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machinations
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  • The machinations of European powers and the funny mustached German dictator were as remote to our island in the fall of 1941 as Silas Marner, which sapped our energies through eighth-grade English.†   (source)
  • All Sounis's machinations to undermine the rule of Eddis had ceased.†   (source)
  • The machinations of archangels are beyond me.†   (source)
  • I and these gentlemen with me have formed a committee, the Amistad Committee, to ensure that the devilish machinations from the morally bankrupt presidential administration in Washington will not impede a just outcome for these poor African souls.†   (source)
  • That's when we'll appeal to his Far East expertise and the global consequences of Sheng's and the taipans' machinations.†   (source)
  • Saul, to add to his innumerable problems, was not only Mrs. Brown's major supplier of facts concerning the strange, incomprehensible machinations of my class, he was also a bed-wetter.†   (source)
  • The mare breathed deep and sighed, letting her back sag, infinitely weary of all man's paltry machinations, and Ben Hodge, servant of sunlit visions, whose heart was set on holiness--like the girl in the story his father told, who threw roses in the air--was silent.†   (source)
  • John Quincy did not comprehend, after a lifetime in the thick of it, how our complicated Federal system of checks and balances operated; nor did he realize that what he regarded as Jefferson's "machinations" was merely a facet of the latter's genius applied with success to the art and science of Government.†   (source)
  • It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me.   (source)
    machinations = scheming or plotting
  • Too old to be dragged out of my home by the machinations of someone I thought was a friend.†   (source)
  • Our machinations are subtle and allow little room for such errors.†   (source)
  • She reminded Eragon of a kitten trying to bait an old tomcat into playing with her, only Glaedr remained impassive throughout her machinations.†   (source)
  • But I thought it was more important that we see each other than to resist the petty machinations of the authorities, and Winnie consented to carry a pass.†   (source)
  • Once again, Roran wondered what kind of fiendish machinations he and the rest of Carvahall had become entangled in.†   (source)
  • In the late summer yet another of Snowball's machinations was laid bare.†   (source)
  • You would almost believe that Sutpen's trip to New Orleans was just sheer chance, just a little more of the illogical machinations of a fatality which had chosen that family in preference to any other in the country or the land exactly as a small boy chooses one ant-hill to pour boiling water into in preference to any other, not even himself knowing why.†   (source)
  • I have sent a cable describing the wickedness of that infamous organization of Trotskyite murderers and their fascist machinations all beneath contempt but, between us, it is not very serious, the P.O.U.M. Nin was their only man.†   (source)
  • The streets, ten years before raw clay, were being paved: Gant went into frenzies over the paving assessments, cursed the land, the day of his birth, the machinations of Satan's children.†   (source)
  • But there was no word here of the loud raucous voice of America, political conventions and the Big Brass Band, Tweed, Tammany, the Big Stick, lynching bees and black barbecue parties, the Boston Irish, and the damnable machinations of the Pope as exposed by the Babylon Hollow Trumpet (Dem.†   (source)
  • This terrible item—this devil's accident or machination that was constantly putting it before him!†   (source)
  • No, I only suspect he has warned the queen against some fresh machinations of the cardinal.†   (source)
  • I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations.†   (source)
  • ] To save my poor, innocent, trusting boy from the machinations of any other girl there are no lengths to which I would not go.†   (source)
  • But what he had seen at Perros, what he had heard behind the dressing-room door, his conversation with Christine at the edge of the moor made him suspect some machination which, devilish though it might be, was none the less human.†   (source)
  • There was the night ride of Tull's, which, viewed in the light of subsequent events, had a look of his covert machinations; Oldring and his Masked Rider and his rustlers riding muffled horses; the report that Tull had ridden out that morning with his man Jerry on the trail to Glaze, the strange disappearance of Jane Withersteen's riders, the unusually determined attempt to kill the one Gentile still in her employ, an intention frustrated, no doubt, only by Judkin's magnificent riding…†   (source)
  • Kells's gang were all in Alder Creek and the dark machinations of the bandit leader had been put into operation.†   (source)
  • Hortense, who, because of the hovering floor-walker, was pretending to show Clyde some handkerchiefs, was now thinking how unfortunate that a whole twenty-four hours must intervene before she could bring him to view the coat with her—and so have an opportunity to begin her machinations.†   (source)
  • Should the machinations of the horrible Mrs. Bute end, as she too much feared they would, in banishing everybody that Miss Crawley loved from her side, and leaving that poor lady a victim to those harpies at the Rectory, Rebecca besought her (Miss Briggs) to remember that her own home, humble as it was, was always open to receive Briggs.†   (source)
  • What the world of America is coming to, and where the machinations and inventions of its people are to have an end, the Lord, he only knows.†   (source)
  • But through the whole period during which I was the slave of my creature I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of the moment; and my present sensations strongly intimated that the fiend would follow me and exempt my family from the danger of his machinations.†   (source)
  • While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant popularity in his sacred office.†   (source)
  • They knew that, and their machinations were conducted in secret; consequently, Madame Rigaud and I were brought into frequent and unfortunate collision.†   (source)
  • Despite Emma's explanations, as soon as the recitative duet began in which Gilbert lays bare his abominable machinations to his master Ashton, Charles, seeing the false troth-ring that is to deceive Lucie, thought it was a love-gift sent by Edgar.†   (source)
  • They were in possession of other indications; they laid hand on the three prowlers, and supposed that they had circumvented some one or other of Brujon's machinations.†   (source)
  • Where all the blame should rest, it is hard to say; whether the Bureau and the Bank died chiefly by reason of the blows of its selfish friends or the dark machinations of its foes, perhaps even time will never reveal, for here lies unwritten history.†   (source)
  • The two men now went out on the platform, and Deerslayer swept the shore with the glass, while the Indian gravely turned his eye on the water and the woods, in quest of any sign that might betray the machinations of their enemies.†   (source)
  • When Pansy kissed him before going to bed he returned her embrace with even more than his usual munificence, and Isabel wondered if he meant it as a hint that his daughter had been injured by the machinations of her stepmother.†   (source)
  • And she began, forthwith, to tell her story—a tale so neat, simple, and artless that it was quite evident from hearing her that if ever there was a white-robed angel escaped from heaven to be subject to the infernal machinations and villainy of fiends here below, that spotless being—that miserable unsullied martyr, was present on the bed before Jos—on the bed, sitting on the brandy-bottle.†   (source)
  • …the very remorse which harrowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowed criminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to strike the balance; that it was human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations of an enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was…†   (source)
  • Jealousy, fury, offended pride, all the passions in short that dispute the heart of an outraged woman in love, urged her to make a revelation; but she reflected that she would be totally lost if she confessed having assisted in such a machination, and above all, that d'Artagnan would also be lost to her forever.†   (source)
  • I gasped for breath, and throwing myself on the body, I exclaimed, "Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry, of life?†   (source)
  • But Mrs. Morland knew so little of lords and baronets, that she entertained no notion of their general mischievousness, and was wholly unsuspicious of danger to her daughter from their machinations.†   (source)
  • I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, against whom your evil machinations avail not nor have any power.†   (source)
  • If you miscarry, Your business of the world hath so an end, And machination ceases.†   (source)
  • However, I hope you will now amend, and gather so much experience from past errors, as not to defeat my wisest machinations by your blunders.†   (source)
  • The invention all admired, and each, how he To be the inventer missed; so easy it seemed Once found, which yet unfound most would have thought Impossible: Yet, haply, of thy race In future days, if malice should abound, Some one intent on mischief, or inspired With devilish machination, might devise Like instrument to plague the sons of men For sin, on war and mutual slaughter bent.†   (source)
  • For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himselfe.†   (source)
  • …part of the subject, this conclusion is to be drawn, that America, if not connected at all, or only by the feeble tie of a simple league, offensive and defensive, would, by the operation of such jarring alliances, be gradually entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars; and by the destructive contentions of the parts into which she was divided, would be likely to become a prey to the artifices and machinations of powers equally the enemies of them all.†   (source)
  • We have seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves.†   (source)
  • …beginning: But when the people were once possessed by those spirituall men, there was no humane remedy to be applyed, that any man could invent: And for the remedies that God should provide, who never faileth in his good time to destroy all the Machinations of men against the Truth, wee are to attend his good pleasure, that suffereth many times the prosperity of his enemies, together with their ambition, to grow to such a height, as the violence thereof openeth the eyes, which the…†   (source)
  • In this adventure two mighty enchanters must have encountered one another, and one frustrates what the other attempts; one provided the bark for me, and the other upset me; God help us, this world is all machinations and schemes at cross purposes one with the other.†   (source)
  • While Jones was terrifying himself with the apprehension of a thousand dreadful machinations, and deep political designs, which he imagined to be at the bottom of the promotion of Honour, Fortune, who hitherto seems to have been an utter enemy to his match with Sophia, tried a new method to put a final end to it, by throwing a temptation in his way, which in his present desperate situation it seemed unlikely he should be able to resist.†   (source)
  • Surely this is to be unworthy of the care which Providence seems to have taken of us in the preservation of our religion against the powerful designs and constant machinations of Popery, a preservation so strange and unaccountable that I almost think we may appeal to it as to a miracle for the proof of its holiness.†   (source)
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