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Clandestine   /klændˈɛstɪn/   Listen
Clandestine

adjective
1.
Conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods.  Synonyms: cloak-and-dagger, hole-and-corner, hugger-mugger, hush-hush, secret, surreptitious, undercover, underground.  "Cloak-and-dagger activities behind enemy lines" , "Hole-and-corner intrigue" , "Secret missions" , "A secret agent" , "Secret sales of arms" , "Surreptitious mobilization of troops" , "An undercover investigation" , "Underground resistance"



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"Clandestine" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Clandestine petitions have been got up, principally, if not wholly, signed by colored people, in order to mislead Government and the Elgin Association. These petitions do not embody the sentiments or feelings of the respectable, intelligent, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... exiles had seized, had plenty of grass and water; and, as it was well adapted for feeding cattle, afforded an abundant supply of food for men who live upon flesh and milk. From this place they infested all the surrounding country; at first with nightly and clandestine incursions, but afterwards with open depredations. The lands of the Carthaginians suffered the severest devastation, because there was not only a greater quantity of booty there than among the Numidians, but their plunder would be safer. And now they did it with ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... that during his residence at Annapolis, he was made a Mason in a clandestine or irregular Lodge, and in the year 1783 applied for a dispensation from the Grand Master of Pennsylvania, to apply to Lodge No. 2, for initiation ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse

... have been in college at the proper period and in a somewhat different class from that which he now sought to lead. In the privacy of her drawing-room the bewitching but distressed young woman discussed the situation with the man who had been chosen to perform the clandestine ceremony in the far-away town of Omegon. Derby, coming on from his eastern home in loyal acquiescence to his friend's request, had designedly taken this train, it being understood that Dauntless would board it at Fenlock with his fair conspirator. ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon

... doubt about that for an instant," said Gourou. "At your age I greatly favoured the clandestine. You will not pretend to assume that this ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... pirated version in English. A useful starting point for Holbach's work is Jerome Vercruysse, Bibliographie descriptive des ecrits du baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1971). The difficult subject of the essentially clandestine evolution of biblical criticism as an anti-Christian and antimyth critique in the early part of the eighteenth century, before the well-documented era of the biblical critic Eichhorn in Germany, is ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... of clandestine love have been justly described as "full of cares and troubles, of fears and jealousies, of impatient waiting, tediousness of delay, and sufferance of affronts, and amazements of discovery;" and though Richard ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... on thin legs like one on stilts. But Harding's looks mattered little; what people sought Harding for was not for his personal appearance, nor even for his writings, though they were excellent, but for his culture. A curious, clandestine little man with a warm heart despite the exterior. Owen had seen Harding's eyes nil with tears and his voice tremble when he recited a beautiful passage of English poetry; a passionate nature, too, for Harding ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... Horace Mann, June 12.-Description of Strawberry Hill. Clandestine Marriage Bill. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... Sterling Turner was born a slave at Halifax, North Carolina, March 17, 1825. In 1830, he moved to Alabama, where by clandestine study he obtained a fair education. He became a prosperous merchant, was elected to several local offices, and to the 42nd Congress. He was defeated for the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... into a happy home and seeks to undermine it, deserves to be stoned on the highway. She may steal your purse, your diamonds, or your checkbook, and, while love reigns on its rightful throne, the home will be happy; but let her seek to discrown love, and entertain a clandestine passion in its place, and the foundation of the stoutest home that was ever founded on the rocks of time will tumble in ruin about her ears. Avoid the intriguing, fascinating, dangerous, designing woman, then, who recognizes no sanctity in wedded honor, ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden

... approve of that pretty girl's father visiting the attractive Mrs. Lester in conditions which savored of something underhanded and clandestine. The man had deliberately misled his daughter. He left her with a lie on his lips; yet never were appearances more deceptive, for the stranger had the outward aspect of one whose word ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... high-sounding names, which they adopted and discarded in turn, as one after the other was discovered and brought into undesired prominence. The titles and grips and passwords of these secret military organizations, the turgid eloquence of their meetings, and the clandestine drill of their oath-bound members, doubtless exercised quite as much fascination on such followers as their unlawful object of aiding and abetting the Southern cause. The number of men thus enlisted in the work of inducing desertion among Union soldiers, fomenting ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... of German intrigue, and some of the sights revealed are hardly credible. Whithersoever one turns one is confronted with the same striking phenomenon; the preponderant influence wielded in almost every walk of life, private and public, by institutions and individuals who in some open or clandestine way are under German tutelage. In the sphere of economics this is particularly noticeable. Three-fourths of Russia's foreign trade was in German hands. Dealings between Russians and foreigners were transacted ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... entering the Mosque of Omar, has been verified on more than one occasion. But the obstacles, apparently insurmountable, were overcome by Dr. Richardson, who, in return for the successful exercise of his professional skill, was rewarded by a clandestine visit to the shrine of the Mussulman saint. It will appear, from the few details which we are about to select from his volume, that the veil of mystery does not conceal anything really worth seeing. Like Pompey in the Temple, the Christian visiter, whose presence, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... quitting the happy and honourable estate of maidenhood, for the slavery of marriage, was in itself a misdemeanour of the first magnitude: but that she should have made her own choice, have received secret gifts, and held clandestine interviews—this was an awful instance of what human depravity ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... least it was only for seven. The rascal himself must have altered it into seventy. She and the other girl both agree as to that. There's been a clandestine correspondence going on with that scamp ever since she has been here, under cover to that precious friend of ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not see Louis Akers, nor did she go back to the house on Cardew Way. She hated doing clandestine or forbidden things, and she was, too, determined to add nothing to the tenseness she began to realize existed at home. She went through her days, struggling to fit herself again into the old environment, reading to her mother, lending herself ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... was the recipient of the prince's first emotions, and the clandestine connection lasted for three months. Anne of Austria, informed of what was passing, wished at first to punish her first maid in waiting; but the Cardinal, more circumspect, represented to her that this connection, of which no one ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... of De Leon on this occasion. Cortes received this pretended friendly information with many thanks; but declared his belief that his majesty had a better opinion of his services, than to proceed against him in this clandestine manner; and that he had too high an opinion of the governor, than to believe he could proceed to such extremities without the royal warrant. When the prior found that his sly conduct did not produce the effect which he had expected, he remained so confused that he knew not what farther ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... parlor, where he went to bed under a lofty tester canopy, with embroidered curtains trimmed with lace. After a long reverie, coming to the conclusion that the downright courtship of a young lady in her father's house was a much more serious affair than a mere clandestine flirtation with a pretty school-girl, the young gentleman turned over upon his side and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... lived in complete independence. Their excellent qualities as boatmen, their perfect knowledge of the mouths of the Orinoco, and of the labyrinth of branches communicating with each other, give the Guaraons a certain political importance. They favour that clandestine commerce of which the island of Trinidad is the centre. The Guaraons run with extreme address on muddy lands, where the European, the Negro, or other Indians except themselves, would not dare to walk; and it is, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... dangers of their own home, and that some citizens, forgetful of their duty, had cooperated in forming an establishment on the island of Barrataria, near the mouth of the river Mississippi, for the purposes of a clandestine and lawless trade. The Government of the United States caused the establishment to be broken up and destroyed, and having obtained the means of designating the offenders of every description, it only remained to answer the demands of justice by inflicting ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... manner which she knew would disgrace herself, her name, and her family, and to trust to him afterwards to give her what reparation a tardy marriage could afford. She, poor girl, at first received the offer with sobs and tears. She proposed a clandestine marriage, but he swore that when afterwards detected, it would cause his dismissal;—then that she would come to him at Cashel, when he was settled; but no,—he told her other lies equally false, to prove that this could not be done. She prayed and begged, and lay upon his bosom imploring him ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... the Carquinez Woods with Low Dorman; you went there in disguise; you've met him there before. He is your clandestine lover; you have taken pledges of ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... had Clement's small, almost baby mould of features, relieved only by such arch deep blue eyes as shone in Edgar's face. She looked such a mere child, that when her step and exclamation caused Felix to raise his head, it seemed absurd to imagine her to be knowingly engaged as go-between in a clandestine correspondence, and with a sort of pity and compunction for the blame he had intended, he held out his ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... prosecution by the law is the surreptitious, clandestine rearing of children, whose mothers lose no prestige in the community; for it is well understood "among the neighbors and friends." "Public polygamy has been suspended," but the requirement ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan

... of Nell in Coffey's The Devil to Pay, one of several hundred she mastered. Her specialties: Flora in The Wonder, Lady Bab in High Life Below Stairs, Lappet in The Miser, Catherine in Catherine and Petruchio, Mrs. Heidelberg in The Clandestine Marriage, and the Fine Lady in Lethe. Mrs. Clive's (on 4 Oct. 1733, Miss Rafter married George Clive, a barrister) popularity as comedienne and performer of prologues and epilogues is indicated by ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive

... reflective posture, sitting bolt upright, beating back his tendency to thoughtful retirement with the aid of cloves and peppermints. I knew the meaning of this reform, for I knew Wattie's love for me, clandestine though it was; he and I had watched death together once—and after the wave had overswept us, the ground beneath our feet was ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... you must have been aware of the fact that I was heavily interested in the undertaking which you betrayed. You married me without certain proof of your husband's death, such was your indecent haste to call yourself a princess. And now I find, on your own confession, that you have a clandestine understanding with a man who tried to murder me only a week ago. Is it not rather ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... August treaty between the Queen and the States did not provide against any separate negotiations by the one party without the knowledge of the other, there could be no doubt at all that its spirit absolutely forbade the clandestine conclusion of a peace with Spain by England alone, or by the Netherlands alone, and that such an arrangement would be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... and more personal freedom. We never become pure under restraint. All who know me, know that I seek to bring the sexes into pure and holy communion of spirit. Walls and partitions have ever produced clandestine movements. Boys and girls in schools should not be separated, but should meet each other daily; their studies, their sports be one as far as possible, thus blending their natures, not hividing them. If men lived more in the society of women they would be astonished to find how ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... She did not want her father to know how miserable she was. Her childish soul was filled with bitterness, and her young life was being spoiled. Such of her pleasures as had not been taken from her were divested of all their charm. Almost her sole remaining joy was to snatch, now and then, a bit of clandestine love with her father, when, on some rare occasion, Aunt Jemima happened to ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... cause why Jews placed restrictions on free movement was moral and commercial. Announcements had to be made in the synagogue informing the congregation that so-and-so was on the point of departure, and anyone with claims against him could obtain satisfaction. No clandestine or unauthorized departure was permissible. It must not be thought that these communal licenses were of no service to the traveller. On the contrary, they often assured him a welcome in the next town, and in Persia were as good ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... called in as a consulting engineer of hearts. That blonde tactician glanced over the situation with the eye of a field-marshal. This was the result of her survey. There must be no clandestine marriage, no elopement. Dorothy was in no peril; it was not a drawbridge day of moated castlewicks and donjon keeps. Damsels were no longer gagged and bound and carried to the altar, and there wedded perforce to dreadful ogres. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... disgust was Undine's uppermost sensation. She was as much ashamed as Mrs. Spragg might have been at finding herself used to screen a clandestine adventure. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... sociable, terms. They sat back there by the fire for some time, smoking and drinking. The shades were all drawn. I don't know whether that was standard procedure, or because this conference was something clandestine. Finally, Rivers's ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... to society in general of a principle which had been first worked out in the group; for poisoning without the group was long allowed after it was disallowed in the group. The case of poisoning is, indeed, a particularly good instance of an unsatisfaction felt in the substitution of clandestine methods for simple motor force in deciding a dispute, and affords a clear example of an important relation between moral feeling and physiological functioning. Animal as well as human society has developed strategy alongside of direct ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... Mel. Clandestine murderer! Yes, there's the scene Of horrid massacre. Full oft I've walk'd, When all things lay in sleep and darkness hush'd. Yes, oft I've walk'd the lonely sullen beach, And heard the mournful sound of many a corse Plung'd from the rock into the wave beneath, That murmurs ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy

... Neng could not, by any means, brook the separation, and they secretly agreed to a clandestine assignation; but to these details we need not allude with any minuteness; sufficient to say that they had no alternative but to bear the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... to Mervale all the advantage he could desire. Heavens! with what sound, shrewd common-sense he talked. How evidently some charlatanic coalition between the actress, and perhaps,—who knows?—her clandestine protector, sated with possession! How equivocal the character of one,—the position of the other! What cunning in the question of the actress! How profoundly had Glyndon, at the first suggestion of his sober reason, seen through the snare. What! was he to be thus mystically cajoled and hurried ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... much like that of other instances of the kind. Clandestine letters, less frequent meetings—as opportunity offered—ran the usual risk; in due time, as might have been expected by any but ardent lovers, the secret oozed out. Some busybody or other lost no time in conveying the startling news to Stephen Dale, who had hitherto had no suspicion of the state ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... it was what I would not have believed of you, Audrey; but with regard to Mr. Blake, it was altogether dishonourable. How dared he,' here the Doctor's eyes flashed through his spectacles, 'how dared he win my daughter's affections in this clandestine way?' ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... given him reputation, attempted another blank version of the Aeneid; to which, notwithstanding the slight regard with which it was treated, he had afterwards perseverance enough to add the Eclogues and Georgicks. His book may continue its existence as long as it is the clandestine refuge of schoolboys. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... to what degree he was corrupted, till an honest tailor gave me notice that he had bespoke a laced suit, which was to be left for him at a house kept by the sister of one of my journeymen. I went to this clandestine lodging, and found, to my amazement, all the ornaments of a fine gentleman, which I know not whether he has taken upon credit, or purchased with money subducted ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... Perhaps, Jovita (taking her hand with grave earnestness), to a clandestine intimacy like ours there is but one end. It is not merely elopement, not merely marriage, it is exposure! Sooner or later you and I must face the eyes we now shun. What ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... Animal to struggle for Liberty; and these struggles have often been attended with great Cruelty, Ravages, Death, Massacres, and Ruin both of Families and the Country it self: As to the Transplanted Inhabitants, they run into Clandestine Trade, into corresponding with their Masters Enemies, Victualling their Navies, Colonies and the like, receiving and importing their Goods in spight of all the Orders and Directions to ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... to leave the deserted tables was the venerable Bishopriggs. He alone, of the men in attendance, had contrived to combine a sufficient appearance of waiting on the company with a clandestine attention to his own personal need of refreshment. Instead of hurrying away to the servants' dinner with the rest, he made the round of the tables, apparently clearing away the crumbs—actually, emptying the wine-glasses. Immersed in this occupation, he was startled by a lady's voice behind him, ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... long flume straddled its narrow body and disproportionate legs over the chasm, like an enormous fossil of some forgotten antediluvian. At every step smaller ditches crossed the road, hiding in their sallow depths unlovely streams that crept away to a clandestine union with the great yellow torrent below, and here and there were the ruins of some cabin with the chimney alone left intact and the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... the child is now grown up, and has two suitors, one of whom is a rich Catholic, and the other is a much poorer man but a Protestant. She and others are meeting at the house of a woman who often has such clandestine all-Protestant meetings, when they hear that a person they all know has gone mad and has run around telling everyone about these Protestant meetings. The Inquisition of course, with spies everywhere, hears all about it. From then onward the story takes many ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston

... care stint itself to my interior accomplishments. Although vowed to poverty, he always contrived that my mother should have her pockets full; and between her pockets and mine there was soon established a clandestine communication; accordingly, at fourteen, I wore my cap on one side, stuck pistols in my belt, and assumed the swagger of a cavalier and a gallant. At that age my poor mother died; and about the same period, my father, having written a 'History of the Pontifical ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... unrest sporadically in 1994-97, demanding the return of an elected National Assembly and an end to unemployment; several small, clandestine leftist and Islamic fundamentalist ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... without knowing from what quarter they came. She occupied a handsome house for which she paid no rent, although for it she held no proprietary deed. All this, coupled with the age of the lady, who stated that she was born in 1671, would seem decisive as to the clandestine marriage which probably occasioned the arrest ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... suspected the young man of trying to persuade Sybilla to sell the picture, had forbidden the lovers to meet or to correspond; they were thus driven to clandestine communication, and had several times, the Count ingenuously avowed, made use of the doctor's visitors as a means ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... as he shall seek my society, until my majority, when I and all that I possess will become his own. And these words I force myself to speak, your honor, both in justice to my dear lost father and his friend, Traverse Rocke, and also to myself, that hereafter no one may venture to accuse me of clandestine proceedings, or distort my actions into improprieties, or in any manner call in question the conduct of my father's daughter." And, with another gentle bow, Clara retired to the ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... it did not degenerate into the insignificant and the superficial. Petty inclinations are strengthened by petty motives, exposed to petty probations, and brought by petty steps nearer and nearer to a petty conclusion. The whole generally turns on a declaration of love, and all sorts of clandestine means are tried to elicit it, or every kind of slight allusion is hazarded to hasten it. Marivaux has neither painted characters, nor contrived intrigues. The whole plot generally turns on an unpronounced word, which ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... an interesting story related of Columba's literary activities. It is said that on one occasion while visiting his master, Finnian, he undertook to make a clandestine copy of the abbot's Psalter. When the master learned of the fact, he indignantly charged Columba with theft, and demanded the copy which he had made, on the ground that a copy made without permission of the author was the property of the original owner, because a transcript ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... was only a pretext. It was not the first time that the Countess employed it to free herself from inconvenient surveillance, the act of sending back the carriage, which, in Rome as in Paris, is always the probable sign of clandestine meetings with women of their rank. It was not the first time that Alba was possessed by suspicion on certain mysterious disappearances of her mother. That mother did not mistrust that poor Alba—her Alba, the ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... undue restraint produce artifice and contrivance! I should abhor these clandestine correspondences, were they not forced upon me. They have so mean, so low an appearance to myself, that I think I ought not to expect that you should take ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... came to the minister, he asked him if he would venture to marry a couple of strangers that were both willing. The parson said that Mr. —— had said something to him of it; that he hoped it was no clandestine business; that he seemed to be a grave gentleman, and he supposed madam was not a girl, so that the consent of friends should be wanted. 'To put you out of doubt of that,' says my gentleman, 'read this paper'; and out he pulls ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... affair and had been not a little puzzled by it, a clandestine correspondence being a new thing in her short experience; but she understood that in this golden-haired girl, her elder by several years, she saw her rival, for whom Dick had so basely abandoned her yesterday, and she was ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... Mary Faithful was tinged with awe and a bit of envy at her success. To imagine her desperately in love with her employer, working for and with him each day, and finally in extreme desperation telling the truth as brutally as women sometimes tell it to women over clandestine cups of ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... to suffer such clandestine Assemblies where Plots against the State may be carried on, under the Pretence of ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... avowed his transgression and sought to make amends for it by paying a sum of 8,000 reales into the Dominican chest.[214] Meanwhile Luis de Leon (who, like Domingo de Guzman, was perfectly innocent of any share in these clandestine manoeuvres) had taken possession of the Biblical Chair at Salamanca by reading himself in on December 7, 1579. Hitherto his reputation, great as it was, had been more or less local: that is to say, it depended mainly on his University ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... asserted that they are never fed—except to the worms. Statements have been made to the effect that males and females are permitted to occupy the same quarters, to the incalculable detriment of public morality. Many clandestine villainies are alleged of this fiend in human shape, and it is desirable that his underground methods be unearthed in the Malefactor. If he resists we will drag his family skeleton from the privacy of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... Mazarin, who was not a priest. She says that all the details of the marriage were known, and that, in her time, the back staircase in the Palais Royal was pointed out by which at night Mazarin reached the Queen's apartments. She observes that such clandestine marriages were common at that period, and cites that of the widow of our Charles the First, who secretly espoused her equerry, Jermyn. One might be disposed to think that the Duchess Elizabeth-Charlotte could have only followed some tradition, and that her assertions cannot counterbalance ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... feared dictator. But he was a cunning wooer. He put no ban upon confession—if Chrystie wanted to tell he was the last person to stop it. And having placed the responsibility in her hands, he wove closer round the little fly the parti-colored web of illusion. He made her feel the thrill of the clandestine, the romance of stolen meetings, see herself not as a green, affrighted girl, but a woman queening it over her own destiny, fit mate for him in eagle flight above the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... powers of preserving and protecting this clandestine trade is evident, especially as the Spanish government frequently found it a convenient instrument for retaliating upon those nations against which it harboured some grudge. All that was necessary was to sequester ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... dwelling was closely blinded and shuttered from the chill and darkness without. Wildeve's clandestine plan with her was to take a little gravel in his hand and hold it to the crevice at the top of the window shutter, which was on the outside, so that it should fall with a gentle rustle, resembling that of a mouse, between shutter and glass. This ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... to himself, his defiant taunts, his final challenge! Langholm was not sorry to remember the last; it relieved him from the moral incubus of the clandestine and the underhand; it bid him go on and do his worst; it set his eyes upon the issue as between himself and Steel, and it shut them to the final possibilities as touching ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... General's face, that the yesterday's transaction was known to him. "Your accomplices did not confess," the General said, as soon as my servant had left us, "but sided with you against their father—a proof how desirable clandestine meetings are. It was from Theo herself I heard that ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Monsieur Pascal, whose opinion was of great value. Euphrosyne had a strong persuasion, all the while, that she should one day tell her reverend mother the whole. She knew that she should not object to her seeing every line that Afra held of hers. Whatever was clandestine in the correspondence was for the sake of avoiding restraint, and not because she was ashamed of ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... at first, acquiesced; but, suddenly falling in love with Prince Augustus of Prussia, she determined to break off the engagement. This was not her first love affair, for she had previously carried on a clandestine correspondence with a Captain Hess. Prince Augustus was already married, morganatically, but she did not know it, and he did not tell her. While she was spinning out the negotiations with the Prince of Orange, the ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... clandestine companies combine; Erect new stocks to trade beyond the line; With air and empty names beguile the town, And raise new credits first, then cry 'em down; Divide the empty nothing into shares, And set the crowd together ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... stalls diagonally across from the royal box, where she sat. She saw me and gave me the barest nod of recognition. Perhaps she did not wish to attract the attention of the royal personages who sat with her; for the nod struck me as clandestine. Between the first and second acts a note was handed to me. It was not addressed, neither was it signed. But it was for me; the bearer spoke my name. As near as I can remember, the ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... sense and she must soon perceive for herself how disgraceful the whole unfortunate affair would seem to outsiders." She paused. "There is something that I do not quite understand about Willa. You are sure, Mason, that she has no vulgar, clandestine affair ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... owned Glynde Place; which is hard by the church, a fine Elizabethan mansion, a little sombre, and very much in the manner of the great houses in the late S. E. Waller's pictures, the very place for a clandestine interview or midnight elopement. The present owner, a descendant of the Trevors and of the famous John Hampden, enemy of the Star Chamber and ship ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... Dick Stanmore, with his brown locks, his broad shoulders, his genial, generous heart, for better or worse! It was unbearable. And then to think that she could ever have fancied she liked the man; that, even now, she had to give him clandestine meetings, to see him at unseasonable hours, as if she loved him dearly, and was prepared to make every sacrifice for his sake! Her pride revolted, her whole spirit rose in arms at the reflection. She knew he cared for her too; cared for her in his own way ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... pastoral visitation! A business call? There was Mrs. Sclater! and that Sir Gilbert!—It must after all be a pastoral visitation, for there was the minister commencing a religious service!—during which however it suddenly revealed itself to the horrified spinster that she was part and parcel of a clandestine wedding! An anxious father had placed her in charge of his daughter, and this was how she was fulfilling her trust! There was Ginevra being married in a brown dress! and to that horrid lad, who called himself a baronet, and ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... closed the avenue to a mesalliance, still their pride must have smarted because of that clandestine affection, that boldly attempted elopement. Most of all, young Gower must have hated MacRae—with almost the same jealous intensity that Donald MacRae must for a time have hated him—because Gower apparently never forgot and never forgave. Long after Donald MacRae outgrew that passion ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... But the teacher had made a well-founded complaint of injustice which ought to be capable of correction; and he had performed a public-spirited action, even though he had felt constrained to do it in a clandestine manner. ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... human family For base designs, for cunning ends, To wear a mask like the Greek actors— Your eight-page paper—behind which you huddle, Bawling through the megaphone of big type: "This is I, the giant." Thereby also living the life of a sneak-thief, Poisoned with the anonymous words Of your clandestine soul. To scratch dirt over scandal for money, And exhume it to the winds for revenge, Or to sell papers, Crushing reputations, or bodies, if need be, To win at any cost, save your own life. To glory in demoniac power, ditching civilization, As a paranoiac boy puts a log on ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... shown that she reposed confidence in me. Not until late last night did I even suspect she was the same girl whom we picked up with you out on the desert. It came to me from her own lips and was a total surprise. She revealed her identity in order to justify her proposed clandestine meeting with you." ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... in the days following the revelation of the clandestine meetings with Maxwell, that Murray was depending upon her to see that Anne's affections did not stray into forbidden paths. He said as much one afternoon when he found Amy alone in an atmosphere of old portraits, old books, old bronzes. She sat in a Jacobean chair and poured tea for him. ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... have none. I believe you. I have but one word more to say. You will be out in the great world soon, and you will doubtless both have plenty of admirers. Then will come the time of trial and temptation; remember my words—there is no curse so great as a clandestine love, no error so great or degrading. One of our race was so cursed, and his punishment was great. No matter whom you love and who loves you, let all be fair, honorable, and open as the day. Trust me, do not deceive me. Let me in justice say I will never oppose any reasonable marriage, ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme

... further, mounted him, and galloped away without turning his head. But his heart was filled with bitterness and disgust. This woman—who but a few days before had voluntarily declared her scorn and contempt for that man and his admirers—had just been giving him a clandestine meeting like one of the most infatuated of his devotees! The story of the widow's fainting, the coarse surmises and comments of Slocum, came back to him with overwhelming significance. But even then his reason ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... as they turned from her hotel door toward this obscure retreat, "why you insist on giving me bad food, and depriving me of the satisfaction of being seen with you. Why must we be so dreadfully clandestine? Don't people know by this time that ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... a clandestine smile, as he touched the horses with his whip and turned them toward the barn, leaving the patroon and his companion alone on the broad portico. Sweeping from a distant grove of slender poplars and snowy birch a breeze bore down upon them, suddenly bleak and frosty, and she shivered ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... punch" is not very constantly drunk through the day. There are no elopements now in chaises and four, like Miss Wardle's, with headlong pursuit in other chaises and four; nor are special licenses issued at a moment's notice to help clandestine marriages. There is now no frequenting of taverns and "free and easies" by gentlemen, at the "Magpie and Stump" and such places, nor do persons of means take up their residence at houses like the "George and Vulture" in ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald

... thought. What was your opinion about her? Everything tended to incriminate her not only in your eyes, because, logically speaking, she had taken part in all the attempts to murder you, but also in the eyes of the police. They knew that she used to pay Sauverand clandestine visits at his house on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace. They had found her photograph in Inspector Verot's memorandum-book, and then—and then all the rest: your accusations, your certainties. Was all that modified ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... request, and it seemed to both of them as if they were getting acquainted. To the woman, especially, it was a half-forbidden joy: a clandestine correspondence with a single gentleman! It had all the sweet, divine flavor of a sin. So she probably repeated the joy by confessing it to the priest, for the lady was a good Catholic. Next she sent Balzac her miniature, and even this ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... French raid and foray, the Governing Committee in London pursued the even tenor of its way. Strict measures were enforced to stop illicit and clandestine trading on the part of the Company's servants. In a minute of November 2, 1687, the Committee 'taking notice that several of the officers and servants have brought home in their coats and other garments ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

... with a sigh; "but I would be better satisfied to thrust him, without further ceremony, from the door. I cannot write to him, however, that would be a compromise of my own honor; but I will send him a verbal message by my own faithful old nurse. She knows me too well to suspect me of clandestine intercourse with ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... engagement with Lady Emily, perhaps exaggerated, by the repetition, into a speedily approaching marriage, had become alarmed for his daughter's interest, and had taken this decisive step in order to prevent, by a disclosure of the circumstances of his clandestine union with Ellen, the possibility of his completing a guilty alliance with Captain N——'s sister. If he entertained the suspicions which they attributed to him, he had certainly taken the most effectual means to prevent their being realised. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... Father Goriot, a grocer makes a large fortune, of which he spends on himself as much as may keep him alive; and on his two daughters, all that can promote their pleasures or their pride. He marries them to men of rank, supplies their secret expenses, and provides for his favorite a separate and clandestine establishment with her lover. On his death-bed, he sends for this favorite daughter, who wishes to come, and hesitates for a quarter of an hour between doing so, and going to a ball at which it has been for the last month her chief ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... grounds, is the work of king Ancus. The state being augmented by such great accessions, seeing that, amid such a multitude of persons, the distinction of right and wrong being as yet confounded, clandestine crimes were committed, a prison is built in the heart of the city, overlooking the forum, to intimidate the growing licentiousness. And not only was the city increased under this king, but the territory also and ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... bassoon," said Aurora; "it is true that I admire his wit, vivacity, sentiment, soul, force, power, and manliness, but I have loved in secret. We have never met; he may know I love him, and he may reciprocate my love, but he has never spoken to me nor I to him, so there is nothing clandestine in the affair." ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... could not quite see what Mrs. Butler's throat had to say to a clandestine wife of Captain Bertram's, stared at her friend with her usual round and ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... greet his work, and the timid ones seriously questioned the expediency of his nomination. The submission of the treaty had already precipitated a crisis in the United States Senate, and while it might not be ratified and officially promulgated before election, grave danger existed of its clandestine publication by the press. Hamilton, however, insisted, and Jay became the nominee. "It had been so decreed from the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... or baskets through the streets. Packages looking as if they might contain books remained unobjectional. There was a time when being sent to the grocery store was a privilege and a distinction. Later it became an opportunity for clandestine meetings with Johan. Even during his first year at Old Mary he continued to perform such tasks without any thought of what others might think of them. He must have heard things, however, and inner resistances must have ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... in the heart, killing, according to the judgment of the surgeons, so instantaneously and so surely that the victim would drop down like a stone, unable to utter a sound. Who was there at the voluptuous court of Louis XIV. who was not entangled in some clandestine intrigue, and stole to his mistress at a late hour, often carrying a valuable present about him? The robbers, as if they were in league with spirits, knew almost exactly when anything of this sort was on foot. Often the unfortunate did not reach the house where he expected to meet with ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... merchandise, came to the rear room, where they were admitted again. This compartment had been fitted up for the warm storage of perishable goods during the cold weather, and, being without windows, made an ideal place for clandestine gatherings. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... disguisement, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tender victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and almost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many noble Rachels mourning for their ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... me to her then. It was easy to effect an interview without Mrs. Fielder's knowledge; but I was sick of all clandestine proceedings, and had promised Mrs. Fielder not to seek another meeting with her daughter. I was likewise anxious to visit Miss Jessup, and ascertain what was to be done by means of the ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... secret, and with all life before them they agreed they could afford to wait. Nevertheless concealment was at variance with the character of either, and although they derived a certain exhilaration from their clandestine happiness they longed for the time when their path should lie entirely in the open, when Zenas Henry's consent should be obtained, and their betrothal acknowledged before all the world. Until such a ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... plenary indulgence for themselves, and for an unsightly progeny, which they screen from public remark, and bring up amidst the latebrae of the brushwood; but aware at the same time of the precarious tenure by which such clandestine concessions must be held, they seek to keep alive the interest, exerted in their behalf, by the exhibition of many strange antics, evidently got up for the occasion, by affecting an extraordinary interest in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various



Words linked to "Clandestine" :   covert, undercover



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