"Expedient" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Alley had been surprised in every nook and corner of their neighborhood until they had hit upon the bold expedient of playing in an open lot, reposing their trust in a sentinel. It would not have been well for the sentinel to relax ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to have expressed the real sentiment of the Regents; but the actual measure passed was a resolution declaring, that in view of the fact that a new Board of Regents was to take charge and appoint a President, it was expedient that the terms of Professors Williams, Whedon, and Agnew terminate at the close of the year. This was an out and out partisan matter, as there was no reason for such action inherent in the change of the governing ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... long-continued sedition, on account of debts, the commons secede to the Janiculum: [Y.R. 466. B.C. 286.] are brought back by Hortensius, dictator, who dies in office. Successful operations against the Volsinians and Lucanians, [Y.R. 468. B.C. 284.] against whom it was thought expedient to send succour ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... being then wet with paste and hammered down flat to the surface of the boards. The best tar-boards should be used, which are made of old rope; no board made of straw is fit to be used on any book. Straw boards are an abomination—a cheap expedient which costs dearly in the end. The binder should use heavy boards on the larger and thicker volumes, but thin ones on ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... that is not following St. Paul's example, who gave up, he says, doing many things which he thought right, because they offended weaker spirits than his own. 'All things,' he says, 'are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient.' 'Ay,' says he, 'I would eat no meat while the world standeth, if it ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... the daughter of a woodcutter in marriage. The Father, unwilling to grant and yet afraid to refuse his request, hit upon this expedient. He expressed his willingness to accept him as the suitor of his daughter on one condition; that he should allow him to extract his teeth, and cut off his claws. The Lion cheerfully assented to the proposal: when, however, he next repeated ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... demanded a prince's purse to have the action thoroughly fulfilled without lingering.' Elizabeth was not willing to play the part of godmother in the fairy-tale sense. For a substitute, the founder, being in difficulties, had recourse to the very modern expedient of a company. In March, 1589, as Chief Governor, he assigned a right to trade in Virginia, not his patent, to Thomas Smith, John White, Richard Hakluyt, and others. He reserved a fifth of all the gold and ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... being stated as the advantages attending the use of the sanative tea in the morning, it is next expedient to consider what benefit is derived from the use of it ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... know how to bear fatigue, and to be rapid in execution. The sun was not more than three hours high, when I had already cooked the best part of the horse. All the unfortunates were still asleep, and I found it was no easy matter to awake them. At last, I hit upon an expedient which did not fail; I stuck the ramrod of my gun into a smoking piece of meat, and held it so that the fumes should rise under their very noses. No fairy wand was ever more effective; in less than two minutes they were all chewing and swallowing ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Director to this course, as they had also a few days before Resolved(3) that the provisions destined for Curacao should be unloaded from the vessels and the major portion of the men belonging to them detained, and to send the ships away thus empty. This was not yet agreed to nor considered expedient by the Director. ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... inadequate to the expence of living in this City; to such an extravagant height has the necessaries as well as the conveniences of life arisen. And, moreover that to keep myself out of debt; I have found it expedient now and then to sell Lands, or something ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... as he was, felt it would be useless to contend with twenty angry men, and he knew the passengers would not befriend him: he therefore deemed it expedient to endeavor to conciliate them by promises he never intended to perform, and, after a few hours' confusion, all was ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... cleared off, the captain seated himself at it with a chart spread out before him. It was plain enough that he was devising some expedient to escape the three-master. Christy did not deem it prudent to observe him, and he went on deck. It was as clear as the daylight that the pursuer was gaining rapidly upon the Snapper; and the prisoner did not believe that the latter was making over ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... and Sibyls, and repeating them in reversed outline on either side of the same throne has a very valuable decorative effect, well known to the old Italian workmen, who frequently repeated the forms of their fruit and flower decorations in this manner, by the expedient of reversing the paper-pricking from one and the same cartoon. It is interesting to find Michael Angelo resorting to this simple trick to get the effect of balance in figure decoration. The light and shade of the reversed figures follow the ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... you. The men who can engineer such a theft are almost as strong as you are. You've got to make every edge cut—use every weapon that's at hand. And most of all, gentlemen, you've got to stand together. No dissensions. As a temporary expedient—to keep the bank sufficiently under cover and still allow Boyne the publicity he needs—replace this money pro rata among yourselves. That wouldn't clean any of you. Announce a small defalcation, such as Clayte's bond would cover, so you could collect there; use all the machinery ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... Revolutionary war it was deemed expedient to enlist the colored race as soldiers. In Rhode Island they were made free by law, on condition that they enlisted in the army, and this measure met with Gen'l Washington's approval. After the Declaration of Independence, in 1777, Vermont, Pennsylvania ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... obedient! Let us try some new expedient; Shift the scene for half an hour, Time and place are in thy power. Thither, gentle muse, conduct me; I shall ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... reconcile his various accounts of them. It is however clear that although some officials, like the guardians of the law, the wardens of the agora, city, and country have power to inflict minor penalties, the administration of justice is in the main popular. The ingenious expedient of dividing the questions of law and fact between a judge and jury, which would have enabled Plato to combine the popular element with the judicial, did not occur to him or to any other ancient political philosopher. Though desirous of limiting the ...
— Laws • Plato
... fire, and ceaselessly reproaching herself for having drawn Garth into the sad tangle of her life; while he, tossing on his blankets on the other side of the partition, blamed himself no less bitterly for having allowed her to run into danger; and wrung his exhausted brain for an expedient to save her. ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... "Whereas it is expedient that the law of marriage in Scotland should be amended as far as the same affects the constitution of marriage in that country; be it enacted, by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... the last, he replied; for I know of many things—meats, drinks, medicines, and ten thousand other things, which are inexpedient for man, and some which are expedient; and some which are neither expedient nor inexpedient for man, but only for horses; and some for oxen only, and some for dogs; and some for no animals, but only for trees; and some for the roots of ...
— Protagoras • Plato
... Congress had thought might be advantageous to them. I conclude this, Sir, by requesting you, if you have not yet made a communication of your powers, to delay doing it till the Marquis de Verac shall agree in sentiment with you that it will be expedient, or until you shall ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... are for the plaintiff!" "This, my lords, is what the defendant WILL SAY. This is the line of defence which the opposite party intend to pursue; as if slanders like these could weigh with an enlightened jury, or injure the spotless reputation of my client!" In this story and expedient M. Macaire has been indebted to the English bar. If there be an occupation for the English satirist in the exposing of the cant and knavery of the pretenders to religion, what room is there for him to lash the infamies of the law! On this point the French ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... instructed to "inquire from time to time into all our institutional influences which are likely to affect the health of the student and instructor, and to make such reports with recommendations to the President as may seem wise and expedient." ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... right understanding of their conduct. Here too, no doubt, a contrary bias is to be suspected, nor is a purely, "positive" treatment of the subject conceivable or desirable. The view of an insider is as partial as the view of an outsider, though less viciously so; nor can we get at truth by the simple expedient of fitting the two together. The best witness is the rare individual who to an inside and experimental knowledge, adds the faculty of going outside and taking an objective and disinterested view. In truth this needs an amount of intellectual self-denial ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... desired sacrifice, it seemed, almost more than satisfactions. Oliver was a person of the most exemplary miserableness; he would weep copiously and frequently. She could always make him weep when she wanted to do so. By holding out hopes and then dashing them if by no other expedient. Why did Mr. Britling ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... performing such an operation depends of course upon circumstances, both anatomical and pathological. If an aneurism affect the popliteal part of the vessel, or if, from whatever cause arising, it be found expedient to tie the femoral above this part, the place best suited for the operation is that where the artery, W, first passes under cover of the sartorius muscle. [Footnote] For, considering that the vessel gives off ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... should employ their wealth in building and endowing institutions for educational purposes. But, five or six hundred years ago, deeds of foundation expressed or implied conditions as nearly as possible contrary to those which have been thought expedient by Sir Josiah Mason. That is to say, physical science was practically ignored, while a certain literary training was enjoined as a means to the acquirement of knowledge which was ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... proper attention paid to them, after parting company with the agent. The master of the Salamander was ordered to proceed to Norfolk-Island, with the convicts, stores, and provisions he had brought out; but unfortunately it had not been foreseen that it might be expedient to send some of these ships to land their cargoes at that place, and it was therefore necessary to clear this vessel of the greatest part of the stores, in order that they might be stowed in such a manner as to permit the landing of the cargo, where, there being no good ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... could not be permitted. I directed my interpreter Omai, to tell them that I would obviate their objection, by giving orders that no one should presume to walk upon that part of the deck which was over the cabin. Whether this expedient would have satisfied them was far from appearing, but the chief himself, less scrupulous in this respect than his attendants, waved all ceremony, and walked down without any stipulation. He now appeared to be as solicitous himself, as his people ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... acceded to this proposal. They marched their followers into battle, and defeated Vortigern's enemies. They sent across the sea to their native land, and invited new adventurers to join them. Vortigern was greatly pleased with the success of his expedient. The Picts and Scots were driven back to their fastnesses in the remote mountains of the north, and the Britons once more possessed their land in peace, by means of the protection and the aid which their new confederates ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... be entered into by each county, and that a committee of the leading men of each county should be formed, having at their disposal this subscription, should it be found necessary to call it in: that these committees should, each, purchase, as they might deem it expedient, say one thousand tons of oatmeal at the lowest present price, holding this oatmeal over in stores till the next spring or summer, and that then it should be retailed, under proper superintendence by a storekeeper for cash, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Friday Evening the Grand Lodge met, agreeable to adjournment and after a long debate on the subject, whether it was expedient at present to elect a Grand Master General for the United States, ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse
... wall round the city. Aware, however, of the existence of a huge supply of corn inside the town, the result of the bountiful harvest of the preceding year, and averse to the notion of wearing out the city of Lacedaemon and her allies by tedious campaigning, he hit upon the expedient of damming up the river which flowed through ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... before children, for be assured that they comprehend a vast deal more than is expedient; the saying "that little pitchers have great ears" is wonderfully true. Lord Vane held up his hand ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... take several models, each supplying some beautiful detail not to be found in the rest,—one model furnishing the features, another the general outline, each a separate limb. So difficult, if not impossible, was it then to find perfection of detail in the same person. Nay, even this expedient did not ensure success; the models differing from each other in size, complexion, and general proportions, complete harmony was rarely obtained, and, judging from our old painting and sculpture, I should say that no ideal was then produced equal to that ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... leave the library to Lucia. But after all Sir Frederick had some respect for the family tradition. When it seemed only too likely that a woman would inherit the Harden Library, he stepped in and saved it from that supreme disgrace by the happy expedient of a bill of sale. Otherwise his natural inclination would have been to leave it to his daughter, for whom he had more or less affection, rather than to his nephew, for ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... committed against realmes and nations, whiche some times liued free, and now are broght in bondage of forein nations, by the reason of this monstriferous authoritie and empire of women. But that I delay till better oportunitie. And now I think it expedient to answer such obiections, as carnal and worldlie men, yea men ignorant of God, vse to make for maintenance of this tyrannic (authoritie it is not worthie to be called) and most vniuste empire ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... slaves free Negroes and the Southampton massacre be discharged from the consideration of all petitions, memorials and resolutions, which had for their object the manumission of slaves. The resolution further declared that it was not expedient to legislate on slavery.[25] Whereupon Thomas Jefferson Randolph, of Albemarle County, moved to amend this resolution so as to instruct the committee to inquire into the expediency and to report a bill to submit to the voters of the State the propriety of providing by law ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... accumulative dishonesty which has few parallels in the history of architecture. Classic pillars and porticos, which have been thrust in everywhere on slightest pretext, are often built up of brick covered with cement and coloured yellow. Columns, here the common and constant expedient, are mostly mismanaged; they are as it were gratuitous intrusions, they seem to be stuck on, they fail to compose with the rest of the building. Neither do the architects of St. Petersburg understand mouldings or the value of shadow, there is scarcely a moulding in the ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... assailants, unless life is saved by some trick; or, happy fortune; a lucky shot; a telling blow, like Sanchez's with his slung-shot; or, the fanciful drumming, such as was Kit's, on the noses of his antagonists; or, some other equally singular and unlooked-for expedient. The weight of one of these monsters often runs as high as fifteen hundred pounds; and, their fore paws, which they can manage with the greatest dexterity, frequently measure fourteen inches. The courage, sagacity and skill ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... colourless heroes. However much they differed in nature from Scott himself, the even balance of their reason against their sympathies is certainly well conceived, is in itself natural, and is an admirable expedient for effecting that which was probably its real use to Scott,—the affording an opportunity for the delineation of all the pros and cons of the case, so that the characters on both sides of the struggle should be properly understood. Scott's imagination was clearly far wider—was ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... visitors became at last so immense, that the entrance-door (which was close to the study where the dying man lay) was incessantly opening and shutting; this disturbed the sufferer, and we imagined the expedient of closing that door, by placing against it a chest from the hall, and instead of it opening another little door which led from the stair-case into the pantry, and partitioning off with screens the dining-room from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... as to the time and mode of abolition. The abolitionists consistently argue, that whatever is sinful should be instantly abandoned. The others, by a strange sort of reasoning for Christian men, contend that though slavery is sinful, yet it may be allowed to exist until it shall he expedient to abolish it; or, if, in many cases, this reasoning might be translated into plain English, the sense would be, both in Church and State, slavery, though sinful, may be allowed to exist until our interest will suffer us to say that it must be ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... pretended neutrality, the ministry have had opportunity to watch the course of events, to connive at aid to the Rebellion, and to leave themselves unembarrassed when the success of one side or the other should make it expedient to declare in its favor. It has been with the greatest difficulty that Mr. Adams has been able to bring the Foreign Office to exert its authority against violations of that neutrality. Vessels, known well enough to be in the service of the Confederates, or intended for their ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... have devised a scheme to get her out of Notre-Dame, but your way is extremely disagreeable to me, Gringoire. If I had only another one myself! I beg to say that a luminous inspiration has just occurred to me. If I possessed an expedient for extricating her from a dilemma, without compromising my own neck to the extent of a single running knot, what would you say to it? Will not that suffice you? Is it absolutely necessary that I should be hanged, in order that you may ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... it expedient, in submitting them to the Senate with a view to their advice and consent to the ratification of the treaty in its present form, to have the entire instrument taken into a continuous draft, as well the portions—by far the greater part—already assented to by the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... ordinary size, and some square case bottles, neither had I a pot to boil any thing in, only a large kettle unfit to make broth, or stew a bit of meat: I wanted, likewise at the beginning of this dry season a tobacco pipe; but for this I afterwards found an expedient. ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... equally black, and the fear of the national revulsion at so desperate a deed startled many, who might not have been withheld by feelings of humanity. The leaders had held a secret consultation while the debate was drawing on its slow length, and Danton's old expedient of "terror" was resolved on. His emissaries had been sent round Paris to summon all his banditti; and the low cafes, the Faubourg taverns, and every haunt of violence, and the very drunkenness of crime, had poured forth. The remnant ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... restraint. Natural liberty gives place in organized society to civil liberty, which is a much more modest and limited thing. "Civil liberty," says Blackstone, "is no other than natural liberty so far restrained by human laws as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the public."[34] In the same sense Austin defines it as "the liberty from legal obligation which is left or granted by a sovereign government to any of its own subjects."[35] But the most luminous definition is that ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... and his friends thought that the time had now arrived in which it was expedient for him to present himself before the people of France, and claim their protection from the oppression of the French Government. It was believed that the French people, should the opportunity be presented them, would rise at the ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... into this business, we must indicate, in the first place, a distinction as to what is, and what is not, a sacrifice. To know this is expedient and good for all Christians.] Socrates, in the Phaedrus of Plato, says that he is especially fond of divisions, because without these nothing can either be explained or understood in speaking, and if he discovers any one skilful in making divisions, he says that he attends ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... of a petit-maitre, to the highwayman, he strove to edge his way through the crowd. All his efforts were fruitless; and, tired of a situation in the rear rank, so inconsistent, he conceived, with his own importance, he had recourse to an expedient often practised with success in harlequinades, and not unfrequently in real life, where a flying leap is occasionally taken over our heads. He ran back a few yards to give himself an impetus, returned, and, placing his hands ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... what he intended to do, dashed up the roadway leading to Dr. Scoville's house. It was evident that he was about to resort to some desperate expedient to retrieve the shattered fortunes of his party; but he kept his own counsel; and Somers yielded himself to the master will of his companion like a child, as indeed he was in his exhausted and suffering condition. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... therefore become expedient, in the future circulation of this Pamphlet, to add a few pages, containing authentic statements of those proceedings by which the Institution was organized—how cordially this measure has been received ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary
... there were no God, it becomes expedient for them that there should be none; and then they ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... the books shall be willingly given, provided only I am allowed the Jesuit's principle of a mental reservation, giving licence to forget and promise whenever oblivion shall appear expedient. The last two or three numbers of Pendennis will not, I dare say, be generally thought sufficiently exciting, yet I like them. Though the story lingers, (for me) the interest does not flag. Here and there we feel that the pen has been guided by a tired hand, that the mind of the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in the present unsatisfactory state of the law, it is difficult to know how to advise you for the best. Your idea, if the worst comes to the worst, and you cannot get the Vestry to attend to it, of blowing up your dust-bin yourself with gunpowder, you might resort to as a last expedient; but, as you seem to think it might bring down your portico, and possibly the whole front of your house as well, we should advise you not to put it into execution till quite assured that your attempts to get your dust-bin emptied ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... agreed that it would be useless and absurd for the State to attempt to promote friendship and sympathy between man and man directly. But I see no reason why, if it be otherwise expedient, the State may not do something towards that end indirectly. For example, I can conceive the existence of an Established Church which should be a blessing to the community. A Church in which, week by week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of abstract propositions in theology, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... slaughters, burning, heirships, robbing, reifing, despoiling and destruction, and so to continue the same at his grace's pleasure," till the attempts of the inhabitants were fully atoned for. This impolitic expedient, by which the Scottish prince, unable to execute justice on his turbulent subjects, committed to a rival sovereign the power of unlimited chastisement, was a principal cause of the savage state of the borders. For the inhabitants, finding that the sword of revenge ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... beginning; comfort and pride in the full knowledge that he was a man! Only a man would have come, bravely and sincerely, in that manner to her father; only a man would have put his hurt behind him like that and marched away from her, too proud to stoop to the mean expedient of begging her ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... various tests: the court may look to the analogy of what the parties have expressly provided in case of other specified events, to the constant or general usage of persons engaged in like business, and, at need, ultimately to the court's own sense of what is just and expedient. All auxiliary rules of this kind are subject to the actual will of the parties, and are applied only for want of sufficient declaration of it by the parties themselves. A rule which can take effect against the judicially known will of the parties is not a rule of construction or interpretation, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... also indirectly through popular insistence on conformity to the accepted scale of expenditure as a matter of propriety, under pain of disesteem and ostracism. To accept and practice the standard of living which is in vogue is both agreeable and expedient, commonly to the point of being indispensable to personal comfort and to success in life. The standard of living of any class, so far as concerns the element of conspicuous waste, is commonly as high as the earning capacity of the class will permit—with a constant tendency to go higher. The ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... done, they kneel, or lie down, and, with their bear-spears by their side, wait for the game. These precautions, which are chiefly taken in order to make sure of their mark, are, on several accounts, highly expedient. For, in the first place, ammunition is so dear in Kamtschatka, that the price of a bear will not purchase more of it than is sufficient to load a musket four or five times; and, what is more material, if the bear be not rendered incapable of pursuit ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... and of the situation of affairs in the Indian country only a hundred miles to the north. She dreaded to tell Mrs. Truscott of the regiment's prospects for immediate action, but she determined to try some expedient to rid Miss Sanford and the house of the presence of Mr. Gleason. Her air was brisk and determined, therefore, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... would make inquiry of Mr. Peacocke himself. It might well be, he thought, that Mr. Peacocke would not like such inquiry, but the Doctor was quite sure that any story told to him would be true. On returning home he found it necessary, or at any rate expedient, to postpone his questions for a few days. It is not easy to ask a man what he has been doing with five years of his life, when the question implies a belief that these five years have been passed badly. And it was understood that the questioning ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... ice[002] had broken off and drifted out of sight during our absence. At nine A.M. we saw eleven canoes coming off from the shore, our distance from the tents being about four miles. We now hoisted two of them on board, their owners Ka-kee and Nu-yak-ka being very well pleased with the expedient, to avoid damaging them alongside. Above an hour was occupied in endeavouring to gain additional information respecting the land to the westward, and the time when we might expect the ice to break up in the strait, after which we dismissed them with various useful presents, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... years they continued to ostracize the friends of the tyrants, on whose account the law had been passed; but in the following year they began to remove others as well, including any one who seemed to be more powerful than was expedient. The first person unconnected with the tyrants who was ostracized was Xanthippus son of Ariphron. Two years later, in the archonship of Nicodemus, the mines of Maroneia were discovered, and the state made a profit of a hundred talents from the working ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... the most violent, and their quarrels harassing and perpetual. According to the rude temper of the age, these disputes were not settled by argument, but by dint of blows; and the peace of the city was in this way so often endangered, that the king thought it expedient to add to the civil power two aldermen and eight burgesses assistant, together with two bailiffs. From petty and intestine broils, the students appear to have acquired a disposition for political inter- ference. When Prince Edward, returning from Paris, marched with an ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... 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 fleet of fine ironclads ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... the children born of slave parents in our colonies were from that date to be declared free. That was thought a great and most important movement by the promoters of the cause. There were, however, parties at that crowded meeting who thought that even this was a mere expedient—that it was a mere pruning of the branches, leaving the whole system intact. One of these was the late Dr. Andrew Thomson—[cheers]—who had the courage to propose that the meeting should at once declare for total and immediate abolition, which proposal ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... The customary expedient of provincial girls and men in such circumstances is churchgoing. In an ordinary village or country town one can safely calculate that, either on Christmas-day or the Sunday contiguous, any native home for the holidays, who has not through age or ennui lost the appetite for seeing ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... learn, were it deemed expedient to teach them, the mechanism of speech. But, besides that the sounds which they would utter, would never be heard by themselves, and they would never be conscious of having uttered them, those, sounds would be to those who might listen to them infinitely disagreeable. Never could they ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the presence and the work of the HOLY GHOST, that our LORD assured His disciples that it was expedient for them that He should go away, in order that the COMFORTER should come. And we see the mighty change that was wrought in the disciples when the outpouring of the SPIRIT actually took place at Pentecost. The ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... pupil, Jamond, one who might be your rival one day,' said he. Still there was a puzzled look on his face, which did not leave it till he saw Jamond walking. 'Ah yes,' he added, 'I see now. You are lame. This was a desperate yet successful expedient.' ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... at a time when Theodoric was in one of his most turbulent and destructive moods, when he had penetrated within fourteen miles of Constantinople and had fired the towns and villages of Thrace, perhaps even within sight of the capital. It was a natural thought and not altogether an unstatesmanlike expedient to play off one disturber of his peace against the other, to commission Theodoric to dethrone the "tyrant" Odovacar, and thus at least earn repose for the provincials of Thrace, perhaps secure an ally at Ravenna. Theodoric, we may be sure, with those instincts of civilisation and love for ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... is the only literary work left by its author. Unfortunately it lacks a few pages which, as his manuscript shows, he intended to add, and it also failed to receive his final revision. His friends have nevertheless deemed it expedient to publish the result of his studies conducted with so much ardor, in order that some memorial of his life and work should remain for the wider public. To those acquainted with him, no written words can represent the charm ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... so.[263] We can scarcely imagine more nonsensical sophistry than this. The proper answer evidently is, that either experience or calculation has taught the citizens in a popular government that in the long run it is most expedient for the majority of votes to decide the law. In other words, the inconvenience to the minority of submitting to a law which they dislike, is less than the inconvenience of fighting to have their own way, or retiring to form ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... resigned his judgeship in order to give exclusive attention again to his private affairs. He had fallen badly into debt, and his creditors were pressing him hard. One expedient after another failed, and finally Hunter's Hill had to be given up. He saved enough from the wreck, however, to purchase a small plantation eight miles from Nashville; and there, after several years of financial rehabilitation, he erected the handsome brick house which the ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... An underhanded and indefensible expedient occurred to him, and he sat for a perceptible number of minutes concentrating his memory upon a dim and special object. Finally he ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... an undertaking of such importance, I considered it expedient to make such inquiries and collect such facts as the few hours I had left to work in rendered possible. I went first to the ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... important considerations, according to the various exigency of times and occasions, such changes and alterations should be made therein, as to those that are in place of Authority should from time to time seem either necessary or expedient. Accordingly we find, that in the Reigns of several Princes of blessed memory since the Reformation, the Church, upon just and weighty considerations her thereunto moving, hath yielded to make such ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... operation, and was in a most critical condition. He begged permission to go, but of course the doctors could not pass him. He could not, however, bear to think of his men being there without him. And after trying one expedient after another, he, who had been refused permission on the ground of ill-health, at last got out under the plea that the climate of South Africa might be beneficial! May God spare ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... been misrepresented—nor need it. Your mother, who is solicitous to take all opportunities of putting the most favourable constructions upon all you do, has been forced, as you well know, to give you up, upon full trial. No need then of the expedient of pursuing your needleworks in her sight. She cannot bear your whining pranks: and it is for her sake, that you are not permitted to come into her presence—nor will be, but upon ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Dean Stanley observes that "it never names the name of God from first to last," and remarks "It is necessary for us that in the rest of the sacred volume the name of God should constantly be brought before us, to show that He is all in all to our moral perfection. But it is expedient for us no less that there should be one book which omits it altogether, to prevent us from attaching to the mere name a reverence which belongs only to the reality.... The name of God is not there, but the work of God is.... When Esther nerved herself to enter, at the risk ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... permitted him to hold a limited number of shares and to act nominally as secretary in order to comply with the regulations of the Security and Exchange Commission, but now it was expedient to add to our officers directors of other companies whose fields were complementary to ours. Besides, in General Thario I had a much abler assistant and so, perhaps reluctantly because of my oversensitivity, I displaced Fles and making the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the whole ship, the lives of the whole crew, depend on instant obedience, mutiny may be punished by death on the spot. Many a commander has ere now, and rightly too, struck down the rebel without trial or argument, and ended him and his mutiny on the spot; by the sound rule that it is expedient that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... place the King sent out the Marquis de Denonville in 1685 with power to make war on the tribesmen or to respect the peace as he might find expedient upon his arrival. The new governor was an honest, well-intentioned soul, neither mentally incapable nor lacking in personal courage. He might have served his King most acceptably in many posts of routine officialdom, but he was not the man to handle the destinies of half a continent in critical ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... assisted some of them with stern good advice or more substantial services. He was acquainted with these men and women; had, perhaps, a larger charity for them than most people find it expedient to cherish. His glance had always seemed to read them through and through, with uncompromising realization of their infirmities, weaknesses of the flesh and inherited moral imperfections. His very fearlessness had ever commended him to that lower world; it did now, enabling him the better ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... literary attainments,[55] stigmatized the people of Puerto Rico as a people without faith, without thought, and without religion, and, though he afterward did something for the intellectual development of the inhabitants, in the beginning of his administration (1848-1851) thought it expedient not to discourage cock-fighting, ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... the alternatives of incontinent flight or attempting to remain undetected through the adoption of an expedient of the most desperate audacity. He had prepared against such contingency, he did not mean to go; but the feasibility of his contemplated manoeuvre depended entirely upon chance, its success in any event ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... organizing churches among Jews and Gentiles he committed to his apostles. Before his crucifixion he taught them that the Holy Ghost could not come (that is, in his special and full influences as the administrator of the new covenant) till after his departure to the Father: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart I will send him unto you." John 16:7. "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... minutest details of his uncle's experiences; but after he had done her bidding and finally yielded to the wish to speak of his own fate, she interrupted him to consult the nurse concerning the means of saving him from unbidden looks and fresh dangers—and the right expedient ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... passed one of 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 is nothing but ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... the young couple saw no step more prudent than to resort to Hanover, and endeavour to ingratiate themselves with the future sovereigns of England. Still so narrow was their fortune, that Mr. Howard finding it expedient to give a dinner to the Hanoverian ministers, Mrs. Howard is said to have sacrificed her beautiful head of hair to pay for the expense. It must be recollected, that at that period were in fashion those enormous full-bottomed ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... stopped? With what face could I do that with her standing by in all the authority of motherhood—frenzied motherhood—seeking the possible body of her child! My affair certainly looked dubious. Yet I started for the bungalow like the rest, and on a run, too. Perhaps Providence would favor me and some expedient suggest itself by which I might still save the clue upon which so ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... the base of the cliffs, until they entered the bed of the stream. It was September, and the water was so low, as to enable the party to move along the margin of the rivulet dry-shod, occasionally stepping from stone to stone. The latter expedient, indeed, was adopted wherever circumstances allowed, with a view to leave as few traces of a trail as was practicable. Otherwise the cover was complete; the winding of the rivulet preventing any distant view ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... proclamation, he started for Cumana. Learning that Marino had been defeated, he sent him to Barcelona, and returned to Angostura to organize new armies. Spain, he knew, was trying to obtain the help of the other nations of Europe to regain possession of her American colonies. He felt it expedient, therefore, once more to manifest to the world the attitude of Venezuela regarding her new relations with the mother country. He published a decree on November 20, 1818, reaffirming the principles of independence proclaimed on July 5, 1811. This decree was published ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... that. Expediently keeping a drunken man quiet; expediently kissing him and fondling him for fear he would get drunk again to-morrow in spite or pique: content with a man who would scrub floors for a "livener"! It was better, far, to be homeless wanderers in the Bush where there was no need to be expedient for the sake of others, where they would have to stand up on their own intrinsic strength or fall; where they need not be respectable and where she could, if he were weak, alternately shake him up and soothe him without spectators. She would never, never, never allow herself to get into this ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... 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 ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... exporting on their own account. He saw the smaller dealers in turn stem-winding their prices by those of the exporters, controlling the prices paid for street and track wheat throughout the country; thereby, he reasoned, it became possible to set special prices at any given point by the simple expedient of wiring the necessary instructions to the operator at that point to pinch independent competition. He saw elevator companies cutting their charges at certain points to kill off competition from "farmers' elevators" which sold to independent ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... from a gentleman of leisure and a browsing philosopher into a man with a purpose in life. He set about making himself independent of the family wealth. To this end he offered himself as a privat-docent in law at the Leipzig university. When this expedient failed him through lack of students, he began to practice and soon received an appointment which took him to Dresden. This in 1783. Dresden now became his official residence, but he made frequent visits to his betrothed in Leipzig, and during one of these his memorable letter ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... the imperium of the Roman consul was unlimited; and even within the city walls, the senate's commission in times of imminent danger, released him from all restraints of law; the whole power of the state was, for the moment, his, and his only. Such temporary despotisms are sometimes not expedient merely, but necessary: without them society would perish. I do not, therefore, regard Ignatius's epistles as really contradictory to the idea of the church conveyed to us in the twelfth chapter of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians: I believe that the dictatorship, so to speak, which Ignatius ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... the Federal party the presidential election came on. Adams was still too popular with the mass of the party to think of dropping him altogether, and the malcontents reduced to the old expedient of attempting, by secret understanding and arrangements, to reduce his vote in the electoral college below that of C. C. Pickney, the other candidate ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... not think it would be a more expedient system if hosiery goods were paid in cash, according to prices regulated by the demand, and that the merchants should make a fair profit upon the hosiery itself?-That is my opinion. I believe that everything ought to be paid for ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... very sorry to hear it, and remarked that it gave her great satisfaction to have appointed him as architect of the first wing before he learnt the bad news. 'I owe you best thanks, Captain De Stancy, for showing me such an expedient.' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... their Parents, but to their great grief, and to the great appearance of the ruine and overthrow of their estate: Which may be the case of Noblemen and Gentlemens children, as welas of these of other estates and degrees within the Kingdom. Wherefore if the Assembly think it expedient, it would be declared that all such promises be made null and of none effect, especially where the maker of the promise is Minor, and not willing to observe the samine; because his Parents will not consent, but oppose and contradict, threatning to make him lose not onely his favour but both blessing ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... stand just before the coach. The driver perceived in an instant that there was not time to stop his horses, and that the only chance was to turn out of the road and drive by. The ground at the road-side was so much inclined, that he was almost afraid to venture this expedient, but he had no time for thought. He wheeled his horses out,—just escaped the hind wheel of the wagon—ran along by the road-side a short distance, with the wheels on one side, down very near the gutter,—and then, just as he was coming back safely into the road again, the forward wheel nearest ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... the controversy upon a footing by which antiquarian research is put out of court. Episcopacy is either of human or divine origin. If of human origin, it may be either retained or abolished, as may be found expedient. If of divine appointment, it must be proved to be so out of Scripture. If this cannot be proved out of inspired Scripture, no accumulation of merely human assertion of the point can be of the least authority. Having ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... Furthermore, every expedient and device of secrecy is brought into use to keep the public unaware of the arguments of the high protectionists, and ignorant of the facts which refute them; and uninformed of the intentions of the framers of the proposed legislation. It is notorious, even, that many members ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... blinds their judgment, that it inflames their passions, that it makes them prone to believe those who flatter them, and to distrust those who would serve them. For the sake, therefore, of the whole society, for the sake of the labouring classes themselves, I hold it to be clearly expedient that, in a country like this, the right of suffrage should depend on ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to so pain the hearts of those who love me. I am ready to submit at once to whatever you deem necessary or expedient. But ah, my dear father! How distressed he will be when he learns all that you have just told me! I wish he might be spared the knowledge till all is over. But it would not do. He must be told at once, and—I ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... promptly put myself at her disposal, it would have cast suspicion on the validity of reasonings and conclusions which rested on no independent inquiry, and appealed to no past experience. In that case it might have been plausibly objected by opponents that I was the serviceable expedient of an emergency, and never, after all, could be more than ingenious and adroit in the management of an argument which was not my own, and which I was sure to forget again as readily as I had mastered it. But this is not so. The views to which I have referred have grown into my whole system ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... black cylinder oil and applied every quarter of an hour, or as often as expedient. The following is also recommended as a good cooling compound for heavy bearings:—Tallow 2 lb., plumbage 6 oz., sugar of lead 4 oz. Melt the tallow with gentle heat and add the ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... 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 time, till my affairs took a turn for the better, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... mass of the really industrious poor who do well here, but who would have starved to death at home. With one person in eight in Great Britain dying as a pauper and buried at the public expense, it is hardly expedient for its people to wish to see us ruined. Were we to exclude her vagabonds and paupers by an alien act from entering this country, and at the same time close our markets to her goods, of what avail would all the cotton in the world be to her? The American ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the undignified expedient of thrusting his fingers in his ears. Donal sat quiet until he removed them. But the moment he began to speak he thrust them in again. Donal rose, and seizing one of his hands ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... mule. She'll get the better of him if you really mean it." He assured her that he really did mean it, and determined that he would take her advice as to seeing, or endeavouring to see, Mr. Wharton once again. But before doing so he thought it to be expedient to put his house into order, so that he might be able to make a statement of his affairs if asked to do so. Whether they were flourishing or the reverse, it might be necessary that he should have to speak of them,—with, at any ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... be desired. Besides the actual objections to their use, more or less inconvenience attends the employment of the sheet and lamp (or cabinet and lamp) baths, and there is little of the luxury of a true sudatorium about the extemporised bath, admirable as it may be as a hydropathic expedient. ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... either justified by reason, or warranted by a durable regard to self-interest? Considered in reference only to immediate advantage, and with a view to avert the much-dreaded evil of an assessment, is it expedient to allow crime to go on increasing at the fearful rate which it has done in this country during the last forty years? Can we regard without disquietude the appalling facts demonstrated by the Parliamentary returns of population and commitments—that the people ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... ferret. I tried an experiment in a bury once with a mixture the chief component of which was gunpowder, so managed as to burn slowly and give a great smoke. The rabbits did, indeed, just hop out and hop in again; but it is a most clumsy expedient, because the fire must be lit on the windward side, and the rabbits will only come out to leeward. The smoke hangs, and does not penetrate into half the tunnels; or else it blows through quickly, when you must stop half the ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... their many bloody acts were in the end overtaken and punished. Indeed, as far as concerns their guiltiest instigator and kinsman, the adulterous Antichrist of St Andrews, never was a just vengeance and judgment more visibly manifested, as I shall now, with all expedient brevity, rehearse, it being the last exploit in which my grandfather ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... on the matter,—unless in what she might say to her husband in the secret recesses of marital discussion; but before she departed she found it expedient to express herself on one occasion to Lord Hampstead. "Hampstead," she said, "this is a terrible blow that has ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... name of a feature further south—thus leading me to expect the find elsewhere. Moreover, he has copied the scrawls with a carelessness so prodigious, that we failed at first to recognize the original. He has hit upon the notable expedient of massing together in a single dwarf wood-cut (Vol. II. p. 189) what covers many square feet of stone; and I was fool enough ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... Wales in the west, Scotland in the north, and the English Channel in the southeast. To the earls of these counties of Chester, Durham, and Kent, which were especially liable to attack from Wales, Scotland, or France, William thought it expedient to give almost royal power, which descended in their families, thus making the title hereditary. ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... you know well. Act therefore with your usual wisdom, that the most excellent exarch may be induced to come in to this proposal without delay, and may not prove himself to be the one obstacle to a peace so expedient for the state. If he will not consent, Agilulf again promises to make a separate peace with us; but we know that in that case several islands and other places will necessarily be lost. Let the exarch then consider these points, and hasten to make peace, that we may at least ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... perfect in all the cant of those people, he began to tell the occasion of his coming, in hopes she would invite him to come in, but all in vain; he was admitted no further that the porch, with the house door a-jar: At last, my lord finding no other way, fell upon this expedient. He pretended to be taken suddenly ill, and tumbled down upon the threshold. This noise brings the young wife to them, who with much trouble persuades her keeper to help her into the house, in regard to the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... increasing—rolling upon itself, as a snowball on the snow. Still more is this the case with states more deeply internal, such as sensations, feelings, desires, etc., which do not correspond, like a simple visual perception, to an unvarying external object. But it is expedient to disregard this uninterrupted change, and to notice it only when it becomes sufficient to impress a new attitude on the body, a new direction on the attention. Then, and then only, we find that our state has changed. The truth is that we change ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... I tried to invent some expedient that would lead to the truth. I recalled one of Diderot's romances in which a woman, jealous of her lover, resorted to a novel plan, for the purpose of clearing away her doubts. She told him that she no ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... I thought it possible that on leaving the ship I might be in the condition of the woman, whose husband, a fearful snorer, was suddenly called from home. The lady passed several sleepless nights, until she hit upon the expedient of calling a servant with the coffee mill. The vigorous grinding of that household utensil had the effect of ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... selection, when you come to appraise it sanely, is the sole intelligent method of dealing with reading-matter. It seems here expedient again to state the peculiar problem that we average-novel-readers have of necessity set the modern novelist—namely, that his books must in the main appeal to people who read for pastime, to people who read books only under protest and only when they ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... of balance and judgment. Agrippina was not evil; she was ambitious, violent, intriguing, imprudent, and thoughtless, and therefore could easily adapt her own feelings and interests to what seemed expedient. She had much influence over her husband, whom she accompanied upon all his journeys; and out of the great love she bore him, in which her own ambition had its part, she urged him on to support that hidden movement which was striving to oppose ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... Margaret was anxiously pleading. The meek, kind-hearted Mr. Hale would have readily tried to console him in his grief, but, unluckily, the point Margaret dwelt upon most forcibly was the fact of his having been drinking, and her having brought him home with her as a last expedient to keep him from the gin-shop. One little event had come out of another so naturally that Margaret was hardly conscious of what she had done, till she saw the slight look of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Two days later he was complaining to Louis that Henry refused to join in the truce.[116] To punish Henry for his refusal he was willing to aid Louis against him, but he would prefer to settle the differences between the French and the English kings by a still more treacherous expedient. Julius was to be induced to give a written promise that, if the points at issue were submitted to his arbitration, he would pronounce no verdict till it had been secretly sanctioned by Ferdinand and Louis. This promise ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... went through this campaign under the command of Major Hugh Waddell, the "Washington of North Carolina." Long of limb and broad of chest, powerful, lithe, and active, Waddell was an ideal leader for this arduous service, being fertile in expedient and skilful in the employment of Indian tactics. With true provincial pride Governor Dobbs records that Waddell "had great honor done him, being employed in all reconnoitring parties, and dressed and acted as an Indian; and his sergeant, ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... naturally be thought of as a refuge to an Englishman in trouble with the Cherokees; therefore Varney, lest he be overtaken on the way, avoided with a great struggle the temptation, mustered all his courage, and adopting an unprecedented expedient, turned off to the country of the Muscogees. These Indians, always more or less inimical to the colonists, bloodthirsty, cruel, crafty, and but recently involved in a furious war against the Cherokees, were glad to thwart ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... simple expedient that they ought to have thought of before, and Smith proved to be correct, for as they wound on slowly upwards the heat grew greater, but they began to be aware of soft puffs of wind, and at the end of another half-hour, they had climbed to where a steady soft ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... in the most extensive reputation for wit and parts, was condemned to suffer all the rigours of want: for his father did not think proper to support him. In this severe extremity, he fell upon an expedient, which, no doubt, was dictated by his distress, of applying to his Bookseller, who had got considerably by his Plain Dealer, in order to borrow 20 l. but he applied in vain; the Bookseller refused to lend him a shilling; and in that ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... among the rest, as well as of Serbia and of Poland. Justice and equality of rights can be had only at a great price. We are seeking permanent, not temporary, foundations for the peace of the world, and must seek them candidly and fearlessly. As always, the right will prove to be the expedient. ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... That he never read the Bible; never went to church; that he jested and made free with any and every thing that came in the way of his wit; that he spent his Sunday evenings at the opera or theatre; that he went to wine parties, and clubs, and suppers, oftener than was at all expedient,—were all things that Tom could see as plainly as anybody, and on which he based a conviction that "Mas'r wasn't a Christian;"—a conviction, however, which he would have been very slow to express to any one else, but on which he founded many prayers, in his own simple ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... better any of the rest, we were obliged in the afternoon to wear ship, in order to join the squadron to the leeward, which otherwise we should have been in danger of losing in the night; and as we dared not venture any sail abroad, we were obliged to make use of an expedient which answered our purpose; this was putting the helm a-weather and manning the fore-shrouds. But though this method proved successful for the end intended, yet in the execution of it one of our ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... the insertion of his letters in the village newspaper. Unfortunately the ill-feeling aroused did not stop here. It gave rise to what may be described as a semi-political controversy—that is, a controversy in which one party attacks a man, and the party to which he belongs does not think it expedient or worth while to defend him. The libel suits to which it directly or indirectly led with the Whig newspapers of the state will demand a separate chapter. Before they were well under way, however, the novelist made up ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... leaving on one side many things from Pliny and other authors whereof I could have availed myself, had I not wished—contrary, perhaps, to the judgment of many—to leave each man free to see the fantasies of others in their proper sources; it appears to me expedient to do at present that which, in avoidance of tedium and prolixity (mortal enemies of attention), it was not permitted me to do then—namely, to declare more diligently my mind and intention, and to demonstrate to ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... and as many families who are in trade on the Royal Exchange, they are in general a very indigent class of people. Their community being too poor to afford them adequate relief, they have resorted to the expedient of lending them small sums of money at interest, to trade upon, which is required to be repaid monthly or weekly, as the case may be, otherwise they forfeit ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... stories, and croon over old rhymes till both the little ones were asleep, and then would hold counsel on their affairs, settle how to husband their small stock of money, consider how soon it would be expedient to finish their store of salted mutton and pork to keep them from being spoilt by damp, and wonder when their ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upon from without, and wounded by blows dealt in the dark from within; with dreadful failure threatening, and with brilliant success, and the averting of wide-spread calamity as the reward of only a little delay, we used the only expedient at hand, and fought the battle through. We were caught in the mighty swirl of a modern business maelstrom, and, with unreasoning reflexes, clutched at man or log indifferently, as we felt the waters ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... activity must have been modified by bitter practical experience into a more expedient secondary activity. The establishment of the identity perception on the short regressive road within the apparatus does not in another respect carry with it the result which inevitably follows the revival ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... redress? By the law of nations and the doctrines of all writers on such law, you are not justified until you have tried every possible method of obtaining redress in a peaceable manner. It is only in the last extremity, when you have no other expedient left, that a recourse to arms is lawful and just, and I hope the United States will never forfeit their character for justice by any hasty or rash steps which they may, too late, have ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... table, alleging, to my confusion, that I was again mesmerizing her. So susceptible did she become to my supposed mesmeric influence, which I vainly assured her, as was the case, that I was very far from exercising or attempting to exercise, that it was found expedient to take her up to London. I was out riding in the afternoon that she left, and as we passed the railway station, my host, who was riding with me, suggested that, as his friends were just leaving by that train, he would like to alight and take leave of them. I dismounted with him and ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... and him alike runs the common life-blood. On your own individual responsibility you would never kill him; but for the common weal, on great occasions, and in a fashion conducted with scrupulous care, it is expedient that he die for his people, and that they feast upon his ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... ordered a blue coat and buttons, and a cashmere waistcoat (amber-coloured, with a braid of peonies), yet at the last moment my courage failed me, and I was caught with a shivering in the knees, which the doctor said was ague. This and that shyness of dining at his house (which I thought it expedient to adopt during the years of his married life) created some little reserve between us, though hardly so bad as our first disagreement concerning the ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... warehouse was built in 1701 at a place then called the cove; which gave the first idea of removing the settlement to the point of land which forms the bay of Bencoolen. The unhealthiness of the old situation was thought to render this an expedient step; and accordingly about 1714 it was in great measure relinquished, and the foundations of Fort Marlborough were laid on a spot two or three miles distant. Being a high plain it was judged to possess considerable advantages; ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... was better than me—better in every way: not only purer, and simpler, and more gentle, but more patient, more enduring, more tenacious of what was true, and more decidedly the enemy of what was merely expedient. Then, was she not proud? not with the pride of birth or station, or of an old name and a time-honoured house, but proud that whatever she did or said amongst the tenantry or the neighbours, none ever ventured to question or even qualify ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... paradoxes I leave to be solved by the able heads of legislators and politicians. For my part, I say what a plain man would say on such an occasion. I can never believe that any institution, agreeable to nature, and proper for mankind, could find it necessary, or even expedient, in any case whatsoever, to do what the best and worthiest instincts of mankind warn us to avoid. But no wonder, that what is set up in opposition to the state of nature should preserve itself by trampling upon ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... This was not difficult to effect with poor men who were half starved, and who had to look out for work somewhere else for the support of their families. Those men who had the means left had quitted this cursed ground already, and Mr. P. Lofin struck on an expedient by which others, the more bold, were soon compelled to follow them. He proceeded some eighty or a hundred miles into the State of Massachusetts, where he represented to several hundred men from the part of Ireland to which himself belonged, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... Marquis d'Ossoli, who made her acquaintance during her first winter in that city. They resided in the Roman States until the last summer, after the surrender of Rome to the French army, when they deemed it expedient to go to Florence, both having taken an active part in the Republican movement. They left Florence in June, and at Leghorn embarked in the ship Elizabeth for New York. The passage commenced auspiciously, but at Gibraltar the master of the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... Alexander by cutting off the harbor. Babylon could not have been taken by Cyrus by assault, since the walls were three hundred and thirty-seven feet high, according to Herodotus, and the ditch too wide for the use of battering-rams. He resorted to an expedient of which the blinded inhabitants of that doomed city never dreamed, which rendered their impregnable fortifications useless. Nor would the Romans have probably prevailed against Jerusalem had not famine decimated ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... only find out from such as know nothing of tabulated rules!" (The apprentices, who here represent the people, and have no great love for the Tabulatur, give evidence of joy.) "Wherefore it would seem to me expedient that yearly, at Saint John's feast, instead of permitting the people to come to you, you should descend out of your lofty mastership-cloud, and yourselves go to the people. You wish to please the people. It would strike me as to the point to let the ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall |
