"Alternative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A third alternative is a plea of abatement, which is a plea praying that the indictment may be quashed, for some defect which the plea points out. This plea, though it was recently, made use of by the defendants in the case now pending in Ireland, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... in the month of May of my chosen year, 1900, I learned that no agency would organize a tourist party to move at a time in the summer or autumn that would suit me! There was but one alternative—to travel independent of any organization. This I would do. The decision to do so brought instant and ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... Sentences for special Days and Seasons, against which no serious complaint has been entered,[65] we come to the proposed short alternative for the Declaration of Absolution. As it stood in the Sarum Use this Absolution ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... else, but he was forced at last to turn at bay, and a fresh disaster on the 26th, reducing his command to two hundred and fifty men, and a fresh swarm of enemies gathering around this remnant, left him no alternative (in justice to his men) but surrender. I may be permitted to mention (with natural pride), that the last charge made upon this expedition, was made by Company C, of my old regiment, the Second Kentucky, the "Regulars." This company had maintained its organization and discipline without any ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... be not a savour of life unto life it must be a savour of death unto death. This is the single alternative. Jesus Christ in life and death is working in you, in us all, toward one of these ends— either by love and tears and the overflowing fountain of His passion to gather us into the union of eternal life with Him and with the Father; ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... faith of their fathers was at stake. If their creed were no longer tolerated, then, and if they remained true to it, they must either fly from the country or spend a living death tugging at an oar or working in a chain-gang upon the roads. It was a dreadful alternative to present to a people who were so numerous that they made a small nation in themselves. And most dreadful of all, that she who was of their own blood should cast her voice against them. And yet her promise ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to exact. A part of this agreement, as we all remember, is that the one found derelict shall be the first to insist on the visitation of the penalty, and that should he fail to do so—but I trust that it is unnecessary to mention the alternative." ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... young ice, until a boat had communicated with Commander De Haven, from whom we learned that one of his vessels was aground in the inlet, and that it was no place for us to go into, unless we wanted to remain there. The passage to the westward, round Cape Hotham, was likewise blocked up, and no alternative remained but to make fast to the floe to the north of us. This was done, and just in time; for a smart breeze from the S.E. brought up a great deal of ice, and progress in ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... hesitated, remembering the tip which I had given him, but he had no alternative. The guard produced his key and opened the door. It was not until that moment that the girl recognized me. She stepped back, and the look which she threw in my direction ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in defence or extenuation of the insolence, injustice, and cruelty with which, after the victory of the republicans, he and his family were treated. But this we say, that the French had only one alternative, to deprive him of the powers of first magistrate, or to ground their arms and submit patiently to foreign dictation. The events of the tenth of August sprang inevitably from the league of Pilnitz. The King's palace was stormed; his guards were slaughtered. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Sore as hell. I ain't no Bible-thumpin', mush-hearted, push-me-amongst-the-angels feller anyways. An' you boys has got to git right on to that, quick." He glared round at his friends defiantly, as though daring them to do otherwise. But as nobody gave a sign of doubt on the subject, he had no alternative but to continue. "I'm jest sore on James an'—" He hesitated for the fraction of a second, but went on almost immediately. "—ther' may come a time when the play gits busy. Get me? Wal," as Sandy and Sunny nodded assent, and Toby sat all eyes for the speaker, "this yere Trust is ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... explained the doctrine of cy pres, he had never read the building code or the health ordinances or the traffic regulations, and in the present instance the latter were to the point while the former were not. Thus he was confronted with the disagreeable alternative of admitting his ignorance or bluffing it through. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... the Faculty of Advocates, and Hume believed that if the Town Council, as administrators of the College, could be got to press for the delivery of the statutory lectures, the present professor would prefer the alternative of resignation. In that event the vacant office might easily, in Hume's opinion, be obtained by Smith, inasmuch as the patronage was in the hands of the Crown, and Crown patronage in Scotland at the time was virtually exercised through Lord Justice-Clerk Milton (a nephew of Andrew Fletcher ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... but one other acquaintance in Paris on whom I could venture to call for a loan of a few francs; and he lived far away, across the Seine, in the Rue Racine. There seemed to be no alternative; so away we posted, carrying my ever-increasing debt, dragging at each remove a lengthening chain. We reached the Rue Racine; I found my friend; I wrung his hand. 'For Heaven's sake,' said I, 'help me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... Mansoul was defended by the original condition of its constitution. There was no way into it but through the gates. Diabolus, feeling that Emmanuel still had difficulties before him, withdrew from the wall, and sent a messenger, Mr. Loth to Stoop, to offer alternative terms, to one or other of which he thought Emmanuel might consent. Emmanuel might be titular sovereign of all Mansoul, if Diabolus might keep the administration of part of it. If this could not be, Diabolus requested to be allowed to reside in Mansoul as a private ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... have conceived the idea of design, that is of an intelligence making order and revolution of chaos; and we have conceived the idea of evolution by physical laws of matter, which, though now so much insisted on, is as ancient as the Greek philosophers. But there may be another alternative; I think there ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... to argue that we should all be robbed and murdered in our beds if such senseless villainies as sentences of imprisonment were not committed daily. It is useless to argue that even if this were true, which it is not, the alternative to adding crimes of our own to the crimes from which we suffer is not helpless submission. Chickenpox is an evil; but if I were to declare that we must either submit to it or else repress it sternly by seizing everyone who suffers from it and punishing them by inoculation with smallpox, ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... supernatural, for all the things you are trying to do, and which, I hope, you will succeed in doing. I'm not OBJECTING to imagination; on the contrary, I'd advise you to cultivate it, to accent it. Write a really good ghost story and we'd take it at once. Or"—he suggested it as an alternative to imagination—"or you might get inside life. ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... had been and such results had followed. The man was a gawk and the woman a ninny; a few questions and their guiltiness would appear—that is, if they should be found near enough the tapestry to warrant his suspicion. If not—the alternative held an interest all its own, and sent him in ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... gives the following alternative openings: "Early in the present century"; "Soon after the Revolution"; "Many ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... McDuffie's sanguinary message! Read Calhoun's Report to the U.S. Senate, authorizing every postmaster in the South to plunder the mail of such Northern letters or newspapers as he may choose to think incendiary! Sir, the alternative presented to the people of New England is this: they must either submit to be gagged and fettered by Southern taskmasters, or labor unceasingly for the removal of slavery from ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... his own position in following the course that he had chosen was doubtful. He might turn her over to the nearest military post and then his troubles concerning her would be at an end; but he could not choose that alternative save as a last resort. She had made an appeal to him and she was a woman, a woman of no ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... left to his care for that night, and stepping out into the court so as to be unheard by the patient, explained that the brain had had a shock, and that perfect quiet for some hours to come was the only way to avert a serious illness, possibly dangerous. Master Headley did not like the alternative at all, and was a good deal perplexed. He beckoned to Tibble Steelman, who had all this time been talking to Lucas Hansen, and now came up prepared with his testimony that this Michael was a good man and true, a godly one to boot, who had been ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rolled by since the Wardha idyl; the earth, oceans, and skies have darkened with a world at war. Alone among great leaders, Gandhi has offered a practical nonviolent alternative to armed might. To redress grievances and remove injustices, the Mahatma has employed nonviolent means which again and again have proved their effectiveness. He states his doctrine ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... this eventual dominance so foreign to the natural mind, or such a miraculous conversion, as it might seem. Here, too, there is no derivation of object from object, but an alternative for the mind. As M. Benda points out, natural interests and sympathies may expand indefinitely, so as to embrace a family, a nation, or the whole animate universe; we might even be chiefly occupied with liberal ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... given, with that gentlest compassion which would permit no need of itself. Lucina, however her heart might have been swerved for a season to its natural inclination of love, had never yet admitted a lover, for, when it came to that last alternative of open or closed doors, she had immediately been seized with an impulse of flight into her fastness of childhood ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... more; they are mistakes in the serene order of that majestic life which Heaven meant for thoughtful man. Our souls should be as stars on earth, not as meteors and tortured comets. What could I offer to Ellinor, to her father? What but a future of patient labor? And in either answer what alternative of misery,—my own existence shattered, or ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no other alternative. It's one of the laws of Nature. I well remember dreaming that I was a disused columbarium which had been converted into a brewery and was used as a greenhouse. I was full of vats and memorial tablets and creeping geraniums. Just ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... analyzing the forces which operate in human societies. I blame the prophets and priests and healers for their fall from idealism; but I blame still more the competitive wage-system, which presents them with the alternative ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... after he landed at New-Orleans, and was received "with dumb respect." He declined exhibiting his powers, and of course delayed to receive the possession of the country. In 1768 the council insisted that Don Ulloa should produce his powers or depart from the province; he chose the latter alternative, and sailed for Havana, and from thence to Spain. In the following year a governor of a different temperament was sent from Spain, attended by a strong military force, with a large supply of arms and ammunition. ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... lets the pregnancy go to term she has the alternative of bringing up the child herself openly or of placing it secretly in a foundling asylum. In the first case, the necessity of publicly acknowledging illegitimate motherhood requires so much moral courage that not one woman in a ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... of human history, met in Henry's reign. The king and the pope were the exponents of conflicting ideals. The fall of the monasteries was an incident in the struggle. "The Catholics," says Froude, "had chosen the alternative, either to crush the free thought which was bursting from the soil, or to be crushed by it; and the future of the world could not be sacrificed to preserve the exotic ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... to anything that might call in question his claim to the crown of Scotland, and in like manner refused to hold any lands of Baliol. As, however, according to the feudal law, he must either divest himself of his estate, or do homage for it, he adopted the former alternative, and resigned the lands of Annandale in favor of his son, Robert. The young baron, less scrupulous than his relatives, did not hesitate to accept his father's gift, which, upon feudal principles, carried with it the title of Earl of Carrick, and did ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... discuss the evolution of the 100 species, all extinct but two, of Nautilus. The alternative theory of new construction, a hundred times over, is opposed alike to tradition and to sane science. On the other hand, evolution, tested by paleontology, proves a sound hypothesis. The great difficulty of science ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... a warm-hearted glance at her husband, valuing his kindly qualities the more because they two had just come from a tea-party, at a villa where the alternative to bridge had been telling the whole truth about people behind their backs, and digging up Pasts by the roots, as children unearth plants to see if they have grown. Luckily St. George had remained in blissful ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "There is now no alternative—our discussion must come to an end. The last voyage has been highly interesting, although, perhaps, not in the most delightful portion of the globe; but I cannot help expressing a sincere wish, that your real voyage to the West Indies may afford ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... oppressive. Was it so warm? I put my hand to my brow. It was hot. Perhaps I was not well. The trip I had just ended was after all wearisome. I had not slept well some nights. I sensed that I was fatigued. What would a ride of more than 200 miles on a pony do to me? But on the other hand I had the alternative of 90 miles by stage. For the first time I began to feel apprehension about the ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... he had no alternative but Paris, although it was several weeks ahead of his schedule. As a matter of fact, it was several weeks too early. The city was not quite ready for him. The trees in the Champs Elysees were in much ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... every constitution a certain solstice, when the stars stand still in our inward firmament, and when there is required some foreign force, some diversion or alternative, to prevent stagnation. And, as a medical remedy, travel seems one of the best. Just as a man witnessing the admirable effect of ether to lull pain, and, meditating on the contingencies of wounds, cancers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... "You leave me little alternative—alas!" sighed she. "Had you been more adroit you had been wed by now, Marius, and the future would give us no concern. As it is, Florimond comes home, and we—" She spread her hands and thrust out her nether ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Anglicanism and its institutions had broken down under him, and others not as yet come in their place, he sought in the purely temporal works of his calling perhaps a refuge from doubts, certainly a means of sanctification; and either alternative explains the issue. A religious mind could never succeed in silencing religious difficulty by earthly pursuits, but in whatever measure it sought to sanctify the latter, would be led onwards to the faith. The following passage from a letter of the ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... minds have produced a radical change in my views. I stand in the eye of the world as one of a sect, but my spirit does not recognize the union. I am, from my position, subject to painful restraints. I cannot be just to the truth which is in me. The alternative, I need not say, with me is to hold fast to the popular faith or give up ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... CIVILIAN.—Marvelous as the career of Caesar as a general was, his merit as a civilian outstrips even his distinction as a soldier. He saw that the world could no longer be governed by the Roman rabble, and that monarchy was the only alternative. He ruled under the forms of the old constitution, taking the post of dictator and censor for life, and absorbing in himself the other principal republican offices. The whole tendency of his measures, which were mostly of a very wholesome character, was not only to remedy ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... Archaeological Journal, states that this pendant was used for a lamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time, that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. An alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained a relic where it would have been safe ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... the alternative," replied Helen with a little laugh. "I've had my full of drifting like a fly caught ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... innuendoes of an heir, and as Josephine knew that she could not bear him one, she was thrown into fits of despondency lest he should be driven by designing persons in and outside his family to listen to a scheme of divorce and remarriage. The alternative was to nominate one of his brothers as his heir. Joseph and Lucien were impossible, so he fixed his mind on Louis. But the plot to assassinate him on the way to the opera, together with the Duc d'Enghien, Cadoudal, Moreau, and Pichegru affair, brought the change from Life Consul to Emperor more ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... such an examination of each bill as the Constitution requires has been rendered impossible. The most important business of each session is generally crowded into its last hours, and the alternative presented to the President is either to violate the constitutional duty which he owes to the people and approve bills which for want of time it is impossible he should have examined, or by his refusal to do this subject the country and individuals to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... means is that in warfare we ought to very our tactics to the utmost degree.... I do not know what Ts'ao Kung makes these Nine Variations out to be, but it has been suggested that they are connected with the Nine Situations" - of chapt. XI. This is the view adopted by Chang Yu. The only other alternative is to suppose that something has been lost—a supposition to which the unusual shortness of the chapter lends ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... reply, for I did not know what to say—what alternative to choose. It was a horrible prospect either way, and I contemplated it with rage and despair, with such a whirl in my brain that I thought I should go mad. The musketry fire was dwindling a little, but the whooping and yelling of the exultant savages suddenly rose to ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... handbook for instructions as to how they should occupy their time. After all, adventures make entertaining reading, but very few, if any, persons normally constituted would choose a melodramatic career if offered as an alternative along ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... Gessler, "I thought I was doing thee a great favour by offering thee an alternative, whereby thou mightest preserve thy forfeited life by a ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... I am sorry to intrude on you, Mr. Rankin; but in the absence of a hotel there seems to be no alternative. ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... leave home and never return, before she would submit to the government of a stranger. Unwilling to expose the woman who had consented to be his wife to scenes of strife and unhappiness, Mr. Gleason, as the only alternative, resolved to send his daughter to a boarding-school, before his mansion received its new mistress. Mittie exulted in this arrangement, for a boarding-school was the Ultima Thule of her ambition, and she boasted to her classmates ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Miss Yolland, quite gravely, and as if she had already contemplated the alternative; "—that is, not so long as there was a ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... further action. It had, however, lately been proved in a paper read by Dr. Frankland before the Royal Society, corroborated by simultaneous investigations by Dr. Gladstone and Mr. Tribe, that the action of the secondary battery depended essentially upon the alternative composition and decomposition of sulphate of lead, which was therefore not an enemy, but the best friend to its ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... I object to being regarded as woman's last refuge, her one and only alternative to the workhouse. I cannot myself see why the woman who has faced the difficulties of existence, learnt the lesson of life, should not make as good a wife and mother as the ignorant girl taken direct, one might almost say, from the nursery, and, without the slightest ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... or alternative plan was proposed at the same time, by which the summit level was to be a lake formed by the Bohio dam, fed directly by the Chagres. Work was continued on this plan until the rights and property of the new company were purchased ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... don't you realize this is a serious situation? The city's people will starve in time. No one can even bring food in because the trucks make too much noise! As an alternative, we could evacuate, but is your pet more valuable than the life of ...
— Black Eyes and the Daily Grind • Milton Lesser
... Protection by itself has in no country annulled or seriously qualified unemployment. But the need to which it appeals is absolutely real; for the modern State it is a problem of the Sphinx, neither to be shirked nor wrongly answered. And the alternative remedy offered in these pages has already, as their author abundantly shows, succeeded even in the very partial forms in which it has been applied. The labour market can be steadied and equalised over a great ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... room, with its half-a-dozen sporting prints on the wall and a scene or two of old Brighton, he would, with infinite detail, removing all possibility of mistake, describe the itinerary, weighing the merits of alternative paths with profound solemnity, and proving the wisdom of every departure from the more obvious track. Were Sussex obliterated by a tidal wave, and were a new county to be constructed on the old lines, John Horne could have ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... almost invariably confine himself to 'Cherry Ripe'. But indeed, singularities surround the subject, thick like blackberries. Why, for instance, should the pipe be called a penny whistle? I think no one ever bought it for a penny. Why should the alternative name be tin whistle? I am grossly deceived if it be made of tin. Lastly, in what deaf catacomb, in what earless desert, does the beginner pass the excruciating interval of his apprenticeship? We have all heard people learning the piano, the fiddle, and the cornet; but ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... had ever seen them, Billy told the story of Frank's sickness and death,—of the noble conduct of his little sister, who, when there was no other alternative, went cheerfully to the poor-house, winning by her gentle ways the love of those unused to love, and taming the wild mood of a maniac until she was harmless as a child. As he proceeded with his story, George became each moment more and more ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... our general, saying that he had matters of high importance, and of a holy nature to inform them of, and requested permission to supply our fleet with wood and water: But they only repeated their former threats. Seeing no other alternative but retreat or war, Cortes ordered three guns to be placed in each vessel, and divided the musketeers and cross-bows among them. We who had been here before recollected a narrow path which led from the point of Palmares, through some marshes and across several brooks to the town of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... Governor-General of Canada (Lord Dufferin) to the effect that the Government of the Dominion strongly objects to the appointment of any of the foreign Ministers residing at Washington as third Commissioner on the above mentioned Commission, and prefers to resort to the alternative provided by the treaty; namely, to leave the nomination to ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... for ye all; on the other, marriage with a man who, whatever his faults, loves ye hotly, who will give ye a title and wealth, and who will see to it that your parents want for nothing. 'T is an alternative that few women would hesitate over, but I ask no answer now, and would rather that ye give none till ye have taken consideration ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... they would have no chance in a chase across the pampa, with the red Centaurs pursuing. Therefore, not for an instant, or only one, entertains he thought of flight. In a second he sees it would not avail them, and decides on the other alternative—concealment. He has already made a hasty inspection of the ground near by, and sees, commencing at no great distance off, and running along the water's edge, a grove of sumac trees which, with their parasites and other plants twining around their stems and branches, form ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... you have no alternative," Brett-James said gently. "Without us, what will you do? Mr. Prantera, you do not ...
— Gun for Hire • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... was awakened next morning by Palmerston with the information, "Breakfast in the adjoining to-day, sir!"—this and "We are at home for breakfast" being the alternative formulae invented by ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Dartmouth, the people jocularly told us that the only direct way was by boat down the river; but our rules and regulations would not permit of our going that way, so we decided to keep as near to the river as we could on the outward journey and find an alternative route on our return. This was a good idea, but we found it very difficult to carry out in the former case, owing to the streams which the River Dart receives on both sides on its way towards the sea. Relieved of the weight of our luggage, we set off at a good ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... way of avoiding this latter alternative, and that is by countering the plans of the Central Powers with regard to Poland by the proclamation of the Polish programme, which is that of the Allies. This programme is the restitution to Poland of the mouth of the Vistula, of Dantzig and of the Polish portion ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... good man is in such high demand that he may find well-paid employment directly. When a man takes a cadet's billet it is a tolerably sure symptom that he means half-and-half work, in which case he is much worse than useless. There is, however, another alternative which is a very different matter. Let a man pay not only for his board and lodging, but a good premium likewise, for the insight that he obtains into up-country life, then he is at liberty to work or not as he chooses; the station-hands cannot look down upon him, ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... The only alternative being offered to this economic program is a return to the policies that gave us a trillion-dollar debt, runaway inflation, runaway interest rates and unemployment. The doubters would have us turn back the clock with ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... himself admitted that the situation was awkward. If the English General could not accept it there happened to be an alternative. It was that the English General should accompany the policeman through the streets, followed by the usual crowd, to the nearest prison, some three miles off. It being now four o'clock in the afternoon, ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... corruptions, and, in order that he might reform corruptions, he winked at, countenanced, and patronized them, to get a majority of votes; and what was, in fact, a sacrifice to his own interest, ambition, and corruption, he calls a sacrifice to the Company. He puts, then, this alternative: "Either give everything into my hand, suffer me to go on, and have no control, or else I wink at every species of corruption." It is a remarkable and stupendous thing, that, when all the world was alarmed ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... one who had well studied the distance and bearing of the schooner from the shore, and as it was impossible to hope that even the fog would afford them concealment from the approaching enemy, all that was left them, was to make the best defence they could. One other alternative remained, it is true, and this was to cut their cable and allow themselves to drop down silently out of the course by which the boats were advancing, but as this step involved the possibility of running ashore on the American coast, when the same danger of captivity ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... be notorious, she had as yet discovered nothing of it for herself. It seemed to her that she must be either stupid, or that there must be something about her which made Mrs. Vincent more secretive with her than with others; and neither alternative pleased her. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had the slightest idea of helping anybody with any meal, but, confronted unexpectedly with the alternative offered, she made up her mind so quickly that she didn't want to help Cousin Ann, and declared so loudly, "Oh, help YOU with the supper!" that her promptness made her sound quite hearty and willing. "Well, that's ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... it; how noble and beautiful his voice sounded in all its ranges; of what even strength it was, and how infallibly fresh! And let no one believe that Nature gave it to him thus. As a beginner in Berlin he was quite unsatisfactory. He had the alternative given him either to study with great industry or to seek another engagement, for his successor had already been selected. Betz chose to devote himself zealously to study; he began also to play the 'cello; he learned to hear, and finally raised himself to be one of our first singers, ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... momently expected arrival of the enemy he told her to go on board and remain, promising not to interfere with her until she reached Harrison's Landing. And this was all that could be gained by her who was so busily working for the soldier—this the alternative of being left to the tender ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... leave me no alternative," she argued, "but to conclude that Victor Field is a tremendous swell. Didn't you notice, I ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... other alternative I see is the exodus of the wife, with or without her child; or of the husband, with or without his mistress. But this would be rank Ibsenism, and outrage British morality, which would be still more dreadful. Only ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... to keep it. I can die but once — either by your hands, the enemy's, or by the hand of God. My own fate is indifferent to me; not so that of the city intrusted to my care. I know that we shall all starve if not soon relieved; but starvation is preferable to the dishonoured death which is the only alternative. Your menaces move me not. My life is at your disposal. Here is my sword; plunge it into by breast and divide my flesh among you. Take my body to appease your hunger; but expect no surrender so ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... still more savage. I was five hundred miles from the nearest European settlement. All these circumstances crowded at once to my recollection; and I confess that my spirits began to fail me. I considered my fate as certain, and that I had no alternative but to lie down and perish. At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss irresistibly caught my eye. I mention this to show from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for though the whole plant was not larger than ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... "do not take this to heart so much: why should you, indeed, when you know that your fate is in your own hands? You are master of your own destiny, and no man who is so should give way to despondency. The alternative before you is simply this: to cease to visit Nora, or to marry her. To do the first you must sacrifice your love, to do the last you must sacrifice your pride. Now choose between the courses of action! Gratify your love or your pride, as you ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the alternative of being with him on decent and distant terms, or of breaking off with him altogether. The first of these courses might perhaps have been the wisest, but the other was the most congenial to the blunt and plain character of Hartley, vol. 2, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... one thing that I will let myself do. I know that you are strong and brave, and that I can be if I go with you; and I am going with you—there simply is no other alternative—for I love you! Yes, dear, I saw it very plainly as I read your letter to-day. I seem to feel very differently about it all now. I know we cannot sit still and love each other—this costs me no pang. You ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... into the team, and travelled down to Charchester with the others. And at this point a painful alternative faces me. I have to choose between truth and inclination. I should like to say that the Bishop eclipsed himself, and broke all previous records in the Charchester match. By the rules of the dramatic, nothing else is possible. But truth, though it crush me, and truth ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... alternative, although he had a wife and family to support and knew not how, in time of war, he would find the means ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... bewildered and powerless over the intractable and the terrible team. We can only recover our strength by a full confession of our weakness. We can only lay hold on the beliefs that we see to be needful, by asking faith to join hands with reason. If we refuse to do this, there is but one alternative. Without faith we can perhaps explain things if we will; but we must first make them not worth explaining. We can only think them out entirely by regarding them as something not worth thinking ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... topic, Mr. Gladstone asked for a day or two to consider the question. 'I have to consider with God's help by Monday whether to enter the cabinet or to retire altogether: at least such is probably the second alternative.' He wished to consult Hope and Manning, and they, upon discussion, urged that the point was too narrow on which to join issue with the government. This brought him round. 'I well remember,' he says of this early case of compromise, 'that I pleaded against ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... anxious visitor what he would do after three or four years if the rebellion were not subdued, replied: "Oh, there is no alternative but to ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... with a rifle and thirty cartridges—or, if he were unable to obtain a rifle, he must bring with him thirty bullets, thirty caps, and half a pound of powder—in addition he must be provisioned for eight days. That there should have been an alternative to the rifle was due to the fact that the law was made at a time when only a few burghers possessed breech-loading rifles—achterlaaiers, ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... he was isolated by the French authorities and forbidden to visit his army. The French then began the forcible return of the soldiers to Soviet Russia. As an alternative they could go to Brazil. But the first transports for Brazil were stopped by wireless. The Government of Brazil, after all, did not agree to receive the Russians. So these miserables were put on ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... other places, unspeakable though it be but to name it, the same hideous abuse flourishes unchecked. A young penniless girl, if she be pretty, is often hunted from pillar to post by her employers, confronted always by the alternative—Starve or Sin. And when once the poor girl has consented to buy the right to earn her living by the sacrifice of her virtue, then she is treated as a slave and an outcast by the very men who have ruined ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... criminal; but if it be a greater terror to the citizen, it may answer the purpose better. I do not conceive, that out of a hundred human beings who had been thus confined for a year, one would be found at the end of it who would continue to linger on there, certain it was for ever, if the alternative of being hanged were offered to them. I had written a description of these horrible cells, but Captain Hall's picture of a similar building is so accurate, and so clear, that it is needless to ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... had at her disposal. She would gladly have changed with her sisters for their harder places in the fields; but the cold of the spring and autumn mornings chilled her, and the heat of summer exhausted her, and there was no alternative but the work of the house. This would have been wearisome enough under any circumstances to a child not very strong; and it was sometimes rendered more than wearisome by the ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... vice-admiralty court to sit at Halifax without a jury as an alternative to the colonial vice-admiralty courts whose juries were notoriously biased against the customs officers and whose judges often were colonials engaged ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... and were then invited, under pain of death, either to eat pork, to accept a pagan mistress, or to drink wine consecrated to idols. After long consultation, the doctors, in great tribulation, agreed to save their heads by accepting the last alternative, since the first and second were forbidden by Moses, and the last only by the Rabbins. The King assented, the doctors drank the impure wine, and, as it was exceedingly good, drank freely. The wine, as will sometimes happen, ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... course," he replied, "I wouldn't be onderstood that Peets is terrorised outright. Still, old Colonel Coyote shore stampedes him an' forces Peets to fly. It's either vamos or shoot up pore Coyote; an' as Peets couldn't do the latter, his only alternative is to ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... time, uttered to HIM now. He thought again of Marguerite Blakeney, and the terrible alternative he had put before HER ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... appears to me far more suggestive than the alternative plan—Citizenship, Labour, and so forth. These, after ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... in the power of Behram to avoid putting into the harbour, for he had no alternative but to be dashed to pieces against the frightful rocks that lay off the shore. In this extremity he held a council with his pilot and seamen. "My lads," said he, "you see to what a necessity we are reduced. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... been a general lowering of the waters of the ocean, or that the solid rocks, once covered by water, have been raised up bodily out of the sea, and have thus become dry land. The earlier geologists, finding themselves reduced to this alternative, embraced the former opinion, assuming that the ocean was originally universal, and had gradually sunk down to its actual level, so that the present islands and continents were left dry. It seemed to them far easier to conceive that the water had gone down, ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... Buntline Hitch (an alternative method of securing buntlines to a sail) is commenced as in making an outside clinch, but instead of putting on a seizing, take a longer end c, pass it over y, bring up through bight b, and tuck the end again over part y and through the last loop formed, so that the end c lies close to ...
— Knots, Bends, Splices - With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging • J. Netherclift Jutsum
... more baseball to-day, my boy," said the physician; "nor for some days to come. You're out of it, and you may as well accept the alternative with good grace." ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... our purpose. As a result of this treatment, it seems fully apparent that the engine was abaft the paddle wheel shaft, with frame extending abaft the mainmast on the lower deck; there does not appear to be a practical alternative in the light of the available evidence. This matter will ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle
... behalf of Italian opera. But the powers that rule the destinies of the Metropolitan Opera House are too wise to heed the arguments of these prophets. They know that Italian opera can never again be successfully revived in New York, and that the only alternative for the present lies between German opera and no opera at all. Signor Angelo and Mr. Mapleson were as unsuccessful in their last efforts in behalf of Italian opera as Mr. Abbey. And although Mme. Patti fared better at her last appearance, it was only because a large ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... satire on the existing absurdities among the newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... confused two different men. Certainly Cassandra, in telling the story to her niece Caroline, did not give her that, or any other, name; for Caroline speaks of the tale as being—so far as she knew it—'nameless and dateless.' A possible alternative suggestion is that there were two Blackalls concerned: one being the Sam Blackall mentioned above, the other Jane Austen's admirer in the ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... inevitably come to light, would be fearfully punished, if not by a death such as Scott portrays in one of his poetical legends, by a disgrace far worse than physical suffering, from which nothing but the grave could give her relief. The alternative, flight, where no provision had been made, with no possible help from any friend, with the likelihood of treachery where they might least expect it, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... arrived. I had either to sacrifice my conscience or resign my position. I chose the latter alternative, and in doing so I gave up my political life forever. I need not tell the bitterness of my disappointment. But the loss of worldly prospects and of hope was as nothing compared with other things. The worst of all was the reception which I met at home. My young, and as I supposed ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... landlord, was a kind of fraud,—not punishable, indeed, by law, but not the less abominable on that account. Mr Harding remembered his coming poverty, and would willingly have saved his half-crown, but he thought he had no alternative; and he was soon put in possession of some horrid mixture procured ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... they had no alternative but to submit. It was with a very bad grace they did so, for Englishmen have a due ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... prospect of his ever conceding the minimum requirements of the provinces. Now, Spain had reached a different position, and Spinola himself required a far heavier expenditure than she was prepared for as the alternative to a peace on the uti possidetis basis. In the provinces, however, Barneveld and Maurice were in antagonism; but an armistice was established and extended, while solemn negotiations went on at The Hague in the beginning of 1608. The proposals accepted ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... his return from Constantinople. Then we see the gathering together of the band of henchmen, the sudden march away from the peaceful land, growing torpid through two or three years of warlessness, the surprise of the Sclavonic king, the copious effusion of blood which was the preferred alternative to the sweat of the land-tiller, the return to the young chief's own land with spoils sufficient to support perhaps for many months the ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... behind me at this time, I snatched his musket, and, presenting it at the would-be assassin, told him I would fire if he did not put down his sword and surrender. He replied that either he or I must die; so I had no alternative, and shot him through the heart, the ball passing through a religious book which he had tied on his ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley
... the trustees, "to see nothing was wanting, and to take leave" of Oglethorpe; and having called the families separately before them in the great cabin they inquired if they liked their usage and voyage; or if they had rather return, giving them even then the alternative of remaining in England if they preferred it; and having found but one man who declined—on account of his wife, left sick in Southwark—they bid Oglethorpe and the emigrants an affectionate farewell. The ship sailed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... devil were punished with a 'rigour beyond the law,' and had not Sheykh Yussuf come and explained the nature of the proceedings, the man would have been sent up to the mines in Fazogloo for life, out of civility to me, by the Moudir of Keneh, Ali Bey. There was no alternative between my 'forgiving him for the love of God' or sending him to a certain death by a climate insupportable to these people. Mustapha and Co. tried hard to prevent Sheykh Yussuf from speaking to me, for fear I should be angry and complain at Cairo, if my vengeance were not ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... swear," I cried, overpowered by the alternative with which he threatened me. "Give me the bliss of calling her mine, and I will follow your wishes in all ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... out independent refiners either with cash or with Standard Oil stock, at his estimate of the value of their property. Those who objected to selling were shown that the alliance between the South Improvement Company and the railroads was so strong that they faced the alternative of giving way or being crushed. Of the twenty-six refineries in Cleveland, at least twenty-one yielded. The capacity of the Standard leaped from 1,500 to 10,000 barrels a day and it controlled a fifth of the refining business of the country. When these facts came to be known in the oil ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... latter alternative is more likely to happen. We abuse and imitate them. They laugh at, but do ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... solitary confinement for a short while in a Valladolid monastery, and thence to remove them, without trial, to the secret prison of the Inquisition.[52] It is difficult to detect the humanitarian motive of this alternative proposal. ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... control is already there," put in Crane, forestalling Seaton's explanation. "The only question is whether we will live through it—and that is not really a question, since certain death is the only alternative. We ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... the caress of her hands and arms, and in the pressure of her feverish face against his own. But they brought him none of the pleasure of that which she had given to him on the Barren. Grief-stricken, he rose and faced the door. In spite of the fact that he knew there was no alternative for him, he regarded himself as worse than a thief. He was taking an advantage of her which filled him with a repugnance for himself, and he prayed for the hour when sanity would return to her, though it brought back the heartbreak and despair that were now lost in the oblivion of her fever. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... were too young for it, but to me it was a very jolly time, though I suppose I was an ingredient in your troubles. Yes, we brought ourselves up; but I maintain that it was better alternative than being drilled so hard as never to think of anything but arrant idling ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... repudiate the authority of overseers by whom they were betrayed, and to choose amongst themselves such faithful men as were found most competent to teach and to guide the spiritual community. The Divine Statute-book clearly warrants the adoption of such an alternative. "Beloved," says the Apostle John, "believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God. .... We are of God, he that knoweth God heareth us, he that is not of God heareth not ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... was saved the necessity of acting on either alternative by the arguments of the next speaker, who was one ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... strongly tempted, by the persecution they were subjected to at the hands of their Jewish brethren, to renounce the cross of Christ, which it was feared they would too readily do, and so to their own ruin crucify the Son of God afresh, there being only this alternative for them, either crucifixion with Christ or crucifixion of Christ, and death of all their hopes ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power. This latter peculiarity connects mystical states with certain definite phenomena of secondary or alternative personality, such as prophetic speech, automatic writing, or the mediumistic trance. When these latter conditions are well pronounced, however, there may be no recollection whatever of the phenomenon, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... different—different, that is, from every one and everything: it was just a part that while this process went forward our young lady alighted, came back, taking up her destiny again as if she had been able by a wave or two of her wings to place herself briefly in sight of an alternative to it. Whatever it was it had showed in this brief interval as better than the alternative; and it now presented itself altogether in the image and in the place in which she had left it. The image was that of her being, as Lord Mark had declared, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... postulate; and the surprise will rise into astonishment if I distinctly deny it. Yet I must do this. Limiting the proposition to those epiperipheral feelings produced in us by external objects (for these are alone in question), I see no alternative but to affirm that the thing primarily known is not that a sensation has been experienced, but that there exists an ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... neither time nor power to make any resistance; men, {61} women, and children, in all upwards of twenty, ran out of their tents stark naked, and endeavoured to make their escape; but the Indians, having possession of all the land-side, to no place could they fly for shelter. One alternative only remained, that of jumping into the river; but, as none of them attempted it, they all fell a sacrifice to Indian barbarity. The shrieks and groans of the poor ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock |
