"Denouement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good, and thus he enlists our sinless anger as crusaders rather than our sympathy as philanthropists. In Dickens we are sometimes disposed to skip a little, in our ardor, to follow the plot and find the denouement. In Thackeray we read every word, for it is the philosophy we want; the plot and personages are secondary, as indeed he considered them; for he often tells us, in the time of greatest depression of his ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... of your pleasure; I view them in the best, that I may have more pleasure, though at the expense of my judgment. A 'trompeur trompeur et demi' is prettily said; and, if you please, you may call 'Varon, un Normand', and 'Sostrate, un Manceau, qui vaut un Normand et demi'; and, considering the 'denouement' in the light of trick upon trick, it would undoubtedly be below the dignity of the buskin, and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... curious exhibition of a nation's taste and a writer's audacity. The Mysteries of Paris, by Eugene Sue, has been dragging its slow length along for a long time, and gives no sign of getting nearer its denouement than when it began. A sovereign prince is the hero—his own daughter, whom he has disowned, the heroine; and the tale commences by his fighting a man on the street, and taking a fancy to his unknown child, who is the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... that the author has displayed great adroitness in the "denouement" of his tale. In the course of a few pages all the principal characters, male and female, are suddenly produced, safe and unscathed, before the reader. To be sure, this is done by the aid of a little "diablerie," but then it is done very ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... The effect of the denouement being thus provided for, I immediately drop the fantastic for a tone of the most profound seriousness—this tone commencing in the stanza directly following the one last quoted, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... centred around a lover of her sister, who had just died at the age of seventy, and Titi considered that the denouement made by Manu, the sister, was uncalled for at the death bed, since the true and faithful wife stood there surrounded by nine children, all safely born the right side of the sheet. She did mention that the removal of the door from the fare ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... all the schemes of his crafty and unprincipled enemies, no one rejoices more than the ragged boy who has sat through the evening an interested spectator of the play, and in his pleasure at the successful denouement, he almost forgets that he will probably find the Newsboys' Lodging House closed for the night, and be compelled to take up with such sleeping accommodations ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... possibly be put into a paragraph, at any rate the kind of paragraph that Will Howe (who used to be a professor of English) would approve. On the whole, rather than rewrite the entire narrative, tersely, we will have to postpone the denouement (of the story, not the tie) until to-morrow. This is an exhibition of the difficulty of telling anything exactly. There are so many subsidiary considerations that beg for explanation. Please be patient, Pete, and to-morrow we will explain that tie ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... apt to be complicated by comic. The indispensable condition of a good mystery is that it should be able and unable to be solved by the reader, and that the writer's solution should satisfy. Many a mystery runs on breathlessly enough till the denouement is reached, only to leave the reader with the sense of having been robbed of his breath under false pretenses. And not only must the solution be adequate, but all its data must be given in the body of the story. The ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... zoological fact were needed to verify the denouement of "The Pipe," it might be the general statement that lizards are abnormal brutes anyhow. Consider the chameleons of unsettled hue. And what is one to think of an animal which, when captured by the tail, is able to make its escape ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... its climactic denouement; the rapturous moment of the younger brother's revealing was at hand; Judah, the older brother, was now holding the centre of the stage and making that thrilling appeal, than which nothing more moving is to be ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... a bit of a romanticist, as all historians are, and he no doubt thought it would be a fine denouement to life's play to capture the daughter of his old sweetheart, and avenge himself on Fate and the unembarrassed Madame Necker and the unpiqued husband, all at one fell stroke—and she would not be dowerless either. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... bar and had opened an office in Boston. One evening about nine o'clock he rode out to Watertown on horseback and called at the Curtises' where Miss Francis then was. "My mother, who believed the denouement had come," says Mr. Curtis, "retired to her chamber. Mr. Child pressed his suit earnestly. Ten o'clock came, then eleven, then twelve. The horse grew impatient and Mr. Child went out once or twice to pacify him, and returned. At last, just ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... moved back and sat down. Suddenly the full conception of what this meant came to his mind—the man had gone mad. The strained cords of that diseased brain had snapped in the presence of imagined terrors, and now all was chaos. The horror of it overwhelmed Hampton; not only did this unexpected denouement leave him utterly hopeless, but what was he to do with the fellow? How could he bring him forth from there alive? If this stream was indeed the Tongue, then many a mile of rough country, ragged with low mountains and criss-crossed by deep ravines, yet stretched ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... I said, Mister Gabriel, your evidence is not quite enough to convict—but it is certainly enough to convince. Therefore, if Chief Pasteur's analysis shows Lysodine in Lieutenant Mellon's body, I'll permit this theatrical denouement." Then his eyes hardened. "Mike, you've done a fine job so far. I want you to bring me that son of a bitch's head on ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... knew how the crowd in the church broke up and dispersed itself after this denouement. For a few minutes the crush of people round the pulpit was terrific; all eyes were fixed on the young black-browed peasant who had so nearly been a parricide,—and on the father who publicly exonerated him,—and then there came a pressing ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... With the astonishment of this rediscovery, there flashed across him again the fatefulness of the inspiration which had decided him not to go in the coach. His presence there would have no doubt warned the stranger, and so estopped this convincing denouement. It was quite possible that her companion, by relays of horses and the advantage of bridle cut-offs, could have easily followed the Three Pine coach and joined her at Stockton. But for what purpose? The lady's trunk, which had not been disturbed ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... plot-structure of this story the line of descent is by far the sheerer. Short-story correspondence-schools would call it the brief downward action leading to denouement. ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... this singular psychological combat might have lasted before a nerve quivered somewhere and brought the denouement of a double death, there is no telling. For accident (or fate) intervened to pluck these antagonists back into life and rob the gloating Pierre of the happiness of seeing two men perish without danger to himself. Something of uncertain shape, but of a blue color, loomed vaguely behind Pierre's ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... at the denouement for it was so like Julie; but Mrs. Vernon added, "Julie you speak exactly like the millennial times, when the lion and the lamb shall dwell in ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Hesse, had a tragic denouement. A number of German nobles formed a company called the Mainzer Adelsverein and in 1842 sent two of their colleagues to Texas to seek out a site. The place chosen was ill-suited for a colony, however, and the whole enterprise from beginning to end was characterized by princely incompetence. ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... exclaimed in rapture. "We will make it our business to see to the denouement of this little comedy. It is obvious that fate is taking care that I shall not ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... of the pleasure you feel arises from your conscious anticipation of the end, and your satisfaction in seeing that you anticipated correctly? Or part, sometimes, from the occasional unexpectedness of the real denouement? Well, life is like that. I enjoy observing my successes, and, in a way, my failures. Let me show you what I mean. I think I know what you said to Sebastian—not the words, of course, but the purport; and I will write it down now for you. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... consciousness—moments so closely compacted that we think of them as simultaneous—a coherent series of representations may take place, involving what seem to be protracted periods for their unfoldment. Every reader will easily call to mind dream experiences of this character, in which the long-delayed denouement was suggested and prepared for by some extraneous sense-impression, showing that the entire dream drama unfolded within the time it took that impression to travel from the skin to ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... something of the nature of the joke, and, hearing steps and smothered laughter above, turned back and slipped into a closet at the end of the hall, where she shrank into a corner and waited with eager ears and bated breath for the denouement. ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... shoulders and strove to appear at their ease. But the only person who felt the indifference which they assumed was La Font; who, obnoxious to none of the annoyances which I foresaw, could hardly restrain his mirth at the DENOUEMENT which he anticipated. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... of the Nihilists. The story is so vivid and true to life that it might easily be considered a history of political intrigue in Russia, disguised as a novel, while its startling incidents and strange denouement would only confirm the old adage that "truth is stranger than fiction," and that great historical events may be traced to apparently insignificant causes. The hero of the story is a young Englishman, whose startling resemblance to the Czar ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... saturnine, and even lost his interest in the animated figures on distant Cod Lead Nubble, though Hiram could not drag his eyes from them, seeing in their frantic gestures the denouement of his plot. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... father-in-law. In the -Casina-, which was received with quite special favour by the public, the bride, from whom the piece is named and around whom the plot revolves, does not make her appearance at all, and the denouement is quite naively described by the epilogue as "to be enacted later within." Very often the plot as it thickens is suddenly broken off, the connecting thread is allowed to drop, and other similar signs of an unfinished art appear. The reason of this is to be sought probably far ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... her laugh, for, indeed, the story did sound like an absurd fable. All eyes were turned on Nell, and all waited for her to bring about with a denial the satisfactory denouement. Drake did not laugh, for his heart was burning with fury against the audacity, the shameless insolence, of Lady Luce; but he smiled in a grim fashion as his eyes still rested on ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... The denouement I cannot relate, as the artful bird, followed by her ardent suitor, soon flew away beyond my sight. It may not be rash to conclude, however, that she held out ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... denouement of the preceding chapter; but it must not be forgotten, that Delme had been residing some months at Leamington, and that Emily and Julia were friends. In his own familiar circle—a severe but true test—Sir Henry had every opportunity of becoming acquainted with Miss Vernon's ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... scruple to mingle in these transactions. In a short time, the population of the capital was increased by three hundred thousand souls. Foreigners also arrived in crowds; but, less intoxicated by the prevailing madness than the French, they foresaw the fatal denouement, and, for the most part, extricated themselves in time from its effects."—(Vol. i. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... denouement. It ensued almost without warning. At the time I felt absolutely positive that I was seasick. I would have sworn to it. If somebody had put a Bible on my chest and held it there I would cheerfully have laid my right hand on it and taken a solemn oath that I was seasick. Indeed,I believed ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... that the two boys who had waited the Hun had profited cunningly by the brawl. They had approached at its beginning—a fight was anybody's to watch—they had applauded its denouement with shrill and hearty cries, and they now ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... of self-congratulation he would have found ample opportunity for approbation in the excellent manner with which his plan for the rescue of Elise was working out. The companionship of Elise and Miss Hartwell had become almost constant in spite of the unpropitious denouement of their first meeting. This pleased Firmstone greatly. But there was another thing which this companionship thrust upon him with renewed interest. At first it had not been prominent. In fact, it was quite overshadowed while Miss Hartwell's ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... might have been a poodle. She knew how to call his same in a way that was anything less than a public scandal. On this occasion everybody looked at him and then went silent, as people awaiting the startling denouement of a drama. " Rufus! " She was baring his shoulder to show the fieur-de-lis of the criminal. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... formed with Lindlay would be of untold value to him in his work. A little later, Van Dorn would come to his assistance without arousing suspicion, not being known as a mining expert, and when the time came for the final denouement, Lindlay would accompany Mr. Cameron to the mines, as he was a skilled expert, and having already visited the mines, could furnish testimony as to the fraud practiced by ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... his eyes for a second,—a boyish trick of his that had survived when he wished some expected pleasure to spring suddenly upon him. How would she address him? The memory of their last meeting gave him courage, and he opened his eyes. The denouement was disconcerting. Directly under the tiny white monogram she had begun without heading ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... wheels, the young gentlemen were suddenly landed in the mud, and their emancipated steed galloped on, with the wreck of the buggy at his heels. Men, women, and children gathered on the corners to witness the denouement. Drays, carts, and wagons were seized with a simultaneous stampede, which soon cleared the middle of the street, and, uninjured by the collision, our carriage flew on. Cornelia sat on the back seat, ghastly pale and motionless, expecting ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... evening Hambone arrived back from the guns; he had with him some of the conspirators carrying wood that he wanted; it was the first time they experienced real pleasure in that work because they foresaw the denouement ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... writer of "shockers," he had a large and increasing public who were fascinated by the wholesome and thrilling stories he wrote, and who held on breathlessly to the skein of mystery until they came to the denouement he had planned. ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... the Senator shook in his hand—Baraja commended his soul to all the saints in the Spanish calendar—Cuchillo clutched his carbine, as if he would crush it between his fingers—while the chief himself coolly awaited the denouement ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... for the purpose of accelerating this denouement, had contrived, by buying up all the corn and sending it out of the country, to reduce the populace to famine, and then to make it appear that the King and Queen had been the monopolisers, and the extravagance of Marie Antoinette and her largesses to Austria and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... either to overhear or interrupt the foregoing conversation, had fortunately chosen the former alternative. And here, perchance, should the story end, for the after-history of Joachim Murat is a tragical addendum to that happy denouement. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... to open the conversation, until, realizing that he was a god and that the chief witch-doctor was doing the same thing, reflected swiftly and desiring to make an impression, repeated Bakahenzie's mystic phrase which he had overheard whilst hiding in the jungle previous to the denouement: ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... spectacle as in a dream. So swift had been the action, so fantastic the denouement, that he could not at first reconcile it all with reality. He went slowly over to the prostrate "Slim" Rawley, whom the others had laid out decently upon the ground, half expecting him to leap up and laugh in their faces; but the already stiffening figure with the fiendish scowl ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Raffaelle's "Death of Ananias;" the event, in Sapphira, is intimated and suspended. "Though," says Mr Burnet, "the painter has but one page to represent his story, he generally chooses that part which combines the most illustrative incidents with the most effective denouement of the event. In Raffaelle we often find not only those circumstances which precede it, but its effects upon the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... all in his power to belittle the work of his old chief, Burton was naturally incensed, and the disputation promised to be a stormy one. The great day arrived, and no melodramatic author could have contrived a more startling, a more shocking denouement. Burton, notes in hand, stood on the platform, facing the great audience, his brain heavy with arguments and bursting with sesquipedalian and sledge-hammer words to pulverize his exasperating opponent. Mrs. Burton, who had dressed with unusual care, occupied a seat on the platform. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... This dramatic denouement caused much laughter and excitement amongst the spectators. The judge adjourned the trial, and sent for Mon. Bouvier, the gaoler, and guards employed in ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... will be reminded by the following poem of the "May Colleen" and "The Outlandish Knight" of other collections. The resemblance between the three ballads is general up to a certain point, but a striking contrast occurs in the denouement, for whereas in other versions the maiden contrives by a simple stratagem to fling her false lover into the sea, where she leaves him to his fate, in the following she falls a victim to his treachery. His fitting end is, however, indicated in the remarkable stanza ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... guests played at dominoes, the old mercer watched the couple so tenderly, that they guessed the comedy had succeeded, and that the denouement was at hand. Michaud, before withdrawing, had a short conversation in an undertone with Madame Raquin. Then, he pointedly took the arm of Laurent saying he would accompany him a bit of the way. As Laurent went off, he exchanged a rapid glance with Therese, a ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... Goethe and Victor Hugo, in some excellent work done after them, this entanglement, this network of law, becomes the tragic situation, in which certain groups of noble men and women work out for themselves a supreme Denouement. Who, if he saw through all, would fret against the chain of circumstance which endows one at the end with ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... distance. No doubt that red conflagration was a signal that summoned them from afar. Like enough the sight was not new to them—it was not the first time they had witnessed the burning of a ship and had been present at the spectacle; before now they had assisted at the denouement, and were ever after ready to welcome such a catastrophe, and hasten towards ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... were sinking in their brass sconces and little waxen stalactites formed about the rims. The leaving of the guests had been hurried and noisy and without any particular formality or directness. In truth, it resembled a disorderly retreat more than anything else. The denouement was evidently sufficient; they had no desire to witness the anti-climax, however interesting and instructive it might be. Carabinieri and tableaux and conjugal reunion; it was too much to be crowded all ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... was intensely gloomy; the proper spot for a catastrophe rather than a happy denouement. I was not impressionable, of course; but now that I thought of it, our jaunt had been going with a smoothness almost ominous. Could one expect such clock-like regularity to ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... dialogue with Cornego. His last significant act is to dissuade the faction from attempting to assassinate the King, before being reduced to a minor role in the closing scene where he only has five short speeches and plays no significant part in the denouement. The character then, is something of a patchwork affair, playing different roles as the play progresses before being effectively ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... congratulates herself upon the fact that she retains at least the baggage—but alas, upon an examination she finds that nothing is left her in lieu of the month's board for three people and a week's board for the fourth, saving some empty trunks. For a few days subsequent to this denouement, Dr. Thorne and family live in retirement. Then they boldly emerge and repeat the same series of operations in other localities ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... the identity of the King with the wandering knight, Fitz-James, when he winds his bugle to summon his attendants. He was probably thinking of the lively, but somewhat licentious, old ballad, in which the denouement of a royal intrigue takes ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... characters have made their brief appearance on the stage, and have been hustled off to make room for others, but so unerringly are they drawn that we feel that we are in the presence of living people. Take Colette Willy, for example, who comes in on page 2656 at a time when the denouement is clearly at hand. The author, who is working up to his great scene —the appointment of Dr. Norman Wilsmore to the International Commission for the Publication of Annual Tables of Physical and Chemical Constants— draws her for us in a few ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... two parts,—Complication and Unravelling or Denouement. Incidents extraneous to the action are frequently combined with a portion of the action proper, to form the Complication; the rest is the Unravelling. By the Complication I mean all that extends from the beginning of the action to the part which marks the turning-point to good or ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... out like a figure of Christ imperfectly gilded and fixed upon a cross of tarnished silver. The flickering rays shed by the blue flames of a crackling fire were therefore the sole light of this sombre chamber, where the denouement of a drama was just ending. A log suddenly rolled from the fire onto the floor, as if presaging some catastrophe. At the sound of it the sick woman quickly rose to a sitting posture. She opened two eyes, clear as those of a cat, and all present eyed her in ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the coming of Camillus is too much like the last act of a stage-play, or the denouement of a novel, to be true. Most likely the Gauls marched off with their gold, though they may have been attacked on their retreat, and most or all of ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... late in appearing, and she employed the interval in meditating on the plot of her next novel, which was already partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to find a satisfactory denouement. By a not uncommon process of ratiocination, Mrs. Fetherel's success had convinced her of her vocation. She was sure now that it was her duty to lay bare the secret plague-spots of society, and she was resolved that there should be no doubt as to the purpose of her ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... filled her heart with joy and exultation, inasmuch as it insured her final safety. And so she just abandoned herself to the spirit of frolic that possessed her, and anticipated with the keenest relish the denouement of her strange adventure. ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... discover that it is much more than that. Carried along on the boisterous rush of the narrative by Chesterton's wonderful high-spirited style, he will soon see that he is being carried into much deeper waters than he had planned on; and the totally unforeseeable denouement will prove for the modern reader, as it has for thousands of others since 1908 when the book was first published, an inevitable and moving experience, as the investigators finally discover ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... promenaders had been attracted by the exclamations of the two disputants around the arbor under which they were arguing. The discussion had been religiously listened to, and Fouquet himself, scarcely able to suppress his laughter, had given an example of moderation. But with the denouement of the scene he threw off all restraint, and laughed aloud. Everybody laughed as he did, and the two philosophers were saluted with unanimous felicitations. La Fontaine, however, was declared conqueror, on account of his profound erudition and his irrefragable logic. Conrart obtained the compensation ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... example. More correctly, it is not an example, but a regular drama, with a plot and a denouement. An excellent ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... it till you have turned the last page."—Cleveland Leader. "Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution, almost takes one's breath away. The boldness of its denouement is sublime."—Boston Transcript. "The literary hit of a generation. The best of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly story."—St. Louis Dispatch. "The story is ingeniously told, ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... Harrison, of York, Neb., that picturesque veteran in horticulture, who has been an attendant at our meetings now for so many years, adding such a strong interest to our annual gatherings. Mr. Harrison recited at our late meeting the incident referred to here—without the denouement, which came to him in California this winter, where he met Mr. Lindbergh, one of Minnesota congressmen. As a result of this incident we had Mr. Harrison with again at our late ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... are immensely entertaining; but are there to be many more of them, before you can permit our little comedy to reach its happy denouement?" ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... tonelessly. An ardent supporter of the local motion-picture palace, she had hoped for a slightly more gingery denouement, something ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... display advertisement; another, like Triumphant Democracy, was best served by sending out to the newspapers a "broadside" of pungent extracts; public curiosity in a story like The Lady, or the Tiger? was, of course, whetted by the publication of literary notes as to the real denouement the author had in mind in writing the story. Whenever Mr. Stockton came into the office Bok pumped him dry as to his experiences with the story, such as when, at a dinner party, his hostess served an ice-cream ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... unfortunate beings whom ignorance and poverty expose to the subversive attacks of evil? Why not have every hope of a people whose good moral sense is so invariably manifested? of a people who, in spite of the fascinations of art, will never permit a dramatic work to arrive at its denouement by the triumph of the wicked and the punishment of the just? This fact, scorned and laughed at though it be, appears to us of considerable importance on account of the tendencies which it proves, and which are even often found (we repeat it) among beings the most corrupt, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... a novel of considerable ability. The story is exciting and interesting, the scenes varied, the descriptions vivid, and the denouement well imagined and sustained. There are no dull pages in the book. There is much to praise, but something also to regret. There is a want of calm, of continuity in the style. The sentences are short and closely cut, falling ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it? Ah, yes, but that's not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I never use an effect, when I can help it, unless it prepares the effects that are to follow; that's what a story consists in. To make another end, that is to make the beginning all wrong. The denouement of a long story is nothing; it is just a "full close," which you may approach and accompany as you please—it is a coda, not an essential member in the rhythm; but the body and end of a short story is bone of the bone and blood of the blood of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... believing the mystery to be near its solution, [Footnote: This was, as nearly as I remember, in the autumn of 1879, the year following the robbery] entered into a conspiracy to forestall it and deliberately invented the lines of the coming denouement. Day by day they published its progress "upon the authority of a high official" who never existed, announcing that "behind each one of the grave-robbers stood a detective with uplifted hand" ready to arrest him when the word was given. It ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... mad," interposed Mr. Littell, lowering himself carefully to the window seat, for he had been standing all this time and his foot began to pain again. "After she knows you a little better, Bobby, she will expect this sort of denouement to follow whatever you undertake. I say we ought to have some dinner, Mother, and then talk ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... an early edition," Bransome answered, "but it spoke of a sensational denouement within the next few hours. I should imagine that it is all over by now. At the same time it's absurd how the Press give these things away. It seems that some fellow who was bicycling saw a man get in and out of poor Dicky's taxi and is quite ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... everyday life, its events, its emotions and impressions; she had told her of her secret meetings with Mark, but concealed from her the catastrophe, telling her simply that all was over between them. As the priest's wife was ignorant of the denouement of the story at the foot of the precipice, she put down Vera's illness to ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... pair began to muse on the denouement. Could this be a member of the firm or an employe? This hypothesis jeopardized the success of the night's adventure, unless, when they had permitted the prisoner to emerge, they bound and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... entirely covered with mountains is a much greater and more difficult task than where a denouement may be accomplished by a decisive battle in the open country; for fields of battle for the deployment of large masses are rare in a mountainous region, and the war becomes a succession of partial combats. Here it would ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... Madame Hazard to give him some Eau de Cologne. I desired the little chap to assume the most piteous tone he could; and was so well satisfied with the specimen he gave me, that I began to distribute the parts to my performers. The denouement was near at hand. I made all my party take off their shoes, doing the same myself, that we might not be heard whilst going up stairs. The little snivelling pilot was in his shirt; he rang the bell;—no one ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... CUM PARENTIBUS. Write here. I heard from Lang. Ferrier prayeth to be remembered; he means to write, likes his Tourgenieff greatly. Also likes my 'What was on the Slate,' which, under a new title, yet unfound, and with a new and, on the whole, kindly DENOUEMENT, is going to shoot up and become a star. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and his satellite were dumfounded. Firmly believing that Langdon could find no way to pass the bill for Altacoola and yet spoil their crooked scheme, they were totally unprepared for any such denouement. To think that a simple, old-fashioned planter from the cotton fields of Mississippi could originate such a plan to outwit the two ablest political ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... mother most tenderly by Susanna, who comes with a purse to repay the loan. She flies into a passion and boxes Figaro's ears before the situation is explained, and she is made as happy by the unexpected denouement as the Count and Don Curzio are miserable. Bartolo resolves that there shall be a double wedding; he will do tardy justice to Marcellina. Now we see the Countess again in her lamentable mood, mourning ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... and they sympathetically grouped themselves, anticipating, with true feminine sensitiveness, some terrible denouement. ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... in the morning everything was ready for departure, as she had ordered. We left the little Carpathian health- resort in a comfortable light carriage. The most interesting drama of my life had reached a point of development whose denouement it was then impossible ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... motivation in the last two acts is false and disappointing. But there is the old Sudermann pyrotechnical virtuosity, the fireworks dazzle with their brilliancy, and you think of Paris, and also that some drama may be divorced from life and literature and yet be interesting. Insincere as is the denouement, the note of insincerity was absent in the acting of the cast. The honours were easily borne away by a pretty Viennese actress from the Volks Theatre there, Elsa Galafres by name, whose methods are Gallic, whose personality is ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... she known that up stairs there was a note-book full of original poems. Rather than bear the stigma of never having had a love-affair, this sentimental lady invents one to tell her mocking young friends. The dramatic and unexpected denouement is ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to claim her position, of course it will upset everything. However, she will not be able to do that at present; she must first take a long journey, and meantime Miriam will, no doubt, think of some way to prevent a denouement. Doubtless the girl will write once more and charge Sir William with his perfidy—she is not one to bear tamely such a wrong; but Miriam will be on the watch, and if the little upstart gets no reply, her pride will probably assert itself, and ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... long hours we were detained in the middle of the street under the rays of a burning sun and to the scandal of the immense crowd which had been gathered together to witness the denouement of the tragedy. The priests had hardly come into the presence of Villa when Fathers Isidro and Florentino were called out for the purpose of having heaped upon them a flood of insults and affronts. Father Isidro was ordered by Villa to interview Sr. Sabas Orros, who, Villa ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... came to its denouement just under the shoulder of the rose-roofed terrace jutting from a lowish, plainish house on the left, beyond certain palms and eucalyptus-trees. It is one of the most sacred shrines in Rome, for it was in this house that the "young English poet whose ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... his hands together enthusiastically, "I, for one, want to be 'in at the death' on this, for it will simply be the finest piece of work, the grandest denouement, of any case that has ever come within my twenty years of ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... tragical plot whose interest is slightly marred by triteness and improbable situations. Of the latter we must point out the strained coincidence whereby four distinct things, proceeding from entirely unrelated causes, give rise to the final denouement. The culmination of the aged father's resolve to kill his enemy, the conditions which make possible the return of the son, the presence of the enemy's hat and coat under the wayside tree, and the storm which prompts ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... there's Mrs. Delacour leading Miss Portman off into the trictrac cabinet, with a face full of business—her hand in hers—Lord, I did not know they were on that footing! I wonder what's going forward. Suppose old Hartley was to propose for Miss Portman—there would be a denouement! and cut his daughter off with a shilling! Nothing's impossible, you know. Did he ever see Miss Portman? I must go and find ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... man he took a more healthy view of his adventure with Madame de Tecle, and began to congratulate himself on its denouement. Had things taken a different turn, his future destiny would have been compromised and deranged for him. His political future especially would have been lost, or indefinitely postponed, for his liaison with Madame de Tecle would have been discovered some day, and would have forever alienated the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... she had hitherto worn with such disdain for the eccentricities of modern fashion, and put herself into the hands of the best dressmaker in town. And thus snubbing, and being snubbed, dressing and dancing and feasting and flirting, did she soar higher and higher in her butterfly career. The denouement comes when they are cut out by "Ye rising Minnows"—an American sculptor—one Pygmalion F. Minnow—whose wife was twice ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... child of poverty. This is the last golden lock to the millions of Lagunitas, The poor puppet he has set up to play the contestant is under his control. He had wished to see Natalie homeward bound before this denouement. It must be. He muses. Kill her! Ah, no; too ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... have to go back to the '60's to find a newspaper story which eclipsed this one in effect. For a generation, the biography of Henry G. Surface had had, in that city and State, a quality of undying interest, and the sudden denouement, more thrilling than any fiction, captured the imagination of the dullest. Nothing else was mentioned at any breakfast-table where a morning paper was taken that day; hardly anything for many breakfasts to follow. In homes containing boys who had ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the proper phrase wherewith to express his pleasure at making the lady's acquaintance. Miss Jones, too, somehow, seemed ill at ease, and gazed at him with flaming cheeks and a puzzled, half-anxious look in her eyes. The Frau Professorin, who had probably expected a different denouement, looked disappointed, and the goddesses whispered to each other ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... The denouement, which has no lesson at all, is interesting. The superintendent saw no prospect of getting back the necklace, but before so informing the client, decided to cogitate on the matter for a day or two. During that time he met by accident a ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... long time in the background. Balzac had first to pay off his debts, and Mme. Hanska, as a Polish subject of the Czar Nicholas, was not in a position to marry from one day to another. The growth of their intimacy is, however, amply reflected in these volumes, and the denouement presents itself with a certain dramatic force. Balzac's letters to his future wife, as to every one else, deal almost exclusively with his financial situation. He discusses the details of this matter with all his correspondents, who apparently have—or ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... departed Zoroaster, nor the vanished Pythagoras ever came back through the opened door of the sepulcher, wearing the grave clothes of those who sleep. Human fancy had never dreamed of such a rapturous denouement for faiths other than Christianity. The resurrection of the Lord is the crowning narrative with which the Gospels close. It is a risen Christ who repairs the wastage of human decay and death. A voice above all those from ...
— An Easter Disciple • Arthur Benton Sanford
... who were enriching themselves at the expense of the thrifty but guileless French. It was also asserted that Jews in the army were betraying its secrets to their German kindred. As the army was universally popular, this was an effective blow at the Jews. The denouement was the arrest of Captain Dreyfus, his degradation, and his confinement on an island off the coast of French Guiana. The evidence had been slight, and it was discredited when a courageous officer of the Intelligence Department told his superiors that even this had ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... experiment, some scene whose beginning you once saw enacted on a street corner but passed by before the denouement was ready to be disclosed. Recall it all—that far the image is reproductive. But what followed? Let your fantasy roam at pleasure—the succeeding scenes are productive, for you have more or less consciously invented the unreal on ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... that I felt just as ready to set out again as though only twenty miles had been traversed. The excitement of the last few hours steering by the stars in an unknown country, and its most successful denouement, had put fatigue and weariness in the background; and as we sat down to a well-cooked supper of buffalo steaks and potatoes, with the brightest eyed little lassie, half Cree, half Scotch, in the North-west to wait upon us, while a great fire of pine wood blazed and crackled on the open hearth, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... fortunate thing that I had become sensible of his presence in the room almost from the first, and that I had been able, therefore, to direct the conversation and my line of conduct, to the point of the present denouement. I could realize just how shocked Prince Michael was by the event; just how puzzled his own reasoning powers were for the moment, because of this discovery of a spy concealed in the private room of the palace, who might, ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... that the day of bondage and of fetters has dawned, that the inexorable One, who alone in all the millions of created men is able, is even now present with, the gyves of her slavery in his hand. But the denouement is never at the bridal altar. Our host entertaineth us with no loves of Strephon and Phillis, nor leads beneath shady arcades to a vine-clad cottage, wherein is love and rich cream and homemade butter. The three sisters, the dread Moirae, in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... unprepared for such a denouement, shot a searching glance at Carolina. She bowed her head ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... the needle, and my skill in laying out work; but as I had no brother to come for me, I usually went home before the evening frolic, which consisted of plays. Male and female partners went through the common quadrille figures, keeping time to the music of their own voices, and making a denouement every few moments by some man kissing some woman, perhaps in a dark hall, or some woman kissing some man, or some man kissing all the women, or vice versa. Elders and preachers often looked on in pious approbation, and ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... A. Phelps, during the incipient step of the invasion. We will let the scout relate his own story, which is corroborated by a signal-officer, who, from one of the lofty peaks of the mountains, witnessed the exciting denouement. ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... we find in the ancient chronicles, so interwoven with narrative we know to be true, as to make it impossible not to attach a certain amount of credit to them. This particular story is the more interesting as its denouement, abruptly left in the blankest mystery by one Saga, is incidentally revealed to us in the course of another, relating to events with which the first had no connection. [Footnote: From internal evidence it is certain that the chronicle which contains these Sagas must have been written ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... orgies, was accused of sharing them himself. His former tutor, who ought to have felt bound to drag him away from so ignoble a mode of life, rather strove to immerse him in degrading pleasures, so as to keep him out of business matters; without suspecting it, he was hurrying on the denouement of the terrible drama that was being acted behind the scenes at Castel Nuovo. Robert's widow, Dona Sancha of Aragon, the good and sainted lady whom our readers may possibly have forgotten, as her family had done, seeing that God's anger was ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dissensions and grumblings. The story is a long one. It reached its tragic denouement just below the summit of the Sierras, on the shores of Donner Lake. The words of McGlashan may ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... favorite model. A grand tragedy based on the themes of Hamlet and King Lear was immediately undertaken, and although in its progress he killed off forty-two of the dramatis personae and was compelled in the denouement, for want of characters to let their ghosts reappear, we can not but regard it as a proof of the superabundance of his ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... and those not unreasonable ones, on this little book—let it be some excuse at least for me, that I have foreseen them. Readers will complain, I doubt not, of the very mythical and mysterious denouement of a story which began by things so gross and palpable as field-sports and pauperism. But is it not true that, sooner or later, 'omnia exeunt in mysterium'? Out of mystery we all came at our birth, fox-hunters and paupers, sages and saints; into mystery we shall all return . . . at ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley |
