men, women, and children!" If Canada is to be "restored on this principle, ... will not this be telling the French in plain terms, that the horrid barbarisms they perpetrate with Indians on our colonists are agreeable to us; and that they need not apprehend the resentment of a government with whose views they so happily concur." But he had the audacity to say that he was abundantly certain that the mother country could never have any occasion to ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... Macbeth's character be just to the conception of the poet, then she is one who could steel herself to the commission of a crime from necessity and expediency, and be daringly wicked for a great end, but not likely to perpetrate gratuitous murders from any vague or selfish fears. I do not mean to say that the perfect confidence existing between herself and Macbeth could possibly leave her in ignorance of his actions or designs: that heart-broken and shuddering ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... occasionally in particular districts. Hostile magistrates might plead that certain edicts had not been definitely repealed; and, calculating on the connivance of the higher functionaries, might perpetrate acts of cruelty and oppression. The Emperor Aurelian had even resolved to resume the barbarous policy of Decius and Valerian; and, in A.D. 275, had actually prepared a sanguinary edict; but, before it could be executed, death stepped in to arrest his violence, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the United States, have violated our laws prohibiting the introduction of slaves, have practiced various frauds on our revenue, and committed every kind of outrage on our peaceable citizens which their proximity to us enabled them to perpetrate. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... starts up from its green thickets; not one of the hideous objects which the architects of our district churches perpetrate, to puzzle the passer-by as to the purpose of its being,—whether a brewer's chimney, or a shot-tower,—a perch for city pigeons, or a standing burlesque on the builders of the nineteenth age of the fine arts in England. This steeple ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... means that I am to be held to the strict obligations of my position, but that the Grand Duke Armand can perpetrate any inconsistency ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... the measure of your deeds, and insult the woman whom you have robbed and made a widow. It was with a prophecy on your lips that you went forth just now to perpetrate your greatest crime; but it falls on your own head, for you laugh over our misfortune—and it cannot regard me, for my blood does not run cold; I am not overwhelmed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... God. He could not then deny the same authority to the minor ecclesiasts, even if he had wished to. And, finally, when the evil circle spread to the man on the fringe of the Church—who could not obtain even such poor authorization for his perfidy he found a way to perpetrate a pretended plural marriage with his victim, and the Church authorities did not ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... Sc. 3), and Stephano, a drunken butler, adorns the stage in the "Tempest." We can not blame Shakespeare for making use of cutthroats and villains in developing his plots, but we might have been spared the jokes which the jailors of Posthumus perpetrate when they come to lead him to the scaffold, and the ludicrous English of the clown who supplies Cleopatra with an asp. The apothecary who is in such wretched plight that he sells poison to Romeo in spite of a Draconian law, gives us another unflattering ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... reading over the Letters of the President de Brosses. A hundred years ago, in Venice, the Carnival lasted six months; and at Rome for many weeks each year one was free, under cover of a mask, to perpetrate the most fantastic follies and cultivate the most remunerative vices. It's very well to read the President's notes, which have indeed a singular interest; but they make us ask ourselves why we should expect the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... festivities; but in the absence of its Prince Bishop, another Nevil, it had lacked much of what was to be found at Fotheringay in the full blossoming of the splendours of the princely nobility of England, just ere the decimation that they were to perpetrate on one another. ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... going down below to give those fellows their quietus. If I do not, there is no knowing what mischief they may yet perpetrate before we get the—what was it those fellows called her?—ah! the Josefa—before we get the Josefa under the Daphne's guns. Now, choose a star to steer by before I remove any more of this lumber, and then sit down on deck as much on one ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... malnourishment of convicts is, in fact, one of the worst crimes of the many which their despots perpetrate upon them. From any point of view, it is barbarous and wicked—the crime of a Weyler upon the defenseless Cuban revolutionists, which, as much as the destruction of the Maine, impelled this country to declare war. Yet, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... corruption: yet the wouldbe corrupter's intention was to make him dishonest, so that he is liable to a penal action, exactly as if the slave had actually been corrupted, lest his immunity from punishment should encourage others to perpetrate a similar wrong on a slave ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... they do. And cut up, and prance, and high life! He was a mount for a general, for a Napoleon or a Kitchener. And he had, not a wicked eye, but, oh, such a roguish eye, intelligent and looking as if it cherished a joke behind and wanted to laugh or to perpetrate it. And I asked Uncle John for Hilo. And Uncle John looked at me, and I looked at him; and, though he did not say it, I knew he was FEELING 'Dear Bella,' and I knew, somewhere in his seeing of me, was all his ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... English, who had become sensible, though too late, of their defenceless condition, and began already to experience those insults and injuries which a nation must always expect, that allows itself to be reduced to that abject situation. A secret conspiracy was entered into to perpetrate, in one day, a general massacre of the Normans, like that which had formerly been executed upon the Danes; and the quarrel was become so general and national, that the vassals of Earl Coxo, having ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... culture and experience, but in the A. C. we had neither. Our leaders had caught a few half-truths, which, in their minds, were speedily warped into errors. I can laugh over the absurdities I helped to perpetrate, but I must confess that the experiences of those few weeks went far towards making a man ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... very ordinary man, perhaps somewhat cunning, and no doubt anxious to make his way in the world. He is one of those men who can be honest as long as he is forced to be; but, who, the moment the pressure is taken off, can perpetrate crime for his own interests, without pity or remorse. I know the type well—cold-blooded, cunning, selfish, hypocritical, secretive, without much intellect, cowardly, but still, under certain circumstances, capable of great boldness. So Gualtier ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... still appeared doubtful whether Jesus was really dead, and the brutality they had shown in breaking the legs of the thieves made the holy women tremble as to what outrage they might next perpetrate on the body of our Lord. But Cassius, the subaltern officer, a young man of about five-and-twenty, whose weak squinting eyes and nervous manner had often excited the derision of his companions, was suddenly illuminated by grace, and being quite overcome at the sight ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... who really fears your god as their only witness, who really troubles about your god as their only witness, or who even gives him a passing thought, when they stand absolutely alone before the temptation to perpetrate some mean, despicable ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... raging between the high banks that flanked the road. The bridge was some two hundred feet long, and passed over a deep cut between two hills. In spite of its present peaceful appearance it was easy to see that the place would be an ideal one to perpetrate such a crime as the robbers contemplated, and after they had passed over the bridge Mr. Brandon opened the throttle wider in his ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... subject. The question is, whether many did not attempt unlawful arts in full belief of their efficacy; and whether some, a compound of the self-dupe and the impostor, did not make use of their reputed power to indulge in the grossest license and to perpetrate abominable crimes. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... mortal wit, Or surest hand, can always hit: For whatsoe'er we perpetrate, We do but row, we're steered by Fate, Which in success oft disinherits, For spurious causes, noblest merits, Hudibras, Pt. I. Canto ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... mastered the city of Munster. Here they confiscated property, plundered churches, violated females, murdered men who refused to join the gang, and, in briefs practised all the enormities which humanity alone can conceive or perpetrate. The prophet proclaimed himself King of Sion, and sent out apostles to preach his doctrines in Germany and the Netherlands. Polygamy being a leading article of the system, he exemplified the principle by marrying fourteen wives. Of these, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... me merely to take off my hat: the bow and the general effrontery were of my own invention. God knows what instigated me to perpetrate the outrage! In my frenzy I felt as though I ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... young man who loves a young woman has paid her the highest compliment in the possession of man. Perpetrate almost any sin, inflict any other torture, but spare him the agony of disappointment. It is a crime that can never be forgiven, and a debt that never can ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... country-side. Incendiarism was the only cause that could be assigned, and many were the speculations as to who the guilty party could be. Of course, Isaac Williams had enemies. But who among them was mean, ay, daring enough to perpetrate such ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... bullied to his ruin, the loathsome treachery in which those around him engaged, with the connivance of the English; and, lastly, the murder in cold blood, which Meer Jaffier, our creature, was allowed to perpetrate; rendered the whole transaction one of the blackest in the annals ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... solemn ceremony; for they say that "the elephant is a great lord; his trunk is his hand." Before the Amaxosa Caffres attack an elephant they shout to the animal and beg him to pardon them for the slaughter they are about to perpetrate, professing great submission to his person and explaining clearly the need they have of his tusks to enable them to procure beads and supply their wants. When they have killed him they bury in the ground, along with the end of his trunk, a few of the articles they have obtained for ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... argument, reduced to its lowest terms, ran thus: those wishing to free the Negroes illegally imported declared that to enslave them would be to perpetrate the very evil which the law was designed to stop. "By the same law," they said, "we condemn the man-stealer and become the receivers of his stolen goods. We punish the criminal, and then step into ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... had committed in the castle in the service of the Church. Thereat the Pope, raising his hand, and making a large open sign of the cross upon my face, told me that he blessed me, and that he gave me pardon for all murders I had ever perpetrated, or should ever perpetrate, in the service of the Apostolic Church. When I felt him, I went aloft, and never stayed from firing to the utmost of my power; and few were the shots of mine that missed their mark. My drawing, and my fine studies in my craft, and my charming ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... food he became so furious, that he would instantly perpetrate the deed. On this it is related as in the Sigurdarkvida, when ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... them in many courses. Greed lies at the bottom of their being, and so they preach content to the masses, though for the workers they have nothing in their shallow souls but contempt. This cultured leisure class has had the time and cunning to perpetrate one great and tragic trick. They have made social falsehoods so complicated that they themselves neither understand nor wish to understand.... Why is it that in all the great authors I detect an air ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... of, although, in truth, I play but an indifferent game. If you will make amends by teaching me I will try to perpetrate as ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... American general, fell back on Niagara and Fort George, and, fearing an attack in force, and his garrison being much reduced, resolved to evacuate the fort and abandon the country. But before doing so he resolved, in obedience to instructions from the War Department at Washington, to perpetrate an act of inhuman barbarity which shall hand down his name to infamy so long as the story shall be told. In order to deprive the British troops of winter quarters he determined to burn the town of Niagara, leaving the innocent and non-combatant ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... a long reaction of weakness which very often leads to their own destruction. If this were not a natural law, if criminals could exert continually the same energy and command the same superhuman cunning which momentarily helped them to perpetrate a crime, the world would be in danger of being possessed and ruled by them, instead of being mercifully, and perhaps too much, inclined to treat them as degenerates and madmen. Their conduct after committing a murder, ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... replied to you, Rebecca, that I, too, was ready to perpetrate a crime for the sake of rescuing you and calling you my own again, and that I would ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... the packages entrusted to his care; he was also able, from long habit, fluently to read the usual announcement of "Vinos y licores finos," inscribed above tavern doors; and, when required, he could even perpetrate a hieroglyphic intended for the signature of his name; but these were the extent of his acquirements. As to deciphering the contents or superscription of the letter now in his possession, he knew that it would be mere lost labour ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... hosts and guests lay scattered promiscuously about the floor. The Russians were the first to recover consciousness, and when their eyes fell upon the gold-laced boots of the boyards, the desire to possess them was so irresistible that they took advantage of the helpless condition of their hosts to perpetrate a common theft. Drawing them from their feet, they made off with the boots to their tents, leaving their own ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... too dreadful! Oh, my poor uncle! Thank Heaven, you are spared the agony of this. Godfrey, Godfrey, what could induce you to perpetrate such a crime?" ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... the sentiment of a patriot, and it stands out in bold contrast with the miserable slang by which he was pursued this morning. It may serve the purposes of a man who little regards the Union to perpetrate a joke on the hazard of its dissolution. It may serve the purpose of a man who never looks to his own heart to find there any impulses of honor, to arraign everybody, the President and the Supreme Court, and to have them impeached and vilified on his mere suspicion. It ill ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Let me perpetrate one more,—one which is perhaps the most glaring of all. The process of growing must be done by the growing organism, by the child, let us say, and by no one else. The child himself must take in and assimilate the nourishment that is provided for him. The child himself must exercise his organs ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... attain to eminence in the world's estimation, it is nearly as difficult altogether to fall from it; and that nothing the artist can do, though they be the veriest "aegri somnia," will separate from him habitual followers, who, with a zeal in proportion to the extravagances he may perpetrate, will lose their relish for, and depreciate the great masters, whose very principles he seems capriciously in his age to set aside, and they will from followers become his worshippers, and in pertinacity exact entire ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... justified, inasmuch as there is no shepherd who does not place barriers against the wolves, and does not endeavour to save his flock, and I have already exposed to your Majesty the damage which the Gitanos perpetrate ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... from Beatrice Spara, a Sicilian, with whom he had a liaison, one of those inscrutable beings of the gentle sex whose lust for pleasure or power is only equalled by the atrocities they are willing to perpetrate upon all who stand in the way of their desires ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... charged with this fact, I never, to this day, perfectly recovered. Could a person in this condition execute violence against another?—I, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage—no ability to accomplish—no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact;—without interest, without ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... their breath; again they affect a mad and unrestrained rapidity which allows time neither to play nor to hear the sounds. They hurry or retard the movement for no reason besides their individual caprice or because the author did not indicate them. They perpetrate music of such a disorganized character that the musicians are utterly bewildered, and hesitate in their entrances on account of their inability to distinguish one measure ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... treasury-chest. It will scarcely be believed that so wanton an insult as this precious document implied, could have been offered to the common sense of a whole community, even by the late tory administration; or that men could have been found in the nineteenth century to perpetrate so gross an outrage on the best feelings of a numerous body of reputable men." During the ensuing four or five years, we are told by the same authority that it was completely in the power of the archdeacon and clergy "to have formed a noble institution for ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... Paris. Why does she so long to place herself in the immediate reach of tyranny? You see I pronounce the decisive word! I am really unable to comprehend it. Can she not go to Rome, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, or London? Yes, London would be the right place! There she can perpetrate libels whenever she pleases. At all of these places I will leave her undisturbed with the greatest pleasure; but Paris is my residence, and there I will tolerate those only who love me! On this the world can depend. I know ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... principle. Engaging to raise men for the common weal It sets a harmful and unequal tax Capriciously on our communities.— The annals of a century fail to show More flagrant cases of oppressiveness Than those this statute works to perpetrate, Which [like all Bills this favoured statesman frames, And clothes with tapestries of rhetoric Disguising their real web of commonplace] Though held as shaped for English bulwarking, Breathes in its heart perversities of party, And instincts toward oligarchic power, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... and pleasure of the society is generally declared in its laws: But there may be exceptions, and the present case is without doubt one.—Suppose there was no law of society to restrain you from murdering your own father, what think you? If either of you should please to take it into your head to perpetrate such a villainous act, so abhorrent to the will of the society, would you not be restrained? And is the Liberty of your Country of less importance than the life of your father! But what is most astonishing is, that some two or three ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... is of undoubted value in reference to his work and matters connected with his work, but when the writer gets outside this particular province and deals with subjects his knowledge of which must be at the best second-hand he is almost certain to perpetrate some flagrant mistakes, and occasionally indite the most egregious nonsense. I shall not particularly apply these remarks, but I think it necessary to utter this word of warning as the literary effusions of some very estimable ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... bears witness today that there is no crime, no cruelty, no abomination that the mind of man can conceive which the German has not perpetrated, is not perpetrating, and will not perpetrate if he is ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... perpetrated by the Spaniards, I must tell you that I cannot blame them; for, horrible as are their deeds, they are simply acts of retaliation for the abominable atrocities which Marshal Tesse allows and encourages his troops to perpetrate upon the population. I have the highest respect, sir, for the French nation, but if I were the Earl of Peterborough, and Marshal Tesse fell into my hands, I would hand him over to the Spaniards to be torn in pieces as ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... from the bungalow his eye fell upon the trembling lascar who had accompanied him to the edge of the verandah. He must be rid of the fellow in some way—no eye must see him perpetrate the deed he had in mind. A solution quickly occurred ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... great numbers of gatherings, scattered over the whole length and breadth of the city,—some of them engaged in actual work of demolition and ruin; others with clubs and weapons in their hands, prowling round apparently with no definite atrocity to perpetrate, but ready for any iniquity that might offer,—and, by way of pastime, chasing every stray police officer, or solitary soldier, or inoffensive negro, who crossed the line of their vision; these three objects—the badge of a defender of the law,—the ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... of the party creed, until these reached their final and legitimate culmination, in the ghastly paralysis of the most indispensable functions of the Government—the ruinous abnegation of all power of self-defence—the treacherous attempt at national suicide only failing for want of courage to perpetrate the supreme act, which was exhibited by the administration of James Buchanan, in its last hours, when it proclaimed the doctrine of secession to be unfounded in constitutional right, and yet denied the power of the Government to prevent ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... conjured me to tell him at once what was the cause of the fracas.—'Oh, my good sir!' said I to him, continuing to cry like a child, 'imagine the most horrible cruelty, figure to yourself the most inhuman of atrocities—that is what G—— M—— has had the cowardly baseness to perpetrate: he has pierced my heart. Never shall I recover from this blow! I would gladly tell you the whole circumstance,' added I, sobbing with grief; 'you are kind-hearted, and ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... characteristics of criminals have much to do with not only the crimes they commit, but the manner in which they perpetrate their deeds, and in a consideration of what has been accomplished, heredity plays a strong part. Some men are born with an adeptness for crime of a certain character. Let the opportunity arise, and they yield to the stress of circumstance and become ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... within the walls, and the Prussians without, upon stomachs that feebly digest Parisian "hard tack" and gritty vin ordinaire, is enough to make the spirit of liberty lay over the mourner's bench and perpetrate a perfect Niagara of tears. When FLOURENS bagged the whole government at the Hotel de Ville the other day, my feelings got the better of me, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... an outrage which the emperor would never dare to perpetrate, for it would arouse the bitter animosity of the whole aristocracy. Still it would be better to petition him at once, and warn him ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... civilization. The world knows by this time that creation is an empty jest; we are all beginning to understand its bathos! And if we must grant that there is some mischievous supreme Farceur who, safely shrouded in invisibility, continues to perpetrate so poor and purposeless a joke for his own amusement and our torture, we need not, for that matter, admire his wit or flatter his ingenuity! For life is nothing but vexation and suffering; are we dogs that we should lick the hand ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... at the same time busied themselves about the person of the king, though the regulations of the palace assigned definite hours of service to the one different from those assigned to the other. This made it clear that they intended to perpetrate a dark deed in ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... incident of the Cattle Trail, that most unique and stupendous of all modern migrations, and its founders must have been inspired with a malicious desire to perpetrate a crime against geography, or else they reveled in a perverse cussedness, for within a mile on every side lay broad prairies, and two miles to the east flowed the indolent waters of the Rio Pecos itself. The distance separating ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... the' traitors' should be carted down to Winchester for trial. A cold wet November seven-days' journey through mud and slush was the miserable dodge to carry out this scheme of darkness which neither Coke nor Popham would have dared to perpetrate in the broad light of London. It was, as all the world knows, a mock trial. The prisoners Raleigh, Cobham, Gray, and Markham were condemned and sentenced to death as traitors, and Raleigh, for the grim sport of the royal Nimrod, was made to witness ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... it is more than probable that the king daily, in prayer, looked to God for guidance, and that he thought that he was doing that which was promotive of the interests of England. Alas for man! He can perpetrate the most atrocious crimes, honestly believing that he is doing God's will. He can burn aged women under the charge of their being witches. He can torture, in the infliction of unutterable anguish, his brother man—mothers and daughters, under the ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... their voice is out of order—that they are hoarse, and so forth; the fellows all the while being most anxious to show forth, only wanting to be pressed, in order to enhance their own importance, and stimulate the curiosity of the company. Nor is this the worst of the case; for no sooner do they perpetrate one song, than they volunteer a dozen, interlarding the intervals between their performances with pedantic disquisitions on music, and flooring every man who ventures to hazard an opinion on the subject. These people, whether amateur ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... answered, with grim sarcasm in his face, "of course! I might have guessed it. If there IS an injustice or a barbarity possible, I might have been sure the law of England would make haste to perpetrate it. But you needn't fear, Frida. Long before the law of England could be put in motion, I'll have completed my arrangements for taking you—and them too—with me. There are advantages sometimes even in the barbaric delay of what your lawyers are ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... the claim to the title of gentleman depend upon the avocation followed. I know of one or two clowns in the ring who are educated physicians, and not thought to be any the less gentlemen because they propound conundrums and perpetrate jests instead of prescribing pills ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... at the monastery of Caltagirone in Sicily, but was expelled from it for misconduct and disowned by his relations. He now signalized himself by his dissolute life and the ingenuity with which he contrived to perpetrate forgeries and other crimes without exposing himself to the risk of detection. Having at last got into trouble with the authorities he fled from Sicily, and visited in succession Greece, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Rhodes—where he took lessons in alchemy and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Or was you prick'd in conscience for the sin The young man had committed through your means, That you must after tell his father of him? Colman 1768 Or was not you contented with the crime You urg'd the youth to perpetrate, unless You afterwards betray'd ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... large aviary of birds of all sorts, some for sale, some not. Among them was a glorious Humming Bird of wonderful brilliancy and plumage, a creature full of beauty and grace and charm and elegance. The man became passionately attached to it; he was ready to perpetrate any folly for the sake of obtaining possession of it, and indeed he did commit numbers of regrettable actions, and at last stole the bird from the Showman and carried it away. Then, in a foreign palace, for a short while he revelled in its beauty and the joy of owning it. The Humming ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... The glimpse I had caught of the sleeping town, peaceful and unconscious, and the stealth and silence of our movements, depressed me greatly, and I was convinced that I had either perpetrated or was about to perpetrate some hideous crime. I had anticipated excitement and the joy of danger, instead of which, as I tiptoed between the poor gardens, I suffered all the quaking terrors of ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... now going to develop, or perpetrate, is rather intensely of the accursed, or the advanced. It's a lost soul, I admit—or boast—but it fits in. Or, as conventional as ever, our own method is the scientific method of assimilating. It assimilates, if we think of the inhabitants ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... been so tricked made him forget the danger he was in. He spoke without any signs of fear now, and faced the pair. Comprehension he had not, but suspicion he had, and he spoke it out hardily. "I will not!" he repeated. "Whatever villainy it is that you perpetrate here, I will have no hand in it. To whatever atrocious use it is that you design to put the things you speak of, I say that I am glad that they have turned upon one scoundrel at least. It is useless to put these chemicals before me—I swear that I will not touch ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... manhode) yet by reason of the murder done vppon his owne sister, were very straite and slacke to pardon: because they would not incourage the posteritie to like inconuenience, nor prouoke wel doers in their glorye and triumphe, to perpetrate thinges vnlawfull. ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... may have objections to hearts hanging like humble buttons, or to buttons being humble at all, but one should not stop to quarrel about such trifles with a poet who can perpetrate the following: ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... carry out, discharge, perform, achieve, carry through, effect, perpetrate, actualize, commit, execute, realize, bring about, complete, finish, transact, bring to pass, consummate, fulfil, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the infuriated Heselrigge; and in that moment he plunged his sword into her defenseless breast. Halbert, who had all this time been held back by the soldiers, could not believe that the fierce governor would perpetrate the horrid deed he threatened; but seeing it done, with a giant's strength and a terrible cry he burst from the hands that held him, and had thrown himself on the bleeding Marion, before her murderer ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... select one more from his numerous letters now in my possession, to show that nothing but revenge at being disappointed in my co-operation to ensure his personal aggrandisement, could have influenced him to perpetrate ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... the outrages burglaries, thefts, and murders—which were then so common in Paris, crowded upon her mind; she was sure it was a band of cut-throats who were making all this disturbance outside; they must be well aware how lonely the house stood, and if let in would perpetrate some wicked deed against her mistress; and so she remained in her room, trembling and quaking with fear, and cursing Baptiste and his ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... said Frank, "after we have built the railroad with the money of the general public, overcapitalized it in a criminal manner, and discovered that it will not pay a dividend on its watered stock, you propose that we perpetrate another outrage on unsuspecting investors by selling back to the public our holdings of stock that actually belongs ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... gratuitous) error? The sufferance of such a strange and unnecessary mixture of error seems rather like that "putting to confusion" of the human mind, which we feel sure the Great Teacher would never willingly perpetrate. ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... the greatest and most enormous a subject can perpetrate; but what epithet can there be given to him who, to preserve an authority unlawfully acquired, asssociates in his guilt a Supreme Pontiff, whom the multitude is accustomed to reverence as the representative of their God, but who, by this act ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of deliberately taking human life with the view of obtaining money, may be divided into two classes. The one class comprising such as prisoners who perpetrate the crime cunningly and in secret, in the firm belief that they will escape detection; the other class are the highwaymen and garotters, who go daringly and violently to work, pretty sure in their own minds that they will be ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... really nervous and irritable people find the country worse than town. The noise of the nightingales is deplorable. The lamentations of a cow deprived of her calf, or of a passion-stricken cow, "wailing for her demon lover" on the next farm, excel anything that the milkman can perpetrate, and almost vie with the performances of the sweep. When "the cocks are crowing a merry midnight," as in the ballad, the sleepless patient wishes he could make off as quietly and quickly as the ghostly sons of the "Wife ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... in the fields, and fifty more, after setting fire to a farm-house while my back was turned, escaped to join a gang of their companions, who are now robbers in the woods. These fellows, however, are the last of the troop who will perpetrate such offences. With the concurrence of my patron, I have adopted a plan that will henceforth ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... father. Patience is our part. To whom Gerenian Nestor thus replied. Young friend! (since thou remind'st me of that theme) Fame here reports that num'rous suitors haunt 270 Thy palace for thy mother's sake, and there Much evil perpetrate in thy despight. But say, endur'st thou willing their controul Imperious, or because the people, sway'd By some response oracular, incline Against thee? But who knows? the time may come When to his home restored, either alone, Or aided by the force of all the Greeks, Ulysses may avenge ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... one bound; but at the sight of the corpse, for whom his wife and her son repeated incessant litanies, having no ears for his torrent of invective, having no eyes for his writhings and threats, he had no longer the courage to perpetrate this dark deed. After the first fury of his rage had passed, he could not bring himself to it, and quitted the room like a coward and a man taken in crime, stung to the quick by those prayers continuously said for the monk. The night was passed ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were not the sons of gods;—both in the same breath ...
— The Republic • Plato
... that some violence is to be used, which he had better not know. So, again, his weakness leads him astray. He does not wish to hear what he is willing should be done, if only he has not to do it. So feeble men hoodwink conscience by conniving at evils which they dare not perpetrate, and then enjoying their fruits, and saying, 'Thou canst not say ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief's stay in Purgatory has now run out, and he has recently gone to Heaven. That was pleasant for him, I dare say, so I do not complain. Still, it leaves me with no one to take my place. Angels, as you will readily understand, are not permitted to perpetrate murders, even in the way of kindness. It might be thought to establish ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... here, too, he arranged an ingenious alibi by being driven to Euston for the 5.15 train to Liverpool. The cabman would not know he did not intend to go by it, but meant to return to 11 Glover Street, there to perpetrate this foul crime, interruption to which he had possibly barred by drugging his landlady. His presence at Liverpool (whither he really went by the second train) would corroborate the cabman's story. That night he had not undressed nor gone to bed; ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... disclosed. Stupefied, the commandant and his men gazed at, the traces of the deed, the pools of half-dried dark blood and the two pieces of bone, eloquent of the fortitude he must have possessed, the desperation he was in, to perpetrate such an act. ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... by another and so on, as technology makes new means possible, and as economy, safety, and other factors may dictate. Therefore, there is no single "right" answer for the long run, and an attempt to prescribe one inflexibly would compound confusion over the years and undoubtedly perpetrate an injustice on future citizens in ways already mentioned. We need to do them the favor of believing that they will be able to cope with their own immediate problems at least as well as we can do it for them, and probably in ways ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... ball sounded to Mr. Hill's prejudiced imagination like the news of a conspiracy. Ay! ay! thought he; the Irishman is cunning enough! But we shall be too many for him: he wants to throw all the good sober folks of Hereford off their guard, by feasting, and dancing, and carousing, I take it; and so to perpetrate his evil designs when it is least suspected; but we shall be prepared for him, fools as he takes us plain ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Bladud was by no means destitute of a sense of humour, or disinclined on occasion to perpetrate a practical joke. After contemplating the sleepers for a moment he retired a few paces and concealed himself in the long grass, from which position he pitched one of the huge birds into the air, so that it ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... Thackeray's "Codlingsby" has almost extinguished "Sidonia." And the strange phantasmagoria of the Anglican Church, revivified by the traditions of Judaism, and ascending to the throne of St. Peter, is perhaps the most stupendous joke which even Disraeli had ever dared to perpetrate. In the preface ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... debased and cruel imagination could possibly invent, and to which no pen could possibly do justice, even were any good purpose to be achieved by the attempted recital of them—that caused the lads' souls to revolt at once and for ever against a people that could perpetrate ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... nearly out of their senses by seeing the devil raise himself up in the midst of the bog. The sequel was, that the Mexicans and their Indian friends retreated as fast as possible, and never stopped until they had reached a place of safety. My companions became vexed to think any man could perpetrate such a story on travelers, who considered they knew a thing or two, and commenced quizzing the old gentleman by asking him what the Indians knew of Satan; but the old Mexican evaded the answer by taking down the little wooden cross which hung on the wall of the room and expressed the desire ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... patient's disjointed ravings of murder, rapine, and cold-blooded cruelty of so revolting a character that he wondered how any human mind could conceive it in the first instance, and how, after it had been conceived, human hands could bring themselves to perpetrate it. And then the man's guilty conscience awakened from its long torpor, and, acting upon his excited imagination, conjured up a thousand frightful punishments awaiting him. He writhed, he groaned, he uttered the most frightful curses, ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... bribe, a reward; it does not differ very much from the principle upon which all criminal legislation is founded, to say the least of it. We punish men when they do wrong. I never heard that it was an objection to legislation that it punished those who perpetrate a wrong. I never heard that it was an objection to legislation that it held out rewards to those ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... having met with an old acquaintance, seemed bent on getting all the information and gossip about his old cronies, that chance had thrown in his way. Fearing I might perpetrate some palpable absurdity in my fabulous statements, as in the case of my "sister Bertha," I resolved to kill off all his friends and relations in detail, without ceremony or remorse. And therefore I replied to the question about ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... accomplish, produce, achieve, consummate, execute, perform; transact; perpetrate, commit; translate, render; suffice, answer; fare, prosper; vouchsafe, grant; (Colloq.) cheat, overreach, swindle, defraud. Antonyms: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... order that I may obtain instructions for my guidance, more especially as the Turkish squadron is ready for sea, and said to be destined for Candia, with ten thousand men, intending there to repeat the barbarities which the want of provisions in the Morea renders it impossible they can longer perpetrate in that quarter. There is also a great number of captive women and children about to be transported as slaves, and the only force of the allied powers off Navarino consists of a small brig, the Pelican, which is totally ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... that virtue was regarded with suspicion and a premium set upon idleness, that in the camps the generals lacked authority and the soldiers had no sense of obedience, while, when he entered the Senate, he found it a craven and tongueless assembly (Curiam trepidam et elinguem), only convened to perpetrate some piece of villainy for the Emperor, or to humiliate the Senators by the sense of their own impotence. Pliny was not the man to make a bold stand against tyranny, and, during those perilous years, one can well believe that he did his ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... Savareen and he had always been on the most friendly terms, and that Savareen was one of his best customers. But, even if he had been the most bloodthirsty of mankind, he had positively had no time to perpetrate a murder. The two or three minutes elapsing between Savareen's departure from the toll-gate and Lapierre's arrival there had been too brief to admit of the latter's having meanwhile killed the former and made away with his body; to say nothing ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... said, "All the kings of the earth represent thee as a pious ruler. Wherefore, O prince, has thou then stopped to perpetrate a deed not sanctioned by the ordinance? I have been sore afflicted with hunger. Do thou not withhold from me that which hath been appointed by the Diety for my food,—under the impression that thereby thou servest the interests of virtue, whereas in reality, thou wilt forsake ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... endeavors of the well-affected citizens, as well as of the executive officers, to conciliate a compliance with those laws have failed of success, and certain persons in the county of Northampton aforesaid have been hardy enough to perpetrate certain acts which I am advised amount to treason, being overt acts of levying war against the United States, the said persons, exceeding one hundred in number and armed and arrayed in a warlike manner, having, on the 7th day of this present month ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... been served infamously, often, in modern and semi-modern times. I have been compelled by base men to create fraudulent history, and to perpetrate all sorts of humbugs. I wrote those crazy Junius letters, I moped in a French dungeon for fifteen years, and wore a ridiculous Iron Mask; I poked around your Northern forests, among your vagabond Indians, a solemn French idiot, personating ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is a very touching appeal to my feelings. You know that my weakness is to be, if possible, too easily moved by appeals to mercy, and if this man were guilty of the foulest murder that the arm of man could perpetrate, I might forgive him on such an appeal. But the man who could go to Africa, and rob her of her children, and sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... period Arroyo rejected these proposals of his comrade. Not that he had any more respect for the property of Don Mariano than his associate had; but rather that he was not yet sufficiently hardened to reckless outrage, as to perpetrate such an audacious robbery on one who was publicly known to be a friend to the insurgent cause. We say, up to a certain time Arroyo preserved these egotistical scruples; but that time terminated on the day and hour when, in the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... vigilance. The other, the grey fly, works jointly with the greenbottles, who do not venture inside our houses and who work in the sunlight. Less timid, however, than they, should the outdoor yield be small, she will sometimes come indoors to perpetrate her villainies. When her business is done, she makes off as fast as she can, for she does not ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... persons whose industry to excite resistance has increased with every appearance of a disposition among the people to relax in their opposition and to acquiesce in the laws, insomuch that many persons in the said western parts of Pennsylvania have at length been hardy enough to perpetrate acts which I am advised amount to treason, being overt acts of levying war against the United States, the said persons having on the 16th and 17th July last past proceeded in arms (on the second day ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson |
