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Perfidy   Listen
noun
Perfidy  n.  (pl. perfidies)  The act of violating faith or allegiance; violation of a promise or vow, or of trust reposed; faithlessness; treachery. "The ambition and perfidy of tyrants." "His perfidy to this sacred engagement."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Perfidy" Quotes from Famous Books



... lithe snake she turns on herself, and must be tracked in and out. Not being a girl to solve the problem with tears, or outright perfidy, she had to ease her heart to the great shock little by little—sincere as far as she knew: as far as one who loves may be. The day of the funeral came and went. The Jocelyns were of their mother's opinion: that for many reasons Juliana was better out of the way. Mrs. Bonner's bequest ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... tomb, Passed into dull eternity, Was the sad poet filled with gloom, Hearing the fatal perfidy? Or, beyond Lethe lulled to rest, Hath the bard, by indifference blest, Callous to all on earth become— Is the world to him sealed and dumb? The same unmoved oblivion On us beyond the grave attends, The voice of lovers, foes and friends, Dies suddenly: of heirs alone Remains on ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... sight) vido, videco. Perception sento. Perch (for birds, etc.) stango. Perch (fish) perko. Percolate traguti. Perdition ruinego, perdego. Peremptory absoluta. Perennial persista. Perfect perfektigi. Perfect perfekta. Perfection perfekteco. Perfidious perfida. Perfidy perfido, perfideco. Perforate trabori, trapiki. Perform (to do) efektivigi, fari. Perform (fulfil) plenumi. Performer faranto. Perfume parfumi. Perfume parfumo, odoro. Perfumer parfumisto. Perfumery (manufactory) parfumfarado. Perhaps eble. Perigee perigeo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... excellent breeding, and well natured, hath now, being a Prince, brought his affairs to that pass that there is not a person in the world, man or woman, that dares rely upon him or put any confidence in his word or friendship." The one man in England indeed on whom the discovery of the king's perfidy fell with the most crushing effect was Shaftesbury himself. Ashley Cooper had piqued himself on a penetration which read the characters of men around him and on a political instinct which discerned every coming change. He had bought, as he believed, the Declaration of Indulgence, ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... know that he had paid the penalty of treason with his head. Her love and hate were so intermingled that she could not distinguish which had the upper hand. He passed close to where she was standing. But even had he been able to recognize her, he could not have suspected that her perfidy was the occasion of his misfortune. She had guarded her secret carefully. President Bagshaw had been true to his word. No rumor of the means by which the conspiracy was unearthed ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... incident, and the strained relations which resulted from her perfidy, that none of her erstwhile friends responded to her invitation to join her in a bath in a beaver dam of which Mr. Hicks told her when they camped ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... raft. They were not therefore driven to this measure by any new perils; and the cry of "Nous les abandonons!" which resounded throughout the line, was the yell of a spontaneous and instinctive impulse of cowardice, perfidy, and cruelty; and the impulse was as unanimous as it was diabolical. The raft was left to the mercy of the waves; one after another, the boats disappeared, and despair became general. Not one of the promised articles, no provisions, except a very few casks ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... rose, considering he was in duty bound, and commenced throwing off the rounded sentences of the first part of a very long speech,—at one moment denouncing princes and kings in general, and in the next threatening to smother Spain with an interesting exposition of her perfidy. Her puppet government was a base mockery; he said Espartero had grossly deceived him!—Here he was brought to a stand by Mr. O'Sullivan, 'It's meself thinks the gintleman 's about debatin matter what 'll cum afore the Convention to-morrow,' interposed that gentleman. Monsieur Souley replied ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... carrying on the fight to the very midst of Athens, Antiope herself had turned, all other thoughts transformed now into wild idolatry of her hero. Superstitious, or in real regret, the Athenians never forgot their tombs. As for Antiope, the conscience of her perfidy remained with her, adding the pang of remorse to her own desertion, when King Theseus, with his accustomed bad faith to women, set her, too, aside in turn. Phaedra, the true wife, was there, peeping suspiciously ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... Cambronero; we must act! All that can be done, Christina will do. They shall not triumph by weakness of hers! Don Fernando still lives, can yet retract. He shall hear how they have laboured to bring shame upon his name; shall learn the perfidy of those who have environed him with their snares! I go ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... the saying, "Who hath compassion shall at the last be compassionated. Whoso oppresseth shall presently be oppressed." "This, then, O King," added the interpreter, "is what befel the Mouse and the Cat and teacheth that none should break faith with those who put trust in him; for who ever cloth perfidy and treason, there shall befal him the like of that which befel the Cat. As a man meteth, so shall it be meted unto him, and he who betaketh himself to good shall gain his eternal reward. But grieve thou not, neither let this trouble thee, O King, for that assuredly thy son, after his tyranny ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... "alas, very few! You say so only in your magnanimity, because you do not care to make your loyalty appear as something extraordinary. But, look around in Prussia—look at our fortresses! Everywhere treachery and cowardice—everywhere perfidy! I will not speak to you of Stettin, of Kuestrin, of Spandau, of Anclam, and Erfurt! You know already that we have lost them. But have you learned the dreadful tidings we received yesterday? Do you know ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... consideration and dignity are, I agree, less powerful and even less known in Italy than any where else: the want of society and of public opinion is the cause of it: but notwithstanding all that may be said of the perfidy of the Italians, I maintain that there is not a country in the world where more sincerity is to be found. So far is this sincerity from being checked by vanity, that although that country be one of which foreigners speak most ill, there is no country where they meet ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... him a disagreeable feeling about the diaphragm, akin in a remote degree to the sensation he had when the perfidy of the red-haired schoolgirl became plain to him. It made ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... call her the aggressor; but, if she were so, America has not only repelled the injury, but done a greater. As to the rest, if perfidy, treachery, avarice, and ambition can prove their cause to have been a rotten one, those proofs are found on them. I think, therefore, that, whatever scourge may be prepared for England on some future day, her ruin is not ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... unless these officials are forced to prohibit in Kansas, prohibition will eventually be repealed in that state, and the way thereby made all the more difficult for the triumph of the truth if the officials of Kansas are allowed to continue their work of perfidy in refusing to enforce the prohibition laws there, prohibition will not only be repealed in that state, but the securing of national prohibition by peaceful means will be an impossibility. Viewing the ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... repose of desolation is characteristic of him. He sets every man as a spy upon his neighbour, awes the more daring into obedience by the display of a ruffianism more outrageous than their own, and, raising the worst scoundrels in the place to office, compels them to find "cases" for punishment. Perfidy is rewarded. It has been made part of a convict-policeman's duty to search a fellow-prisoner anywhere and at any time. This searching is often conducted in a wantonly rough and disgusting manner; and if resistance ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... reeled at the intelligence. The perfidy of the Scotchman was manifest. He had taken me into the fog to lose me, and while I was picturing his dismay at the accident which had separated us, and his anxiety on my account, the scoundrel was appropriating my ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the English statesman to whom belonged much of the credit for the Constitution of Cadiz, thought out a way to punish the Spanish king for his perfidy. King Ferdinand was planning, with the Island of Cuba as a base, to begin a campaign that should return his rebellious American colonies to their allegiance, for they had taken advantage of disturbances ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... acquaintance with the object, however it might have galled him, his heart might have pardoned; but here, without even a struggle of duty, without the ordinary coyness of maiden pride, to be won with so scanty a wooing, by a man who she knew was betrothed to another—the dissimulation, the perfidy, the combined effrontery and meanness of the whole transaction, left no force in Darrell's eyes to the common place excuses of experience and youth. Darrell would not have been Darrell if he could have taken back to his home or his heart a daughter so old ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Orpheus. The women transformed to trees by Bacchus. Midas' foolish wish to change all things he touched into gold. Contest of skill between Pan and Apollo. The ears of Midas transformed to asses ears. Troy built by Apollo and Neptune. Laoemedon's perfidy. Hesione freed by Hercules, and married to Telamon. Peleus and Thetis. Birth of Achilles. Chione ravished by Mercury, and by Apollo. Slain by Diana. Her sire Daedalion changed into an hawk. A wolf changed ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... circumstances in the case. From this point of view it would seem to have been (in Lord Moncreiff's eyes) less criminal to murder a wife than a mistress. In another, a bigamy case, after referring to the perfidy and cruelty to the women and their relations, Lord Cockburn reports him to have said: "All this is bad; but your true iniquity consists in this, that you degraded that holy ceremony which our blessed Saviour condescended to select as the type of the connection ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... wife of my youth, whom I married for love, and bought with my money, is still alive. My freedom is a privilege which nothing else can equal. Notwithstanding all the losses I have suffered by fire, by the injustice of knaves, by the cruelty and oppression of false-hearted friends, and the perfidy of my own countrymen whom I have assisted and redeemed from bondage, I am no possessed of more than two hundred acres of land, and three habitable dwelling houses. I gives me joy to think that I have and that I deserve so good a character, especially ...
— A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of • Venture Smith

... sent up tender enquiries; but in all this there was very little to comfort her. There she lay with the letter in her hand, thinking that the only man who had endeavoured to be of service to her was he whom she had treated with unexampled perfidy. Other men had petted her, had amused themselves with her, and then thrown her over, had lied to her and laughed at her, till she had been taught to think that a man was a heartless, cruel, slippery animal, made indeed to ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... plan of operations in India was probably extensive, but the early declaration of war by England put a stop to them, and obliged His Excellency to abandon the brilliant prospect of making a figure in the annals of the East; he then came to Mauritius, exclaiming against the perfidy of the British government, and with a strong dislike, if not hatred to the whole nation. I arrived about three months subsequent to this period, and the day after M. Barrois had been sent on board Le Geographe with despatches for ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... suffered as he watched that light, in whose golden atmosphere were moving, behind the closed sash, the unseen and detested pair, as he listened to that murmur which revealed the presence of the man who had crept in after his own departure, the perfidy of Odette, and the pleasures which she was at that moment ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... 464. ] after the battle of Plataea they seized the occasion when the Athenians were engaged with a large part of their forces in carrying on operations against the revolted island of Thasos to prepare an invasion of Attica. But at the very moment when they were meditating this act of perfidy a double disaster fell upon them at home, demanding all their exertions to save them from ruin. Sparta was levelled to the ground by a terrible earthquake, in which twenty thousand of her citizens perished; and in the midst of the panic caused by this awful calamity the Helots rose in ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... cap. 64. speaking of King Pipin—"He compell'd them (says he) to promise they would obey all his Commands, and to send him every Year at the Time of the General Convention, Three Hundred Horses, as a Gift and Token of Respect. Item, cap. 85. Not forgetting the Perfidy of the Saxons, he held the General Convention beyond the Rhine, in the Town of Kufftein, according to the ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... Thou awful Power, why waste thy wrath on me? Why arm omnipotence to crush a worm? I could have fallen without this waste of ruin. Married to Douglas! By my wrongs, I like it; 'Tis perfidy complete, 'tis finish'd falsehood, 'Tis adding fresh perdition to the sin, And filling up ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More

... Reverend Mr. Kendall, having just completed a sermon dealing with the war and, being full of his subject, read the said sermon to his daughter and to Albert. The reading itself lasted for three-quarters of an hour and Mr. Kendall's post-argument and general dissertation on German perfidy another hour after that. By that time it was late and Albert went home. The second call was even worse, for Ed Raymond called also and the two young men glowered at each other until ten o'clock. They might have ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... perfidy of the Emperor and the Romanists in their dealings with the Lutherans was characterized by Chancellor Brueck as follows: "The tactics of the opponents in offering a copy [of the Confutation] were those of the fox when he invited ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... "appertaining to rebels" who would join him "for the more speedy reducing this colony to a proper sense of their duty to his Majesty's crown and dignity."[2] In reply the Virginia press warned the negroes against British perfidy; and the revolutionary government, while announcing the penalties for servile revolt, promised freedom to such as would promptly desert the British standard. Some hundreds of negroes appear to have joined Dunmore, but they did not save him from ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... Duke of Buckingham," said Marguerite, bursting into laughter. This perfidy had been calculated with extreme ability; the name that was pronounced, instead of the name which the marquise awaited, had precisely the same effect upon her as the badly sharpened axes that had hacked, without destroying, Messieurs de Chalais and De ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of national blunders has never lacked national applause for the past fifty years; we continue to wear hats which no mortal can explain, and every change of government is made on the express condition that things shall remain exactly as they were before. England flaunts her perfidy in the face of the world, and her abominable treachery is only equaled by her greed. All the gold of two Indies passed through the hands of Spain, and now she has nothing left. There is no country in the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... this battle was trifling, in comparison with the greatness of the victory; though the other consul, Cornelius Asina, was cut off, being invited by the enemy to a pretended conference, and put to death; an instance of Carthaginian perfidy. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... the plant; the bird mangling the insect, the deer fighting among themselves, and man, in his turn, pursuing all kinds of game. He identified nature with woman, both possessing in his eyes an equally deceiving appearance, the same beguiling beauty, and the same spirit of ambuscade and perfidy. The people around him inspired him only with mistrust and suspicion. In every peasant he met he recognized an enemy, prepared to cheat him with wheedling words and hypocritical lamentations. Although during the few months he had experienced the delightful influence of Reine Vincart, he had been ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... manner and appearance, the tenderness of his love-making, came back to her with a power which they had never exercised upon her in reality. Never, surely, had a man existed who was, to appearance at least, more frank, sincere, ardent, and deeply in love than he had seemed to be with her. It made his perfidy appear the greater. Nothing but the sight of that letter could have made her believe it; but that, taken in connection with the rareness and coolness of his recent letters to her, made it all too plain that the ardent flame of his love had burned out, and ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... Puysange now approved of the universe and of its management, it is not to be supposed that in consequence he intended to overlook de Soyecourt's perfidy. De Puysange bore his kinsman no malice; indeed, he was sincerely fond of the Marquis, sympathized with him at bottom, and heartily regretted that the excellence of poor Louis' taste should be thus demonstrably counterbalanced ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... violate all probability. Her elopement was enough to bring on her doom; and we should have felt more for it, if it had appeared a little more unmerited. She is utterly debased, when she becomes the instrument of Marmion's murderous perfidy, and the assassin of her ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... by order of the pope and cardinals, and thrust into a loathsome dungeon. Later he was transferred to a strong castle across the Rhine, and there kept a prisoner. The pope, profiting little by his perfidy, was soon after committed to the same prison.(136) He had been proved before the council to be guilty of the basest crimes, besides murder, simony, and adultery, "sins not fit to be named." So the council itself declared; and he was finally ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... fellow-men. Falsehood, detraction, calumny, and other similar vices, injurious to the peace and reputation of others, as well as simulated friendship, and hypocrisy, may all be comprehended within the denomination of perfidy; and as an extreme and most distinct manifestation of perfidiousness is to be found in false testimony, hence the ninth commandment is addressed to this vice, and forbids the witnessing against our fellow-men anything that is not entirely and strictly conformable to the truth. It is ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio

... overmastered his hypocrisy and burst out in acts of dishonesty and profanity, which disgraced and drove him from the State. He sought security from public scorn in the wilds of Florida; but all restraint had given way, and very soon the innate perfidy of his nature manifested itself in all his conduct, and he was obliged to retire from Florida. At that time Texas was the outlet for all such characters, and thither went Gautier, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... Aegeus,[120] beware of the tricks of the dog-fox,[121] he bites from the rear and rushes off at full speed; he is nothing but cunning and perfidy." Do you know what ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... that they had seemed incredible, things we had been loath to believe, and with heavy hearts we had sought to reserve our judgment. But with the breaking of relations with the Government of Germany that duty at last was ended. The perfidy of that Government in its dealings with this nation relieved us of the necessity of striving to give them the benefit of the doubt in regard to their crimes abroad. The Government which under cover of profuse professions of friendship had tried to embroil us in war with Mexico and Japan could ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... la'ship, or I would have seen it at the devil before I would have touched it." "Honour," says Sophia, "you are a good girl, and it is vain to attempt concealing longer my weakness from you; I have thrown away my heart on a man who hath forsaken me." "And is Mr Jones," answered the maid, "such a perfidy man?" "He hath taken his leave of me," says Sophia, "for ever in that letter. Nay, he hath desired me to forget him. Could he have desired that if he had loved me? Could he have borne such a thought? Could he have written such a word?" ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... and perfidy of the profession that this Ordinance was in large measure one intended to "protect" poor slaves, is clearly exposed in this letter of Dr. Bridges. "There will be less difficulty" in operating the measure because the women are not "free agents!" ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... to put Louis Capet upon trial, because it was necessary to prove to the world the perfidy, the corruption, and the horror of ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... most fashionable and eminent German theologians have enthusiastically endorsed the official view of Germany as the hierophant of Peace and Concord reluctantly forced into a defensive war by the perfidy of England. As worshippers in the new Temple of Teutonic Truth they may be imagined to express themselves much ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various

... home when this occurred. On returning in the course of a month, Richard fled, as I have stated; but I was ignorant then of the cause, and it was not till in the agony of shame she came to me for help with her secret, that I became aware of his perfidy. ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... ingenious detective story. The book begins rather than ends with a murder, but that is because the tale is told backward. Through lies, deceit, and treachery the woman in the case, one Sallie Malakoff, betrays the hero into marriage with her. When he discovers her perfidy he cheerfully cuts her throat from ear to ear and goes to join the lady from whom he has been estranged. She receives him with open arms and suggests wedding bells. No woman, she asserts, could resist a man who has killed another woman for ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... schismatics" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iii. pp. 5, 6). A number of Donatists, known as Circumcelliones, "maintained their cause by the force of arms, and overrunning all Africa, filled that province with slaughter and rapine, and committed the most enormous acts of perfidy and cruelty against the followers of Caecilianus" (p. 109). To complete the darkly terrible picture of the Church in the fourth century, we need only note the various orders of fanatical monks, filthy in their habits, densely ignorant, hopelessly superstitious, amongst whom ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... move, With self-respecting art: But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys, Which I too keenly taste, The solitary can despise, Can want, and yet be blest! He needs not, he heeds not, Or human love or hate; Whilst I here must cry here At perfidy ingrate! ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... dawn the tempest was stilled. In the clear light of day the path of duty seemed plain. He felt sure that in his heart of hearts he loved Alice, and her only. He would go at once to Marcia and tell her of his perfidy, implore the forgiveness of silence and charity, and bid her farewell. When he had reached this conclusion he became calm. As he looked out from his window, he saw the world awake from slumber, and he shared in the gladness of Nature. He even rejoiced in the prospect of deliverance ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... generous, would go unpunished? I, one of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would still have been unpardonable. Now that they are friends and close allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your deeds, no punishment sharp enough to requite them. But though you cannot suffer as you deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can honorably inflict, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... knight charge him, sotto voce, from the closet with perfidy and fear; Jacques was not to be turned back. He issued forth and ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... to follow you to the last, you know very well; but should we not now abandon all hope of reaching the Pole? Mutiny has overthrown your plans; you fought successfully against natural obstacles, but not against the weakness and perfidy of men; you have done all that was humanly possible, and I am sure you would have succeeded; but, in the present condition of affairs, are you not compelled to give up your project, and in order to take it up again, should you not try to reach ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... will make away with him,' 'Per Christum hunc jugulo,' 'I will cut his throat,' and then believe ourselves bound to commit the murder which we have vowed? . . . 'The Saxons,' he says, 'are fierce, the Franks faithless, the Gepidae inhuman, the Huns shameless. But is the Frank's perfidy as blameable as ours? Is the Alman's drunkenness, or the Alan's rapacity, as damnable as a Christian's? If a Hun or a Gepid deceives you, what wonder? He is utterly ignorant that there is any sin in falsehood. But what of the Christian who does the same? The Barbarians,' he says, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... ladies, spinsters of uncertain years, and even young married women, correcting proofs, I have asked myself why, having claws, I should not make use of them in a similar manner. One never knows what women think, especially the women who write, while a Cat, victim of English perfidy, is interested to say more than she thinks, and her profuseness may serve to compensate for what these ladies do not say. I am ambitious to be the Mrs. Inchbald of Cats and I beg you to have consideration for my noble efforts, O! French Cats, ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... those who claim to dispense learning and light. Pretending to add beauty to the world, he was ready to feed himself at the cost of a woman's soul. She recalled Mrs. Moss' hints about his life in Paris, and understood at last that he had wilfully misread her homage and trust. A realization of this perfidy filled her with a fury of hate and disgust. Was Ben Fordyce like all the rest? Did his candor, his sweetness of smile, but veil another mode of approach? Was his kiss as vile in its disloyalty, his embrace as remorseless ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... enlightening the people as to their true condition. It is impossible to conceive of men who would knowingly sell their birthright. The perfidy of the press is the sin of sins in this age of unbridled iniquity," she declares, her face flushing with indignation. "Free speech has not yet been totally interdicted. Speak to the people; tell them ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... to do is right or they could not wish to do it. He led Roebuck on to show off this peculiarity of his,—a jumbling, often in the same breath, of the most sonorous piety and the most shameless business perfidy. All the time Woodruff's face was perfectly grave,—there are some men who refuse to waste any of their internal enjoyment ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... to exchange the coronet of a duke for the crown of a king. Can we believe that he would meet with opposition from his associates, the Percy family? Yet so we are assured. They, however, by their perfidy, had given themselves a master. Their retainers had been already dismissed; and the friends of Richard abhorred them as the worst of traitors. They had therefore no resource but to submit, and to second the design of Lancaster. After several consultations ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... essential a part of the picture to be passed over. The Apostle of New Zealand was the Baptist of the Herods of Australia. We return to the year 1816, when, after some months' training in agriculture at Mr. Marsden's farm, Duaterra had sailed for his home, but only again to suffer from the perfidy of the master of the ship. The ordinary English mind seemed incapable of perceiving that any faith need be kept with a dark-coloured man, and Duaterra was defrauded of his share of the oil procured from the whales he had helped to catch, carried past his own shores, only two miles from the pah ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... transit through swamps that seemed never ending, and tropical forest through which it was impossible to advance at the rate of more than one mile a day; he had suffered from the desertion of his bearers and the perfidy of native tribes. But at last he reached the country which had been the aim of his journey. He had to encounter then a savage king's determined hostility to the white man, and he had to keep a sharp eye on his followers who, in abject terror of the tribe he meant to visit, ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... he would go that very morning and charge her with perfidy; and so having decided upon his course so ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... the Princess, "I am now convinced of thy perfidy, allowing thine own account to be true; for what promise could bind thee to a cruel action? and why not rather be thyself a sufferer than make an innocent virgin the subject of thy cruelties? But if thou art truly the servant ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... that this very Phanes has accepted Cambyses' gold and promised not only to be his guide to Egypt, but to open the gates of your own Greek cities to him. He knows the country and the people, and can be bribed to every perfidy. Look at him! there he is, walking by the side of the king. See how he bows before him! I thought I had heard once, that the Greeks only prostrated themselves before their gods. But of course, when a man sells his country, he ceases ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... words and done works among them such as none other ever said and did; but in the face of the perfect beauty of His character, the grace and truth of His words, and the loveliness of His deeds, it was by their perfidy He was crucified and slain. In vain He challenged them to convince Him of sin, and to bear witness to any evil which might justify their malicious cruelty. They knew it was innocent blood; but this knowledge, so far from mollifying them, ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... won, As flow'rs unfold their beauties to the sun; And yet in female scales a fop outweighs, And wit must wear the willow and the bays. Nought shines so bright in vain Liberia's eye As riot, impudence, and perfidy; The youth of fire, that has drunk deep, and play'd, And kill'd his man, and triumph'd o'er his maid; For him, as yet unhang'd, she spreads her charms, Snatches the dear destroyer to her arms; And amply gives (though ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... down the ladder and told what he had seen, of course the rest of us wished to become eye witnesses to the perfidy of this vagabond ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... it reflect that in boasting of the bourgeoise nobility of Monsieur Baudoyer—which, certainly, is a nobility as good as any other—it was pointing out a reason for the exclusion of the candidate? A gratuitous piece of perfidy! an attempt to kill with a caress! To appoint Monsieur Baudoyer is to do honor to the virtues, the talents of the middle classes, of whom we shall ever be the supporters, though their cause seems at times a lost one. This appointment, we repeat, will be an act of justice and good policy; ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... Woman, dost thou glory in thy Perfidy? [To her aside angrily. —Yes, Faith, I've many Exceptions to him— [Aloud. Had you lov'd me, you'd pitcht upon a Blockhead, Some spruce gay Fool of Fortune, and no more, Who would have taken so much Care of his own ill-favour'd Person, He shou'd have had ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... "Oh, unheard-of perfidy! Is it possible that a man calling himself a Californian could give utterance to such sentiments? Oh, abomination! You would invite, welcome, uphold, the American adventurer? You would tear apart the bosom of your country under pretense of doctoring its evils? You would cast this fair ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... nor his ambitious schemes. As prudent in execution as bold in design, he took good care not to openly attack a man stronger than himself, and gained by stratagem what he could not obtain by violence. The honest and straightforward character of his brother-in-law afforded an easy success to his perfidy. He began by endeavouring to suborn his sister Chainitza, and several times proposed to her to poison her husband; but she, who dearly loved the pacha, who was a kind husband and to whom she had borne two children, repulsed his suggestions with horror, and threatened, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... found myself. I was thinking of Flora, upon the deck of the steamship, when, in a moment of chagrin, she had been so near throwing herself over; wondering to what fate her passion and impetuosity would hurry her now, if she knew; cursing myself for my weakness and perfidy; while Joseph kept asking me what I intended ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... their rendezvous. From that time Maulear did not lose sight of them, and he suffered every torture jealousy can inflict. The shock he received at the discovery was so great, that he was unable even to reflect. He did not become offended at the perfidy of Aminta, but was rather distressed by suffering, which was as great in the physical point of view as it was in the moral. Reason only returned ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... affected her life and manners, for she was as prudent in her deportment (ill-natured people say prudish) as if some ancestress of hers had been deceived, and left in the family a tradition of man's perfidy and woman's frailty. ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... slopes to Mercabo; And there instruct the twain, whom Fano boasts Her worthiest sons, Guido and Angelo, That if 't is giv'n us here to scan aright The future, they out of life's tenement Shall be cast forth, and whelm'd under the waves Near to Cattolica, through perfidy Of a fell tyrant. 'Twixt the Cyprian isle And Balearic, ne'er hath Neptune seen An injury so foul, by pirates done Or Argive crew of old. That one-ey'd traitor (Whose realm there is a spirit here were fain His eye had still lack'd sight of) them shall bring To conf'rence ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... has not stopped but shows the wrong hour. He has been taught that there are times and circumstances when religious and ethical standards may or must be set aside, and he arrogates to himself the right of determining them. Without examining into stories of preternatural meanness and perfidy which have come into vogue since the outbreak of the war, it is fair to say that dirty tricks, destructive of all social intercourse, formed part of the German commercial procedure in France, Britain and Russia, the only ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... as he is. A loud burst of laughter from Guiberto did not arouse either of the parties; but Monna Tita heard it, and rushed into the room, tearing her hair, and invoking the saints of heaven against the perfidy of man. She seized Silvestrina by that arm which appeared the most offending: the girl opened her eyes, turned on her face, rolled out of bed, and threw herself at the feet of her mistress, shedding tears, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... Thomas Whateley that Hazlitt is chiefly indebted. Both Richard III and Macbeth, says Whateley, "are soldiers, both usurpers; both attain the throne by the same means, by treason and murder; and both lose it too in the same manner, in battle against the person claiming it as lawful heir. Perfidy, violence, and tyranny are common to both; and these only, their obvious qualities, would have been attributed indiscriminately to both by an ordinary dramatic writer. But Shakespeare, in conformity to the truth of history as far as it ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... he must have been by his faith in Marcian's loyalty not to have reflected upon many circumstances prompting suspicion. Marcian had perhaps been false to him from the very day of Veranilda's disappearance, and how far did his perfidy extend? Had he merely known where she was concealed, or had he seen her, spoken with her, wooed her all along? He had won her; so much was plain; and he could scarce have done so during the brief journey to his villa. O villainous Marcian! O ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... at which we are now arrived, we shall see the human mind rapidly descending from the height to which it had raised itself... Everywhere was corruption, cruelty, and perfidy.... Theological reveries, superstitions, delusions, are become the sole genius of man, religious intolerance his only morality; and Europe, crushed between sacerdotal tyranny and military despotism, awaits in blood and in tears the moment when the revival of light shall restore it to liberty, ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... had been surging with contradictory feelings—shame at exposure, shame at Hurstwood's perfidy, anger at Drouet's deception, the mockery he had made at her. Now one clear idea came into her head. He was at fault. There was no doubt about it. Why did he bring Hurstwood out—Hurstwood, a married man, and never say a word to her? Never mind now about Hurstwood's perfidy—why had he done ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... thought of the scene of their parting, the more sickening became the conviction that her anger at his use of an ugly word was merely a subterfuge to break their engagement. The perfidy and cruelty of such an act was too hideous for belief—yet if the thing were possible! He had left her to struggle alone with the first great temptation of life, and he began to feel that it was cowardly. He should have stood his ground and ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... coat of a soldier; and remembered further back how many of the noble, the fair, and the gracious had taken a delight to tend my childhood.... But I must not recall these tender and sorrowful memories twice; their place is further on, and I am now upon another business. The perfidy of the Britannic Government stood nowhere more openly confessed than in one particular of our discipline: that we were shaved twice in the week. To a man who has loved all his life to be fresh shaven, can a more ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... an outline of that incomparable perfidy, which, after a career of seeming success, is brought to a close. Of a fallen man I would say nothing; but, for the sake of Humanity, Louis Napoleon should be exposed. He was of evil example, extending with his influence. To measure the vastness of this ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... the surrender of fugitives from service. I know not how a man reconciles it to his conscience to take that oath to support the Constitution, when he believes that Constitution is in violation of the law of God. If a man thus believes, and takes the oath, he commits perfidy to his God in order that he may enjoy the temporary honors of a seat upon this floor. In this point of view, it is simply a question of whether Senators will be true to their oaths and true to the Constitution ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... city complained bitterly to the public of Anderson for his perfidy in occupying Fort Sumter, they did not hesitate, among themselves, to express their admiration for his acuteness in evading the dangers and difficulties which surrounded him, and for the skillful manner in ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday

... enabled him to do, on the banks of the Great Zab, with chances of success such as he could hardly have contemplated. We have here a fresh example of the wonderful impotence of the Persians. We should have expected that, after having committed so flagrant an act of perfidy, Tissaphernes would at least have tried to turn it to account; that he would have poured with all his forces and all his vigor on the Grecian camp, at the moment when it was unprepared, disorganized, and without commanders. Instead of which, when the generals (with those who accompanied ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote

... British Parliament, in consequence of its unlimited power, might at any time before the Revolution have annulled the charter of the College and so have disappointed the hopes of the donors; but, he adds, "THE PERFIDY OF THE TRANSACTION WOULD HAVE BEEN UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED." Later on, he further admits that at the time of the Revolution the people of New Hampshire succeeded to "the transcendent power of Parliament," as well as to that of the King, with the result ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... sprang forward to reopen the door. Convinced of her perfidy, and madly lashing himself into yet further fury with the consciousness of his wrongs, it was as yet not in his mind that even by accident such a forced separation as this should befall her. His hand was upon the bolt—in another second ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... extensive credit. With such qualifications, he, in a trading nation, would, in the natural event of things, have made a fortune, except in such an age as that of charles the Second, when the laws were overborne by perfidy, violence, and rapacity; or in an age when bankers become gamesters, instead of merchant-adventurers; when they affect to live like princes, and are, with their miserable creditors, drawn into the prevailing vortex of luxury. Backwell carried on his ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the Lives of our people.—He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.—He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... back, every one of you. What? are you barbarians, Indians, that you would do violence to a guest in your town? What if he has committed a crime? Is he not one of you, then, that you offer him blood instead of protection? Where is your pride of caste? your hospitality? Oh, perfidy! Fall back, and leave the guest of your capital to those who are compelled ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... writer of good books ever dared depart so violently from truth as to picture a fool whose heart was filled with pretense and perfidy. The fool is not malicious. Stupid people may think he is, because his language is charged with the lightning's flash; but these be the people who do not know the difference between an incubator and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... that they—the officers—though just as averse to an Austrian war as the country at large, would by no means dislike a dash at England, and I cannot get out of my mind the risk there is of his making that attempt when we are unprepared. The perfidy would be overlooked in the success, though temporary. And in the midst of all this we have Malmesbury at the ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... Americans that, however unfriendly the British policy, it was honesty itself compared to that of the Emperor, whose sole aim seemed to be to ensnare American vessels for the purpose of seizing them. The Federalists in Congress expatiated on his perfidy and bare-faced plunder, but nothing could shake the intention of Madison to stick to commercial bargaining. Congress now passed another Act, destined to be the last effort at peaceful coercion. Trade was opened, but ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... large armies of foreign large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation works of death, destruction and tyranny already begun and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy unworthy the and perfidy scarcely head of a civilized nation. paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... seen your additional act of perfidy at Epsom, and if you were not a scoundrel I would kick you from one end of the ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... neither the plea of community ambition, nor the equally invalid argument of an industrial need at home, nor the financial jeopardy of my friends who had invested in our home industries, nor the fear of church antagonism, could justify me in what would be, for me, an act of perfidy. When I had taken my oath of office I had pledged myself, in the memory of old days of injustice, never to vote as a Senator for an act of injustice. The test had come. By all the sanctities of that old suffering and the promise that I had made ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... favorite child, for she gave him courage, self-possession, and the political sagacity of a Cesar Borgia. But education had not bestowed upon him that nobility of conduct and ideas without which nothing great is possible in any walk of life. He was not regretted, because of the perfidy with which his adversary, who was a worse man than he, had contrived to bring him into disrepute. His death put an end to the exploits of the Order of Idleness, to the great satisfaction of the town of Issoudun. ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... unrepresented in its body, have meekly helped to pay, turned one's weeping eyes to Heaven, for, as Jean Paul says, "There above is everything he can wish for here below." But if the Native of other days has been sold by the perfidy of his Dutch allies of the day, the British soldiers and British taxpayer of the present day have been deceived by "we don't know who". They fought and died and paid to unfurl the banner of freedom in this part of the globe, and the spectacle before us is the result. This ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... of no great force; it was built by the Portuguese, who, attempting to reduce this kingdom into an absolute subjection, murdered the king, and intended to pursue their scheme by the destruction of all his sons; but the general abhorrence which cruelty and perfidy naturally excite, armed all the nation against them, and procured their total expulsion from all the dominions of Ternate, which, from that time, increasing in power, continued to make new conquests, and to deprive them of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... nicety what it would cost him to build up his fortunes; and all these calculations had been based on the union of his own borrowed capital with Keith's brilliant brains. And Keith with unimaginable perfidy had removed himself and his brilliant brains at the crisis of the start. Isaac thought he had estimated pretty accurately the value of his son's contribution; but it was only in the actual experiment of separation that he realized the difference ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... moral stamina, but by giving liberal presents. It was indubitably good for the country that Vitellius should be beaten. But those who betrayed him to Vespasian can hardly make a merit of their perfidy, for they were the very men who ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... being immediately arrested; that his brother's evidence was already pledged on the side of truth; and that by the acquisition of new testimony there could be no doubt that the suit would be successful—he diverted the captain from all disposition towards perfidy, convinced him on which side his interest lay, and saw him return to Paris, where very shortly afterwards he disappeared for ever from this world, being forced into a duel, much against his will (with a Frenchman whom he had attempted to defraud), and shot through the lungs. Thus verifying ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... child was cuddled against her, she realized that in some mystical way there was a new bond between them, and as the days passed, she discovered it was not so much the whipping, but the unnatural perfidy of Dorcas that had scarred his mind. With his own eyes he had seen a mother devour her baby. He woke from dreams of it at night. Even the sight of her in the pasture contentedly suckling the remaining nine did not reassure him. The modern methods of psychology were then, to such ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius

... not! I'm quite satisfied. I shall wear,' added Richard, taking off his hat again and looking hard at it, as if he were only deterred by pecuniary considerations from spurning it with his foot, 'I shall wear this emblem of woman's perfidy, in remembrance of her with whom I shall never again thread the windings of the mazy; whom I shall never more pledge in the rosy; who, during the short remainder of my existence, will murder the balmy. Ha, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... thou lovest Cassandra not. Me, only me, thou lovest, Unworthy of thy love. Thou hast no blame, Save that thou art my husband, in the world! Of trustful sleep, to death's arms by my hand? And where then shall I hide me? O perfidy! Can I e'er hope for peace? O woful life— Life of remorse, of madness, and of tears! How shall Aegisthus, even Aegisthus, dare To rest beside the parricidal wife Upon her murder-stained marriage-bed, Nor tremble for himself? Away, away,— ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... majesty has met with many ingrates during your career, and will still meet with them," said Caulaincourt, sighing. "Perfidy seems to have ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... as opposing the plans.... What would have happened if some day those reports had fallen into the hands of certain persons—and that was undoubtedly the purpose—and, if accused, we had no witnesses to prove the spy committed perfidy? Thus, for instance, he attempted to convince me—but in his records claimed that it was I who proposed it—that it would be but child's play to find out the residences of the higher military officers in all the greater cities of Germany, then, in one night, send out our best men and have all ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... accidental circumstance!" rejoined she, with a contemptuous laugh; "truly a rare accident! It was guilt, sir. I saw him with his arms around her—with my own eyes I saw this. What farther proof needed I of his perfidy?" ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... because the party was immediately behind our lines and within a mile and a half of my headquarters, Meigs and his assistants naturally thought that they were joining friends, and wholly unsuspicious of anything to the contrary, rode on with the three men some little distance; but their perfidy was abruptly discovered by their suddenly turning upon Meigs with a call for his surrender. It has been claimed that, refusing to submit, he fired on the treacherous party, but the statement is not true, for one of the topographers escaped—the other was captured—and ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... all fraud and mischief, and the shame of gods and men alike. He is the son of the giant Farbauti, his mother being Laufey or Nal, and his brothers Byleist and Helblindi. He is of a goodly appearance and elegant form, but his mood is changeable, and he is inclined to all wickedness. In cunning and perfidy he excels every one, and many a time has he placed the gods in great danger, and often has he saved them again by his cunning. He has a wife named Siguna, and their ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... making them a present. The women especially were most obliging in every respect, and, upon the whole, we should have been the most suspicious of human beings had we entertained a single thought of perfidy on the part of a people who treated us so well. A very short while sufficed to prove that this apparent kindness of disposition was only the result of a deeply laid plan for our destruction, and that the islanders for whom we entertained such inordinate feelings of esteem, were among ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... not what means, for crimes imputed; for light or inconsiderable faults; for debt, perhaps; for the crime of witchcraft; or a thousand other weak and scandalous pretexts, besides all the fraud and kidnapping, the villainies and perfidy, by which the slave trade is supplied. Reflect on these eighty thousand persons thus annually taken off! There is something in the horror of it, that surpasses all the bounds of imagination. Admitting ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... to countenance it, are great injustice."—Brown's Inst., p. 159. "To reveal secrets, or to betray one's friends, are contemptible perfidy."—Ib. "To write all substantives with capital letters, or to exclude them from adjectives derived from proper names, may perhaps be thought offences too small for animadversion; but the evil of innovation is always something."—Dr. Barrow's Essays, p. 88. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Smith sat on a mat before it. A hideous noise and shrieking were suddenly heard in the adjoining woods. The English snatched up their arms, apprehending foul play. Pocahontas rushed forward, and asked Smith to slay her rather than suspect her of perfidy; so their apprehensions were quieted. Then thirty young Indian maidens issued suddenly from the wood, all naked except a cincture of green leaves, their bodies painted. Pocahontas was a complete picture of an Indian Diana: a quiver hung on her shoulder, and she held a bow and arrow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... Lawrence Boythorn, really making the whole house vibrate. "What, you have not forgotten it yet! Ha, ha, ha! And that was another most consummate vagabond! By my soul, the countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a field of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot in the streets to-morrow, I would fell ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... have been their dearest object, there was nothing safe within the walls of my house, nothing that was not the subject of some intrigue, I made up my mind that I must arm myself by the faithful support of new marriage connexions against the perfidy of the old." This is a lame excuse for a man of sixty separating from the companion of his whole manhood, and in the eyes of Roman Society it was rendered still more questionable by a prompt marriage with a young ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... have to swallow," he said. "Recantation does not seem very creditable; but adieu to straightforward, honest counsels. You would not believe the perfidy of these chiefs; as they wish to be, and what they might be if they had any faith in them. I had felt, I had known, that I was being led on by them, and then deserted and cast off; and yet I thought of making common cause with them. They were the same ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... raising the anger of the governor, rendered him only the more anxious to convert her. He commanded that Tahra, the Moor, should be brought into his presence, that she might ratify her deposition; and, before long, she arrived, perfidy and deceit depicted in her countenance. "Enter," said Arbi Esid, "and recapitulate, in the presence of the prisoner, the important deposition you urged upon ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... his wife, but though I remember many of his words, I remember none of my own. He swore, I know, with a great oath, that if I went back a second time from my word to him he would leave me no peace,—that he would punish me for my perfidy with some fearful punishment. Oh, Kate, I cannot tell you what he looked like. He had then come quite close to me, and I know that I trembled before him as though he were going to strike me. Of course I said nothing. What could I say to a man who ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... discovery of Lablache's perfidy that "Lord" Bill had understood what living meant. His discovery in Smith's saloon had roused in him a very human manhood. Since that time he had been seized with a mental activity, a craving for action he had never, in all his lazy life, before experienced. This sudden change had been aggravated ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... Piedmontese Government, its contempt for the sanctity of public law, the principles on which it treats the clergy at home, and the manner in which it has trampled on the rights of the Pope and the interests of religion, the perfidy and despotism it exhibits, render it impossible that any securities it may offer to the Pope can possess a real value. Moreover, in the unsettled state of the kingdom, the uncertain succession of parties, and the fluctuation of power, whatever ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... so closely mixed up, if, propos of a recent nomination of the illustrious Stangerson to the grade of grandcross of the Legion of Honour, an evening journal—in an article, miserable for its ignorance, or audacious for its perfidy—had not resuscitated a terrible adventure of which Joseph Rouletabille had told me he wished to be for ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... Glencoe is an event which neither can nor ought to be forgotten. It was a deed of the worst treason and cruelty—a barbarous infraction of all laws, human and divine; and it exhibits in their foulest perfidy the true characters of the authors and ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... thy perfidy hath made, To journey cheerless through the world's wide waste? Say, why so soon does all thy kindness fade, And doom me, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... shared by the surviving heroine of "The Double Marriage: or, the Fatal Release" (1726), who after witnessing a signal demonstration of the perfidy of man, resolves to shun ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... these latter are truths of the church from the Word, they are transferred from the middle further away to the sides, and are finally exterminated; and then the man, that is, the natural mind, perceives evil as good, and sees falsity as truth; and conversely. This is why he believes perfidy to be wisdom, insanity to be intelligence, cunning to be prudence, and evil devices to be ingenuity; moreover, he makes nothing of Divine and heavenly things pertaining to the church and worship, while he regards bodily and worldly things as of the greatest worth. He thus inverts the ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... be further proved hereafter, nor can I behold, unmoved, the open shame in which my persecutors live, and how they tremble in my presence, their wicked deeds now being known to the world Nay, monarchs may yet punish their perfidy:—Yet not so!—May they rather die in possession of wealth they have torn from me! I only wish the pity and respect of the virtuous and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... becomes of our plighted faith, if the act of the 6th of March, 1820, was a solemn compact, as we are now told? They have all rung the changes upon it, that it was a sacred and irrevocable compact, binding in honor, in conscience, and morals, which could not be violated or repudiated without perfidy and dishonor! * * * Sir, if this was a compact, what must be thought of those who violated it almost immediately after it was formed? I say it is a calumny upon the North to say that it was a compact. I should feel a flush of shame upon my cheek, as a Northern ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... clasped to her mother's bosom, and compassionately bedewed with tears, those hints were dropped into her ear which, though so worded as to show the most indulgent forbearance to Darrell, and rather as if in compassion for his weakness than in abhorrence of his perfidy, made Caroline start with the indignation of revolted purity and outraged pride. "Were this true, all would be indeed at an end between us! But it is not true. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Deep down in his heart he called upon the Virgin to curse those two—Marie Cummins and Clarry O'Grady, the man and the girl who had cheated him out of love, out of home, out of everything he had possessed, and who were beating him now through perfidy ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... whom the owners refused their wages, because the natives, on account of the villanous conduct of their captain, had kept them from their vessel by detaining them as prisoners on shore. This instance, he said, proved the dreadful nature of the Slave-trade, its cruelty, its perfidy, and its effect on the Africans as well as on the Europeans, who carried it on. The cool manner, in which the transaction was conducted on both sides, showed that these practices were not novel. It showed also the manner of doing business in the trade. It must ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... temperate in the expression of their indignation at what, one of them said, would be called swindling in the conduct of private affairs; while another declared that the President was throwing the people "into the embrace of that monster at whose perfidy Lucifer blushed and hell stands astonished." France knew all this while what England's decision would be. She was ready to rescind the orders in council when the French edicts were revoked, but she did not recognize a mere letter from the French minister, Champagny, ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... cargo in Virginia. Then, for the first time, liberty and slavery stood face to face on this continent. From then till now, these antagonisms have struggled in incessant conflict. Two years since, the slaveocracy, true to their instincts of violence, after long and secret plotting, crowned their perfidy by perjury, by piratical seizures of Government property that cost $100,000,000, and then burst into ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... report, are unimpressive since they fail to introduce facts, and the writer contents himself for the main part with soliloquies on Belgian battlefields, in which he attacks Russian aggression and Britain's perfidy in entering the war. The Belgians, we gather, are more or less delighted with the change from ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... demoralizing; and in the second place, had he accomplished it, its publication would have been a matter for much more serious consideration than was given even to the story he did write. For Swift's purpose, it was much better that he did not know the full extent of the ministry's perfidy. His affection for Oxford and his admiration for Bolingbroke would have received a great shock. He knew their weaknesses of character, though not their infidelity to honour. There can be no defence of the Oxford administration, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... 16-59), daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina the elder, sister of Caligula and mother of Nero, was born at Oppidum Ubiorum on the Rhine, afterwards named in her honour Colonia Agrippinae (mod. Cologne). Her life was notorious for intrigue and perfidy. By her first husband, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, she was the mother of the emperor Nero; her second husband was Passienus Crispus, whom she was accused of poisoning. Assisted by the influential freedman Tallas, she induced her uncle the emperor Claudius ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... low growl rumble from his chest. He knew that his country was at war with Germany and that not only his duty to the land of his fathers, but also his personal grievance against the enemy people and his hatred of them, demanded that he expose the girl's perfidy, and yet he hesitated, and because he hesitated he growled—not at the German spy but at himself ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... intruders upon the territory of Virginia! Finding the people unprepared for defence, his enterprise was successful. Argall took possession of the lands, in the name of the King of England, laid waste some of the settlements, burned the forts, and, under circumstances of peculiar perfidy, induced a number of the poor Acadians to go with him to Jamestown. Here they were treated as pirates, thrown into prison, and sentenced to be executed. Argall, who it seems had some touch of manhood in his nature, upon this confessed ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must die, or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy," de Marsay went on. "Oh! do not laugh yet!" he said to his listeners; "there is better to come. I looked at her very ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... a heavy heart, and there from Hilda's dying lips she heard the story of her marriage and of Philip's perfidy. Their reconciliation was as complete as her friend's failing voice and strength would allow. At length she tore herself away, and, turning at the door, took her last look at Hilda, who had raised herself upon her elbow, and ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... regicide occurred after the rebellion had broken out, and were at worst only devices of the unhappy King to escape from the regicide which he early foresaw. It was really the old story of the wolf and the lamb. It was far down the stream of rebellion that these acts of supposed perfidy on the part of Charles could be said ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... petty perfidy, Have I not seen what human things could do,— From the loud roar of foaming calumny, To the small whispers of the paltry few, And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... news of Hugh's supposed perfidy; and from this chamber she had gone forth to hide her broken heart in the sacred refuge of the Cloister; to offer to God and the service of Holy Church, the life which had been robbed of all natural joys by the faithlessness ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... the dead man with more distaste than surprise. Evidently his experiences in Hitler's Europe had left him with few illusions about the sanctity of human life or the extent of human perfidy. Ritter holstered the Beretta ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... he was bound to respect, and to preserve in estimation with all persons, and particularly with the sovereign princes, the allies of his government,) the disgrace and odium of the aforesaid acts, in which a sovereign prince was by him, the said Hastings, made an instrument of perfidy, wrong, and outrage to two mothers and wives of sovereign princes, and in which he did exhibit to all Asia (a country remarkable for the utmost devotion to parental authority) the spectacle of a Christian governor, representing a Christian sovereign, compelling a son to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the grey eyes and soft brown hair, cruelly refused to have anything more to do with him. For Dulcie's pride had been wounded by what she considered his shameless perfidy on that memorable Saturday by the parallel bars; the last lingering traces of affection had vanished before Paul's ingratitude on the following Monday, ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... to our admiration, and weighed like an incubus upon the peoples it oppressed. The history of the Mahrattas, as written by Grant Duff, whose account I have, throughout, followed, is one long record of perfidy, murder, and ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... inflicted upon the Indians by the colonists, and placed in strong contrast the former and present condition of his nation, the one being happy and prosperous, the other degraded and oppressed. He spoke in a strain of manly boldness of the repeated perfidy of the white people; and especially, of the unblushing dishonesty of the traders; and, finally concluded by proposing as one of the fundamental provisions of the treaty, that no commerce with the Indians should be carried on for individual profit, but that honest men should be sent among them by ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... to kill any more of them, & to await the return of my father & my uncle, who would revenge upon the English the insult which they had made me, without their tarnishing the glory that they had merited in chastising the English & the savages, their friends, of their perfidy. We were nevertheless always upon the defensive, & we apprehended being surprised at the place where we were as much on the part of the English, as of those of the savages, their friends; that is why we resolved of coming to establish ourselves in the place where we are at present, ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... Her manner of receiving the news of Channing's perfidy had showed her no stranger to the Kildare pride. She seemed to regard the affair as a ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, governor of Philipinas, thought that by building and garrisoning some strongholds in Tolo [i.e., Jolo], an island which is given over to the perfidy of Mahomet and is the nesting place of the robbers of the whole archipelago, he could restrain its inhabitants by preventing them from going to our villages with their fleets as they had done until that time, with the sequel of innumerable depredations. He put that idea into practice in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... Irishman will nearly always trust another, so the two Hibernians repaired to a hotel and, in a close room, the stranger told Terrence that his name was John Henry, and that he had lived for several years in Canada. He told Terrence a story of the perfidy and treason of New Englanders; which produced many uncomplimentary ejaculations ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... near Irma—Irma, whom I had fought for and saved half-a-dozen times over all by myself—for it is not worth while going back to what Agnes Anne did, as it were, accidentally. I was so angry at the mere thought that there and then I charged him with his perfidy. He ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... during his anxious seat upon the throne of the East, reduced to use a base and truckling course of policy—if he was sometimes reluctant to fight when he had a conscious doubt of the valour of his troops—if he commonly employed cunning and dissimulation instead of wisdom, and perfidy instead of courage—his expedients were the disgrace of the age, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... the just God avenging Robert Fitzhilderbrand's perfidy, a worm grew in his vitals, which gradually gnawing its way through his intestines fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with excruciating sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was by a fitting punishment brought to his end. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... raised an army and received auxiliary troops from his allies, made war upon the Athenians, to revenge the death of his son, Androgeus. Having conquered Nisea, he laid siege to Megara, which was betrayed by the perfidy of Scylla, the daughter of its king, Nisus. Pausanias and other historians say that the story here related by the Poet is based on fact; and that Scylla held a secret correspondence with Minos during the siege of Megara, and, at length, introduced him into ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... lust, their cruelty and tyranny, their shamelessness, their superstition, their cynical indifference to honour or truth. In mere boyhood he tore with brutal levity the beards of the Irish chieftains who came to own him as their lord. His ingratitude and perfidy brought his father with sorrow to the grave. To his brother he was the worst of traitors. All Christendom believed him to be the murderer of his nephew, Arthur of Britanny. He abandoned one wife and was faithless to another. His punishments were refinements of ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... beholds the perfidy darting into hidden places, young man, in which the defenders of foolish virgins are buffeted and browbeaten by counter-jumpers with craniums as big as the great nebula of Orion. The avenue named after a crumbled philanthropist, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... of his party, but conspicuously so in regard to the abolition of slavery, the exposure of Andrew Johnson's perfidy, and the reconstruction of the rebellious States. We might add the annexation of San Domingo as a fourth; for I believe there are few thinking persons at present who do not feel grateful to him for having saved the country ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns



Words linked to "Perfidy" :   perfidiousness, sellout, treason, perfidious, double cross, insidiousness, betrayal, dishonesty



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