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Stratagem   /strˈætədʒəm/   Listen
Stratagem

noun
1.
A maneuver in a game or conversation.  Synonyms: gambit, ploy.
2.
An elaborate or deceitful scheme contrived to deceive or evade.  Synonyms: contrivance, dodge.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Stratagem" Quotes from Famous Books



... murder, if I could,—but how? What could I do up there alone, locked in with a dying man and a lunatic?—for any mind yielded utterly to any unrighteous impulse is mad while the impulse rules it. Strength I had not, nor much courage, neither time nor wit for stratagem, and chance only could bring me help before it was too late. But one weapon I possessed,—a tongue,—often a woman's best defence; and sympathy, stronger than fear, gave me power to use it. What I said Heaven only knows, but surely Heaven helped me; words burned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... its being worn with the other garments she possesses. The quaint Fuller observes, that the good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a variety of suits every day new, as if a gown, like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once. But our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and, if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... the wages paid him by his constituents.[738] Leave to go home was often requested, and the imperial ambassador records that Henry, with characteristic craft, granted such licences to hostile members, but refused them to his own supporters.[739] That was a legitimate parliamentary stratagem. It was not Henry's fault if members preferred their private concerns to the interests of Catherine of Aragon or to the liberties ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... 220 Her, confident in signs from heaven, he slew. Next, with the men of Solymae[14] he fought, Brave warriors far renown'd, with whom he waged, In his account, the fiercest of his wars. And lastly, when in battle he had slain 225 The man-resisting Amazons, the king Another stratagem at his return Devised against him, placing close-conceal'd An ambush for him from the bravest chosen In Lycia; but they saw their homes no more; 230 Bellerophon the valiant slew them all. The monarch hence collecting, at the last, His heavenly ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... that the avenues of approach to Caesar's quarters were all in possession of her enemies, so that, in attempting to join him, she incurred danger of falling into their hands as a prisoner. She resorted to a stratagem, as the story is, to gain a secret admission. They rolled her up in a sort of bale of bedding or carpeting, and she was carried in in this way on the back of a man, through the guards, who might otherwise have intercepted her. Caesar ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott

... was not wanting in him. At Angers, he cashiered the infantry of the National Guard, who, jealous of the cavalry, had succeeded by means of a stratagem in forming his escort, so that his Highness found himself jammed into the ranks at the cost of having his knees squeezed. But he censured the cavalry, the cause of the disorder, and pardoned the infantry—a veritable ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... the Civil Wars it ceased altogether. In that confusion Commius finally lost his continental principality of Arras, and had to fly for his life into his British dominions. He only saved himself, indeed, by an ingenious stratagem. When he reached the shore of Gaul he found his ship aground in the tide-way. Nevertheless, by hoisting all sail, he deceived the pursuing Romans into thinking themselves too late till the rising tide permitted him really to put to sea.[110] The effect of the extinction of Atrebatian ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... began to rule he was only thirteen years of age, but he quickly showed that he possessed the instinct of a statesman, and the courage of a born commander of armies. On the one hand he sowed dissension between the most formidable of his opponents, and brought about by a stratagem the disgrace of the ablest general in their service, and on the other he increased his army in numbers and efficiency, until it became unquestionably the most formidable fighting force in China. While he endeavored thus to attain internal peace, he was also studious ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... to myself, "Is this behaviour some stratagem of his? What device can such a bearing hide? If he is acting, he ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... of. On the 4th he rejoined with his squadron; having received intelligence from the Euryalus by telegraph, that the French ships in Cadiz were embarking their troops, and preparing to sail. Lord NELSON however conceived this to be merely intended as a stratagem, to draw him nearer to Cadiz, for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge of his force; and therefore directed Admiral LOUIS to proceed in the execution of the orders before delivered ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty

... fallen in love with a lady whom all Loudon worships for her surpassing beauty. But she, having a cold heart, will listen to no one. She laughs at those who flatter her, and will receive no presents. She seemed an invincible fortress, but our son, thanks to stratagem, has ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... the faithful old soldier sprang to the front. With teeth shining in white gleaming rows he scrambled within a foot of the opening of the den, circled it twice, his eyes fixed on the flashing lights below. They followed his every move. He tried the stratagem of right and left flank movements, but the space was too narrow. He dashed straight toward the opening once with a loud angry cry, hoping to get the flash of a coward's back. He met three double rows of white needle-like teeth daring ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... little hovel they called home. Dan at once put the mule into the cart and started back to the landing to bring home his quarter of beef; while Godfrey, by pretending to fall asleep on the bench in front of the cabin, was able to carry out a little stratagem that suddenly suggested itself to him. He knew that Dan was a thrifty lad in spite of his laziness, and that he believed in laying by something for a rainy day. He was never out of ammunition for his rifle, but he always took care to keep his little stock hidden away, so that his father ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... built any castle or citadel or fortress to guard himself against his enemy, but relied on his faithful vassals and people; while that of Ken-shin, from the fact that he provided his enemy, Shin-gen, with salt when the latter suffered from want of it, owing to the cowardly stratagem of a rival lord. The heroic battles waged by these two great generals against each other are the flowers of the Japanese war-history. Tradition has it that when Shin-gen's army was put to rout by the furious attacks of Ken-shin's troops, and a single warrior mounted on a huge charger rode ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... luck indeed," he would say. Or, "You played that trick as few could do it" Or, "Am not I in the key to-night? there's less craft than luck here." And he played even slovenly once or twice, flushing, we could read, lest we should see the stratagem. At these times, by the curious way of chance, he won more surely ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... give a single outcry and all who are in the street will come forth." So the Emir went out from her, without having gotten a single dirham; and on this wise she delivered the Jew by the seemliness of her stratagem. The company admired this tale, and as for the Wali and Al-Malik al-Zahir, they said, "Ever devised any the like of this device?" and they marvelled with the utterest of marvel. Then arose a third constable and said, "Hear what betided me, for it is yet stranger ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... blows upon Luke's shins, and struggling vehemently, Hugh succeeded in extricating himself from his throttling grasp; he then closed with his foe, and they were locked together, like a couple of bears at play. Straining, tugging, and practising every sleight and stratagem coming within the scope of feet, knees, and thighs—now tripping, now jerking, now advancing, now retreating, they continued the strife, but all with doubtful result. Victory, at length, seemed ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... not bear it," said her sister. "You ought not to bear it. How do you know that it is not some vile stratagem? It might ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... trial comes, you will prove his innocence, and produce alibis so incontestable, that they will be forced to acquit him. And I understand the people of our country so well, that I am sure not one of them will reveal our stratagem." ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... procured the hides of three thousand black oxen; which being properly sewed, and stuffed with straw, formed an appearance of so many elephants. All this was done so naturally, that the real animals could not stand the sight. But this stratagem being at last discovered, Semiramis was obliged to retreat, after having lost a great part of her [915]army. Soon after this she resigned the government to her son Ninyas, and died. According to some writers, she ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... among whom slavery has disappeared, from which circumstance the sovereignty of public opinion may again be observed. If public opinion is sovereign in the domain of force, it is much more so in the domain of fraud. Fraud is its proper sphere. Stratagem is the abuse of intelligence. Imposture on the part of the despoiler implies credulity on the part of the despoiled, and the natural antidote of credulity is truth. It follows that to enlighten the mind is to deprive this species of ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... husband, and, with other exploits, achieved the surprisal of Lord Loudon's party in their attempt to seize Prince Charles Edward, when he was her guest. Information had been conveyed by some friendly unknown party, of a kind so particular as to induce the lady to have recourse to the following stratagem. She sent the blacksmith on her estate, at the head of a party of other seven persons, with instructions to lie in ambush, and at a particular juncture to call out to the clans to come on and hew to pieces "the scarlet soldiers," as were termed the royalist troops. The feint ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... than to take. Its rulers were brave, their Varangian followers were courageous, the city was strong. Oleg, doubting his power to win it by force of arms, determined to try what could be done by stratagem ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... honorable, pious man, as St. Mark also testifies of him. But such an example, I trust, will not occur among us, because in the New Testament those who are married are forbidden to be divorced, except in such a case where one [shrewdly] by some stratagem takes away a rich bride from another. But it is not a rare thing with us that one estranges or alienates another's man-servant or maid-servant, or entices them ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... avaricious, and vindictive; but the wrongs he did were always accomplished in a plain, open-handed way, and never by stratagem or treachery. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... which we learn that "he knew how to handle an army, and was finally appointed General." His work, entitled the Art of War, is a short treatise in thirteen chapters, under the following headings: "Laying Plans," "Waging War," "Attack by Stratagem," "Tactical Dispositions," "Energy," "Weak Points and Strong," "Manoeuvring," "Variation of Tactics," "The Army on the March," "Terrain," "The Nine Situations," "The Attack by Fire," and "The Use ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... with considerable caution. I looked before me and behind me, as well as the darkness would allow me to do, that I might not again be hunted in sight by some men of stratagem and violence without my perceiving it. I went not, as before, beyond the limits of the town, but considered the streets, the houses, and the inhabitants, as affording some degree of security. I was still walking with my mind ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... of Hita and Guadalajara, and then my Cid passed on and planted himself upon a lofty and strong hill opposite Alcocer, and levied tribute upon the neighboring peoples. When he had so besieged Alcocer for fifteen weeks he took it by stratagem, and Pero Bermuez, the slow of speech, planted his standard on the highest part. When the King of Valencia heard of this, he determined to capture my Cid, and accordingly sent three thousand Moors to lay siege ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... The fundamental stratagem can only be carried out by your learning a wide assortment of Squash Tennis shots and perfecting your repertoire with practice and experience against many different types ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires

... expedition, speaks of the affair with indignation, which was shared by many French officers. The bishop, on the other hand, mentions the success of the stratagem as a reward accorded by Heaven to the piety of Denonville. Etat Present de ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... in the highest of mountains, as if it fled from the sea on purpose, and were afraid to descend into the waters. With fir we likewise make all intestine works, as wainscot, floors, pales, balks, laths, boxes, bellies for all musical instruments in general, nay the ribs and sides of that enormous stratagem, the so famous Trojan{239:2} horse, may be thought to be built of this material, and if the poet ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... demesne, Made others covet what they saw so fair. Thus wars began on earth. These fought for spoil, And those in self-defence. Savage at first The onset, and irregular. At length One eminent above the rest, for strength, For stratagem, or courage, or for all, Was chosen leader. Him they served in war, And him in peace for sake of warlike deeds Reverenced no less. Who could with him compare? Or who so worthy to control themselves As he, whose prowess had subdued their ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... saw the light, and Moliere revealed himself as a poet. Young Lelie, the Etourdi, is enamoured of the beautiful Celie, whom the merchant Trufaldin, old and rich, has purchased from corsairs. Lelie's valet Mascarille, who is the life of the play, invents stratagem on stratagem to aid the lover, and is for ever foiled by his master's indiscretions, until the inevitable happy denouement arrives. The romantic intrigue is conventional; the charm is in the vivacity and colour of the style. In 1656 Le Depit Amoureux ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... thousand pounds for the copyright; and when he began to suspect that the work would be judged inferior to its predecessor, he employed the following stratagem to push it upon the trade. At a sale made to the booksellers, previous to the publication, Millar offered his friends his other publications on the usual terms of discount; but when he came to Amelia, he laid it aside, as a work expected to be in such demand, that he could not afford to deliver ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... stratagem, blind, cunning, fraud, machination, subterfuge, cheat, device, guile, maneuver, trick, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... She on the right hand, who is so beautiful, died a maid; the next to her, still handsomer, had the same fate, against her will; this homely thing in the middle had both their portions added to her own, and was stolen by a neighbouring gentleman, a man of stratagem and resolution, for he poisoned three mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down two deer-stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all families: the theft of this romp and so much money, was no great matter to our estate. But the next heir that possessed it was this soft gentleman, ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others

... another admiral to be slain. You will then lead forth a nation eager to revenge their past injuries; and, like the Romans, inexorable to peace, till they have fully vanquished. Let our enemies make their boast of a surprise,[5] as the Samnities did of a successful stratagem; but the Furcae Caudinae will never be forgiven till they are revenged. I have always observed in your royal highness an extreme concernment for the honour of your country; it is a passion common to you with a brother, the most excellent of kings; and in your two persons are eminent the characters ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... perceivest the spark, thou wilt proceed in the right way, and wilt not encounter any danger; but the contrary will happen when the spark appears to be quite extinguished. Then breathe over it the name 'Haschanascha.' Do not allow it to be taken away from thee, either by force or by stratagem; nor give it willingly as a present to any stranger's hand. If thou shouldst wish to make an experiment, throw it behind ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... cradle. In a year's time, the Old Boy made his appearance to demand his due, and took the little girl with him, supposing her to be the king's child, for he knew nothing of the artifice by which the children had been changed. The king exulted at the success of his stratagem, and ordered a great feast. He loaded the parents of the stolen child with rich presents, that the prince might want for nothing in the cottage, but did not yet venture to reclaim his son, fearing lest the deception might be discovered. ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... being, at best, a member of some family whose recent elevation to the nobility did not release them from the necessity of Government service. Of course he employed the usual pretext of wishing to study music, and either by that or some other stratagem managed to leave matters in such a shape that a second ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... eunuch, his chamberlain, resolved to procure the election of our saint to the patriarchate of that city. He therefore dispatched a secret order to the count of the East, enjoining him to send John to Constantinople, but by some stratagem; lest his intended removal, if known at Antioch, should cause a sedition, and be rendered impracticable. The count repaired to Antioch, and desiring the saint to accompany him out of the city to the tombs of the martyrs, on the pretence of devotion, he there delivered ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... a series of feints, with the intention of giving that murderous blow which he was never known to miss. But before he could put his favorite stratagem in practice, the activity of O'Rorke anticipated his ruse, for in the dreadful energy of his resentment he not only forgot the counter-secret which had been, confided to him, but every other consideration for ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... have deemed it wise to use a little stratagem. But you must be hungry. Sit down and eat your supper while I am ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger

... journals, may be seen, besides the pen, more offensive weapons, such as swords and pistols. This is another result of the personal system of journalism. As in America, the editor may find himself in the necessity of defending his arguments by arms. He is too notorious to be able to resort to the stratagem of a well-known wit, who kept a noted boxer in his front office to represent the editor in hostile encounters. He goes out, therefore, to fight a duel, on which sometimes depends not only his own fate, but ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... where thou art taken, hide one of them there, I will soon contrive to find it." The black mannikin heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to bring the princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no expedient to counteract this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found in the soldier's house it would go badly with him. "Do what I bid thee," replied the soldier, and again this third night the princess was obliged to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... proved to contain a countryman, who came to tell them that the Greeks had gone away. The whole fleet, he said, had sailed off to the southward, and abandoned those seas altogether. The Persians did not, at first, believe this intelligence. They suspected some ambuscade or stratagem. They advanced slowly and cautiously down the channel. When they had gone half down to Thermopylae, they stopped at a place called Histiaea, where, upon the rocks on the shore, they found an inscription addressed to the Ionians—who, it will be recollected, had been brought by Xerxes ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... exulting in the success of her stratagem. "I didn't notice it; nor would you, if you had some business to look after, like other people, instead of stopping in the house ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... been on a party line," remarked Craig as we strode up Woodridge Avenue trying to look as if it was familiar to us, "we might have arranged this thing by stratagem. As it is, we shall have to resort to another method, and perhaps better, since we shall have to take no one ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... landing to pursue them. The sentinels only observing two or three men coming towards them unarmed, did not oppose them. Upon being informed that they were friends, the sentinels conveyed them to the main body, where they delivered their message. They were at first afraid that it was a stratagem to entrap them, but when the messengers assured them that their captain had also run away with his ship, and that a few of their men along with him would meet them unarmed, to consult matters for their common advantage, confidence was established, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... notice that a large French privateer was in those seas, committing a good deal of havoc among our merchantmen. It is said that everything is fair in love and war—in war, it may be the case; in love, nothing is fair that is not straightforward and honourable. Our captain considered that stratagem in war was, at all events, allowable, and he used to disguise the frigate in so wonderful a way, that even we ourselves, at a little distance, should not have known her. By this means many an unwary craft fell into our clutches. One day we lay becalmed, with our seemingly black and worn sails ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... I had occasion to hire quarters in a hotel for a sojourn of any length I resorted to stratagem, by way of giving myself an object lesson. I looked at the rooms, haggled them down, on principle, to what seemed to me really the very lowest notch of price; I was utterly worn out before this was accomplished. I even flattered myself that I had done nearly as well ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... perhaps the most prominent one was a strong aversion to being caught by any body but my father, whom he seemed to regard as having the sole right to summon him from the pasture. I used occasionally to try my hand at catching him. In fact, I succeeded several times, by stratagem only. I carried a measure containing a few gills of oats with me into the field; and his love for oats was so much stronger than his dislike of the catching process, that I secured him. But after a while the old fellow became too cunning for me. He came to the ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... Americans. He had been discovered by these Indians, and there was but one true way to act, which was not to show the white feather by attempting to evade them. Fremont's dispatch bearer had not the least idea of that; he was too well schooled in Indian stratagem to be out-manoeuvered, so he rode on as if nothing had happened until he came to some timber that lay within one hundred yards of their village, when he halted. At first the Indians were disconcerted at the boldness of the whites, and were showing it by hurrying to and fro, either for ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... that the move northwards of Charles Knox and of De Lisle had the effect of a most elaborate stratagem, since it persuaded the Boer scouts that the British were retiring. So indeed they were, save only the small force of Le Gallais, which seems to have taken one last cast round to the south before giving up the pursuit. In the grey of the morning of November 6th, Major Lean with ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... secretly fastened to the latter, so as to form a communication betwixt the two vessels. On the following morning, it is said, not a rat was found in the one which originally contained them, the whole having gone over during the night to the other. So much for the efficacy of the stratagem. The reader will be at no loss to decide as to the morality of having recourse to it. Mr Bingley relates another method of getting rid of these vermin, which seems to be abundantly serviceable, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... day, but I earnestly hope that before next summer the traditions and etiquette of bath-warfare as between individual hotel-visitors will be codified and issued in an intelligible form. At the moment the most extraordinary confusion prevails, and no one can tell whether any particular stratagem will be hailed with applause as a bold and legitimate operation of war or universally condemned as a barefaced piece of bath-hoggery. Recently, for example, an extremely courteous, not to say gallant, old gentleman was severely lectured by a lady for digging ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various

... of Man," he said slowly, "of how you seduced one of my servants from his duty to me and caused him to forge an order from the great Tubain in order that he might keep you for his own pleasure. For a time the stratagem succeeded, but now my eyes are open. When I first looked upon your face and form I swore to myself that you should be the solace of my leisure hours. Now the time is come. I was minded once to honor you as Hortan ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... resigned to his destiny as ever, and Owen so affectionately anxious to make himself of some use, and so lamentably ignorant of how to begin, that I am driven to disembarrass myself of him at the outset by a stratagem. ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... he pretended to be so ill, that he obtained permission to quit the mine. Two of his confederates who helped him out, assisted him in concealing the treasure. The polvorilla, a dark powdery kind of ore, very full of silver, used to be abstracted from the mines by the following stratagem. The workmen would strip off their clothes, and having moistened the whole of their bodies with water, would roll themselves in the polvorilla which stuck to them. On their return home they washed off the silver-dust and sold it for several dollars. But this trick being detected, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... the treasure, but he did not waste any time on conjectures. It was not likely that this steamer carried a cannon, and if she intended to attack the Monterey, it must be by boarding her; probably by the same stratagem which ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... near the spot last seen. It was a fine specimen. The arrow had pierced it from front to rear completely through and was lost; a center shot at eighty yards; a most remarkable bit of archery and hunting stratagem. This head now decorates the dining room of the Young home in San Francisco. Unfortunately the moose antlers were cached near a river in Alaska and an unprecedented flood carried ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... Duchemin, not at all hoodwinked by this too obvious stratagem, would have taken mean pleasure in looking blank and begging monsieur to interpret himself in French. But, with or without cunning, Phinuit's question was well-timed: Eve de Montalais was at that moment entering the drawing-room with Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes, and she knew very well that Duchemin's ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... inspected the cargo with unsuspecting carelessness, the immolation of the brave soldier became unnecessary, and the boat was dragged into the basin by the assistance of some of the very garrison who were so soon to fall victims to the stratagem. At midnight the concealed soldiers quitted their hiding-places, leaped on shore, killed the sentinels, and easily became masters of the citadel. Prince Maurice, following close with his army, soon forced the town to submit, and put it into so good a state of ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... thought "the blind man" had gone to bed, but in reality he had simply passed down to the terrace, and would sit there smoking till the other conspirators saw the moment to go down and fetch him. 'I fear it was by this stratagem that he had helped me to defeat Ayrton's Bill for throwing a piece of the Park into the Kensington Road opposite the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... that officer's clothes, he ordered his men to put on the clothing of the other dead royalists. Then he took six of his best men, with their own Camisard uniforms on, and bound them with ropes, to represent prisoners. One of them had been wounded in the arm, and his bloody sleeve helped the stratagem. Putting these six men at the head of his troop, with a guard of their disguised comrades over them, he marched towards the Castle of Servas. There he declared himself to be Count Broglio's nephew, ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... discovered by stratagem, others by treachery, others, again, by accident; and while the exact bearings of the places were mostly well remembered, others died out of the memory of those to whose trust they had been committed, or in some cases died with them. But to this day it is believed that vast stores of the precious ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... die. His teeth had rotted out, and had been renewed a hundred times; his tongue had been repeatedly chafed out, and replaced; and of eyes, blue, white, and grey, he had had very many pair. Finding that life was a gift which he could not part with easily, perhaps, not without some stratagem, he called to him one of his people—it was not his son, nor his son's son; no, nor one of the twentieth generation—all these had ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... the simple stratagem by which the King was endeavouring to escape from the conclusions of his reasoning, and to adopt, under pretence of his sanction, a course of proceeding the reverse of what it best suited him to recommend. But though he saw he could not guide his brother to the line of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... be, from their personal abilities, from their knowledge, their experience, or their lead and authority in this state. To me, who am but a plain man, the proceeding looks a little too refined and too ingenious; it has too much the air of a political stratagem, adopted for the sake of giving, under a high-sounding name, an importance to the public declarations of this club, which, when the matter came to be closely inspected, they did not altogether so well deserve. It is a policy that has very much ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... yourself, then, to be bound by such gentle ties. The news I brought you was false. It was a stratagem, a happy thought I had to serve your love by deceiving my sister, and by showing her what her philosopher would prove when put to ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)

... to make a proper use of prepositions, particular attention is requisite. There is a peculiar propriety to be observed in the use of by and with; as, "He walks with a staff by moonlight;" "He was taken by stratagem, and killed with a sword." Put the one preposition for the other, and say, "He walks by a staff with moonlight;" "He was taken with stratagem, and killed by a sword;" and it will appear, that the latter expressions differ ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... to drive us from the lakes. He was as cunning as he was brave; and, as an Indian, showed more generalship than might be expected—that is, according to their system of war, which is always based upon stratagem. His plan of operation was, to surprise all our forts at the same time, if he possibly could; and so excellent were his arrangements, that it was only fifteen days after the plan was first laid, that he succeeded in gaining possession of all but three; that is, he surprised ten out of thirteen ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... probably there was not one of all that company who did not think of Gordon. And of him there was not a little to think. The long waiting, month after month; never disheartened or beaten; trying every device, every stratagem, to keep the foes which environed him at bay; maintaining well even his reputation; anxious not for himself but for others, ready to sacrifice self indeed at any moment, cheerfully, for the sake of those whom he had ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... frame, wrestling men down because his bulk surpasses theirs. He has a thrifty mind. He is the man for councils of war, fitted to direct with easy mastery of superior acumen. His fellow-warriors called him "crafty," because he was brainy. He was schooled in stratagem, by which he became author of Ilium's overthrow. Ulysses was shrewd, brave, balanced—possibly, though not conclusively, patriotic—a sort of Louis XI, so far as we may form an estimate, but no more. He was selfish, immoral, barren of finer ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... Falaise and imprisoned during the night. An hour later the concierge, with a great show of secrecy, gave the Marquise a note written by Licquet, in which "Lefebre" informed her of his arrest, and said that he had disguised his writing as an act of prudence. The stratagem was entirely successful. Mme. de Combray answered, and her letter was immediately given to Licquet, who, awaiting some definite information, was astonished to find himself confronted with a fresh mystery. "Let me know," said the ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... three or four Days together, when the People came either to draw, or bring their Cash, their was scarce a possibility of getting into the Shop, for a number of dirty Fellows who were incessantly carrying Sacks of Coals on their Backs to the Cellars. The Stratagem succeeded even beyond expectation; the Creditors Apprehensions clear'd up, and one ridicul'd another for their foolish and ill-grounded Fears. The Run that was begun to be made, not only ceased, but numbers of Strangers now thought fit ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... conscience they are as clever and wicked, and appreciate temptation as much as ever." (The gusto with which he said this is indescribable.) "There is the Bellasys, for instance, with a calculating sensuality, an astuteness of stratagem, an utter contempt of truth, and a general aptitude for making fools of men, that poor Philip the Regent would have worshiped. When she had no one better to corrupt, I have seen her take in hand an older, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... this point. His difficulty was that he could not ask her directly whether the secret order had indeed been given by her, as he might betray the Marshal, which might entail unpleasant consequences for himself. After some thought he hit upon a stratagem that was rather brilliant—for him. He obtained a private interview with the Queen, and begged her to consider whether it was altogether judicious to restore Lady Daphne to a Prince who might otherwise come forward once more as a suitor for Princess Edna. "Would it not be safer, Madam," ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... that may tend to penitence for a past crime," said I, getting grave, where gravity might avail for good, "I have nothing to say. But Heaven does not work through the mean of man's deceit and stratagem, and the good that comes of fear goes with ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... need not witness it; it is a stratagem of war which you could not learn from me. Go back to the ship and wait for ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... the nature of his pangs what was taking place, Wong Ts'in resorted to a stratagem that rarely failed him. Announcing in a loud voice that it was his intention to refresh the surface of his body by the purifying action of heated vapour, and then to proceed to his mixing-floor, the merchant ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... called, were not inclined to enter into friendly relations with them, and therefore they were unable to supply themselves with wives in the usual manner; consequently, they had recourse to other means. Sometimes women were procured by stratagem; sometimes bands of marauders sallied forth, and stole, or in some other equally exceptionable way took possession of, the women of the neighboring or of ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... angrily at the stranger. If this was indeed a federal stratagem, what an intolerably cruel one! In front of him the glasses sparkled alluringly: a delicate mist gathered on their ice-chilled curves: a pungent sweetness wavered ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... were, to take our leave. The whole interview did not last two minutes, and I never was less satisfied with myself. The Doctor and my mother were in the greatest anguish; and when we were again seated in the coach, loudly expressed their apprehensions. They were convinced that some stratagem was meditated; they feared that their journey to London would prove as little satisfactory as that of the Wrongheads, and that they had been throwing away good money in building ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... I found very agreeable personages, are Milor Blessington and epouse, travelling with a very handsome companion, in the shape of a 'French count' (to use Farquhar's phrase in the 'Beau's Stratagem'), who has all the air of a cupidor dechaine. Milady seems highly literary; to which, and your honor's acquaintance with the family, I attribute the pleasure of having seen them. She is also very pretty, even in a morning; a species of beauty on which the sun of ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing

... callous to the potency of her corporeal charms. Finding, however, that the hearts of the Europeans were much like the rocks of her native land, perfectly impenetrable, she had recourse to another stratagem, which is generally attended with success. In the enlightened and civilized country of Europe, or at least in that part of it called England, it is by no means an obsolete custom, for an individual, who wishes to ingratiate himself with the object of his affections, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... had seen and fallen in love with Rosamond, the beautiful daughter of Cunimund. He now demanded her hand in marriage, and as it was scornfully refused him, he revenged himself by winning her honor through force and stratagem. War broke out in consequence, and the Gepidae were conquered, Rosamond falling to Alboin as part ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... doubt into that of despondency, "but, recollect, though Mrs. Beaufort may not remember the circumstance, both her husband and her son have seen me—have known my name. Will they not suspect, when once introduced to you, the stratagem that has been adopted?—Nay, has it not been from that very fear that you have wished me to shun the acquaintance of the family? Both Mr. Beaufort and Arthur saw you in childhood, and their suspicion once aroused, they may recognise you at once; your ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... attendance at a certain hour. She began to hope he meant to resign, now that her aunt was no more, the authority he had usurped over her; till she recollected, that the estates, which had occasioned so much contention, were now hers, and she then feared Montoni was about to employ some stratagem for obtaining them, and that he would detain her his prisoner, till he succeeded. This thought, instead of overcoming her with despondency, roused all the latent powers of her fortitude into action; and the property, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... piqued into a little stratagem, said, "Oh, my, dear, that is not so certain. Miss Arrowpoint has charms ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... commanding position, in front of which was an abattis of young trees and brush piled up to obstruct approach. Lieutenant Fitzgibbon had only some forty-three regulars and two hundred Indiana, to oppose a force of nearly six hundred men, including fifty cavalry and two field-pieces. He must effect by stratagem what he could not effect by force. Every man who could sound a, bugle, and for whom a bugle could be found, was sent into the woods, and these were posted at considerable distances apart. The Indians ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... President would equal this page on which he had depicted himself in all his greatness and all his simplicity.... History is too often only a school of immorality. It shows us the victory of force or stratagem much more than the success of justice, moderation, and probity. It is too often only the apotheosis of triumphant selfishness. There are noble and great exceptions; happy those who can increase the number, and thus bequeath a noble and ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... who, he said, was a deserter, or to give any explanation as to his whereabouts. Now Truffet, as his companions can testify, had not the remotest intention to desert. He was a good and steady soldier. He became a prisoner, through a most odious stratagem, and a Prussian general, although the facts have been officially brought before him, has refused to release him. The Germans are exceedingly fond of trumping up charges against the French, but they ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... his stratagem well on the way to success, and feeling once more the well-earned confidence of his fellows, slept soundly that night in his own bed, serenely ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... Life;—that same, daemonic outburst! Patriots whose audacity has limits had, in truth, better retire like Barnave; court private felicity at Grenoble. Patriots, whose audacity has no limits must sink down into the obscure; and, daring and defying all things, seek salvation in stratagem, in Plot of Insurrection. Roland and young Barbaroux have spread out the Map of France before them, Barbaroux says 'with tears:' they consider what Rivers, what Mountain ranges are in it: they will retire behind this Loire-stream, defend these ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... After his return, however, having first persuaded seventy-two other persons to join with him in the conspiracy, together with a certain queen of Ethiopia named Aso, who chanced to be in Egypt at that time, he contrived a proper stratagem to execute his base designs. For having privily taken the measure of Osiris' body, he caused a chest to be made exactly of the same size with it, as beautiful as may be, and set off with all the ornaments of art. This chest he brought into his banqueting-room; ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... Freed had won the battle of Lahore by a stratagem, all the captains of the rebel army, to the number of two thousand, who had been taken by the king, were hung up upon flesh-hooks, or set upon stakes, forming an avenue for the king's entrance into Lahore. On this occasion, his son Curseroo, [Cusero] who had been made prisoner, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... permitting me to have the use of ink and paper, counted out the leaves, with an express prohibition that I should not destroy a single one, and reserving the power of examining in what manner I had employed them. To supply the want of paper, I had recourse to the simple stratagem of smoothing with a piece of glass a rude table which I had, and upon this I daily wrote my long meditations respecting the duties of mankind, and especially of those which applied to myself. It is no exaggeration to say that the hours so employed were sometimes delightful to me, notwithstanding ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... the King to sie himselfe so controlled in his expence, and that he could give no gratuity to my Ladie Castlemain (now Dutchesse of Cleveland, etc.) but that which they behoved to get notice of, behold the stratagem he makes use of. The Presbyterians at that tyme, hearing of the Indulgence given to some ministers in Scotland, they offer to the King to pay all his debt, and advance him a considerable soume besyde, provydeing the same liberty be granted them. At the nixt sitting ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... performances are thus treasured up in magnificent obscurity, most are forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered, and owed the honours which they once obtained, not to judgment or to genius, to labour or to art, but to the prejudice of faction, the stratagem of intrigue, or the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... disembarkation of the French troops at Marseilles, all hope of interference had expired. It was clear that Berwick had been ultimately foiled, and his daring spirit and teeming device were the last hope, as they were the ablest representation, of Roman audacity and stratagem. The Revolutionary Committee, whose abiding-place or agents never could be traced or discovered, had posted every part of the city, during the night, with their manifesto, announcing that the hour had arrived; an attempt, partially successful, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... together with many others of a similar nature, Lin Yi suddenly leapt to his feet with a variety of highly objectionable remarks concerning the ancestors of all those who were present, and declaring that the story of Ling was merely a well-considered stratagem to cause them to forget the expedition which they had determined upon, for by that time it should have been completely carried out. It was undoubtedly a fact that the hour spoken of for the undertaking had long passed, ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... don't mean to have any stratagem acted for my benefit. I will trust the decision to her: if she loves me, all will be well; if her just resentment has uprooted her love, the sooner I know ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... Our 'stratagem'—I have always liked the word, ever since I read Tales of a Grandfather, which I thought a great take-in, as it's just a history book, neither more nor less, and the only exciting part is when you come upon stratagems—succeeded. ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... M'Intosh erected, exposed situation, commencement of hostilities, Attack on Harbert's blockhouse, Murder at Morgan's on Cheat, Of Lowther and Hughes, Indians appear before Fort at the point, Decoy Lieut. Moore into an ambuscade, a larger army visits Fort, stratagem to draw out the garrison, Prudence and precaution of capt. M'Kee. Fort closely besieged, Siege raised, Heroic adventure of Prior and Hammond to save Greenbrier, Attack on Donnelly's Fort, Dick Pointer, Affair at West's Fort, Successful artifice of Hustead, Affair at Cobern's ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... from that country, where he had also been ambassador, suddenly perceiving before him a woman who appeared to be young and pretty, determined to examine her more closely, and to this end made use of a rude stratagem. Pretending to stumble, he grasped at Margaret's cloak as though to save himself, and with a wrench tore it open, revealing her beautiful ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... David Whitmer and Lyman E. Johnson, united with a gang of counterfeiters, thieves, liars and blacklegs of the deepest dye, to deceive, cheat and defraud the Saints out of their property, by every art and stratagem which wickedness could invent; using the influence of the vilest persecutions to bring vexatious lawsuits, villainous prosecutions, and even stealing not excepted.... During the full career of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer's ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... in the passage the three conspirators, Frances, Elizabeth, and Bannan, peered triumphant. "My dear," said Jack, "I was merely waiting for my cue. You would not have had me spoil your entrance, you know you would not. Uncle John—I may say Uncle John? thanks!—I hope you will forgive Rita's little stratagem for the sake of the pleasure it ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... out in a Hurry for my Master's House in Lincolnshire, desired me to acquaint you with the Success of her Stratagem, which was to dress herself in the plain Neatness of a Farmer's Daughter, for she before wore the Cloaths of my late Mistress, and to be introduced by me as a Stranger to her Master. To say the Truth, she became the Dress extremely, and if I was to keep a House a thousand Years, I would never ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber

... would have perished, if Zipporah had not devised a stratagem to save his life. She said to her father: "Would it were thy will to hearken unto my counsel. Thou hast no wife, but only seven daughters. Dost thou desire my six sisters to preside over thy household? Then shall I go abroad with the sheep. If not, let my sisters tend the flocks, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... to call her, had just left the boards when George Farquhar's lively comedy, "The Beaux' Stratagem," was produced at the Haymarket. Perhaps she saw the performance from the audience side of the house, and was generous enough to admire the sparkle of Oldfield as Mrs. Sullen; and perhaps, as she was a very charitable body, Mistress Bracegirdle went to pay a last visit to the brilliant ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... the throat outwards; or at best, produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, as if they were laughing through wool: of none such comes good. The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... discontent among us," says the Don, meaning thereby, as I think, that he had included me in his stratagem for fear I might mar it from envy. "The girl's part is that which gives me most concern—and had I not faith ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... high among my people, upon occasion of the choice of a new deacon, I, having my preferences, yet not caring too openly to express them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that result which I deemed most desirable. My stratagem was no other than the throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer in the way of the candidate whom I wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and addressed a short note to his constituents, in which the opposite ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... his part, studied how he might supply, by address and stratagem, what he wanted in numbers and strength. He knew the superiority of the English in their heavy-armed cavalry, and in their archers. Both these advantages he resolved to provide against. With this purpose, he led his army down into a plain near Stirling. ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... when she heard that her stratagem had come to naught. "Full ill have ye requited me, Sir Hagen," she cried fiercely, and drawing the sword of Siegfried from its sheath, she raised it with both hands and struck ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... the result of the stratagem which had shown the housemaid's face to Mr. Brock as the face of Miss Gwilt. And so—by shaking Midwinter's trust in his own superstition, in the one case in which that superstition pointed to the truth—did Mother Oldershaw's cunning triumph over difficulties ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... dear, what I have to do, is to hold myself inexcusable for meeting such a determined and audacious spirit; that's all! I have hardly any question now, but that he would have contrived some wicked stratagem or other to have got me away, had I met him at a midnight hour, as once or twice I had thoughts to do; and that would have been more ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... interest the tale of the adventures of the Rose; and when the Earl of Evesham said that it was to Cuthbert that was due the thought of the stratagem by which the galley was captured, and its crew saved from being carried away into hopeless slavery, the king patted the boy on the shoulder with such hearty force as nearly to ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... were carried, was defended by cannon, and maintained by a small force under Colonel Cotymore. It was in this neighborhood, and, as it were in defiance of this force, that the war was begun. Fourteen whites were massacred at a blow, within a mile of this station. This was followed up by a stratagem, by which Occonostota, one of the principal warriors, aimed to obtain possession of the fort. Pretending to have something of importance to communicate to the commander, he dispatched a woman who had usually ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... three of the natives who lived at Port Jackson, viz. a man about twenty-eight years old, a girl about thirteen, and a boy about nine years old. The man was taken by stratagem, by Lieutenant Bradley, who enticed him and another native to the boat by holding up a fish: they were both secured, a number of the natives being at the same time on the shore; these threw a number ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... Government was so well aware of this fact, that in some of the departments the Catechism was ordered to be recited in the schools during the last week before the elections, though only two months earlier the teachers had been strictly forbidden to use it. This childish stratagem had, as might have been expected, no great success.'—Gabriel Monod, in 'Contemporary Review,' of ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... My stratagem succeeds. As long as the parcel is stationary, the Spider is not roused; but, the moment it trembles, stirred by my straw, ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... was only a stratagem of theirs, for this light was put out a second time at one of their barques' topmast head, and then she went to leeward, which deceived us. In the morning, therefore, contrary to our expectations, we found they had got the weather-gauge of us, and were coming upon us with full sail. So we ran ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... display them; but it is impossible to be in good humour with persons who thwart our designs. While his passion increased, the Chevalier de Grammont was solely occupied in endeavouring to find out some method, by which he might accomplish his intrigue; and this was the stratagem which he put in execution to clear the coast, by removing, at one and the same time, both the lover and ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... States-General. Barneveld was apprehended, imprisoned, and executed, after an examination which was in no proper sense a trial. Grotius, who was on the Arminian side and involved in the inculpated proceedings, was also arrested and imprisoned. His escape, by a stratagem successfully repeated by a slave in our own times, may challenge comparison for its romantic interest with any chapter of fiction. How his wife packed him into the chest supposed to contain the folios of the great oriental scholar Erpenius, how the soldiers wondered at its weight ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... suddenly rush out, make themselves masters of two pieces, and turn them against the enemy, who were thus gradually driven back. And now one of the combatants mounts the wall, and proclaims victory and the capture of the city. It is not believed; a stratagem is feared, and it is forbidden to approach the wall. At last, encouraged by the prolonged stentorian cry, some venture to climb up. The landsknechts resist in vain. They become wearied out and are driven into the river. Of 800, only 50 are taken ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... the dispute between them had been revived, and had ended fatally to the Count. Sometimes she was inclined to hope, that weariness, or disgust at her firm rejection of his suit had induced him to relinquish it; and, at others, she suspected that he had now recourse to stratagem, and forbore his visits, and prevailed with Montoni to forbear the repetition of his name, in the expectation that gratitude and generosity would prevail with her to give him the consent, which he could ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... advanced, when he reached his own house, having met no interruption on the way, proud of his well-planned stratagem, elated by success, and flattered by the hope that he had extricated himself by his own energy from all the perils which had of late appeared so dark and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... When he marched with the regiment of these mountaineers, who carried tomahawks and scalping-knives, the people of Williamsburg trembled for their lives. At that time, the country near Harper's Ferry was the Far West. In a very little while, these mountaineers, by mingled stratagem and system, defeated Lord Dunmore, very much as Andrew Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans thirty-five years later. Marshall then went with the army to the vicinity of Philadelphia; was in the battles of Brandywine and ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... be forbid on pain of death, Drury-Lane play-house was soon after converted into a barrack for soldiers, which it has continued to be ever since. Sheridan was arrested, and, it was imagined, would have suffered the rack, if he had not escaped from his guard by a stratagem, and gone over to Ireland in a balloon with which his friend Fox furnished him. Immediately on his arrival in Ireland, he put himself at the head of a party of the most violent Reformers, commanded a regiment of Volunteers at the siege of Dublin in 1791, and was supposed to be the person who planned ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... For neither do they consent to be our slaves, nor do we purchase them of their conquerors. The British merchants obtain them from Africa by violence, artifice, and treachery, with a few trinkets to prompt those unfortunate people to enslave one another by force or stratagem. Purchase them indeed they may, under the authority of an act of the British parliament. An act entailing upon the Africans, with whom we are not at war, and over whom a British parliament could not of right assume even a shadow of authority, the dreadful curse of perpetual slavery, ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet

... resident in Cuba, you cannot get a passport to go to the next town without your wife's permission in writing. Now it so happened that a respectable brazier, who lived at Santiago de Cuba, wanted to go to Trinidad. His wife would not consent; so he either got her signature by stratagem, or, what is more likely, gave somebody something to get him a ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... strong castle, Archie," Wallace said; "at least so people say, for I have never seen it, so far does it lie removed from the main roads. But unless by stratagem, I doubt if my force is strong enough to capture it; nor would I attack were I sure of capturing it without the loss of a man. The nobles and landowners stand aloof from me; but it may be that after I have wrested some more strong places from the ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... seldom carried on openly; they preferred stratagem and artifice; and the conquerors practised the greatest cruelties on the conquered. If a party was so beleaguered as to lose all hope of effectual resistance, or of securing their safety by flight, knowing ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... inner gate is a strong portcullis. A bow-shot within the castle is a splendid pagoda, built by the founders of the castle, ancestors of Gidney Khan, who were Gentiles. He turned Mahometan, and deprived his elder brother of this castle by the following stratagem: Having invited him and his women to a banquet, which his brother requited by a similar entertainment, he substituted chosen soldiers well armed instead of women, sending them two and two in a dowle,[256] who, getting in by this device, gained possession of the gates, and held ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... his behaviour had not been good, he would not have attempted it; but at the same time, they acknowledged that without such a proof, they could not have believed, but finding all hopes gone, he and his people got away by some stratagem. They would pay they said to the hour that the ship foundered, and were very sorry that they could ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... spear, and a shield. They are seldom without their arms, for the spear is used in hunting, the knife for cutting leaves, and the sum-pi-tan for shooting small birds. Their warfare is carried on more by treachery and stratagem than open fighting—they are all warriors, and seldom at peace. The powerful tribes which reside on the banks of the river generally possess several war prahus, capable of holding from twenty to thirty men, and mounting a brass gun (leila) on her bows, carrying a ball of one to two pounds weight. ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... must call. Your uncle will never tell him. We are all disappointed, my dear. Young people should think of their families in marrying. I set a bad example—married a poor clergyman, and made myself a pitiable object among the De Bracys—obliged to get my coals by stratagem, and pray to heaven for my salad oil. However, Casaubon has money enough; I must do him that justice. As to his blood, I suppose the family quarterings are three cuttle-fish sable, and a commentator rampant. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... gentlemen discover that man has a trick of dressing up his littleness in large terms,—liberty, intuition, inspiration, immortality,—and that he only is a philosopher, who cannot be deceived by this shallow stratagem. Your "philosopher" sees what men are made of. Populaces may fancy that man is central in the world, that he is the all-containing vessel of its uses: but your philosopher, admirable gentleman, sees through all that; he is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... bullet or the knife of the savage would not be likely to reach him in the streets of Hillsdale. For it is no part of the tactics of an American Indian to expose his own life. On the contrary, he is considered a fool who does so unnecessarily. Stratagem is prized above force, and he is the greatest warrior who, while inflicting an injury, takes care not to expose himself to harm. Esther knew all this, and for these reasons, perhaps, if with Holden she was vague, with his son she was oracular. Consequently, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... The stratagem was successful. Again with exulting shouts the levies poured out in pursuit of the Bretons. These fled for some distance, and then suddenly turning fell on their pursuers. Ill-armed and undisciplined as the levies were, and unable to withstand the attack of such ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... Naval History 3 247. There is a contemporary account of the incident in the Gentleman's Magazine (1804) volume 74 pages 963 and 967.) Linois did not like to attack, as darkness was approaching, but argued that if the bold face put upon the matter by the British were merely a stratagem, they would attempt to fly in the night; in which case he would not hesitate to chase them. But Dance did nothing of the kind. He had taken his enemy's measure; or, to quote the French historian again, "il comprit l'etat moral de son adversaire." ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... case were I, If nature had not given me wisdom's lore! For kings are clouts that every man shoots at, Our crown the pin that thousands seek to cleave: Therefore in policy I think it good To hide it close; a goodly stratagem, And far from any man that is a fool: So shall not I be known; or if I be, They cannot take away my crown from me. Here will I hide it in ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... Book of Sindibad this is the "Story of the Prince who went out to hunt and the stratagem which the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... and had had time to close it. But instead of closing it, he merely bumped noisily against it, and rattled the knob, and stood listening. As if his departure were a signal, a roar of laughter from within followed his stratagem. One ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... pursued Labakan the whole day; with them he went to sleep in the nearest night-lodgings; but when he awoke in the morning, and his eye rested upon Omar sleeping near him, who was reposing so quietly, and could dream of his now certain fortune, then arose in him the thought of gaining, by stratagem or violence, what unpropitious destiny had denied him. The dagger, the returning prince's token of recognition, hung in the sleeper's girdle; he softly drew it forth, to plunge it in the breast of its owner. Nevertheless, the peaceable soul of the journeyman ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... misunderstanding, but none the less friendship was owing to it replaced by bitter enmity. The fortress was not completed a moment too soon, for in 1538 the Turkish fleet, under Sulaiman Pasha, after taking Aden by a stratagem, blockaded Diu by sea. Muhammad III, the nephew and successor of Bahadur Shah, then besieged ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens

... not say to herself, "He must be a peer of France!" but "Oh, if only he is noble, and he surely must be——" Without finishing her thought, she suddenly rose, and followed by her brother the General, she made her way towards the column, affecting to watch the merry quadrille; but by a stratagem of the eye, familiar to women, she lost not a gesture of the young man as she went towards him. The stranger politely moved to make way for the newcomers, and went to lean against another pillar. Emilie, as much nettled by his politeness as she might have been by an impertinence, began ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac

... same time, she privately made arrangements for cutting short her visit, and anticipating the period of her removal to the house of Mrs Gaskoin, betwixt whom and the Dunbars the interval of her friends' absence in Russia was to be divided. In spite of her stratagem, however, she did not escape what she apprehended. Vincent's leave had nearly expired too; and when the moment approached that was to separate them, he seized an opportunity of making ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... in a sudden pang of remorse. He perceived with dismay that the stratagem of his defence had given Anne away. He did not hesitate a moment. It was for him to save her now. He leaped ashore. But even as he landed on the wharf he heard a shrill shriek ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... are upon us—reverse this conviction, and you let loose a rebel band upon the country, ripe for treason, stratagem, or spoil—you overturn the finest order of society in the world; henceforth no man's property will be safe, the laws will be disregarded, and even the upright, talented, and independent magistracy of England brought into ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... thinking his dignity concerned in not absenting himself from the public councils at a season so critical, after a few weeks' repose he sailed forward to Italy, which he reached on the 23rd of November. And with what result? Simply to leave it again with difficulty and by stratagem, after a winter passed in one continued contest with the follies of his friends, nothing done to meet his own sense of the energy required, every advantage forfeited as it arose, ruined in the feeble execution, individual activity squandered for want of plan, and (as Cicero discovered ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... the other virtues, should not be regarded as a trade mark, a means to success. It brings its own reward in the nobility it gives the character. An exception might be made here as to that form of military deceit known as "stratagem," but it is the duty of the enemy to expect it, and so guard against it. The word of a soldier involves his honor, and if he pledges that word, to even a foeman, he will keep it with ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... days, he did not stir out, awaiting the close of the open inquiry as to the cause of the soldiers' deaths; but, on the fifth day, he started out again, and by a similar stratagem killed ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... Tignonville, delighted with the stratagem which the meeting with Biron had suggested, could see no flaw in it. She could, and though she heard him to the end, no second glow of hope softened the lines of her features. With a gesture full of dignity, which took in not only Madame ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... troubles Ellandonnan Castle got into the hands of the King's troops, but shortly before Sheriffmuir it was again secured by the following clever stratagem: A neighbouring tenant applied to the Governor for some of the garrison to cut his corn, as he feared from the appearance of the sky and the croaking of ravens that a heavy storm was impending, and that nothing but a sudden separation of his crop from the ground could save his family ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... whole atmosphere in which the would-be-free think and act. Kings' heads are chopped off, a whole class is guillotined, reform movements come and go, the masters fight every inch of their retreat, and pile stratagem upon stratagem, device upon device, to retain ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... out his hand. No one would ever have guessed how closely the table followed what now happened, for each man began talking in a voice even louder than before. It was as if they sought to cover the stratagem of ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... encouragement, consolation, edification; in all ways diligently "administering the discipline of the Church." It may be said, too, that in private disposition the new preachers somewhat resemble the mendicant Friars of old times; outwardly, full of holy zeal; inwardly, not without stratagem, ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... sky with his ruddy hue; the birds filled the woods with an out-gush of melody; the rainbow, as ever, spanned the abyss of waters, while below, drifting in eddies, were fragments of canoes, and still more ghastly fragments telling of the night's destruction. The stratagem of the girl had been entirely successful—deluded by the false beacon, the unhappy savages had drifted on with the tide, unconscious of danger, till the one terrible pang of danger, and the terrible plunge of death came at the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... kept prisoner in a harem tent, his idea was to send Morar Gopal with a letter to her, fully convinced that the wily Indian would succeed by stratagem and bribery in reaching her. Before the banquet he had negotiated with one of the Indian rajahs for the purchase of an ox-waggon, and if Edith could by his letter be prevailed upon to make an attempt at flight, ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... make the matter clearer. Suppose that a robber forces me to promise that I will give him my goods at his will and pleasure. It is plain (inasmuch as my natural right is, as I have shown, co-extensive with my power) that if I can free myself from this robber by stratagem, by assenting to his demands, I have the natural right to do so, and to pretend to accept his conditions. Or, again, suppose I have genuinely promised some one that for the space of twenty days I will not taste food or any nourishment; and suppose I afterwards find that my promise was ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... under Pineda, who was then in the river of Panuco. Cortes wished to have got possession of the ship, but no signals could induce the people to land, as we were informed by de la Loa that their captain was aware of our being on the coast. As a stratagem to decoy them on shore, Cortes dressed four of his soldiers in the clothes of the Spaniards he had taken, and left them on the spot, returning along-shore towards Villa Rica, that he might be noticed from the ship; but after we had got out ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... When this stratagem was decided on, John Moore announced that he as head of the firm should be the sacrifice. But the representatives of the "System" and the Senate firmly refused to assign him that role, and instead, to his grief and anger, nominated ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... was slain by A-chil'les, the most valiant of the Greeks, and Achilles was himself slain by Paris. After losing their bravest leader the Greeks despaired of being able to take the city by force, and so they resorted to stratagem. By the advice of Minerva they erected a huge horse of wood on the plain in front of the walls, and within its body they placed a chosen band of their boldest warriors. Then pretending that they had given up the struggle, they withdrew to their ships, and set sail, as ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke

... "high Son of Liberty," who safely brought through the British lines on the Neck, and secreted in Muddy Pond Woods, the two cannon which, by a clever stratagem, had been taken from the gun-house, on Boston common, at noon-day. Next day, a party of Red Coats were in Roxbury searching for them in every direction, but in vain. These are supposed to be the same pieces now in the chamber at the top of Bunker Hill Monument. Parker took the ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... sure that he would be sorry at missing the Colonel, etc., etc., but all this camouflage was unnecessary, as she herself came to the 'phone. I could have kissed the instrument when I told her of my stratagem and heard her silvery laughter in ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon



Words linked to "Stratagem" :   strategy, manoeuvre, tactical maneuver, tactical manoeuvre, pump-and-dump scheme, plant, ploy, maneuver, wangle, scheme, wangling, dodge



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