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Plot   Listen
verb
Plot  v. i.  
1.
To form a scheme of mischief against another, especially against a government or those who administer it; to conspire. "The wicked plotteth against the just."
2.
To contrive a plan or stratagem; to scheme. "The prince did plot to be secretly gone."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plot" Quotes from Famous Books



... in fact, "I pledge you my sacred word that the Duchess shall be delivered to you whole and in honour. She shall be in the Palace within an hour. The Secretary who has her there, who stabbed his master and (as I learn from Milan) hatched all the plot, must be left to me. Madonna Maria saved my life at the peril of her own. She has no more devoted servant than I am. Trust me ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... had from time immemorial built their nests. A project struck him which promised fair to realise his wishes. After a multitude of schemes subservient to the main purpose had been thrown out and abandoned, the whole plot was finally ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... say very little about the "green earth," and the wonders of the work of God on the THIRD DAY of Creation, but perhaps you will understand something of what a student of nature meant when he wrote, "The earth may be looked at as a vast seed-plot of life, seen from the point of view of ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... little train of cars on a narrow-gauge railroad carried us a distance of six miles to the older city of Citta Vecchia. The land along the way as far as we could see was divided into small plots ranging from about half an acre to two acres in size. Each plot was surrounded by stone walls from six to ten feet in height, many of which were broken and dilapidated. We were told that, although the climate of the island is quite mild, violent winds frequently blow over it, and these walls were erected to protect the fig, orange, lemon, and other fruit ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... stories are uncommonness of his conceptions, masterly compositions, ofttimes artificial. It happens also that a story has no plot ("From the Diary of a Tutor in Pozman," "Bartek the Victor"), no action, almost no matter ("Yamyol"), but the reader is rewarded by simplicity, rural theme, humoristic pictures ("Comedy of Errors: A Sketch of American Life"), pity for the ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... plot was set apart for the growth of wheat. For forty-four successive years that field had grown wheat without the addition of any carbonized manure, so that the only possible source from which the plant could obtain the carbon for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various

... Iktomi stood with a hand on his long protruding chin. His eyes were fixed upon something in the air. The muskrat looked out of the corners of his eyes without moving his head. He watched the wily Iktomi concocting a plot. ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa

... in Vietnam—is not a simple one. There is no single battle-line which you can plot each day on a chart. The enemy is not easy to perceive, or to isolate, or to destroy. There are mistakes and there are setbacks. But we are moving, and our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... authority Of one who seemed so worthy, by his cheer, That he made sign the battle should not be Further continued then with sword or spear: To whom, together with his chivalry, And barons of the realm and others near Rinaldo all the treacherous plot displayed, Which Polinesso ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... Government. By these means the committees were to purchase food, and establish soup-kitchens in the different districts, where food was to be distributed without any labour test; the labourer, however, was to be allowed to work on his own plot of ground, for the next harvest. The Lord Lieutenant, he said, and the Board of Works were consulted about this, and approved of it. The system was to be carried out in the first instance by a preparatory measure, and then by a Bill to be proposed to Parliament. ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... had a great fondness for gardening, being half a countryman and half town-bred, possessed in a certain village a fair-sized plot with a field attached, and all enclosed by a quickset hedge. Here sorrel and lettuce grew freely, as well as such flowers as Spanish jasmine and wild thyme, and from these his good wife Margot culled many a posy for ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine

... rumors already of a plot to prostitute the law. In Unalaska a man warned Dextry, with terror in his eye, to beware of it; that beneath the cloak of Justice was a drawn dagger whetted for us fellows who own the rich diggings. I don't think there's any truth in it, but you ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... The plot of the story before us, without being intricate, is ingenious and the interest in the characters is fully sustained throughout. The trying experiences of Kitty DeWitt were those of a multitude of girls and women, ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... He "follows his nose." The plot thickens! He makes deductions. There are surprises for the reader—and for the "Sleuth," ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... held on circumstantial evidence. He had been caught "with the goods on him." All that loot hidden under the old barn on his place was positive proof of his guilt. Still he held out, and declared himself the victim of some base plot calculated to ruin his reputation; which was rather a queer thing for Leon to say, since the only reputation he had in Scranton ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... by a woman! The plot well conceived and worked out, the characters individualized and clear-cut, and the story so admirably told that you are hurried along for two hours and a half with a smile often breaking out at the humor, a tear ready to start at the pathos, and with ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... turned to seek them, he saw that they had stolen a march on him, that they knew it already and believed it! Between him and the tiny plot of grass, the urn, and the espalier, which, still caught the last beams of the setting sun, he surprised two happy faces spying on his joy—the one beaming through a hundred puckers with a mother's tearful pride; the other, the most beautiful in the world, and now softened and elevated ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... chances, their own lads would have done the very same things; a fact which seemed to give them a sort of hypothetical proprietorship in Denis's glory. His presence brightened up society as a tall poppy brightens up all a sombre potato-plot, and his conversation brought strange lands and extraordinary events within one remove—a single pair of eyes and ears—of everybody's experience. For many years after "the summer we had Denis O'Meara up here" made a vivid time-mark ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... withdrew; Sir Joseph began to talk politics, although the young men had threatened their fair companions immediately to follow them. This was the period of the Bed-Chamber Plot, when Sir Robert Peel accepted and resigned power in the course of three days. Sir Joseph, who had originally made up his mind to support a Conservative government when he deemed it inevitable, had for the last month endeavoured to compensate for this trifling error by vindicating the ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... think of these young sparks and the young gentlewoman all meeting in a lonely place when honest folks were abed, and the hiding in the vault, and the state of the clothes were strange matters scarce agreeing with what either prisoner or witness said. It looked only too like part of a plot of which some one should make a clean breast. On the other hand, the prisoner was a fine young gentleman, an only son, and had been fighting the Turks, though it would have been better to have fought the French among his own countrymen. He ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... spent the next hour in hunting clothes and anathematizing dogs. His finds were confined strictly to rags and pairless arms and sleeves, and finally he gave up, with everything accounted for but worthless. Discovering a high, grassy plot near the creek, screened from the woods by a thick copse of hazel bushes, he lay down to think matters ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... is, that there was a plot entered into to have a constitution formed for Kansas, and put in force, without giving the people an opportunity to vote upon it, and that Mr. Douglas was ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... dared not break away from him, Steelman's busy brain began to plot a way to take advantage of this man's weakness for liquor. He sat across the table from him and adroitly stirred up his hatred of Crawford and Sanders. He raked up every grudge his guest had against the two men, calling to his mind how they had ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... spring and summer months, the beds were dug up and remodelled, three or four times during the season, to suit the caprice of the owner, while the poor drooping flowers were ranged along the grass-plot to wither in the sun during ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... to begin with, an affair of a shady doctor, of I.D.B. and an abduction; none of it, I admit, any too absorbing. But about halfway through the author, as though sharing my own views upon this part of the plot, exchanges (so to speak) the Shady for the Black, and transports us all to Zululand. And if you need reminding of what H.R.H. can do with that delectable country, I can only say I am sorry for you. Incidentally there are some stirring scenes from certain pages of history that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various

... Night with a Lunatic;" a nervously excited and belated passenger had once unconsciously sat for an escaped forger; the picking up of a forgotten novel in the rack, with passages marked in pencil, had afforded the plot of a love story; or the germ of a romance had been found in an obscure news paragraph which, under less listless moments, would have passed unread. On the other hand, he recalled these inconvenient and inconsistent moments from which the so-called ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... and I held a council of war, wherein it was decided, nem. con., that our plot was in a fair way to ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... purporting to be a translation of such a discourse was published in 1658,(1) and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664. KENELM was a son of the Sir EVERARD DIGBY (1578-1606) who was executed for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however, JAMES I. appears to have regarded him with favour. He was a man of romantic temperament, possessed of charming manners, considerable learning, and even greater credulity. His contemporaries seem to have differed in their opinions concerning ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

... forest, listening, as he went, to those delightful and charming strains of nature's choristers. On his way he beheld a very delightful and level spot of land covered with golden sands and resembling heaven itself, O king, for its beauty. On that plot stood a large and beautiful banian with a spherical top. Possessed of many branches that corresponded with the parent tree in beauty and size, that banian looked like an umbrella set over the plain. The spot underneath that magnificent tree was drenched with water perfumed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... order to perfect the details of the plot, Clinton's adjutant-general, Maj. John Andr['e], met him near Stony Point on the night of the 21st of Sept. In the meantime, the man-of-war, "Vulture," upon which Andr['e] had arrived, was forced to move farther downstream to avoid an impromptu ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous

... play the light or comick part is very natural and pleasing, but the grave scenes, if a few passages be excepted, have more labour than elegance. The plot is rather intricate than artful. The time of the action is indefinite; some time, we know not how much, must have elapsed between the recess of the Duke and the imprisonment of Claudio; for he must have learned the story of Mariana in his disguise, or he delegated ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson

... the Gods confound me, if Caesar be not the deepest traitor, or the most miserable idiot, that ever intermeddled with a plot!" ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... this evidence Travers had fixed his eyes on Gardiner, but the witness had steadily avoided him. Jim was now convinced that he was the victim, not of a coincidence, but a plot. Of course, he could give his evidence, which would be directly contradictory to that of Gardiner, but he was already under suspicion, and anything he might say would be unconsciously discounted by the jurors. But he began calmly, a quiet smile still playing about his thin ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... about it, for the sand is caving in, and I feel the devil fingering my toes." Seeing the people come to his relief, the major regained his courage, (for when discovered he was nearly frightened out of his wits,) and began heaping curses upon the head of the miscreant who had laid so diabolical a plot against his life. Indeed, he stubbornly refused to be convinced that it was anything else than a trick of his enemies to rob him of his military title. In fine, he declared to the parson, who several times rebuked him for his free use of profane adjectives, that nothing but ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... "Here are dexterity of plot, glancing play at witty talk, characters really human and humanly real, spirit and gladness, freshness and quick movement. 'Half a Rogue' is as brisk as a horseback ride on a glorious morning. It is as varied as an April ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... which, though they had none of them thought of it, is in Weeks's state. And Bessie happened to discover that Jake Hoover was spying on them. She stayed behind the others at Windsor, discovered that he was telegraphing the news to Holmes, and guessed the plot." ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart

... Ivan Nikiforovitch, panting with fatigue, though it is to be observed that he was not at all disinclined to a reconciliation, "I do not know what I did to Ivan Ivanovitch; but why did he destroy my coop and plot against my life?" ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... a thoroughly clever and delightful story of child-life, gracefully told, and charming in its blending of humor and pathos. The children in the book are real children, and the pretty plot through which they move is fully in harmony with the characters. The young ones will find it a storehouse of pleasant things pleasantly related, and a book that will appeal at once to their ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May

... we formed a plot to overturn the large marble table of St. Angelo's Square, on which it was said that in the days of the League of Cambray the commissaries of the Republic were in the habit of paying the bounty to the recruits who engaged to fight under the standard of St. Mark—a circumstance ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... did his lordship's thoughts revert to the Bosporus than the Liffey! all this home news was mean, commonplace, and vulgar. The whole drama—scenery, actors, plot—all were low and ignoble; and as for this 'something that was to be done for Ireland,' it would of course be some slowly germinating policy to take root now, and blossom in another half-century: one of those blessed parliamentary enactments which men who dealt ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... The plot of this music-drama itself is made beautifully clear by this Vorspiel and lecture-recital, so that even a mother and child at a matine'e can follow the tone-pictures without difficulty; but the libretto, which is a remarkable specimen of Wagner's alliterative verse, only helps the more ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... plot!" cried Rudolph. "Now I comprehend all. Believing that the evening previous you had become possessed of a secret of great importance to him, he wished to get rid of you. He had probably some interest in deceiving his accomplice, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... suddenly unable to keep Helen's face distinct from the sights themselves; her lips widened as she bent down over the bed, and she began to gabble unintelligibly like the rest. The sights were all concerned in some plot, some adventure, some escape. The nature of what they were doing changed incessantly, although there was always a reason behind it, which she must endeavour to grasp. Now they were among trees and savages, now they were on the sea, now they were on the tops of high ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... not press him further, but to satisfy myself that he lay in ignorance of the workings of his own mind, deliberately introduced him to Mortimer Collins's "Transmigration," and gave him a sketch of the plot ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... safety. As for le Bourdon, so profound was the impression he had made that morning, that few of the chiefs were surprised at the exemption proposed in his favor. The superstitious dread of witchcraft is very general among the American savages; and it certainly did seem to be hazardous to plot the death of a man, who had even the bees that were humming on all sides of them under his control. He might at that very moment be acquainted with all that was passing; and several of the grim-looking and veteran warriors who sat in the circle, and who appeared to be men able ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... no noisy demonstration. There was a solemn hush, as every one realized that the country was about to be plunged into one of the mightiest civil wars of all history. Indeed many men believed that there was a concerted plot to assassinate Mr. Lincoln at that time, and that he would never be permitted to enter upon the ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... a rotating cultivation technique in which trees are cut down and burned in order to clear land for temporary agriculture; the land is used until its productivity declines at which point a new plot is selected and the process repeats; this practice is sustainable while population levels are low and time is permitted for regrowth of natural vegetation; conversely, where these conditions do not exist, the practice can have disastrous ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... passed into the cloisters, and they sat down in one of the recesses of the windows, and looked out upon the rich plot of grass which the cloisters enclose. There was not a soul there except themselves; the cool and the quiet and the beauty of the spot refreshed these pilgrims, and ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... in my plot of ground at Keilhau, you ought, in accordance with a remark of Barop, to cause me serious self-examination, for he said, probably with no thought of my mossy couch, "From the way in which the pupils use their plots of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... obtain the benefits of this proclamation are actually in civil, military, or naval confinement or custody, or legally held to bail, either before or after conviction, and all persons who were engaged, directly or indirectly, in the assassination of the late President of the United States or in any plot or conspiracy in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... rational Christian nor Deist, and would reconcile many to a character they have too hastily rejected. I do not know that it would reconcile the genus irritabile vatum, who are all in arms against me. Their hostility is on too interesting ground to be softened. The delusion into which the X. Y. Z. plot showed it possible to push the people; the successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... made an interesting novel of romance and intrigue. He has chosen a little town in the south of France, high up in the mountains, as the scene for his drama. The plot deals with a group of Calvinists who have been driven from Belgium into southern France, where they are besieged in their mountain fastness by the French troops. A number of historical characters figure in the book, among them ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... Hampstead, London, Joanna Baillie, the celebrated authoress. She was the friend of Sir Walter Scott, who admired both her poetic and dramatic genius exceedingly. Her plays, although open to criticism as to selection of subject, plot, and stage effectiveness, display the poetic power of her mind ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Plot, work, contrive; create new fallacies, Teem from thy Womb each minute a black Traitor, Whose blood and thoughts have twins conception: Study to act deeds yet unchronicled, Cast native Monsters in the molds of Men, ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... information about her husband's subtle schemes. I knew his hopes were vain. In the first place the Aschers do not talk business to each other and she knows nothing of what he is doing. In the next place Ascher had no underhand plot with regard to the cash register. He was acting in a perfectly open and straightforward way. But Gorman cannot believe that any one is straightforward. That is one of the drawbacks to the profession of politics. The practice of it destroys a man's ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... Journey to Brentford." The hero of this pleasant horse-play was a tailor,—men following that useful trade being considered capable of affording more amusement in connection with horses than any others, excepting, perhaps, jolly mariners on a spree. The plot of the drama used to strike my young mind as being a "crib" from "John Gilpin"; but I forgave that, in consideration of the skilful manner in which the story was wrought out. With what withering contempt used I, brought up among horses and their riders, to jeer at the wretched ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... of his readers, the novelist must construct a plot and create the characters whose movements shall produce the designed catastrophe, and, by the incidents and dialogue, exhibit the passions, the virtues, the aspirations, the weaknesses, and the villany of human nature. It is needless to say that most characters in fiction ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... yourself well. I did, as you say, once make a small sally into Parnassus—took a sort of flying leap over Helicon; but if ever they catch me there again—sir, the town have a prejudice to my family; for, if any play could have made them ashamed to damn it, mine must. It was all over plot. It would have made half a dozen novels: nor was it crammed with a pack of wit-traps, like Congreve and Wycherly, where every one knows when the joke was coming. I defy the sharpest critick of them all to have known when any jokes of mine were coming. The dialogue was plain, easy, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... observation to the walls. It was sudden, violent, desperate; but the loyalty and bravery of the guards was more than a match for the assassins, aided too by the powerful arm of the Queen herself, who was no idle spectator of the fray. It was a well-laid plot, and but for an accidental addition which was made at the walls to the Queen's guard, might have succeeded; for the attack was made just at the Persian gate, and the keeper of the gate had been gained over. Had the guard been overpowered but for a moment, they would have shot the gate too ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... was the plot against the international bridge upon which the Grand Trunk Railway crosses the border between the United States and ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... to the little volcanic knoll near the centre of the island. There, in the neat garden plot they had observed before, a man, in the last relics of a very tattered European costume, much covered with a short cape of native cloth, was tending his flowers and singing to himself merrily. His back was turned to them as they came ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... lay asleep by her side and sucked blood from the wounds—a modern "Succubus." Pare mentions the perverted appetites of pregnant women, and says that they have been known to eat plaster, ashes, dirt, charcoal, flour, salt, spices, to drink pure vinegar, and to indulge in all forms of debauchery. Plot gives the case of a woman who would gnaw and eat all the linen off her bed. Hufeland's Journal records the history of a case of a woman of thirty-two, who had been married ten years, who acquired a strong taste for charcoal, and was ravenous for it. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... arrived at a plot of grass where the poor Lion lay as if dead. Beauty ran toward him, and knelt by his side, and seized ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... its success" upon its plot, its theme, its school or its master, for it has very little if any of them, but upon its soul-subduing, all-absorbing, high-faluting effect upon the audience, every member of which it causes to experience the most singular and exquisite sensations. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... holes like hunted vermin," Lord Cloverton returned sharply, "afraid to strike, afraid to be seen, with no plan of action ready, and altogether futile. I do not speak of such plots as these, but of one particular plot, whose ramifications spread and grow from end to end of Wallaria, penetrating to the very heart of the nation as surely as tree roots push their way to water. The head of it looks up watchfully from the hidden intrenchments on the mountains at intervals, waiting for ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... The fire of the poet, the reach of imagination, was reserved for the chorus, which frequently exhibited the most sublime specimens of lyric poetry, rivalling the loftiest strains of the Pindaric muse. Thus the audience, in a short piece, in which the plot was rapidly urged forward, and the interest was never allowed for a moment to flag, were presented alternately with the force of Demosthenes' declamation, the pathos of Sophocles' expressions, and the fire of Pindar's poetry. It was as if the finest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... publications which reach 3,000,000 readers from New York City as a center. The same public official added that he did not have the authority to make known the names of the well-to-do men and women engaged thus in financing the plot ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... the sight of helpless Mexico, and the temptation of adding fresh slave soil to the United States South, through her spoliation; Calhoun confessed that, with the breaking out of hostilities between the two republics an impenetrable curtain had shut from his eyes the future. The great plot for maintaining the political domination of the South had miscarried. New national territory had become inevitable with the firing of the first gun. Seeing this, Calhoun endeavored to postpone the evil day for the South by proposing a military policy of "masterly inactivity" whereby ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... inventing the plan of a work, as lying silent on his back for two whole days on the deck of a yacht in a Mediterranean port. At the end of the two days he arose and called for dinner. In those two days he had built his plot. He had moulded a mighty clay, to be cast presently in perennial brass. The chapters, the characters, the incidents, the combinations were all arranged in the artist's brain ere he set a pen to paper. My Pegasus won't fly, so as to let me survey ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... is situated on the south side of this plot, and is very near the street. The ground in front of the church is paved with fine slabs of stone. The steps by which the church was entered were 5 feet wide, but the doorway itself was somewhat wider. From the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... SCENE. Thymy grass-plot at back of the Mahasu dak-bungalow, overlooking little wooded valley. On the left, glimpse of the Dead Forest of Fagoo; on the right, Simla Hills. In background, line of the Snows. CAPTAIN GADSBY, now three weeks a husband, is smoking the pipe of peace on a rug in the sunshine. Banjo and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... the boys and especially of any who were at all intimate with her son; the more she heard, the more she wanted to know; there was no gorging her to satiety; she was like a ravenous young cuckoo being fed upon a grass plot by a water wag-tail, she would swallow all that Ernest could bring her, and yet be as hungry as before. And she always went to Ernest for her meals rather than to Joey, for Joey was either more stupid or more impenetrable—at any rate she could pump ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... himself fortunate indeed in lighting on what he believed to be the facts. Who could have imagined a situation in which whimsical Destiny had ironically stooped down from her high place to dabble ignobly in a murderer's ghastly plot? ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... under the power house, and in the mills—the sources of Hampton's prosperity. And Hampton believed, of course, that this was the inevitable result of the anarchistic preaching of such enemies of society as Jastro and Antonelli if these, indeed, had not incited the Syrians to the deed. But it was a plot of the mill-owners, Anna insisted—they themselves had planted the explosive, adroitly started the rumours, told the police where the dynamite was to be found. Such was the view that prevailed at Headquarters, pervaded the angrily buzzing crowd that stood outside—heedless ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... his office, met with a large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected copies of the foreign despatches written by Milton while he filled the office of Secretary, and several papers relating to the Popish Trials and the Rye-house Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an envelope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner, Merchant. On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the long-lost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to Wood and Toland, Milton finished after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... floated downstream to the mills. There the logs are thrown in with other logs, and branded on one end to correspond with such logs as have been procured in a legitimate way. Should the pirates be discovered, they frequently buy the plot, if they represent a big concern, and nothing more is done so far ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower

... for little boys and girls which sprung into immediate popularity. To know the six little Bunkers is to take them at once to your heart, they are so intensely human, so full of fun and cute sayings. Each story has a little plot of its own—one that can be easily followed—and all are written in Miss Hope's most entertaining manner. Clean, wholesome volumes which ought to be on the bookshelf of ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope

... transactions of the past," replied Dick. "When he got in jail, he sent for Japson and made him fix it up so he could escape. That fire helped the rascals. Then both came down to New York, and all hands hatched the plot to put dad ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield

... did not know then, nor for a long time afterward, that the French seizure of Tunis was directly due to Bismarck's instigation. Lord Salisbury, also, who seems to have been in the plot, approved it for his own reasons. Bismarck's motives were plain—he wished to entangle France further in African colonial ventures. It had taken forty years, many thousand soldiers' lives, and great expenditures for ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... having been employed by you to make a survey of a road in said town would report that the following is a correct survey thereof, as made by me under your directions, to-wit: (Give an accurate description of the road by course and distance) and that below is a correct plot of said road according to said survey. (Dated ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... receptions, many persons I was desirous to know. On one occasion I found George Jacob Holyoake there, surrounded by several young ladies, all stoutly defending the Nihilists in Russia, and their right to plot their way to freedom. They counted a dynasty of Czars as nothing in the balance with the liberties of a whole people. As I joined the circle, Mr. Holyoake called my attention to the fact that he was the only ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... did not fit, the doors did not stay shut; but it was as clean as soap and water and scrubbing could make it. The three-quarters of an acre of garden were mainly devoted to the culture of potatoes, though under the parlour window Mrs Jimson had a plot of sweet-smelling herbs, and lines of lank sunflowers fringed the path that led to the front door. It was Mrs Jimson who received me as I descended from the station fly—a large red woman with hair bleached by constant exposure to weather, clad in a gown which, both in shape ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... into the past it may be stated that the plot of this one originally appeared in the Eternal Best Seller, under the heading, "He Asked You For Bread, and Ye Gave Him a Stone." There may be those who could not have traced ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... the form which it had so far assumed, was rather an appeal to fanaticism than a plot which could have laid hold of the deeper mind of the country; but as an indication of the unrest which was stealing over the minds of men, it assumed an importance which it would not have ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... distress prevailed to an alarming extent in many parts of the country, but no where was it more keenly felt than in the Midland counties. At the instigation of paid government spies, the poor, suffering people were urged to overthrow the Parliament. The plot was planned in a public house called the White Horse, at Pentrich, Derbyshire. A few half-starved labouring men took part in the rising, being assured by the perjured spies that it would simultaneously occur throughout the breadth and length of the land, and ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... the Jamaica Constitution, but on a division had a majority of five only in a house of five hundred and eighty-three. The Ministers therefore resigned, and Sir Robert Peel was sent for; a difficulty as to the Ladies of the Household, commonly called the Bedchamber Plot, compelled him to resign the task, and the Whigs, much injured in reputation, resumed office. Some changes took place, Macaulay joining the Ministry, and Lord Normanby, who had succeeded Lord Glenelg at the Colonial Office, exchanging places with Lord John ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... no waters are reached, and the tree which overhangs thee, starts away. Sisyphus,[60] thou art either catching or thou art pushing on the stone destined to fall again. Ixion[61] is whirled round, and both follows and flies from himself. The granddaughters, too, of Belus, who dared to plot the destruction of their cousins, are everlastingly taking up the water which they lose. After the daughter of Saturn has beheld all these with a stern look, and Ixion before all; again, after him, looking ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... that integration was a practical means of avoiding trouble, explained to the captain of an attack cargo ship who had just received a group of black crewmen and was segregating their sleeping quarters: "If you put all the Negroes together they'll have a chance to share grievances and to plot among themselves, and this will damage discipline and morale. If they are distributed among other members of the crew, there will be less chance of trouble. And when we say we want integration, we mean ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... labor-saving devices have almost atrophied its use, seems well nigh miraculous. Prose story-telling, which allows of ample description, elbow room for digression, indefinite extension and variation from the original kernel of plot, lends itself admirably to the imaginative needs of humanity ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... of living from the Labour Gazette for the last three years—you have them here—and the rates of increase in wages. Plot a diagram showing all these things. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... other man who comes near to her. She nets them with smiles, she bewitches them with her eyes till they go mad for love of her, and then, still smiling, she sends them about their business. Already two of them who were leaders in the great plot have died by their own hands, and another is mad, while the rest have become my secret but my bitter foes, because they love my Queen and think that I stand between her ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... form is when a question is asked."—Ibid. "The finding out the Truth ought to be his whole Aim."—Brightland's Gram., p. 239. "Mention the first instance when that is used in preference to who, whom, or which."—Sanborn's Gram., p. 96. "The plot was always exceeding simple. It admitted of few incidents."—Blair's Rhet., p. 470. "Their best tragedies make not a deep enough impression on the heart."—Ib., p. 472. "The greatest genius on earth, not even a Bacon, can be a perfect master of every branch."—Webster's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... face. She remembered the men who were at the house on the eventful night. They were somewhat dissipated young sportsmen and not remarkable for intelligence. None of them was likely to take part in such a plot. ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... of the 77th Pennsylvania Volunteers, the engineer and leader in the plot throughout,—now a captain in the 16th United States Infantry,—was taken prisoner at the battle of Chickamauga, September 20, 1863. On his way to Richmond he escaped from his guards at Weldon, N.C., but, after a day's ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... the plot grew thicker. We could hear that man talking over the telephone in the house. He was saying, "Yes, get here as soon as you can; ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... thing—the men that killed Rutter are the ones that held us up, and got off with that money of mine. And say—how did those fellows know I had that money and where I was carrying it? Good Lord! it sounds like the plot ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... my fury grew in a dead silence. How would it end—with what outrage? I would show my contempt and preserve my dignity by submitting without a struggle—I despised this odious plot. At last there were voices, footsteps; I found it very hard to carry out my resolution and refrain from stifled cries and kicks. I was lifted up and carried, like a corpse, with many stumbles, by men who sometimes growled as they ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... place, shall consent to submit to this momentary and only apparent degradation, the issue is as certain to be happy, as the means shall be tried. My head never set with a sense of more security upon my shoulders, than now, while planning and putting into execution this Carthaginian plot. ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... plot of mine," she soliloquized, an hour later. "I did not dream the foolish fellow was so interested. How came I to be so careless? That is the last governess who will ever enter these doors. I will send the children ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... whispered Norton. "I suspected something was wrong. Carey and Bossermann are in some sort of a plot with this Wingate, who came on board solely to aid that Sid Merrick. I believe Carey is going off to meet Merrick and see if he can ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer

... old building, a Late-Gothic structure, as he sketched it twice, once after its fire in 1652. On the other hand, when in 1662 he executes a large decoration for the new town-hall, his work does not agree with the taste of his contemporaries and is returned to him (The Plot of Claudius Civilis, now much cut down, in the Museum at Stockholm). Considering Rembrandt's style of expressing himself in his work, we find many instances to convince us of his preference for the architectural forms of an ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt

... suspicion of any further machinations by him against you or Almo would draw down on him the unescapable consequences of my severest displeasure. By that admonition, and by his chagrin at the unexpected and unwelcome outcome of his plot, I think him sufficiently punished. Also I think him thoroughly cowed. He will make no ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... I remember also The plot of the Two Hundred, with one Fian, The Registrar of the Devil, at their head, To drown his Majesty on his return From Denmark; how they sailed in sieves or riddles Unto North Berwick Kirk in Lothian, And, landing there, danced hand in hand, and sang, "Goodwife, go ye before! good wife, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the tyrant's plot no favor No heed to place-fed knaves! Bar and bolt the door forever Against the land of slaves!" Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it, The heavens above us spread! The land is roused,—its spirit Was ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... have died there, and his brother, Lord Arthur, has been the heir. And yesterday Chetney did return. I read it in the papers." "So did I," assented the American soothingly; "and it struck me as being a very good plot for a story. I mean his unexpected return from the dead, and the probable disappointment of the younger brother. So I decided that the younger brother had better murder the older one. The Princess Zichy I invented out ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis

... the body-servants of the false gods, and are reserved to perish with them when the lie is discovered; or perhaps to live awhile, set in cages in the market-place, to be mocked by the passers-by and to serve as a warning to any whose monkey hearts should dare to plot sacrilege against the divinity of ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... so she has got a green one, and told Belle it would spoil the effect of mine, as we are much together, of course. Was n't that sweet of her? Belle came and told me in, time, and I just got pink, so my amiable sister, that is to be, won't succeed in her pretty little plot." ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... wasn't any fault of yours," said Isaac, putting his arm tenderly round the trembling girl. "I for another believe Clarke was right when he said Miller knew there were Indians over the river. It looks like a plot to abduct you. Have no fear for Alfred. He can take care of himself. He ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... at last," said Holmes as we walked together across the moor. "What a nerve the fellow has! How he pulled himself together in the face of what must have been a paralyzing shock when he found that the wrong man had fallen a victim to his plot. I told you in London, Watson, and I tell you now again, that we have never had a foeman more worthy ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... beyond the vague factors of anxiety and dread, she had cared for me simply, as though she were a young boy and I an older man. The small details of our daily life she had assumed, because she still was the stronger. Without plot or plan, and simply through the stern command of necessity, our interests had been identical, our plans covered us both as one. At night, for the sake of warmth, we had slept closely, side by side, both too weary and worn out to reason regarding that or any other thing. ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... consultation, it was agreed to let these citizens give the signal. This was to be the cry of fire, and when it was heard, we were all to rush upon the guards, and overpower them. There were only about thirty guards in the building, and we had over a hundred and fifty men concerned in the plot. We were, therefore, sure of success if every one performed his part—at least in getting out of the building, which was a less difficult task ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... Count. The Plot is layd, if all things fall out right, I shall as famous be by this exploit, As Scythian Tomyris by Cyrus death. Great is the rumour of this dreadfull Knight, And his atchieuements of no lesse account: Faine would mine eyes be witnesse with mine eares, To giue their censure of these ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... a while they all went out to a plot of grass at the cave's mouth, and there they boxed, and ran, and wrestled, and laughed till the stones fell ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... woman of Mrs. Reynold's type, she could not hold him. After liberally relieving the alleged pecuniary distress of this charmer, and weary of her society, he did his best to get rid of her. She protested. So did he. It was then that he was made aware of the plot The woman's husband appeared, and announced that only a thousand dollars would heal his wounded honour, and that if it were not immediately forthcoming, he would write ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... and set me a plot With strawberry roots, of the best to be got; Such, growing abroad, among thorns in the wood, Well chosen and ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... which the spirit of the Old South figures largely; adventure and romance have their play and carry the plot ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... once called their own, driven back, back on the crest of the ever-increasing wave of settlement, facing the alternative of annihilation or of submergence in that flood, the Sioux had halted like a wild thing at bay, with their backs to the last stronghold, the richest plot of earth on the face of the globe, the Black Hills country, and as a cornered animal ever fights, had battled ferociously for a lost supremacy. But, robbers themselves, holding the land on the insecure title of might alone, fighting to the end, they had at last succumbed to the inevitable: ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... were led by the Earl of Monmouth, now Earl of Peterborough, and attended their Majesties from Whitehall" to a banquet given by the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City. Three years afterwards, on the occasion of the Jacobite plot in which Lord Preston was the leading figure, he published the first pamphlet that is known for certain to be his. It is in verse, and is entitled A New Discovery of an Old Intrigue, a Satire levelled ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... curious how often the catastrophe, or the leading interest, of a modern novel, turns upon the want, both in maid and bachelor, of the common self-command which was taught to their grandmothers and grandfathers as the first element of ordinarily decent behaviour. Rashly inquiring the other day the plot of a modern story from a female friend, I elicited, after some hesitation, that it hinged mainly on the young people's 'forgetting themselves in a boat;' and I perceive it to be accepted as nearly an axiom in the code of modern civic chivalry that ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... earthly paradise; but as love laughs at locksmiths, so did these three frisky damea laugh at latticed windows, and lay their heads together against being prevented from watching passers-by through the windows of the harem. With nothing else to do, they would scheme and plot all day long against their misguided husband's tranquillity and peace of mind. One day, while sunning himself in the garden, he discovered that they had managed to detach a section of the lattice-work from a window, and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... "The plot," said Reginald, "would be one of those little everyday tragedies that one sees going on all round one. In my mind's eye there is the case of the Mudge-Jervises, which in an unpretentious way has quite an Enoch Arden intensity underlying it. They'd only been married ...
— Reginald • Saki

... see any one she liked and at any time she liked, was behind the dining-room on the ground floor, and from its window one saw a small neat garden with a plot of grass, bordering flower-beds, a row of little fruit-trees, black-branched but brightly foliaged, and high walls that looked as though they were built out of sooty plum cake. Aunt Grizel's cat, Pharaoh, ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... houses been together, the whole place would have been rapidly burned down; but, fortunately for us, each little house stood in the middle of its own plot, fifty, a hundred, and sometimes several hundred yards apart, so that they burned as so many separate fires, others springing up in various directions till twelve were blazing, and no effort could be ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... come to our house for a little while. I ask you in the friendliest manner, mind; just till the wind changes again. As for Evgenie Pavlovitch," he continued with some excitement, "the whole thing is a calumny, a dirty calumny. It is simply a plot, an intrigue, to upset our plans and to stir up a quarrel. You see, prince, I'll tell you privately, Evgenie and ourselves have not said a word yet, we have no formal understanding, we are in no way bound on either side, but the word may be said very soon, don't you ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... it in that way, and Ben's face was a sight to see, he was so pleased and proud at the honor done him that he did not know where to look, and was glad to rush out with the other boys and vent his emotions in whoops of delight. He knew that some little plot was being concocted for his birthday, but never dreamed of anything so grand as asking the whole school, Teacher and all. The effect of the invitation was seen with comical rapidity, for the boys became overpowering in their friendly attentions to Ben. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... light-complexioned chap, cleverer than all his sisters put together. What they put in their books they got from him," quoth she, reminding us of the statement in Grundy's Reminiscences that Branwell declared he invented the plot and wrote the major part of "Wuthering Heights." Certain it is he possest transcending genius and that in this room that genius was slain. Here he received the message of renunciation from his depraved mistress which finally wrecked ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... plot on foot to make it appear that my friend had been indulging in liquor. Doctor, I hope you can prove positively that such ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... fountain in the centre of a small plot of grass and flowers, enclosed within high railings; and Robin uttered a shrill cry of delight, which rang noisily through the quiet court where its waters played in the sunshine. But at last they discovered, with hearts as eagerly throbbing as those of the explorers ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton

... had been driven again into a woodland cul de sac. Here there was a wide reaching plot of grassy, unbroken soil, and here the two men counted upon teaching the three year old his first lesson of the supremacy of man. As they drew nearer their ropes were again ready, trailing at their sides. Again the horses drew close together, bunched ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... garden Green grass-plot, fresh lawn, Though pasture lands harden And drought fissures yawn. While leaves not a few fall, Let rose leaves for you fall, Leaves pearl-strung with dew-fall, And gold ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... bring him, by threats, to her terms, and, failing in that, her fury would know no bounds. Now, what does she do? Sends for Hobson, the one man whom Hugh Mainwaring feared, who knew his secret and stood ready to betray it. Between them the plot was formed. They have another interview in the evening, to which Hobson brings one of his coadjutors, the two coming by different ways like the vile conspirators they were, and in all probability, when Hugh Mainwaring bade his guests good-night, every detail of his ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... generosity, and nobility. He enters into their lives, their sports, their adventures, their kind acts, a companion, a model so much idealized and admired that unconsciously they grow to be like him in so far as their surroundings will permit. In a good story plot and action are but the setting to the gem—the means of conveying a lesson in disguise in such a way that the reader will not suspect he is being taught. Let it once occur to him that he is reading a lecture ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey

... and Estates of Parliament, reflecting on the sad consequences of these rebellious courses, and being carefull to prevent the like for the future, have therefore Statute and Ordained, and by these presents Statutes and Ordains, that, if any person or persons shall hereafter Plot, contrive or intend destruction to the King's Majesty, or any bodily harm tending to death or destruction, or any restraint upon his Royal Person, or to deprive, depose, or suspend Him from the stile, Honour and Kingly Name ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... will clear himself of every stain," returned Mrs. Sutton earnestly. "This is either a vile plot concocted by some secret foe, or the Frederic Chilton mentioned here," pushing the letter away from her on the table, with a gesture of loathing, "is ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... within. Doubts, suspicions, dreads, heaped themselves up in my mind. Why was Forsyth standing there at the gate? I had never seen him before, to my knowledge, yet there was something oddly reminiscent about the man. Could it be that his visit formed part of a plot? Yet his wound had been genuine enough. Thus my mind worked, feverishly; such was the ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... necessary as footsteps to Bonaparte's Imperial throne; and that without the treachery of Mehee de la Touche, and the conspiracy he pretended to have discovered, France would still have been ruled by a First Consul. It is indeed true, that this plot is to be counted (as the imbecility of Melas, which lost the battle of Marengo) among those accidents presenting themselves apropos to serve the favourite of fortune in his ambitious views; but without it, he would equally have been hailed an Emperor of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... that every such person wants to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot when there is no plot, and plays the deepest games of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... forced to depart from Athens by the wiles of his cruel step-dame, so must even thou depart out of Florence. Such is the wish, such this very moment the plot, and soon will it be the deed, of those, the business of whose lives is to make a traffic of Christ with Rome. Thou shalt quit every thing that is dearest to thee in the world. That is the first arrow shot from the bow of exile. Thou shalt experience how salt is ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... allegorically and figuratively written; and therefore, as in history, looking for truth, they may go away full fraught with falsehood, so in poesy, looking but for fiction, they shall use the narration but as an imaginative ground-plot of a profitable invention. ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... secret plot been defeated, when an affray took place at Fort St. Andrews, in which an attempt was made to assassinate the General, who was there ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... lots for the order of their performances, and the honor of "first night" fell to the Blue Grotto. Its occupants (including Carmel, whose dressing-room was considered an annex) held a rejoicing committee to plan out their play. Squatting on Gowan's bed, they each contributed portions of the plot. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... of a rock, and at length they began to recover from the confusion of their flight, and to collect their scattered senses. Their hunger being appeased, and many of their garments thrown aside for the better opportunity of dressing their wounds, the gang began to plot measures of revenge. An hour was spent in this manner, and various expedients were proposed; but as they all depended on personal prowess for their success, and were attended by great danger, they were of course rejected. There was no ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... but it suited its surroundings, and Uncle Paul looked supremely happy as he sat there slowly smoking his pipe and gazing dreamily before him at the beautiful landscape stretching far, and the garden of the one cottage within reach only a short distance away from the plot of ground where by the help of the neighbour sufficient potatoes were grown for the widow's use. "What a silent, peaceful evening, Pickle," said Uncle Paul. "Look yonder in the east; the moon will be up soon, and then it will be night, ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... several efforts to start an argument on the labor question, which I carefully avoided. After awhile a sonorous snore announced that he had fallen victim to my plot. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... tossed, Though reason reconcilement sought. I mourned my pearl, dear beyond cost, And strange fears with my fancy fought; My will in wretchedness was lost, And yet Christ comforted my thought. Such odours to my sense were brought, I fell upon that flowery plot, Sleeping,—a sleep with dreams inwrought Of my ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett

... sea-story since 'The Wreck of the Grosvenor.' It shows a determination to abandon the well-worn tracks of fiction and to evolve a new and striking plot.... There is no sign of exhausted imagination in this strong tale."—Philadelphia ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... Uriah recalled the swarthy, leering face of Sam Jones, recently punished for infraction of discipline, and the crooked smile of Martin, he who puffed everlastingly at his pipe and wore a red handkerchief for a turban and earrings of heavy gold. He had known them for the ringleaders in the plot against him, even before they had seized command of the vessel and taken possession of the cabin that they might hold council whether their master should be spared or cast into ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... thwarting this foul conspiracy of monarchs against their subjects. William of Orange, then a hostage for the execution of the treaty of Cateau Cambresis, was the man with whom the King had the unfortunate conception to confer on the subject of the plot. The Prince, who had already gained the esteem of Charles the Fifth by his habitual discretion, knew how to profit by the intelligence and to bide his time; but his hostility to the policy of the French and Spanish courts was perhaps dated ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the chain-gang to which Hankey was made sub-overseer. Blind Mooney, an ophthalmic prisoner, who was removed from the gang to hospital, told me that there was a plot to murder Hankey, but that Dawes, to whom he had shown some kindness, had prevented it. I saw Hankey and told him of this, asking him if he had been aware of the plot. He said "No," falling into a great tremble. "Major ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... every man, with very few exceptions, who has left our Church and joined in the unprincipled crusade which has been made against us, has either been an active promoter of this plot, or so far connected with it as to be ruined in his character and prospects by the timely discovery and defeat of it! I have been deeply affected at hearing of some unhappy examples, among old acquaintances, of this description. I feel thankful that I have been enabled to do my duty from ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... usual, Jervy found, to his astonishment, that even this squalid old creature presumed to bargain with him. The two wretches were on the point of a quarrel which might have delayed the execution of the plot against Mrs. Farnaby, but for the vile self-control which made Jervy one of the most formidable criminals living. He gave way on the question of money—and, from that moment, he had Mrs. Sowler absolutely ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... against me!" cried the girl, passionately. "But I will find out this plot too," and she began to unfold ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... the theatre in the gallery wearing the new trousers I had bought out of my own earnings. Concerts and performances had already begun at the Azhogins'; Radish used to paint the scenes alone now. He used to tell me the plot of the plays and describe the tableaux vivants which he witnessed. I listened to him with envy. I felt greatly drawn to the rehearsals, but I could not bring myself to ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... discomfiture of his alert rival when there should enter to him as Princess, not Paula Power, but Miss Bell of the Regent's Theatre, London. Thus the hour passed, till he found that if he meant to see the issue of the plot it ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... misfortune to lose his wife, forcibly took the wife of one of the Otaheitans, which, together with their continued ill-usage, so exasperated the latter that they formed a plan for murdering the whole of their oppressors. The plot, however, was discovered, and revealed by the Englishmen's wives, and two of the Otaheitans were put to death. But the surviving natives soon afterwards matured a more successful conspiracy, and in one day murdered five of the Englishmen, including Christian. Adams and Young were ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... and consequently before I was in the service of any member of his family, Madame Bonaparte wished to give some of her ladies an exhibition of Carrat's cowardice; and for this purpose there was concerted among the ladies of Malmaison a plot, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... in any way. He usually settled himself in a big arm-chair near the window, and while his mother did some embroidering, Esperance read aloud. Every two hours they were relieved by Madame Darbois and Genevieve. As to Maurice, he had made a plot in concert with Esperance and Albert, of offering a portrait of her son to the charming Countess. Baron van Berger played endless games of cards with Francois. The days passed quickly and everyone seemed happy. Esperance's face was as lovely as ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... now take a view of our author in the light of a dramatist. In the year 1697 a comedy of his was acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, called A Plot and No Plot, dedicated to the Earl of Sunderland. The scope of this piece is to ridicule the credulity and principles of the Jacobites, the moral of which is this, 'That there are in all parties, persons who find it their interest to deceive the rest, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... University of Vermont, in student parlance, to devise a scheme or lay a plot for an election or a college spree, is to roll a wheel. E.g. "John was always rolling a big wheel," ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall



Words linked to "Plot" :   game, conspiracy, plotter, intrigue, connive, story, contrive, counterplan, project, machinate, piece of land, parcel of land, plot of ground, machination, counterplot, plat, strategy, tract, complot, design, plot element, storyline, parcel, patch, diagram, plot of land, piece of ground, garden, conspire, chart, plot line, map, secret plan, conjure, scheme, bed, plan, graph, draw, action



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