underplots

In the midst of pressing danger his sanguine nature seems not to have deserted him: his love of the underplots of life, the influence of "Kate Bruce," and the arrangements for a coronation, were as much in his thoughts as in the more hopeful days before Sherriff Muir and Preston.

Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. Volume I. Mrs. Thomson

It would appear that he was chiefly resorted to for comic underplots, in which he brought in a good deal of horseplay, and a power of reporting the low-life humours of the London of his day more accurate than refined, together with not a little stock-stage wit, such as raillery of Welsh and Irish dialect.

A History of Elizabethan Literature George Saintsbury 1889

But there are many persons who, not dreaming of the Unities, still object in language less extravagant than Voltaire's or George the Third's, but with hardly less decision, to the "sad stuff," the _fumier_ of Shakespere's admixture of comedy with tragedy, of his digressions and episodes, of his multifarious underplots and minor groups, and ramifications of interest or intrigue.

A History of Elizabethan Literature George Saintsbury 1889

Her story is a psychological curiosity; and, interwoven as it was with the underplots of the time, we cannot observe it too accurately.

The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) James Anthony Froude 1856

Parliament, was convenient to politicians, and, by degrees, the large dingy drawing-rooms became a frequent resort for public men to talk over those thousand underplots by which a party is served or attached.

Ernest Maltravers — Volume 07 Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

Parliament, was convenient to politicians, and, by degrees, the large dingy drawing-rooms became a frequent resort for public men to talk over those thousand underplots by which a party is served or attached.

Ernest Maltravers — Complete Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

It is a charitable institution, which, at certain times and in certain places, may have been a pretext for criminal underplots got up for the overthrow of public order, but is there anything under heaven that has not been abused?

The memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt 1827

One of the countless underplots had got so near the surface, that it threw up smoke.

Recollections of Europe James Fenimore Cooper 1820

Thus by one of those petty underplots of life, which, often unknown to us, are continually going on, our young physician was brought into a situation where he had an opportunity of showing his abilities.

Tales and Novels — Volume 07 Maria Edgeworth 1808

On these 'coquettes of the second table,' on these underplots in the drama, much of the comedy, and some of the tragedy, of life depend.

Belinda 1801