"Expedient" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the prologue ... bane] In my opinion no alteration is necessary. Hamlet is telling how luckily every thing fell out; he groped out their commission in the dark without waking them; he found himself doomed to immediate destruction. Something was to be done for his preservation. An expedient occurred, not produced by the comparison of one method with another, or by a regular deduction of consequences, but before he could make a prologue to his brains, they had begun the play. Before he could summon his faculties, ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... concentrated themselves upon the one purpose—to keep going onward. He began to feel the lure of just giving up. He began to think of the warmth and rest he could get, the release from the mad chaos of the wind, by the simple expedient of burrowing deep into the deep snow. He knew well enough that simple trick of the partridge, when frost and storm grow too ferocious for it. But his wiser spirit would not let him delude himself. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... HERBERT: When I left you, I fully expected to return on Monday, but an unexpected proposal has been made to me, which I think it expedient to accept. The physician whom I consulted about my eyes recommends a sea voyage as likely to benefit me, and advises me to start at once. A fellow student is intending to sail on Saturday next for Rio Janeiro, and I have decided to go with him. ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... which K. sent me, and making 5,000 copies of same. In each letter he begs me to set a time and date for meeting him at Guadalajara for the purpose of effecting the necessary plans for active campaigning with Delgado. I will arrange all of this as soon as you consider it expedient.... ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... interesting specimens of globular calcareous matter, resembling pisolites or peastones both in appearance and structure, which were accidentally formed as follows: The Northern Railway Company, France, desiring to purify some calciferous water designed for use in steam boilers, hit upon the ingenious expedient of treating it with lime water whose concentration was calculated exactly from the amount of lime held in the liquid to be purified. The liquids were mixed in a vast reservoir, to which they were led by parallel pipes, and by which they were given a rapid eddying motion. The transformation of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... which occurred forty years ago in the Spanish republics. Bolivar, Quiroga, and the other leaders, needed the support of all classes of the population in their struggle against Spain; they adopted the expedient of suppressing slavery. In taking this resolution, they accomplished a most honorable deed, but they made little change in the condition of the country, for large planting was rare, and both the blacks and the whites were few ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... sayest," said King, agreeably, and, though bravely resisting, Kitty was overpowered, and thrown into a dungeon under the table. From this she contrived to escape by the clever expedient of creeping out at the other side, but as it was then time to get ready for dinner, the game came to ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... contained. Alas, for my ignorance! She thought I wished them taken out of the room, and so walked off with them, leaving me in the utmost astonishment. How was I to get it back again? it was the only thing I had to relish my kichiri. I had, therefore, recourse to this expedient—I got an apple and pared it, putting the parings in a bottle with water; and showing this to the landlady, intimated, by signs, that I wanted something like it to eat with my rice. She asked many questions in English, and talked a great ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... this is the first expedient almost all women find in such cases. The Ogre, fearing his wife would be too long in doing what he had ordered, went up himself to help her. He was no less amazed than his wife ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... restored to health, and supplied with the means of pursuing his journey. The name of this, his first kind benefactor, was "Wells Brown." As William had risen from the degradation of a slave to the dignity of a man, it was expedient that he should follow the customs of other men, and adopt a second name. His venerable friend, therefore, bestowed upon him his own name, which, prefixed by his former designation, made him "William Wells ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... desperate expedient resolved on than it was gallantly set about, the boats filled with the marines and small-arms men, who yet remained below the barrier at the river mouth being brought to the front—an operation ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Josephus assumes the air of a scientific historian, in the Antiquities he is more openly the apologist. Despite his professions in the preface of the earlier work, he seems to have found it necessary or expedient to give to Greco-Roman society a fresh account of the ancestry and the early history of his people and of the constitution of their government. The Roman Archaeologia of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who fifty years earlier had written in twenty books the ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... this facility of transfer from the military to the civil service would be rather injurious than favorable to a high military spirit, and that to encourage this spirit it would be expedient to place the profession of the soldier above all others. This was the early practice of the Mamelukes and Janissaries. Their soldiers were bought at the age of about seven years, and were educated in the idea that ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... that the people might grow too fond of it, and so be unwilling to let the plate be run down, if a war made it necessary, to employ it in paying their soldiers. To prevent all these inconveniences they have fallen upon an expedient which, as it agrees with their other policy, so is it very different from ours, and will scarce gain belief among us who value gold so much, and lay it up so carefully. They eat and drink out of vessels of earth or glass, ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... reconciles me to you, it is a statesman's word. Your grace should explain that transportation is the last expedient to which you can resort in ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... jarring circumstances must have suggested to Godwin that another marriage might he the best expedient, and he accordingly set to work in a systematic way this time to acquire his end. Passion was not the motive, and probably there was too much system, for he was unsuccessful on two occasions. The first was with Miss Harriet Lee, the authoress of several novels and of ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... Hindus and Muhammadans, and are sometimes troublesome and importunate, inflicting wounds on themselves as a means of extorting alms. One beggar in Saugor said that he would give every one who gave him alms five strokes with his whip, and attracted considerable custom by this novel expedient. Some of them are in charge of Muhammadan cemeteries and receive fees for a burial, while others live at the tombs of saints. They keep the tomb in good repair, cover it with a green cloth and keep a lighted lamp on it, and appropriate the offerings made by visitors. Owing ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... with woodlice, place some cabbage-leaves or a small quantity of hay in the bed, which will answer the purpose of a trap to collect them, when they may be easily destroyed by boiling water. Care, however, is necessary in this expedient, for should the plants have taken root at the side of the box, the hot water will materially injure them; but if the plants are kept healthy, little danger is to be apprehended from this description of vermin, as they always like a sickly stagnated plant to a thriving vigorous one. ...
— The art of promoting the growth of the cucumber and melon • Thomas Watkins
... step of the Syndicate was to purchase from the United States Government ten war-vessels. These were of medium size and in good condition, but they were of an old-fashioned type, and it had not been considered expedient to put them in commission. This action caused surprise and disappointment in many quarters. It had been supposed that the Syndicate, through its agents scattered all over the world, would immediately acquire, by purchase or lease, a ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... expedition to Texas, say his admirers. He forgets nothing. Well, why has Lincoln forgotten Texas all this time? Notwithstanding all the prayers of the Texans and of the northern patriots, I am not sure that at this moment it is expedient to break up our armies into smaller expeditions instead of concentrating them in Tennessee, Georgia, and here. Strike on the head or at the heart if you wish to kill the monster, but not at its extremities. ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... lady patronesses were of opinion, that it would be expedient in future, to confine their bounty to the children ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... because of the discipline and its strengthening effects on the character. But the good effects of this sort of discipline will be mixed with sad wreckage. And only creatures incapable of disciplining themselves could thus argue. It is an odd expedient to get yourself into trouble ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... armed intervention by the United States in behalf of the Liberal party. "I recommend to Congress," says the President, "to pass a law authorizing the President, under such conditions as they may deem expedient, to employ a sufficient military force to enter Mexico for the purpose of obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future." This force, should Congress respond favorably to the Presidential recommendation, is to act in concert with the Juarez government, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... press—with, I venture to hope, some profit to students of the art, if I may judge from the many hundreds Of letters I have from time to time received—the publishers have invited me to revise such parts of the work as may be expedient, and also to add many technical methods of ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... of inquiry. They were Sir Waiter Kirtham Blount, Bart., Sir Samuel Baldwin and Sir Timothy Baldwin, Knights, Thomas Foley and Philip Foley, Esquires, and six other gentlemen. The father of the Foleys was himself supposed to have introduced the art of iron-splitting into England by an expedient similar to that adopted by Yarranton in obtaining a knowledge of the tin-plate manufacture (Self-Help, p.145). The secret of the silk-throwing machinery of Piedmont was in like manner introduced into England by Mr. Lombe ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... himself and party from destruction on record, having only penetrated to the East Alligator River, about 80 miles from Adam Bay; here he became surrounded by floods, and only saved his own and the lives of his party (loosing all else) by the desperate expedient of making a boat of the hides of their horses, in which they floated down the swollen river, and eventually reached the Settlement. It is not improbable that in some such a flood poor Leichhardt and his little band lost their lives, and ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... "the wizard had sucked the strength" out of him, especially when he found that owing to his armour he could not harm him in front, and owing to his cunning could not get at him behind. Then it was that he conceived the desperate expedient of leaping over his head and smiting backwards as he leapt, a trick, he told me, that he had once played years before when he was young, in order to break a shield ring and reach one ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... have as yet only published the "Pastorale" and the "C minor." (In the supposition that this publication will suit your house, I will beg you to make the necessary arrangements from now onwards with Mr. Haslinger; perhaps it will even be expedient that the Symphony in A (7th), which Haslinger published several years ago from the arrangement that I had made, should reappear in its proper place in the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... he had collected the sense of all the leading Compounders. They were of opinion that there was one expedient which would reconcile contending factions at home, and lead to the speedy pacification of Europe. This expedient was that James should resign the Crown in favour of the Prince of Wales, and that the Prince of Wales should be bred a Protestant. If, as was but too probable, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... description eats no more than a bad one. Considering also how much waste is occasioned by provisions being dressed in a slovenly and unskilful manner, and how much a good cook, to whom the conduct of the kitchen is confided, can save by careful management, it is clearly expedient to give better wages for one of this description, than to obtain a cheaper article which in the end will inevitably become more expensive. It is likewise a point of prudence to invite the honesty and industry of domestics, by setting them an example of liberality in this way; ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... secret band enter the city, the people being absent. Thus let it be, magnanimous Trojans, as I say: and let the speech, which is now most salutary, be thus spoken. But for that which will be [most expedient] in the morning, I will [then] speak amongst the horse-breaking Trojans. Making vows both to Jove and to the other gods, I hope to banish hence those dogs borne hither by the fates, whom the fates bear ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... expedient that the young people should conceal themselves as much as possible, in view of the extreme measures taken by the Serene Republic. If caught, Pietro was to be slain and Bianca enclosed in a convent. The abduction of a noble Venetian was a capital offence, and the girl's ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... have adopted such an expedient in any case. Elinor must be married among her own people, wherever her lot may be cast afterwards. Everybody here has known her ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... vexatious efforts, but always with the same result. The preservation of allegretto time was absolutely impossible to the worthy man. At last the orchestral conductor, out of all patience, came and begged him not to conduct at all; he had hit upon an expedient:—He caused the chorus-singers to simulate a march-movement, raising each foot alternately, without moving on. This movement, being in exactly the same time as the dual rhythm of the 6/8 in a bar, allegretto, the chorus-singers, who were no longer hindered ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... time seated on the carpet by the side of the divan, revolving in his mind every possible expedient that might benefit Tancred, and finally being convinced that none was in his power. What roused him from his watchful reverie was a voice that called his name very softly, and, looking round, he beheld the Emir Fakredeen on tiptoe, with his finger ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... an individual in a somewhat embarrassed situation. He is a gentleman who has been overcome by wine. We see him touching the temporal bone, or the ear, as if to seek some expedient: the ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... defence lately formed of which he was president; and Mr. Rancher the bearer of Lafitte's packet, was sent back with a verbal answer to desire Lafitte to take no steps until it should be determined what was expedient to be done; the message also contained an assurance that, in the meantime no steps should be taken against him for his past offences against the laws of the ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... regarded as a most holy and chaste man for the reason that he did not associate with his own kind, but only with the animals. As this was by no means an uncommon case, it led the Greek monks, in Greece and Asia Minor, to resort to every expedient to protect their chastity; in some of the monasteries not only were the monks muzzled by the process of infibulation, but they even had rules that excluded all females, either human or animal, from within their convent,—a ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... examine the fords of the upper Ohio—that at Buffington among them—and it is a fact, of which others, as well as myself, are cognizant, that he intended—long before he crossed the Ohio—to make no effort to recross it, except at some of these fords, unless he found it more expedient, when he reached that region, to join General Lee, if the latter ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... of another expedient, frequently practised with great safety and success by satirical writers: which is, that of looking into history for some character bearing a resemblance to the person we would describe; and with the absolute power of altering, adding ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... have a boat which will do the friendly office to put me on the quay when our conference is over," she remarked, with a presence of mind that luckily met the expedient ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sunk into thought. Youths like Mahommed were apt to be wilful. How was he to be controlled? One expedient after another was swiftly considered and as swiftly rejected. At last the right one! Like his ancestors from Ertoghrul down, the young Turk was a believer in the stars. Not unlikely he was then in the Castle ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... his unhappy father was conducted to execution. Charles was naturally, or, more purposely, constitutionally brave; but a life of pleasure, together with the habit of governing his course rather by what was expedient than by what was right, rendered him unapt to dare the same scene of danger or of martyrdom, which had closed his father's life and reign; and the thought came over his half-formed resolution, like the rain upon a kindling beacon. In another man, his perplexity would ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... prairie, alone impeded the view, and friend or enemy could be discerned in that direction at a mile's distance. Here we resolved to remain and await the arrival of The Whirlwind, who would certainly pass this way in his progress toward La Bonte's Camp. To go in search of him was not expedient, both on account of the broken and impracticable nature of the country and the uncertainty of his position and movements; besides, our horses were almost worn out, and I was in no condition to travel. We had good grass, good ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... made, gently addressed the cat, saying, 'I address thee in friendship, O cat! Art thou alive? I wish thee to live! I desire the good of us both. O amiable one, thou hast no cause for fear. Thou shalt live in happiness. I shall rescue thee, if, indeed, thou dost not slay me. There is an excellent expedient in this case, which suggests itself to me, and by which you may obtain your escape and I may obtain great benefit. By reflecting earnestly I have hit upon that expedient for thy sake and for my sake, for it will benefit both of us. There are ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... stimulating, that it left me profoundly cheered and encouraged. On returning to Dresden I tried as far as possible to curtail my expenses and to live within my means; and, as every means of assistance failed me, I resorted to the expedient of sending out a circular letter addressed jointly to my remaining creditors, all of whom were really friends; and in this I told them frankly of my situation, and enjoined them to relinquish their demands for an indefinite ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... with an equal eye. O, tell me what is proper for me and them. O Vidura, things having thus taken their course, what should we do now? How may I secure the goodwill of the citizens so that they may not destroy us to the roots? O, tell us all, since thou art conversant with every excellent expedient.' ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... crossing a water-course along a small branch, not thicker than a goose-quill. They widened this natural bridge to three times its width by a number of ants clinging to it and to each other on each side, over which the column passed three or four deep. Except for this expedient they would have had to pass over in single file, and treble the time would have been consumed. Can it not be contended that such insects are able to determine by reasoning powers which is the best way of doing a thing, and that their actions are guided by thought and reflection? This view is ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... of Content, on the occasion which caused his present visit to the edifice whose history and description we have thought it expedient thus to give at some length, led him no farther than to the lowest of its more military apartments. On raising the trap, for the first time a feeling of doubt came over him, as to the propriety of having left the boy so long unsolaced by words of kindness, or by deed ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... replied to the president's letter, giving his opinion, that if he was determined to retire, it would be expedient and highly proper for him to put forth a valedictory address through the public prints; at the same time he expressed a hope that Washington would "reconsider the measure in all its circumstances ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... considered to be involved in the conduct of a Masque, that even this committee of illustrious men was on the point of being broken up by too serious a discussion concerning precedence; and the Masque had nearly not taken place, till they hit on the expedient of throwing dice to decide on their rank in the procession! On this jealousy of honour in the composition of a Masque, I discovered, what hitherto had escaped the knowledge, although not the curiosity, of literary inquirers—the occasion of the memorable enmity between ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... The Lord Lieutenant (not the justices, as in England) was authorized to establish any number of these asylums (to accommodate not less than one hundred and not more than one hundred and fifty paupers) when and where it seemed expedient, while for this purpose eight Commissioners were nominated to superintend the execution of the work. Some years elapsed before asylums were built. Then nine, capable of accommodating nine hundred and eighty patients, were ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... lightly and naturally to the surface of the narrative, not more noticeable at first than the most everyday occurrences, and a few pages farther on become of the greatest importance. The hero makes a mock proposal of marriage to Lady Bellaston. It scarcely detains attention, so natural an expedient does it appear, and behold in a chapter or two it has become a terrible weapon in the hands of the injured Sophia! Again, when the secret of Jones' birth [Footnote: Much ink has been shed respecting Fielding's reason for making his hero illegitimate. But may not "The ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... an hour or so a particular human clock might be expected to stop. It had never occurred to him, either, that a man had not a well-defined right to stop the clock of his own being whenever it seemed desirable or expedient. ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... some of the weaker brethren in order to receive the pardon which was promised by the King. But no such confession was made. All the prisoners denied the charges brought against them. Then the usual mediaeval expedient was resorted to, and torture was used to extort acknowledgments of guilt. The unhappy Templars in Paris were handed over to the tender mercies of the tormentors with the usual results. One hundred and forty were subjected ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... falls on the fifteenth of November, with the first five hundred or one thousand men, in light boats, now constructing for that purpose, to be at Natchez between the fifth and fifteenth of December, there to meet Wilkinson, there to determine whether it will be expedient in the first instance to seize on, or pass by, Baton Rouge. The people of the country to which we are going are prepared to receive us; their agents, now with Burr, say that if we will protect their religion, and will not subject them to a foreign power, then in ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the marble surface with a crash as one who knows well that no mere marble or granite could shatter the solidity of those stout earthenware receptacles. Napkins there were none. I was to learn that fingers were rid of any clinging remnants of cream or crumb by the simple expedient of ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... all the time making sure progress along his chosen path, came a single figure—a white-bearded man, in plain, coarse tunic and well-worn sandals. Few regarded him or even seemed to know that he was there, except when in their hurry they found it expedient to jostle him one side. But in his face gleamed an intelligence far beyond what could be expected from one in his humble attire; and as AEnone watched him, a suspicion crossed her that the poor, beggarly dress and the quiet, yielding mien were ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... wary and sagacious Hindoo to be deceived? He had demanded that an article touching his claims should be inserted in the treaty between Meer Jaffier and the English, and he would not be satisfied unless he saw it with his own eyes. Clive had an expedient ready. Two treaties were drawn up, one on white paper, the other on red, the former real, the latter fictitious. In the former Omichund's name was not mentioned; the latter, which was to be shown to him, contained a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... incomprehensible to such as are unaccustomed to abstract thinking, from the difficulty of educing a rule amidst an infinite array of exceptions, and of recognising a principle shrouded in the obscurity of conflicting details; it appears expedient, before pursuing the question, to reinforce the first broad elementary principles with what definite modification they may have acquired in their progress to this point in the argument, together with the additional data which may have resulted from analytic reference ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... sooner left Ferrieres than Henri III despatched one of the valets of his wardrobe to St. Foix, where the King of Navarre was for the moment sojourning, with an autograph letter, in which he informed him that he had considered it expedient to dismiss from the service of his royal sister both Madame de Duras and Mademoiselle de Bethune, having discovered that they were leading the most dissolute and scandalous lives, and were "pernicious vermin" who could not be permitted to ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... without ruining some of its members, but it would allow others to make something by special economies in production. Productivity profits they would get and no others, and these it is in every way expedient that they should be allowed to enjoy. Suppressing employers' monopolies would remove much of the difficulty connected with arbitration, and putting an end to violence on the men's part would remove ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... skirts of Mr. Bumble's coat as they blew open, and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee-breeches. As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down, and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Proclamation being, as we have seen, clearly constitutional, as a war measure, with a view to save the Union, was it, as such, wise and expedient? We have seen that the rebel South, even by conscription, when necessary, used slaves for military purposes, and those not used directly in that way are required to raise breadstuff's and provisions (instead of cotton), to supply the Confederate army. Indeed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... example of permitting individuals, corporations, or communities to nullify the laws because they cross some selfish or local interest or prejudices is full of danger, not only to the nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious expedient to escape their just obligations or to obtain an unjust advantage over others. They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those who would use the law as a defense must not deny that use ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... not seem to me expedient, that any more friars should be sent to the Tartars, in the way I went, or as the predicant friars go. But if our lord the Pope were to send a bishop in an honourable style, capable to answer their follies, he might speak unto them as he pleased; for they will hear whatever an ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... of the misprints, but on the fact that there would be no need for the book to be printed abroad in the first instance. It was not (he thinks) until after June 1599—when (with other books) it was condemned by Archbishop Whitgift to be burnt—that recourse was had to the expedient of reprinting it at Middleburgh. In the notes I refer to this edition ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... a couple of weeks later that Andre-Louis realized what had really happened to him, and he found himself at the same time an exhausted man, for during that fortnight he had been doing the work of two. If he had not hit upon the happy expedient of pairing-off his more advanced pupils to fence with each other, himself standing by to criticize, correct and otherwise instruct, he must have found the task utterly beyond his strength. Even so, it was necessary for him to fence some six hours daily, and every day he brought ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... prisoners of Arnold was a young half-witted fellow who was condemned to death. His sorrowing mother never ceased her pleading with General Arnold for her son's life. Accordingly one day he proposed to her this expedient: That her son, Hon Yost by name, should make his way to Fort Stanwix and in some way so alarm the British that they would raise the siege. Eagerly the old mother promised this should be done and offered herself as ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... the Pope, that she had refused to obey the Church Militant because she believed the Church Militant to be Messire Cauchon and his assessors. In short, it was necessary to represent her as almost an imbecile. In ecclesiastical procedure this expedient was frequently adopted. And there was yet another reason, a very strong one, for passing her off as an innocent, a damsel devoid of intelligence. This second trial, like the first, had been instituted with a political motive; its object was to make known that Jeanne had come to the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... forgotten. Of Mr. Pratt, the following amusing anecdote is related by Mr. Gifford, in the Maviad:—"This gentleman lately put in practice a very notable scheme. Having scribbled himself fairly out of notice, he found it expedient to retire to the Continent for a few months, to provoke the inquiries of Mr. Lane's indefatigable readers. Mark the ingratitude of the creatures! No inquiries were made, and Mr. Pratt was forgotten before he had crossed the channel. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... insurance of England and Germany. A half century ago, however, and in a country which gave the laisser faire economics their extremest trial, the Freedmen's Bureau struck the whole nation as unthinkable, save as a very temporary expedient and to relieve the more pointed forms of distress following war. Yet the proposals of the Bureau ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... these ladies and was so much struck by her appearance that he turned to the gentlemen accompanying him and said: "Ah! how ugly she is!" To which the offended fair promptly replied: "You have much uglier ones in your seraglio." The prince did not judge it expedient to discuss the subject, but he related the incident to the lieutenant of police, and the next day these promenaders were more rigorously expelled than ever. In consequence, "to-day," relates a chronicler of the period, "excepting on days of the opera, the Palais-Royal ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... and passionate a husband shows himself, the less will a woman dare to employ this expedient; but a husband caught in this snare will never have anything to say to his stern better-half, when the maid, giving evidence of the fault she has committed, is sent into the country with ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... greedily; at the same time my head is relieved by the application of 'vejicatorios,' or blisters, to the soles of my feet. More than half my medical advisers prescribe bleeding, but Don Francisco will not hear of it, and from first to last this expedient is never adopted. ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... mostly responsible if the crops are not ruined year after year, the thoughtless inhabitants, with their natural laziness, doing little more than praying Allah to give them plenty of rain, instead of employing the more practical if more laborious expedient of artificially irrigating their country in some efficient manner, which they could easily do from the streams close at hand. Perhaps, in addition to this, the fact that water—except rain-water—has ever to be purchased in Persia, may also account to a certain extent for the inability ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... for her things that he would do for no one else; would break any engagement, desert a dinner-table, leaving an empty place and an offended hostess, to sit all evening in Kitty's dressing-room, spraying her throat and calming her nerves, using every expedient to get her through a performance. He had studied her voice like a singing master; knew all of its idiosyncracies and the emotional and nervous perturbations which affected it. When it was permissible, sometimes ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... might now be regarded as a friend; and that whatever unkind feelings were begotten in that terrible time should be now buried in the Red Sea of oblivion. [Applause.] There never before was a time when it was so expedient for England to say to ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... shall use his best available tools and machinery, and, performing as much labour as he can perform without exerting himself to an extent prejudicial to his health or inconsistent with his reasonable comfort, produce an output as large as possible. In the interest of the people as a whole it is expedient that the remuneration of the labour of the industrial classes shall be increased, and since this remuneration is paid out of the national income, it is a matter of great importance not only that the working classes shall succeed in obtaining for themselves a far ampler ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... be supported that will thus be thrown loose on the market of labour? How are the burdens to be provided for that the land thus disabled has hitherto borne? Are the imposts on agriculture to increase while its returns are to diminish? or is the old Whig expedient to be resorted to, of raising that very tax which they have resisted and denounced? Are all customs-duties to be abolished, and is the deficiency to be supplied by having the property-tax aggravated to whatever multiple the account may require? What safeguards ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... pennies to spend in the village than to pay them to the old man who took toll on the bridge. But it was often necessary for us to cross the river, and to do so, and save our money at the same time, we used to adopt a very hazardous expedient. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... You will have to go to the state legislature about that speculation of yours—Congress don't know anything about religion. But don't you hurry to go there, either; because this thing you propose to do out in that new country isn't expedient—in fact, it is ridiculous. Your religious people there are too feeble, in intellect, in morality, in piety in everything, pretty much. You had better drop this—you can't make it work. You can't issue stock on an incorporation ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... on until it became time for Wilkie to take his degree. He presented himself for examination; and, of course, he failed. Fortunately, however, M. Patterson was not at a loss for an expedient. He placed his charge in a private school; and the following year, at a cost of five thousand francs, he beguiled a poor devil into running the risk of three years' imprisonment, by assuming M. Wilkie's name, and passing the examination in his place. ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... that I, a stranger, have remained so long to-night. The truth is, I had come here to have some conversation on private and very important matters, but finding you so lively, and, I must add, so pleasantly engaged, I deemed it expedient to defer my conversation until you should be ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... question, over how broad a field it is expedient and right to extend the activities of government, are embraced many of the great topics at present agitating the public mind. Difference upon this point has been one of the underlying causes of the existence of political parties in the United States, and has furnished ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... the Studion often served as a place of correction for offenders whom it was expedient to render harmless without recourse to the extreme rigour of the law. Santabarenus, who has just been mentioned, was sent in his wild youth, after narrowly escaping a sentence of death at the hands of the Caesar Bardas, to this monastery ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... power from still increasing by the favor of the multitude; esteeming it better to let slip some public conveniences, rather than that he by prevailing should become powerful in all things. In fine, when he once had opposed Themistocles in some measures that were expedient, and had got the better of him, he could not refrain from saying, when he left the assembly, that unless they sent Themistocles and himself to the barathrum, there could be no safety for Athens. Another time, when urging some proposal upon the people, though there were much opposition ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... teachings of a pure theology. It was, indeed, an axiom unhesitatingly enunciated and frequently repeated by their writers, that "there are many truths with which it is useless for the people to be made acquainted, and many fables which it is not expedient that they should know to be false." [6] Such is the language of Varro, as preserved by St. Augustine; and Strabo, another of their writers, exclaims, "It is not possible for a philosopher to conduct a multitude of women and ignorant people by a method of reasoning, ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... rifle, Intombi, above my head, and try to steal the canoe. If the old wizard was watching, which I hoped might not be the case, well, I must deal with him as best I could. I knew the desperate nature of the expedient, but there was no other way. If we could not get a boat we must remain in that foodless forest until we starved. Or if we returned to the island of the Flower, there ere long we should certainly be attacked and destroyed by Komba and the Pongos when they came to look ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... village shows three covered passageways similar to those noted in Walpi on the first mesa, though their presence here can not be ascribed to the same motives that impelled the Walpi to build in this way; for the densely crowded site occupied by the latter compelled them to resort to this expedient. One of these is illustrated in Pl. XXXII. Its presence may be due in this instance to a determination to adhere to the protected court while seeking to secure convenient means of access to the inclosed area. It is remarkable that this, ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... If he came, what could he say to him? Two days—only two days more! If Mr. May had been less sensible and less courageous, he would most likely have ended the matter by a pistol or a dose of laudanum; but fortunately he was too rational to deliver himself by this desperate expedient, which, of course, would only have made the burden more terrible upon the survivors. If Cotsdean was to be ruined, and there was no remedy, Mr. May was man enough to feel that it was his business to stand by him, not to escape in any dastardly way; but in the mean time ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Socialist parties. Kautsky has explained, in a series of articles written with his characteristic pedantry, the interrelation existing between the Social-Revolutionary problems of the proletariat and the regime of political democracy. He tries to prove that for the working class it is always expedient, in the long run, to preserve the essential elements of the democratic order. This is, of course, true as a general rule. But Kautsky has reduced this historical truth to professorial banality. If, in the final analysis, it is to ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... she would have behaved very well in the coach, and that she is a nearer relation to you than the Duchesse de Nevers, and that it was very unfair not to take her with you this time. In order to comfort her, the Duc du Maine has discovered an expedient which greatly amuses us, and never fails of its effect. He tells her how absolutely necessary it is for her proper education that she should be placed in a convent, and then adds in a serious tone that if she had been taken to Fontevrault ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... have lived alone too long for that. I have closed too many houses at night and gone upstairs in the dark to be afraid of darkness. And even now I can not, looking back, admit that I was afraid of the darkness there, although I resorted to the weak expedient of leaving a short length of candle to burn itself out in the hall when I went ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was lost in the cavernous shed at the far-end of the yard. Then everything went quiet for an hour, and Paul made acquaintance with the poverty-stricken artist who could not take his mistress to the ball because she had no stockings fit to go in, and who hit on the expedient of painting stockings on her legs. How simply and innocently comic the episode was to the child's mind, to be sure! and how harmless were the naughtiest adventures exposed under the lifted roofs when the lame devil waved his crutch from the top of ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... cases your individual experience at any given time may be narrow and limited owing to causes that are in the highest {55} degree arbitrary. It may be advisable that I should solicit your attention by connecting what I have to offer with what is already familiar to you; but this is a psychological expedient. My appeal is logically supported by objects, by principles, by data which are in no wise dependent for their claims on their connection with your ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... her eyes around her for an expedient, and she unshipped one of the transoms, and by trailing it over the side, and alternately slacking and hauling the sheet, she contrived to make the boat crawl like a winged bird through the western passage. After that it soon got becalmed under the cliff, and ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... obtainable. It was my aim to get well on the road before Early could collect these scattered forces, and as many of the officers had been in the habit of amusing themselves fox-hunting during the latter part of the winter, I decided to use the hunt as an expedient for stealing a march on the enemy, and had it given out officially that a grand fox-chase would take place on the 29th of February. Knowing that Lomas, and Renfrew would spread the announcement South, they were permitted to see ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... spirit and such charms, that she incessantly distracted me. Sometimes she would come into my chamber to wish me good-morning . . . . Her appearance, her grace, the sound of her voice . . . were more than I could resist; and, fearing the seduction would excuse mine, I could find no other expedient than to take flight. . . . Some years later, Maddalena became ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the only surviving son of a widow. It was curious, and suggestive of some grim law of heredity, that his parents' elder children had died off as rapidly as his own, and that his life had been preserved by some such expedient as Alte's. Only, in his case the Rabbi consulted had advised his father to go into the woods and call his new-born son by the name of the first animal that he saw. This was why the future sweater was named Bear. To the death of his brothers and sisters, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... being of small size can easily be blown through by screwing back the steam cone in the spray injector far enough to let the solid particles pass and be blown out into the fire-box by the steam. This expedient is easily resorted to even when running; and no more inconvenience arises than an extra puff of dense smoke for a moment, in consequence of the sudden admission of too much fuel. Besides the two strainers in the manhole ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... convalescence, he asked unceasingly to go home. His demand had become so persistent, in spite of all his parents could say or do to pacify him, that the doctor had said it might be wiser to take the risk of moving him sooner than was expedient rather than allow him to wear himself ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... it is as much a matter of duty to drink hard on New-year's Day as to go to church on Sunday. Some have been saving their wages for perhaps a month to do the season honour. Many carry a whisky-bottle in their pocket, which they will press with embarrassing effusion on a perfect stranger. It is not expedient to risk one's body in a cab, or not, at least, until after a prolonged study of the driver. The streets, which are thronged from end to end, become a place for delicate pilotage. Singly or arm-in-arm, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused, but it certainly ought not to be regarded as a mere usurpation or engine of tyranny. Before the invention of writing, and during the infancy of the art, an aristocracy invested with judicial privileges formed the only expedient by which accurate preservation of the customs of the race or tribe could be at all approximated to. Their genuineness was, so far as possible, insured by confiding them to the recollection of a limited ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... his arms, to beg nourishment from those mothers in the village who had young children. Now indeed was the cup of misery full. While in health, the active, ardent mind of Mrs. Judson bore up under trials, every new one suggesting some ingenious expedient to lighten or avert it; but now to see those cherished ones suffering, and be herself confined by sickness, was ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... had been in previous use was often rejected and search made for another, different and original, even though it might involve only some relatively trivial part of the work. He was simply unwilling to follow in the lead of others. He must lead or have none of it, and thus the fact that a device or expedient was in common use would furnish an argument against rather than for its adoption. His natural mode of work was utterly to disregard precedent and to seek for fundamental solutions of his problems, having only in view the conditions to be fulfilled, the laws of mechanics, and the engineering ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... deemed expedient for the New York authorities to "take care" of him. A berth was made for him in the Central Office, and after a year of laborious manipulation he found himself Third Deputy Commissioner and a ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... slave state will be as true everywhere in the land. The presidential word has brushed away a world of sophisms, and settled a thousand pleas against dealing with slavery; it has declared not only expedient, but possible, immediate emancipation. The abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia following so quickly upon the message of the President, and the adoption by Congress of its recommendation, have made its words facts and demonstrations. Slavery has been abolished ...
— The Future of the Colored Race in America • William Aikman
... English standard of propriety, and his suppressions and omissions are on a wholesale scale. Lord Byron said of English novelists that they give a full length of courtship and but a bust of marriage. Mr. Lane thought it expedient to draw a tight veil, to tell only half the truth—in short he stops at the bust. Moreover he destroyed all the mecanique of his original, and cruelly altered the form. He did away with the charming and dramatic ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Connecticut, on the 14th of June, instructed their delegates "to give the assent of the colony to such Declaration, when they should judge it expedient." On the 15th the New Hampshire Provincial Congress issued similar instructions; and on the 21st the new delegates from New Jersey were directed to act in the matter according to the dictates of their ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... The Latins call such bundles "manipuli," and from hence it is that in their armies still they call their captains "manipulares." Remus rousing the citizens within to revolt, and Romulus making attacks from without, the tyrant, not knowing either what to do, or what expedient to think of for his security, in this perplexity and confusion was taken and put to death. This narrative, for the most part given by Fabius and Diocles of Peparethos, who seem to be the earliest historians of the foundation of ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... evident that Archie Sinclair's mind was made up and fixed, and also so obvious that a delicate little boy would be a great encumbrance on a hunting expedition that Dan thought of attempting the expedient of winning Little Bill himself over to his side. He had no difficulty in doing that, for Billie was to the full as amiable and unselfish as his brother. After a short conversation, he made Billie promise to do his very ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... In short, as the Marshall town humorist explained in the columns of the Advance, "the proposition that the Manton house is badly haunted is the only logical conclusion from the premises." The fact that in this dwelling Mr. Manton thought it expedient one night some ten years ago to rise and cut the throats of his wife and two small children, removing at once to another part of the country, has no doubt done its share in directing public attention to the fitness of ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various |
