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Perfidious   Listen
adjective
Perfidious  adj.  
1.
Guilty of perfidy; violating good faith or vows; false to trust or confidence reposed; treacherous; faithless; as, a perfidious friend.
2.
Involving, or characterized by, perfidy. "Involved in this perfidious fraud."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Perfidious" Quotes from Famous Books



... "PERFIDIOUS ALBION" AGAIN.—Lieutenant MIZON, with his grievances against the British Niger Company, was feted last week in Paris. To inform Frenchmen that the British Company in question is not so niger as it has been painted would be useless at the present moment, when ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various

... him alone revenge shall wait, But fits thy country for her coming fate: 210 Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son To do what oft Britannia's self had done. Look to the Baltic—blazing from afar, Your old Ally yet mourns perfidious war. [17] Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid, Or break the compact which herself had made; Far from such counsels, from the faithless field She fled—but left behind her Gorgon shield; A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone, And ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... glass-blower, broke into the discussion. The German government was authority for the statement that the Lusitania had been armed with guns. And when Norwood hooted at this, every German in the room was up in arms. What did he have to disprove it? The word of the British government! Was not "perfidious Albion" a byword! ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... Prince desires to win a timid and retiring girl: he has merely called her by the tender name of wife, and made her believe that certain considerations have prevented him from marrying her at once,—a plausible pretence, but false and perfidious. ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... old Abdallah, 'do not afflict yourself; for though I must own there is no great faith to be put in the promises and oaths of so perfidious a queen, yet I must withal tell you that her power extends not to me. She knows it well herself; and that is the reason, and no other, that she pays me such great respect. I can quickly hinder her from doing you the least harm, if she should be perfidious ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... may be added sports, Jests, Gifts, and Presents; but not costly, such are yellow Apples, young stock-Doves, Milk, Flowers, and the like; all things must appear delightful and easy, nothing vitious and rough: A perfidious Pimp, a designing Jilt, a gripeing Usurer, a crafty factious Servant must have no room there, but every part must be full of the simplicity of the Golden-Age, and of that Candor which was then ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin

... energy led me to admire the exploits of my uncles, and filled me with a longing to share in them, the cold-blooded cruelty they perpetrated on returning from their expeditions, and the perfidious artifices by which they lured their dupes to the castle, in order to torture them to extort ransom, roused in me strange and painful emotions, which, now that I am speaking in all sincerity, it would be difficult for me to account for exactly. In the absence of all ordinary ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... lords must ever be ready with a lie. So, too, must my heart do if it would find favour with its lord. Let it flatter and be obsequious. But Cliges is such a knight, so fair, so open, and so loyal, that my heart, in praising him, need never be false or perfidious, for in him there is nothing to be improved. Therefore I wish my heart to serve him, for, as the people's proverb runs, 'He who serves a noble man is bad indeed if he does not improve ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... took their name of "Kit-Cats" from prosaic mutton pies. 'Twould be horrible to think on this gastronomic derivation of the title were we not to remember, quite fortunately, that geese saved classic Rome. Why, therefore, should not the preservers of perfidious Albion suggest the aroma of a ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... objects and the character of M. Maupas were soon enough understood by Louis Napoleon. He promoted him to high office; sheltered him from the censure of his superiors; and, when the coup d'etat was drawing nigh, called him to Paris, in the full and well-grounded confidence that, whatever the most perfidious ingenuity could contrive in turning the guardians of the law against the law itself, that M. Maupas, as Prefet of Police, might be ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... to have seen him in royal array Before his proud squadrons his banners display, And the voice of the people exulting to own Their sovereign assuming the purple and crown; But the time has gone by, my hope is despair,— One maiden perfidious has ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... we find that the Attignaouantans, or the tribe de l'Ours, was the most populous, forming half of the whole Huron family, namely about fifteen thousand souls. They were considered, erroneously, as the most perfidious of all. Father de Brebeuf, who knew them well, says that they were mild, charitable, polite and courteous. Some years later, the tribe de l'Ours occupied fourteen villages, with thirteen missions under the charge ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... was known of many. He had but recently arrived from London. He found himself called upon to shake hands a l'anglais with this one and that, giving all and sundry his impressions of the perfidious Albion with a verve and neatness truly French. He went from one to the other with perfect grace and savoir-faire, and each change of position brought him nearer to the middle-aged man with upturned mustache, upon whom his movements were by ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... gare: the deadly salle d'attente, the insufferable delays over one's luggage, the porterless platform, the overcrowded and illiberal train. How many a time did I permit myself the secret reflection that it is in perfidious Albion that they order this matter best! How many a time did the eager British mercenary, clad in velveteen and clinging to the door of the carriage as it glides into the station, revisit my invidious dreams! The paternal porter and the responsive hansom are among the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... was fitted for college and admitted to Harvard. Misfortunes culminated at the same moment. I did not remain. I was too ill for study, and suddenly the bottom of my perfidious purse dropped out. Bitter was my disappointment. But in another year I began a new career which brought me happiness, new opportunities, new friends and dividends from Utopian investments. Health and hope, my natural inheritance, returned. Boyhood was gone, but not the ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee

... darkness the fatal antagonism of all the surrounding existences, that to him shall for ever remain irrealisable, unseen and enviable. He had a desire to assert his importance, to break, to crush; to be even with everybody for everything; to tear the veil, unmask, expose, leave no refuge—a perfidious desire of truthfulness! He laughed in ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... which, too often, alas, was the case. Never, however, was there frank intimacy between us. Our temperaments did not allow that. He called me a sentimental idealist, and he was right; I called him a vain man, perfidious and artful, and I was right also."[2] This mutual dislike and even distrust ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... strong man who destroys liberty in creating order. But Carlyle has only just ceased to be mistaken for a reformer, while it is still Machiavelli's hard fate to be so trammeled in his material that his name stands for whatever is most malevolent and perfidious in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Mr. Soames commence his career of duplicity at the flat of Henry Leroux; and for some twelve months before the events which so dramatically interfered with the delightful scheme, he drew his double salary and performed his perfidious work with great efficiency and contentment. Mrs. Leroux paid four other visits to Paris during that time, and always returned in much better spirits, although pale and somewhat haggard looking. It fell to the lot of Soames always to meet her at Charing Cross; but ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... he hurried home in a fever of passion, begged his mother's pardon, and reproached himself for ever having disobeyed her on account of such a perfidious creature as ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... John ix. 3, 1 Pet. i. 7. That I might be a witness for his despised truths and interest in this land, where I am called to seal the same with my blood; and I wish heartily that this my poor life may put an end to the persecution of the true members of Christ in this place, so much actuated by these perfidious prelates, in opposition to whom, and testimony to the cause of Christ, I at this time lay down my life, and bless God that he hath thought me so much worthy as to do the same, for his glory and interest. Finally, Concerning a christian duty, in a singular and extraordinary case, and anent ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... he began to grow anxious and alarmed. For all his military contempt for the English as a people soon to be subjugated, he had a deep distrust of them. It awoke suddenly in its most violent form; and he began to suspect that the perfidious politicians of England had ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... libellous.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 167. Smollett in Humphrey Clinker (published in 1771) makes Mr. Bramble write, in his letter of June 2: 'The public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave—every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... his patriotism, his genius, and his private virtue. In France, however, or, at least among certain parties in France, there has been no such modification of opinion. With the Republicans, Pittetcobourg is Pittetcobourg still,—crafty, bloody, seeking whom he may devour; and perfide Albion more perfidious than ever. This hatred is the point of union between the Republic and the Empire; it has been fostered ever since, and must be continued by Prince Louis, if he would hope to ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... no energy to go about my usual occupations. My hands and feet seem to have lost their power. Well, Love has gained his object; and Love only is to blame for having induced our dear friend, in the innocence of her heart, to confide in such a perfidious man. Possibly, however, the imprecation of Durvasas may he already taking effect. Indeed, I cannot otherwise account for the King's strange conduct, in allowing so long a time to elapse without even a letter; and that, too, after ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... 10,000,000. All these sums will be reimbursed by Spain." The Spanish nation was to pay for the fall of its dynasty and the pacific conquest upon which Napoleon counted. She reserved for him another price for his perfidious manoeuvres. ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... put him to death. It is not impossible, however, but that Owain was another herald who renewed the offer of peace, after the death of the "delight of the bulwark of toil," and that both were dishonourably slain by the same perfidious messenger. ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin

... Anjou's guards. He points to them with his finger. D'Argence understands him, and, 'Hide your face!' he cries. 'Ah D'Argence, D'Argence, you will not save me,' replies the prince. Then, like Caesar, covering up his face, he awaited death the poor soul knew only too well the perfidious character of the Duke of Anjou, the hatred with which he was hunting him down, and the sanguinary orders he would give. The guards had gone by when their captain, Montesquion, learned the name of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... but, after he deliberately considered the matter, he resolved that it was now the best way quietly to mount his horse, and to carry back with him to London a severe cold, instead of the soft wishes and tender desires he had brought from thence. He quitted this perfidious place with much greater expedition than he had arrived at it, though his mind was far from being occupied with such tender and agreeable ideas: however, when he thought himself at a sufficient distance to be ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... incapability of all aristocractical red-tape, HOW TO RULE US VAGABONDS. Both those reasons, I say, must make even the most hardened bibber of Toorak small-beer acknowledge and confess, that the perfidious mistake at head-quarters was, their persisting to make the following Belgravian 'billet-doux' the 'sine qua non' recommendation for gold-lace on Ballaarat ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... set down. Silas Upham asked us to spend Sunday at his house. At dinner I sat next pretty little Hetty, and at once she spoke of Wilkins. To my annoyance, Ajax introduced the ridiculous Dinah, the perfidious creature of his fancy. Ajax was in his salad days, but he ought to have known, even then, that if you want to interest a maid in a man, tell her that the man has suffered at the hands of another maid. Hetty's blue eyes ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... away, Every house must have its day; So in antiquarian rank Up sprung here the Pryor's Bank, Full of glorious tapestry,— Full as well as house can be: And of carvings old and quaint, Relics of some mitr'd saint, 'Tis—I hate to be perfidious— 'Tis a ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... projects or plans which may have been formed between General Wilkinson and myself, heretofore, they are now completely frustrated by the treacherous conduct of Wilkinson; and the world must pronounce him a perfidious villain. If I am sacrificed, my ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... to-day is only a reminiscence of glories that were, but shall be never again. Wealth, Luxury, Aristocracy ate out her soul; then Bonaparte, perfidious despot that he ever was, robbed her of her independence; finally the Holy Alliance of conquerors of Bonaparte made his wrong the pretext for another, and wholly gave her to her ancient enemy Austria, who greedily snatched at the prey, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... made presumptuous chiefly by the treacherous puffing of his cockney fellow gossips, and profligate in his poems merely to make them saleable, we regret that he did not live long enough to acquire common sense, and abjure the pestilent and perfidious gang who betrayed his weakness to the grave, and are now panegyrising his memory into contempt. For what is the praise of cockneys but disgrace, or what honourable inscription can be placed over the dead by the hands of notorious libellers, exiled ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... long wandering pitifully on the face of the earth and now imprisoned! This gentle hapless creature, immured in the dungeon as a malefactor and reserved for horrid tortures! That it should come to this! To this!—Perfidious, worthless spirit, and this thou hast concealed from me!—Stand! ay, stand! roll in malicious rage thy fiendish eyes! Stand and brave me with thine insupportable presence! Imprisoned! In hopeless misery! Delivered over ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding, and crooked courses, are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice, that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge? Saith he, If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... second cruise in the Argo, young Silas Talbot encountered the perfidious King George to the southward of Long Island and riddled her with one broadside after another, first hailing Captain Hazard by name and cursing him in double-shotted phrases for the traitorous swab that he was. Then the seagoing infantry scrambled over the ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... all necessaries, and designed them as auxiliaries for Antony. But Antony said he had no want of his assistance; but he commanded him to punish the king of Arabia; for he had heard both from him, and from Cleopatra, how perfidious he was; for this was what Cleopatra desired, who thought it for her own advantage that these two kings should do one another as great mischief as possible. Upon this message from Antony, Herod returned back, but kept his army with him, in order to invade Arabia immediately. So when his army ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... route to the ancient city of Cholula, the inhabitants of which were a mild race, subjects of Montezuma, and given to peaceful arts, who were likely to receive him kindly. But his Cempoallan allies declared that the Cholulans were false and perfidious, and counselled him to go to Tlascala, a valiant little republic which had managed to maintain its independence against the arms of Mexico. The tribe had always been friendly with the Totonacs, and had the reputation of being frank, fearless, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... base retreat In youth's magnanimous years— Ignoble hold it, if discreet When interest tames to fears; Shall spirits that worship light Perfidious deem its sacred glow, Recant, and trudge where worldlings go, Conform and ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... by a score of seamen, rushing up the stage, disappeared behind the side scenes. We heard a tremendous row going on of mingled cries and shouts and shrieks. Presently the seamen returned, dragging with them the perfidious heroine, and well-nigh a dozen of the brigands whom they had captured. In vain the latter protested that they were not really brigands, but simply scene-shifters and labourers, who had been hired to represent those formidable characters. The lady also asserted that she was the lawful ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... completely mistaken, sir," said Monte Cristo coldly, who felt the perfidious manoeuvre of the young man, and understood the bearing of his words; "you only acquired my protection after the influence and fortune of your father had been ascertained; for, after all, who procured for me, who had never seen either you or your illustrious father, the pleasure of your ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... he gained their easy hearts, Too prone to credit his perfidious arts. What Di'omed, nor Thetis' greater son, A thousand ships, nor ten years' siege, had done— False tears and fawning words the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... upbraid you with a repetition of your former vows and protestations, nor will I recapitulate the little arts you have practised to ensnare my heart; because, though by dint of the most perfidious dissimulation you have found means to deceive my opinion, your utmost efforts have never been able to lull the vigilance of my conduct, or to engage my affection beyond the power of discarding you without a tear, whenever my honour should demand such a sacrifice. Sir, you are ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Nicephorus was astonished by the bold and rapid march of the commander of the faithful, who repassed, in the depth of winter, the snows of Mount Taurus: his stratagems of policy and war were exhausted; and the perfidious Greek escaped with three wounds from a field of battle overspread with forty thousand of his subjects. Yet the emperor was ashamed of submission, and the caliph was resolved on victory. One hundred and thirty-five thousand regular ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... destruction. But know this, Charles Stuart, that, when we draw the sword again, it is the sword of judgment. Out there many call you the man of blood. I have laboured for you, have met them all in persuasion. I had prevailed. It is finished. Blood is upon us again, blood spilled for a perfidious king. The sword that we had put by for ever! My God, how I have feared it! Well, so be it. We go to the field again—but then, prepare you for the reckoning. It shall ...
— Oliver Cromwell • John Drinkwater

... Was this forsooth the object of thy toil O'er lands and oceans, that without thy ken He should not perish? Nay! but well was reft From thine arbitrament his fate. What crime Did cruel Fortune spare, what depth of shame To Roman honour! since she suffered not, Perfidious traitor, while yet Magnus lived, That ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... upbraiding 'wake thy apprehension? Ah! faithless, tell me, have I lost those charms Which thou so oft hast sworn could warm old age, And tempt the frozen hermit from his cell, To visit once again our gayer world? This, thou hast sworn, perfidious as thou art, A thousand times; as often hast thou sworn Eternal constancy, and endless love, Yet ev'ry time ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey

... not to be eager to press it at once, however imprudent and out of place such action might be. He was, moreover, utterly unconscious of the fact that he was nothing but a tool which both Tyope and the Naua wielded to further their perfidious designs. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... To you, with malice aforethought, To send (and with intent to kill him, And on this blessed day, when nought But Saturnalian joys should fill him) Your friend Catullus such a set Of murderous authors; but the debt I'll pay, be even with you yet— For no perfidious friend I spare. At early dawn, ere the sun shine, I Will rise, and ransack shop and stall, Collect your Caesii and Aquini, And that Suffenus: and with care And diligence, will have all sent To you, for a like punishment. Hence, poets! with your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... that had eaten into his brain. "You do not understand," he said. "It is that I treat you English heretic dogs just as you English heretic dogs have treated Spaniards upon the seas—you robbers and thieves out of hell! I have the honesty to do it in my own name—but you, you perfidious beasts, you send your Captain Bloods, your Hagthorpes, and your Morgans against us and disclaim responsibility for what they do. Like Pilate, you wash your hands." He laughed savagely. "Let Spain play the part of Pilate. Let her disclaim responsibility for me, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... "unintelligent." In support of this amazing statement she quotes some wandering phrase of Sainte-Beuve. By the light of recent revelations, whether Sainte-Beuve was ironical or not, he was certainly perfidious. But, to waive that matter, does Mrs. Humphry Ward consider that Swift and Lucian and Machiavelli were, as she puts it, "doomed to failure" because they used irony as a weapon? Was Heine and is Anatole France conspicuous for want of intelligence? And, after all, ought not Mrs. Ward to remember that ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... after he recovered his liberty, was destined, three years later, to be a second time the prisoner of the English at Navarrete, when the Black Prince replaced on his throne the cruel, perfidious Don Pedro. When Sir Hugh Calverley asked for the freedom of Du Guesclin, he was met by the reply, "Il ne faut pas lacher ce dogue de Bretagne, si fatal aux Anglais." It was represented to the Black Prince that report ascribed his ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... the most careful motherly solicitude. To the second husband, whom politics had given her, she was a faithful companion. Scandal imputed to her absurd poisonings which she did not commit, and accused her of insatiable ambitions and perfidious intrigues. No one ever dared accuse her of infidelity to Augustus or of dissolute conduct. The great fame, power, and wealth of her husband did not disturb the calm poise of her spirit. In that palace of Augustus, adorned with triumphal laurel, toward ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero

... retain you on wages—you, in pure wantonness, must lift up your heels and prance away into your so-called new liberty. You're a fair sample of what's to come, Cornelius. You've spent your first wages for whiskey. Silence, you perfidious reptile! ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... Siegfried's body, from the back. Too late Gunther holds his arm and the retainers spring to prevent him. Siegfried's eyes flash wildly about for a weapon. He snatches up his great shield and lifts it aloft to crush the perfidious enemy,—but his strength fails, the shield drops, and he falls crashing ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... measures would probably be taken against them; so they made every effort to practise that union which is proverbially strength, and to prevent the enlisting in their ranks of anyone likely to prove cowardly or perfidious. In some cases, too, they actually had a well and capably organized system whereby one of their number could escape quickly, if need be, from the scene of his crime; for, like the French prisoners ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... above all things of putting the matter competently, yet secretly perturbed as to what might be considered superfluous and what deemed a perfidious ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... by hope of fossil round, She stepped on some perfidious ground, So now behold our luckless Ray Plunged in the ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... watering place, would needes goe himselfe on shore with thirtie men, much against the will of our captaine, and hee and 16 of his company, together with one boat which was all that we had, and 16 others that were a washing ouer against our ship, were betrayed of the perfidious Moores, and in our sight for the most part slaine, we being not able for want of a boat to yeeld them any succour. [Sidenote: Zanzibar Iland.] From thence with heauie hearts we shaped our course for Zanzibar the 7 of Nouember, where shortly after we arriued and made vs a new boat of such boards ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... gathered, from her mysterious nods and tosses of the head, (to be sure, her head wagged a little of its own accord, the ringlets too, like lambs' tails,) that she had had an AFFAIRE DE COEUR with an Englishman, and that the perfidious islander had removed from the Continent with her misplaced affections. She was a trifle bitter, I thought - for I applied her insinuations to myself - against Englishmen generally. But, though cynical in theory, she was perfectly amiable in practice. She superintended ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... all those talents which the other so proclaimed; and that be did not even deserve the friendship which lent him so much merit; and for the mere loan of which he dissembled attachment to Pope, to whom in his heart he was as perfidious and as false as he has been to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... of his authority was even greater. So far, however, was he from grasping the nature and need of a substantial renovation of the existing religious belief, that to his influence in no inconsiderable measure was due the perfidious condemnation and execution of the great Bohemian forerunner of the Reformation, John Huss. The student of mediaeval history may be inclined to smile at the subtilties of scholastic distinctions, but he is also compelled to lament ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... possess such a power of captivating and enchanting the affections of the other sex!—to be capable of inspiring in a charming and even a virtuous woman, a love so deep, and so entirely personal to me!—that even my worst vices, (if I were vicious), even my cruelty and perfidy, (if I were cruel and perfidious), could not eradicate the passion!—to be so loved for my own self, that even with a distinct knowledge of my character, she yet died to save me!—this, sir, takes hold of two sides of our nature, the better and the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... therefore, from his being accounted impious, perfidious, and cruel, these disadvantages resulted; but, on the other hand, there accrued to him one great gain, noticed with admiration by all historians, namely, that in his army, although made up of men of every race and country, no ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... out a watch of English make, "but in your next letter. I start for Paris in an hour's time. You will hear of things soon which will add very greatly to the weight and success of this grand enterprise. We shall have perfidious Albion caught in her own noose, as you shall see. You have not heard of one Captain Wright, and the landing-place at Biville. We will have our little Biville at Springhaven. There will be too many of us to swing up by a rope. Courage, my friend! The future is with you. Our regiments ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... cried in French, into which he always broke when excited. "No! you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted with that demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me, I am brave! You ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien

... relatives and save her honour. In October, 1746, his wife, by the advice of her friends and in accordance with Scots practice, raised in the Commissary Court at Edinburgh an action of declarator of marriage against her perfidious spouse, and the case was still pending before the Commissaries when Lord Mark Kerr, as we have seen, "gave away" ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead

... the critics, leaping one after another, like so many sheep, follow the same wrong track, in this case for a couple of centuries. The Usurper is a tragedy, in which a Parasite, "a most perfidious villain," plays a mysterious part. He is led off to be hanged at last, much to the reader's satisfaction, who murmurs, in the words of R.L. Stevenson, ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... more leisurely undrest, And, laying by her tawdry vest, Trick'd herself out in Truth's array, And 'cross the meadows tript away. From this curst hour, the fraudful dame Of sacred Truth usurps the name, And, with a vile, perfidious mind, Roams far and near, to cheat mankind; False sighs suborns, and artful tears, And starts with vain pretended fears; In visits, still appears most wise, And rolls at church her saint-like eyes; Talks very much, plays idle tricks, While rising stock ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... myself, and you dare to urge me to the shame of inconstancy! Disgrace is the same, and follows equally the soldier without courage and the faithless lover. Do no wrong, then, to my fidelity; allow me [to be] brave without rendering myself perfidious [perjured]. My bonds are too strong to be thus broken—my faith still binds me, though I [may] hope no more; and, not being able to leave nor to win Chimene, the death which I seek is my most ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille

... Elisabeth was capable of requiring others to do a blamable action that she might reap the fruits; and she would have been, like them again, implacable as to her dues and dissembling in her actions. Once offended, she watched her adversaries with the perfidious patience of a cat, and was capable of bringing about some cold and complete vengeance, and then laying it to the account of God. Until her marriage the Saillards lived without other society than that of the Abbe Gaudron, a priest from Auvergne appointed vicar of Saint-Paul's after the restoration ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... not your fathers oft my lord defined, Gentle of speech, beneficent of mind? Some kings with arbitrary rage devour, Or in their tyrant-minions vest the power; Ulysses let no partial favours fall, The people's parent, he protected all; But absent now, perfidious and ingrate! His stores ye ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... discretion in all this, and her ladyship was entirely overcome with her passion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow her to quit the house with me, but made her sup with her as usual that night, calling her sometimes a perfidious baggage, and at other times, forgetting her delirium, speaking to her as kindly as ever. At night, Kate as usual helped her ladyship into her bed, (this she told me with tears in her eyes next morning;) and when Lady ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... thou wouldst have seen a man who, in meekness and resigned magnanimity, shows more force of soul, than do your renowned heroes in their blood-stained fields of battle, or your ministers in their perfidious cabinets. If it were not for these, and for your priests, and above all for your false philosophers, the gates of hell would soon be closed. Canst thou say that thou knowest man, when thou hast only sought for him in the paths of vice and crime? Dost thou know thyself? I will make your wounds ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... door and opened it; Victoria peeped over her shoulder; there was that perfidious Dolf encircling the stranger damsel with his right arm, and making bold efforts to lay hold of the ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... the Kafirs sought for Ajib and finding him not among them nor in their tents, told Jaland of his flight, whereat his Doomsday rose and he bit his fingers, saying, "by the Sun's light-giving round, he is a perfidious hound and hath fled with his rascal rout to desert ground. But naught save force of hard fighting will serve us to repel these foes; so fortify your resolves and hearten your hearts and beware of the Moslems." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... for me provide, He can confide in but For in but few I can confide, few because all are. All men are so perfidious grown; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... years of our Lord God 1702, in the month of August, and 1703, in the month of July, notwithstanding we have been well treated by the s^d Governors; and we resolve for the future not to be drawn into any perfidious Treaty or Correspondence, to the hurt of any of the subjects of her Maj^ty the Queen of Great Britain, and if we know of any such we will seasonably reveal ...
— The Abenaki Indians - Their Treaties of 1713 & 1717, and a Vocabulary • Frederic Kidder

... she, although indifferent about the matter, accepted without hesitation. In the meantime, Master Compton went up to Harry with the same hypocritical civility, and in Miss Simmons' name invited him to dance a minuet. It was in vain that Harry assured him he knew nothing about the matter; his perfidious friend told him that it was an indispensable duty for him to stand up; that Miss Simmons would never forgive him if he should refuse; that it would be sufficient if he could just describe the figure, without embarrassing himself about the steps. In the mean time, he ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... with a comical grin upon his countenance, "I did think I could count upon you; but you are as perfidious as a county elector in these days of ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... defective upon the same principle. There should be no moral delusions; no artificial course of experience; no plots laid by parents to make out the truth; no listening fathers, mothers, or governesses; no pretended confidence, or perfidious friends; in one word, no falsehood should be practised: that magic which cheats the senses, at the same time confounds the understanding. The spells of Prospero, the strangenesses of the isle, perplex and confound the senses and understanding of all who ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... in a merciful mood. He provoked one by his contradictory indiscretions. "It is unfortunate you didn't know beforehand!" I said with every unkind intention; but the perfidious shaft fell harmless—dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as it were, and he did not think of picking it up. Perhaps he had not even seen it. Presently, lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged. I was holding ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... controlled herself; though there was still an agitation in her voice, which the audience and the singers thought to be the perfection of acting. Again she glanced at Fitzgerald, and there was terrible power in the tones with which she uttered, in Italian, "Tremble, perfidious one! Thou knowest the cause ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... are not wanting to show that our nation is designed by Providence as the instrument for the recovery of its rights, and for the chastisement of proud, perfidious Albion. ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... tropical heat carry on a correspondence. Millions of letters are written and sent every day, which mean nonsense and evil. The post communication will justify itself much more by bearing the children's mail, with truth and love, than by bearing perfidious diplomatic notes or letters which mean nonsense and evil. One of the unforgettable events in Serbia during this war happened in 1914 on Christmas Day, when an American ship arrived and brought gifts and letters from the children of America ...
— The New Ideal In Education • Nicholai Velimirovic

... glittered with a devilish light. Their orator spoke briefly, but to the purpose. He declared that all present were ready to die for their French father, who had stood their friend against the bloody and perfidious Outagamies. Then he begged for food, tobacco, gunpowder, and bullets. Dubuisson replied with equal conciseness, thanked them for their willingness to die for him, said that he would do his best to supply their wants, and promised an immediate distribution of powder and bullets; to which ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was the first weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sow among his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next made overtures to the leaders separately, and so far succeeded in his perfidious policy as to draw Vitellezzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Paolo Orsini, and Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets at Sinigaglia. Under pretext of fair conference and equitable settlement of disputed claims, he possessed himself of their persons, and had ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... has been believed by many that the motives of Russia in proposing this conference were none too good,—indeed, that they were possibly perfidious; but, even if this be granted, how does this affect the conduct of Germany? Should it not rather lead Germany to go forward boldly and thoughtfully, to accept the championship of the idea of arbitration, and to take the lead in the whole ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... all the petty squabbles which rent the land, the indignant princes gathered their forces and placed them under Otho's command. By the 1st of October the late fugitive found himself at the head of a considerable army, and prepared to take revenge on his perfidious enemy. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... peculiar grievance, namely, that he often sent money to England in reply to quack advertisements, but never had any reply. He seemed to be too "poli" to credit my assertion that there are "many rogues in perfidious Albion," and on the whole he was scarcely shaken in the determination to persevere in filling their pockets, though he ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... perfidious wretch should ever disgrace her house, was the mother's cry; good people might be corrupted; but it was a fine thing if such a house as her's could not be faithfully served by cursed creatures who were hired knowing the business they were to be employed in, and who had no pretence ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... can deceive a lover? Rumor bore the report to Dido, who, mad with grief, reproached Aeneas. "Perfidious one! didst thou think to escape from me? Does not our love restrain thee, and the thought that I shall surely die when thou art gone? I have sacrificed all to thee; now leave me not lonely ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... time when King Richard, of the Lion Heart, was absent from his country, and a prisoner in the power of the perfidious and cruel Duke of Austria, there lived in England a highborn Saxon, named Cedric. He was one of the few native princes who still continued to occupy the home of his fathers; but, like many more of the conquered English people, he had felt the tyranny and oppressive ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... He's quoted for a most perfidious slaue With all the spots a'th world, taxt and debosh'd, Whose nature sickens: but to speake a truth, Am I, or that or this for what he'l vtter, That will ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... the same work is being carried on. A whole fleet of warships is being prepared by the perfidious British for use against the fleet ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... of the crafty commodore, the valuable cargo of the Maggie II was disposed of in Honolulu. During the period while the schooner lay at the dock discharging Captain Scraggs and McGuffey prudently remained in the cabin with the perfidious mate, in order that, should an investigation be undertaken later by the Treasury Department, no man might swear that the real Phineas Scraggs, filibuster, had been in Honolulu on a certain date. The Kanaka crew of the schooner Mr. Gibney managed to ship ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... queen would be with him in the morning, notumque furens quid femina possit: she was injured, she was revengeful, she was powerful. The poet had likewise before hinted that the people were naturally perfidious, for he gives their character in the queen, and makes a proverb of Punica fides many ages before it ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... papal party could have been better adapted to further the Huguenot cause than the course it had adopted. The wholesale proscription of their faith united the Protestants, and led every able-bodied man to take up arms against a perfidious government, whose disregard of treaties solemnly made was so shamefully paraded before the world. "These edicts," admits the candid Castelnau, "only served to make the whole party rise with greater expedition, and furnished the Prince of Conde and the admiral with a handle to ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... the perfidious Saxons into his ranks, but he used their artillery to bolster up his own, which the former Marshal France now aimed ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... abide by compacts, and love justice. And while this Congress, this Senate, and this House of Representatives, are debating the constitutionality and the expediency of seceding from the Union, and while the perfidious authors of this mischief are showering down denunciations upon a large portion of the patriotic men of this country, those brave men are coolly and calmly voting what you call revolution—ay, sir, doing better ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... to card-room traps, Yet making fearful faces Because his foes, perfidious chaps, Have always all the aces— "Ruined! the old place mortgaged! faugh!" (The guttering candles quiver)— Instead of draining brandy raw Clenches a jujube in his jaw ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various

... As to the perfidious Judith, she reaped the reward of her crimes; she was not permitted to marry her Norman lover, and he was stripped of all the wealth she expected as the widow of Waltbeof. This was secured to her infant daughter, and was so considerable, that at one time William thought the little Matilda of Huntingdon ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... crimes of the Britons, called De Excidio Britanniae, that he might confound {309} those whom he was not able to convert, and whom God in punishment delivered first to the plunders of the Picts and Scots, and afterwards to the perfidious Saxons, the fiercest of all nations. He reproaches their kings, Constantine, (king of the Danmonians, in Devonshire and Cornwall,) Vortipor, (of the Dimetians, in South Wales,) Conon, Cuneglas, and Maglocune, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... they were busily conversing and contriving how best to aid and further that iniquitous aggression of perfidious tyranny, there came in one of the brethren of the monastery, with a frightened look, and cried aloud, that John Knox was come, and had been all night in the town. At the news the spectators, as if moved by one ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... was destined for her habitation when she had run her little course below; perhaps speculated which of those glimmering spheres might be the natal orb of Mr Tappertit; perhaps marvelled how they could gaze down on that perfidious creature, man, and not sicken and turn green as chemists' lamps; perhaps thought of nothing in particular. Whatever she thought about, there she sat, until her attention, alive to anything connected with the insinuating 'prentice, was attracted by a noise in ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... staring at me with an interest not entirely free from a certain hostility, retreated behind the pages of the "Matin," and began picking his teeth. Possibly he belonged to that provincial and prejudiced handful to whom England will always be "Perfidious Albion," or else he took me for an English civilian dodging military service. The French press was following the English recruiting campaign very closely, and the system of volunteer service was not without its critics. "Conscription ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... she wore man's dress by the command of God was blasphemy, a violation of divine law and ecclesiastical sanction, a contemning of the sacraments and tainted with idolatry. In the letters she had dictated, Jeanne appeared treacherous, perfidious, cruel, sanguinary, seditious, blasphemous and in favour of tyranny. In setting out for France she had broken the commandment to honour father and mother, she had given an occasion for scandal, she had committed blasphemy ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... Countrymen! The perfidious act of your reckless enemies to render ineffectual the late resolves of the body of the people, demands your assembling at the Old South Meeting House, precisely at ten o'clock this day, at which time the ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... of international protection, have been completely passed over in the American proposals for Arbitration Courts. It must consequently be assumed that very matter-of-fact political motives led the Americans, with their commercial instincts, to take such steps, and induced "perfidious Albion" to accede to the proposals. We may suppose that England intended to protect her rear in event of a war with Germany, but that America wished to have a free hand in order to follow her policy of sovereignty in Central America without hindrance, and to carry out her ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... of. Walter l'Espee at the battle of the Standard. Walter the Penniless joins the first crusade. Waltham Abbey, Harold and his brothers buried at. Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon, son of Siward Biorn; rejects submission to William the Conqueror; perfidious conduct of his wife; executed at Winchester. —— son of Matilda of Scotland, character of; becomes abbot of Melrose; his meeting with King Stephen; elected Bp. of St. Andrew's. Warrenne, John de, Earl of Surrey, his sword his title to his ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... infatuated; he is absolutely bereaved of judgment by a perfidious, ungrateful, and cruel wretch. Let me vent my indignation to you, dear Margaret, or it will explode, perhaps, when it may do Leonora ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... Husband Jane Grey Perfidious Brother Hecuba Solon Persian Princess Scowerers Ulysses, an Opera False ...
— The Annual Catalogue (1737) - Or, A New and Compleat List of All The New Books, New - Editions of Books, Pamphlets, &c. • J. Worrall

... name of the Roman Church. This King George, six years ago, departed to the Lord, a true Christian, leaving as his heir a son scarcely out of the cradle, and who is now nine years old. And after King George's death, his brothers, perfidious followers of the errors of Nestorius, perverted again all those whom he had brought over to the Church, and carried them back to their original schismatical creed. And being all alone, and not able ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... susceptible of reflecting all the colours of the atmosphere that surrounds him—a Proteus apt to assume every form, every shape. He must be supple, flexible, insinuating; close, inscrutable, often base, sometimes sincere, some times perfidious, always concealing a part of his knowledge, indulging in one tone of voice, patient, a perfect master of his own countenance as cold as ice when any other man would be all fire; and if unfortunately ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... after his son, and pronounce his curse. We mark Pickle furtively scribbling after midnight in French inns. We note Charles hiding in the alcove of a lady's chamber in a convent. We admire the 'rich anger' of his Polish mistress, and the sullen rage of Lord Hyndford, baffled by 'the perfidious Court' of Frederick the Great. The old histories emerge into light, like the writing in sympathetic ink on the secret despatches of ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... held up to obloquy by the admirable eulogist of Columbus, Mr. Irving, "as a warning example of those perfidious beings in office, who too often lie like worms at the root of honorable enterprise, blighting by their unseen influence the fruits of glorious action and disappointing the hopes of nations." This denunciation he incurred by thwarting the schemes of Columbus, ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... continued his depredations along the southern coast. He even broke into the counties of Dorset, Wilts, and Somerset, where an army was assembled against him, under the command of Prince Edmund and Duke Edric. The latter still continued his perfidious machinations, and, after endeavoring in vain to get the prince into his power, he found means to disperse the army, and he then openly deserted to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... the Celtic element that makes the Irish people a bundle of inconsistencies—clannish, yet disjunctive; ardent, yet unstable; faithful, yet perfidious; exceeding loveable for its own impulsive love, yet a broken reed to lean upon. It is not the Celt who has made Irish history an unexampled record of patience and insubordination, of devotion and treachery. The Celt, though fiery, is shrewd, sensible, and ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... whose fortune depended on their master's vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of flattery reminded him that by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the Nemaean lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods and an immortal memory among men. They only forgot to observe that in the first ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... Virginie, and Louvet's Chevalier de Faublas. Noteworthy Books; which may be considered as the last speech of old Feudal France. In the first there rises melodiously, as it were, the wail of a moribund world: everywhere wholesome Nature in unequal conflict with diseased perfidious Art; cannot escape from it in the lowest hut, in the remotest island of the sea. Ruin and death must strike down the loved one; and, what is most significant of all, death even here not by necessity, but by etiquette. What a world of prurient corruption lies visible in that super-sublime ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... therefore the deduction's naught, And must have contrary effects, To what her treacherous foe expects. In proper season Pallas meets The Queen of Love, whom thus she greets, (For gods, we are by Homer told, Can in celestial language scold:)— Perfidious goddess! but in vain You form'd this project in your brain; A project for your talents fit, With much deceit and little wit. Thou hast, as thou shall quickly see, Deceived thyself, instead of me; For how can heavenly wisdom prove An instrument to earthly love? Know'st ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... four thousand two hundred and sixty square miles. It was a plain inclosed by mountains; next to Boeotia, the most fertile of all the States of Greece, abounding in oil, wine, and corn, and yet one of the weakest and most insignificant politically. The people were rich, but perfidious. The river Peneus flowed through the entire extent of the country, and near its mouth was the vale of Tempe, the most beautiful valley in Greece, guarded ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... secret of many of these, as well as of his miseries, seems revealed by himself in this sentence: "I experience more pain from a single thorn, than pleasure from a thousand roses." And elsewhere, "The best society seems to me bad, if I find in it one troublesome, wicked, slanderous, envious, or perfidious person." Now, taking into consideration that St. Pierre sometimes imagined persons who were really good, to be deserving of these strong and very contumacious epithets, it would have been difficult indeed to find a society in which he could have been happy. He was, therefore, wise, in seeking ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... remarkable instances of this kind are Edgar's meeting with his old blind father; the deception he practises upon him when he pretends to lead him to the top of Dover-cliff—'Come on, sir, here's the place,' to prevent his ending his life and miseries together; his encounter with the perfidious Steward whom he kills, and his finding the letter from Gonerill to his brother upon him which leads to the final catastrophe, and brings the wheel of Justice 'full circle home' to the guilty parties. The bustle and rapid succession of events in the ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... nothing incongruous in a return to the scene immediately afterward of all the characters save the reprobate, who had gone to his reward, to hear a description of the catastrophe from the buffoon under the table, and platitudinously to moralize that the perfidious wretch, having been stored away safely in the realm of Pluto and Proserpine, nothing remained for them to do except to raise their voices in the words of ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... army at Chaeronea you might possibly have changed the event of the day; but, if you had not, you would have died more honourably there than in a prison at Athens, betrayed by a vain confidence in the insecure friendship of a perfidious Macedonian. ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... are the changes in the opinions of the crowd in the course of the following seventy years. The "Perfidious Albion" of the opening of the century is the ally of France under Napoleon's heir; Russia, twice invaded by France, which looked on with satisfaction at French reverses, becomes ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon

... anomalous in our history. In an era remarkable for patriotic self-sacrifice, he became infamous for treasonable ambition; among a phalanx of statesmen illustrious for directness and integrity, he pursued the tortuous path of perfidious intrigue; in a community where the sanctities of domestic life were unusually revered, he bore the stigma of unscrupulous libertinism. With the blood of his gallant adversary and his country's idol on his hands, the penalties of debt and treason ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... though generous and affectionate, had always been irritable, had now been made almost savage by bodily infirmities and mental vexations. Conscious of great powers and great virtues, he found himself, in age and poverty, a mark for the hatred of a perfidious court and a deluded people. In Parliament his eloquence was out of date. A young generation, which knew him not, had filled the House. Whenever he rose to speak, his voice was drowned by the unseemly interruption of lads who were in their cradles ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... big closet on the fifth floor, however, as soon as he opened the door there came a rustle, and he sprang forward to intercept the perfidious one; but it was only the air stirring the folds of garments hanging ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers

... He was a contemptible poltroon, whose throne was supported for years by British money, men, and ships, and even with our strong support; he was alternately fleeing to Sicily and returning again under the formidable protection of British frigates, and, like all perfidious cowards, his short intervals of government were distinguished by a despotism that soon made it necessary for him to fly from the feelings of vengeance he ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... rascaldom, they are betrayed and made fools of? When people resolve to live with people like us, if they have common sense, there is an infinite quantity of blackness for which they must make up their minds. When they take us, do they not know us for what we are, for the most interested, vile, and perfidious of souls. Then if they know us, all is well. There is a tacit compact that they shall treat us well, and that sooner or later we shall treat them ill in return for the good that they have done us. Does not such an agreement subsist between a man and his monkey or his parrot?... ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... none of the public papers took any notice of this affair; no satisfaction was required. The Prussians, no doubt, were ashamed of being defeated in an attempt so perfidious. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... offers of a small reward to any one who would bring back the noxious or unclean animals that had escaped from it. In the garden, in the open air, the most extravagant proposals were made. "People," said one of these orators, mounting on a chair, "it will be unfortunate, should this perfidious king be brought back to us,—what should we do with him? He would come to us like Thersites to pour forth those big tears, of which Homer tells us; and we should be moved with pity. If he returns, I propose that he be exposed for three days to public derision, with the red handkerchief ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... up, however, against this thrust, characteristic of perfidious woman when you presume to side with her against a fond tormentor. "When he went out on the balcony with that girl," I found assurance to suggest, "perhaps she asked ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James

... you not only magnify him, but you redeem his past and make it innocent. The liberal party was a great worker of miracles in this respect. Its dangerous journal, which had the wit to make itself as commonplace, as calumniating, as credulous, and as sillily perfidious as every audience made up the general masses, did in all probability as much injury to private interests as it did to those ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... to be expected, perhaps, that M. du Maine would remain altogether quiet under the disgrace which had been heaped upon him by the proceedings at the Bed of Justice. Soon indeed we found that he had been secretly working out the most perfidious and horrible schemes for a long time before that assembly; and that after his fall, he gave himself up with redoubled energy ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... they were repulsed. That evening D'Aulney hung the traitorous Swiss, and proposed honorable terms, if the brave commandress would surrender. To these terms Marie assented, in the vain hope of saving the lives of the brave men who had survived; the remnants of her little garrison. But the perfidious D'Aulney, who, from the vigorous defence of the fort, had supposed the number of soldiers to have been greater, instead of feeling that admiration which brave men always experience when acts of valor are presented ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... talked himself back into his breath and a complete good-humour, I proposed he should introduce me to the French officers, henceforth to become my fellow-passengers. There were two of them, it appeared, and my heart beat as I approached the door. The specimen of Perfidious Albion whom I had just been studying gave me the stronger zest for my fellow-countrymen. I could have embraced them; I could have wept on their necks. And all the time I was going ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... perfidious, Be war to the knife. Intrepid, yet duteous, We leap to the strife. More terrible shewing In danger's red hour; We know to avenge, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... shore, and took myself and Hussey for interpreters; but we found on our arrival, that the natives had been practising a piece of deception—the chiefs not having returned. Very much displeased at this perfidious treatment, the captain made a demand of the chiefs before sunset, threatening, if it were not complied with, to go on shore with fifty men, well armed, and destroy every person he could find. This threat threw the natives into consternation, and immediately ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay

... in this book is the encouragement of charity, and free and genial manners, and the exposure of humbug, of which there are various kinds, but of which the most perfidious, the most debasing, and the most cruel, is the humbug ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... uncivilised foe, is but the other side of the doctrine that it is merely a thing of expediency in the case of a civilised one. And neither Rome herself, nor many of her greatest generals, can free themselves from the grievous stain of perfidious dealing with those whom they found themselves ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... however, to relate England to Europe. In terms of England's honour we are nearer than we were, and Perfide Albion is not nearly so perfidious. But as a business people we are out of touch. We have more bad types of business men than formerly. There are a lot of commercial rogues, who, at least, call themselves English, though their mothers may have played false. On the other hand, the stalwart, honest type does ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... Thou base woman, And thou poor dupe or most perfidious man, It were to honour ye to make defence Against a wanton and her paramour; But thee, Asander, never will I take To my heart again, till thou hast put from thee This lying accusation, and dost ask Pardon that thou hast dared with this base ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris

... Perfidious Sorceress, impious Megera Hell's Tesiphon, and Harpye of the World; I full well know you can with Ease Make Fishes swim and slide in th' Air, All winged Birds to flye amidst the Waves; Congeal the Fire and make it freeze, ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... When the perfidious shepherd (Paris) carried off by sea in Trojan ships his hostess Helen, Nereus suppressed the swift winds in an unpleasant calm, that he might sing the dire fates. "With unlucky omen art thou conveying home ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... narrow towards the top—seem made to turn readily on her short neck. She had but two varieties of expression; the prevalent one a forbidding, dissatisfied scowl, varied sometimes by a most pernicious and perfidious smile. She was shunned by her fellow-pupils, for, bad as many of them were, few were ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... not only does he squander my finances, but with his ill-gotten plunder he corrupts secretaries, friends, generals, artists, and all, and tries to rob me of the one to whom I am most attached. This is the reason that perfidious girl so boldly took his part! Gratitude! and who can tell whether it was not a stronger feeling—love itself?" He gave himself up for a moment to the bitterest reflections. "A satyr!" he thought, with ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to save his family from perishing, is he an object of pity, or of punishment? Who shall throw the first stone at a husband, who, in the heat of just resentment, sacrifices his faithless wife and her perfidious seducer? or at the young maiden, who, in her weak hour of rapture, forgets herself in the impetuous joys of love? Even our laws, cold and cruel as they are, relent in such cases, ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... pronounce his curse. We mark Pickle furtively scribbling after midnight in French inns. We note Charles hiding in the alcove of a lady's chamber in a convent. We admire the 'rich anger' of his Polish mistress, and the sullen rage of Lord Hyndford, baffled by 'the perfidious Court' of Frederick the Great. The old histories emerge into light, like the writing in sympathetic ink on the ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... and know of the operations of the rebels in this part of the South (the Southern coast, where he has been stationed), and from what we see perfidious Englishmen doing for the rebels, we are fast becoming strong abolitionists. We feel that now Slavery must receive its death-blow, and be destroyed forever from the country. You would be surprised to see the change going on in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Whatever be the cause, the ill is a real one, although I accuse certain false friends of the king rather than the king himself. Therefore I join myself to those who by all means seek the extinction of heresy and the ruin of perfidious counselors." ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas

... heart beats and my legs tremble, while my whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the bedclothes, until the moment when I suddenly fall asleep, as one would throw oneself into a pool of stagnant water in order to drown oneself. I do not feel as I used to do formerly, this perfidious sleep which is close to me and watching me, which is going to seize me by the head, to close my eyes and annihilate ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant



Words linked to "Perfidious" :   punic, perfidy, perfidiousness, treacherous



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