"Precedent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and Mrs. Mumbles were determined that the christening should be conducted upon a scale of all conceivable splendour. There was no precedent for it, but then there was less likelihood of any mistake or more room for the fancy. But a gothic christening it was to be—a gothic christening it should be—a gothic christening it ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... my house thither and back again, which is very strange. One of my chief errands was to speak to Sir W. Clerke about my wife's brother, who importunes me, and I doubt he do want mightily, but I can do little for him there as to employment in the army, and out of my purse I dare not for fear of a precedent, and letting him come often to me is troublesome and dangerous too, he living in the dangerous part of the town, but I will do what I can possibly for him and as soon as I can. Mightily troubled all this afternoon with masters coming to me about Bills of Exchange and my signing them ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... "I made some studies when I could get the books, but they didn't take me far. In fact, I imagine that in this neighborhood there's very little law and much precedent, which has generally been interpreted for the landlord's advantage. There are old Barony laws and Manor rights, and my notion is that nobody knows exactly how he stands. But we'll let this go. If Railton pays his fine, you will have some trouble ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free Governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... our readers informed as to the progress of this enterprise, which has no precedent in the annals ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... really behaved very well. The introduction of the cook, to quote an old novelist, 'had formed no part of his profligate scheme of pleasure.' To elope from a hospitable roof, with a married lady, accompanied by her maid, might be an act not without precedent. But that a cook should come to form une partie carree, on such an occasion, that a lover should be squeezed with three women in a ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... so should I dishonour do To that sweet Power by which these Lays Alone are lovely, good, and true; Nor credence to the world's cries give, Which ever preach and still prevent Pure passion's high prerogative To make, not follow, precedent. From love's abysmal ether rare If I to men have here made known New truths, they, like new stars, were there Before, though not yet written down. Moving but as the feelings move, I run, or loiter with delight, Or pause to mark where gentle Love Persuades the soul from height to ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... magnified, distorted, dramatic rumours. That a ballad-writer should promote a Queen's tirewoman into a Queen's Marie, and substitute Darnley (where HE is the lover, which is not always) for the Queen's apothecary, is a license quite in keeping with precedent. Mr. Child, obviously, would admit this. In producing a Marie who never existed, the 'maker' shows the same delicacy as Voltaire, when he brings into 'Candide' a ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... their request, without at the same time giving her subjects an example of unjustifiable partiality. A week had not elapsed, since six men had been executed in the Plaza de Bivarrambla, on account of the same offence for which Don Lope stood condemned. With this melancholy precedent, even the most sanguine in their expectations began to droop, and the death of Gomez Arias was looked upon as ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... after the commencement of the French Revolution, when it would end? His lordship replied, "It is an event without precedent, and therefore without prognostic." The truth, however, is, that it had both. Our own history had furnished a precedent in the times of Charles the First. And the prognostics were so redundant, that a volume might be collected of passages from various writers who had predicted it. However ingenious might be a history of the Reformation before it occurred, the evidence could not be more authentic and positive ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Devonshire House, before the Queen and the Prince Consort. It may not inappropriately be mentioned that when Woolner's bust of Tennyson was presented to Trinity College and the authorities excluded it from the chapel and library on the ground that there was no precedent for paying so much honour to a living person, Punch, by the hand of Shirley Brooks, published one of the finest parodies extant of the Laureate's style, beginning with ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... in general, the appointment of individuals endowed with unlimited power, the appointment of dictators, in accord with the fundamental principles of the Soviet rule; secondly, in what relation is this case—this precedent, if you wish—to the special problems of the Soviet rule during the present concrete period? Both questions deserve ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... It was a problem which had no precedent, and the solution would be a revelation of the human mind and heart. What would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... an uneasy consciousness that she ought not to be mixed up in such a business; but, after all, the girls often scrambled up and peeped into one another's cubicles for a joke, so her action would not be without precedent. She was a very human person, and liked fun as well as anybody. With extreme caution she and Rona mounted the chest of drawers, trying not to make the slightest noise. Their eyes were just on a level with the top of the partition, ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... of such drugs should first be tested upon himself? He suggests the use of healthy children as "controls" in tests with the dead germs of a horrible disease. Is there anyone connected with the Rockefeller Institute, for example, who would be willing that such act should establish a universal precedent, and that his own children should be taken, and without his knowledge, made the "material" ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... Syracuse. It would have been the undying glory of Marcellus if, on obtaining possession, he had shielded the unhappy city from further miseries. The art-treasures of Syracuse were sent to Rome, aprecedent afterwards followed. ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... afford him very great personal pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or some wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up by concluding, eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps's cocoa and a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat doubled into a pillow at least he would be in safe hands and as warm as a toast on a trivet he failed to perceive any very vast amount of harm in that always ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... merits of Christ; this is that for the sake of which grace is given unto us, as is intimated by the text, Rev. 22:1. It proceeds from the throne of God, who is Christ. Christ then having obtained grace for us, must needs be precedent as to his merit, to that grace he hath so obtained. Besides, it is clear that the Spirit and grace come from God through him. Therefore, as to the communication of grace to us, it is the fruit ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... Putney, passing the Redcliffe Arms. Already, within a year, the time was historically distant when a policeman had refused to allow the automobile of a Member of Parliament to enter Palace Yard, on the ground that there was no precedent for such a desecration. The new motor-buses, however, did not run at night. Human daring had limits, and it was reported that at least one motor-driver, succumbing to the awful nervous strain of guiding these fast expresses through the traffic of the West End, ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... Rocks. Sometimes, though rarely, black men had come here, and from them they had heard of the existence of men much whiter than themselves, who sailed on the sea in ships, but for the arrival of such there was no precedent. We had, however, been seen dragging the boat up the canal, and he told us frankly that he had at once given orders for our destruction, seeing that it was unlawful for any stranger to enter here, when a message ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... child lives I shall long intolerably to see them. As her mother seemed to live in Alixe's exquisite body without its soul, so Alixe's soul seems to possess this child's body. Do I appear to be talking nonsense? Things without precedent have always ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... territory north of the line 36 deg. 30'. During the debate on the subject an extreme view had been presented, to the effect that Congress had no constitutional warrant for abolishing slavery in the territories. The precedent of the Northwest Ordinance, ratified by Congress in 1789, seemed a conclusive answer from practice to this contention; but Monroe submitted the issue to his cabinet, which included Calhoun of South Carolina, Crawford of Georgia, and Wirt ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... request. It was the rope, he thought, made the punishment. He hoped no Texan feared a bullet. A clean, honorable death like that was for a man who had never wronged his manhood. Every rascally horse thief or Mexican assassin would demand a shot if they were given a precedent. And arguments that would have been essentially false in some localities had a compelling weight in that one. The men gravely nodded their heads in assent, and Lorimer knew that any further pleading was in vain. Yet when he returned to his son, he clasped ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... revision of the commercial treaties. The Tsung-Li-Yamen was to be reformed and the ceremonial for the reception of foreign ministers modified as the powers should demand. Compliance with these terms was declared to be a condition precedent to the arrangement of a time limit to the occupation of Peking and of the provinces ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... prosecution not answering her expectation, and her wonted success; for it was a good while an unthrifty and inauspicious war, which did much disturb and mislead her judgment; and the more for that it was a precedent taken out of her ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... "According to all precedent," said the judge, glumly, "such a man ought to be hanging round Lottie. Everybody was that amounted to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... precedence among officers of the same service and among the services in relation to each other have a very real utility not only in determining succession to command and as reminders of the authority to which all persons in the Armed Services are subject but in providing precedent for all official or ceremonial occasions in which officers or organizations of the several services may find themselves cooperating. It is easy to imagine the confusion that would result without such rules, ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... inexperience nearly ended my life: for though I had a minute theoretical knowledge of all British workings, I was, in my practical relation to them, like a man who has learnt seamanship on shore. At this place the dead were accumulated, I think beyond precedent, the dark plain around for at least three miles being as strewn as a reaped field with stacks, and, near the bank, much more strewn than stack-fields, filling the only house within sight of the pit-mouth—the small place ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... one writing for which above all others Mr. Mill's disciples will love his memory is his essay "On Liberty." In this undertaking Mr. Mill followed the noble precedent of Locke, with greater largeness of view and perfection of work. Locke's four letters "Concerning Toleration" constitute a splendid manifesto of the Liberals of the seventeenth century. The principle, that the ends ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... him which he has truely answered and has been examined by Sir Geo: Carewe with the copies of the monthe's books and therefore he trusts his Hon: will be satisfied. He hopes his slanderers will be punished, or it will be a precedent to others. He has served H.M. faithfully being encouraged by hopes of preferment. He yearly increases H.M. Store to the value of L2,000 by taking the returns of such munitions as return from the seas ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... the last notice was eclipsed by the seriousness of the other two. It had always been taken for granted that the captain of Willoughby was also the Speaker of the House, and a contested election for that office was without precedent. Now, however, the old rule was to be challenged; and as the members waited for the clock to strike six they discussed the coming contest among themselves with a solemnity which could hardly have been surpassed ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... not make so much difference how you compass this general historical knowledge, if, in its main features, you do compass it. When Mr. Lincoln went down to Norfolk to see the rebel commissioners, Mr. Hunter, on their side, cited, as a precedent for the action which he wanted the President to pursue, the negotiations between Charles the First and his Parliament. Mr. Lincoln's eyes twinkled, and he said, "Upon questions of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is posted upon such things, and I do not profess to be. My only ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... command laid upon him,—"the certain capture of the city of New Orleans." The victory was accomplished with the loss of but one ship, and 184 men killed and wounded,—"a feat in naval warfare," says his son and biographer, "which has no precedent, and which is still without a parallel, except the one furnished by Farragut himself, two ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... her when Barry swung into the saddle and that was a thing without precedent in Molly's history. She tried none of her usual catlike side-steps and throwing of the head. Altogether, Vic was troubled even as he would have been at the sight of Betty Neal in the arms of ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... a villain; A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings; A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the Egyptians to Solon for the submersion of the great Atlantean island; and if we can but read the Maya glyphs, and open that door, another twenty years from now may show us beyond all possible dispute evidences in every part of the earth belt of a contemporaneous culture, different from and precedent to the Aryan. ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... incalculable toll of suffering levied upon non-combatants, the material and moral loss accumulating day by day to the higher interests of civilized mankind—a contest which in every one of these aspects is without precedent in the annals of the world. ["Hear, hear!"] We were very confident three years ago in the rightness of our position, when we welcomed the new securities for peace. We are equally confident in it today, when reluctantly, and against our ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... apprehension, and punctuated with false alarms. It was evident that the colonel had not yet heard the full story, and it was just as evident that the portion of it that he had heard had disturbed him almost beyond precedent. He was taciturn in speech, and severe and formal in manner. To misuse and neglect the flag of his country was, indeed, no venial offense in ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... drum-head court-martial, and shot. Since then it has come to be better understood that civil war is waged for the benefit of individuals who wish for their turn of power and their pull at the public purse; and the successful leader spares his opponent, not caring to establish a precedent which might prove so ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... had wished to refuse it, it would have been difficult and ungracious. But, on the whole, I thought the precedent good. Playfair tells me he tried to get it done in the case of Faraday and Babbage thirty years ago, and the thing broke down. Moreover a wicked sense of the comedy of advancing such a pernicious heretic, helped a ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... information, and without ulterior meaning or application designed for the act—in that case nothing has been done. But this is not so: Government is bound henceforwards by its own act. That proclamation as to one meeting establishes a precedent as to all. It is not within the power of Government, having done that act of suppression, and still more having spoken that language of proclamation, now to retreat from their own rule, and to apply any other rule to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... musty documents. His is the school of hard experience, which teaches lessons that fine-spun theories cannot upset. It is so with his Colonial theories of economics and government. The dead weight of tradition does not hang around his neck where State affairs are concerned and precedent only counts when it ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... without signing his name. The success of this first novel, Waverley (1814), was immediate and unexpected. Its great sales and the general chorus of praise for its unknown author were without precedent; and when Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Black Dwarf, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, and The Heart of Midlothian appeared within the next four years, England's delight and wonder knew no bounds. Not only at home, but also on the Continent, large numbers of ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... a tailor, in the honourable trade, I loathed the business utterly—perhaps, alas! to confess the truth, I was beginning to despise it. I could bear to think of myself as a poor genius, in connection with my new wealthy and high-bred patrons; for there was precedent for the thing. Penniless bards and squires of low degree, low-born artists, ennobled by their pictures—there was something grand in the notion of mind triumphant over the inequalities of rank, and associating with the great and wealthy as their spiritual ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... compassed the ravishment of the Pococks, Madame de Vionnet would be prodigious. It would be a beautiful plan if it succeeded, and it all came to the question of Sarah's being really bribeable. The precedent of his own case helped Strether perhaps but little to consider she might prove so; it being distinct that her character would rather make for every possible difference. This idea of his own bribeability set him apart for himself; with the further mark in fact that ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... 1798 had been recording the successes and supremacy of the British Navy, confessed now that "the depredations committed on our commerce by American ships of war and privateers have attained an extent beyond all former precedent.... We refer our readers to the letters in our correspondence. The insurance between Bristol and Waterford or Cork is now three times higher than it was when we were at war with all Europe. The Admiralty have been overwhelmed with letters of complaint or remonstrance."[253] ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... the unbroken example of municipal control that they would if a new system were to be created at the present day. Precedent looms large in British administration and even now there are only two ways of establishing a market—by Parliamentary authority and Royal Charter. King Henry III covenanted by charter with the City of London not to grant permission to anyone else to set up a market within a radius ...
— A Terminal Market System - New York's Most Urgent Need; Some Observations, Comments, - and Comparisons of European Markets • Mrs. Elmer Black
... the State. Christianity leaves humanity free to expand.] In the type of Mussulman government which (though not laid down in the Koran) is founded upon the spirit of the faith and the precedent of the Prophet the civil is indissolubly blended with the spiritual authority, to the detriment of religious liberty and political progress. The Ameer, or commander of the faithful, should, as in the early times, so also in all ages, be the Imam, or religious chief; and as such he ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... Father Aegidius, the Emperor's confessor, said to Melanchthon, "You have a theology which a person can understand only if he prays much." Campegius is reported to have said that for his part he might well permit such teaching; but it would be a precedent of no little consequence, as the same permission would then have to be given other nations and kingdoms, which could not be ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... these offices, as had been heretofore the custom; that simply being the President's favorite was not a qualification for office, and this departure from the established usages of former Administrations was a dangerous precedent, and would seem to establish a property in the office, belonging to ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... My astonishment was nevertheless very great when she told me that you had offered her your hand, and that she, young and inexperienced as she is, had, without consulting me, ventured to accept you. Such a thing, my dear sir, is against all precedent. The whole of society would be subverted, and all parental authority destroyed, were I as a father to allow what you do me the honour of proposing to take place. I am, I repeat, deeply grateful to you for the inestimable service you have rendered me, but I must ask ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... authoritative precedents to be found in the conduct of one or other of the two great schools which the God of Western theology is supposed to have opened for the education of Man. And it is in that special development of the Legal School which is known as Pharisaism that we shall look for a precedent for the conventional teaching of arithmetic in our elementary schools. The ultra-legalism of the Pharisee in the days of Christ finds its exact counterpart in the ultra-legalism of the child who has been taught arithmetic by the methods which ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... little before his death, the chief priest of Eleusis, following the Socratic precedent, entered an indictment against him for impiety. This indictment was supported by citations of certain heretical doctrines from his published writings; on which Grote makes the significant remark, that his paean in honour of his friend ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... the praetorian prefect, Macrinus, who reigned for a short time (217-218), but perished in consequence of his attempts to reform the discipline of the army. Heliogabalus (218-222) was not more cruel than others had been, but his gross and shameless debauchery was without a precedent. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... flash in her eyes, and he smiled. "Your Royal Highness, my lords, ladies and gentlemen," said he, while all the company were racking their brains to recall a precedent for such proceedings at a more than formal London dinner party; "the Princess and myself thank you from our hearts. For me this might almost seem the end of the fairy-tale of my life, in which—when I was eleven years old—her ladyship the Countess of Danesborough" (he bowed to ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... the policeman across the way grew wings, or if the deep sea rose and washed out the chaos of the land. I should not raise my eyebrows if the daily press became the Little Sunbeam of the Home, or if Cabinet Ministers struck for a decrease of wages. I feel no security in facts, precedent seems no protection to me. The wisdom you can find in an Encyclopedia, or in Selfridge's Information Bureau, seems to me just a transitory adaptation to ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... will come when remarkable incidents of these our times will be a staple of as great curiosity as the issue of Waterloo. It is an incident without a precedent on this side of the globe, ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... popular vote for a five-year term; election last held 14 April 2002 (next to be held NA April 2007); after the first legislative elections, the leader of the majority party was appointed prime minister by the president, suggesting a precedent for the future election results: Jose Alexander GUSMAO elected president; percent of vote - Jose Alexander GUSMAO 82.7%, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Church. A Hebrew Old Testament, in 1546, was followed in 1550 by the Greek New Testament. The next year he published a new edition of the Testament in which for the first time it was divided into verses, a precedent followed in Bible printing ever since. It was not merely the fact of his printing the scriptures at all that angered the heresy-hunters, but much more Estienne's notes and comments, in which, like Luther ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... why. Types.—[They had to deal with a carnal people and to render them the depositary of the spiritual covenant.] To give faith to the Messiah, it was necessary there should have been precedent prophecies, and that these should be conveyed by persons above suspicion, diligent, faithful, unusually zealous, and known to ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... shouting, but could not understand. To know you are right and then go ahead is a pretty plan, but how to know? The animal did not stop or swerve from its course. We would surely collide. What was I to do? Oh, for a precedent! Evidently the mare was aware of one, for she wheeled to the right just in time to miss the oncoming heifer, and we raced alongside for a few seconds. I had so nearly parted company with my mount in the last manoeuvre (centaurs ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... favorites of our Northern and Western States thrive luxuriantly in her middle and northern divisions. Some of the cultivated berries are remarkably developed; the strawberry, for instance, thrives beyond all precedent in central Mexico, and while larger, it is no less delicately flavored than our own choice varieties. The flora throughout Mexico is exceedingly rich and varied, botanists having recognized over ten thousand families of plants indigenous to the soil. It appeared ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... the Bees always erected domes on every planet they colonized, Arthur, but precedent is a fallible tool. And it's even more firmly established that there's no possibility of our rationalizing the motivations of a culture as alien as the Hymenops'—we've been over that argument a hundred ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee
... announcement of the death of our famous countryman, Charles Darwin, gave rise to a manifestation of public feeling, not only in these realms, but throughout the civilised world, which, if I mistake not, is without precedent in the ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... upon a distinguished judge, Sir James Parke, a patent as Baron Wensleydale for life. The purpose was to introduce into the chamber desirable legal talent without further augmenting the peerage. For the creation of life peerages there was some precedent, but none later than the reign of Henry VI., and the House of Lords, maintaining that the right had lapsed and that the peerage had become entirely hereditary, refused to admit Baron Wensleydale until his patent was so modified that his peerage ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... set on foot by James did not go to the extreme lengths to which it was carried by those who came after him, he it was who established what bore the semblance of a legal precedent for the excesses of Strafford, under Charles I., which reached their utmost limits in the hands of Cromwell's parliamentary commissioners. James set the engine of destruction in action: they worked it to its end. The Irish might ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... of not using the actual names of localities. Just why I shuffled the names of trails and towns and valleys so recklessly, I cannot now explain, for there was abundant literary precedent for their proper and exact use. Perhaps I resented the prosaic sound of "Sneffles" and "Montrose Junction." Anyhow, whatever my motive, I covered my tracks so well that it was impossible even for a resident to follow me. In The ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the genius of Paganism. The true gospels were taught by sensible images, and many of the ceremonies employed in celebrating the heathen mysteries were observed in the institutions of Christ, which soon in their turn obtained the name of mysteries, and served as a melancholy precedent for future innovations, and as a foundation for that structure of absurdity and superstition which deformed and disgraced the church." Rutter's History ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... suppose, whose nest-building we had watched with so much interest. She also had a youngster under her charge. But how was this! a brown baby clad like herself! Could it be that the sons and daughters of this warbler family outrage all precedent by wearing their grown-up dress in the cradle? We consulted the authorities and found our conclusion ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments; we shall each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity; and that justice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent article. ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... members, chosen before Van Buren's letter, were to escape obedience to their instructions to vote for him. Robert J. Walker, then a senator from Mississippi, a man of interesting history and large ability, led the Southerners. He quoted the precedent of 1832 when Van Buren had been nominated for the Vice Presidency under the two-thirds rule, and that of 1835, when he had been nominated for the Presidency. These nominations had led to victory. In 1840 the rule had not been adopted. Without this rule, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... your wisdom and piety, well contemplated the bad precedent," said the other, with much consternation in his countenance at seeing so elastic a spring in a heel by no means bearing any resemblance to a stag's.... "I have, I have," replied the other, interrupting ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... a Jonson or a Milton. Herrick's personal eulogies on his friends and others, further, witness to the extension of the field of poetry after Elizabeth's age;—in which his enthusiastic geniality, his quick and easy transitions of subject, have also little precedent. ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... a precedent which will last the men of Forty-Mile to the end of time,' he prophesied. Then he coiled the rope about his arm and led his followers out of doors, just in ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... that they almost all come at last to some terrible end. The man who usurps a throne by violence seems, in all ages and among all nations, very sure to be expelled from it by greater violence, after a brief period of power; and he who poisons or assassinates a precedent rival whom he wishes to supplant, is almost invariably cut off by the poison or the dagger of a following one, who ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of the Buck. On the way he crossed the tracks of two other deer, but they had no temptations for him. He wanted to solve the mystery of that spreading hoof-print, and to make sure that his shot had not been a clean miss. And now began a day which was without precedent in the Buck's whole history. Those woods are not the best in the world for a deer who has to play hide-and-seek with a man, for there are few bare ridges or half-wooded slopes from which he can look back to see if anyone is following him. Even the glades and the open ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... as yet no precedent in Church history for a bastard's donning the scarlet, the pope hunted up four false witnesses who declared that Caesar was the son of Count Ferdinand of Castile; who was, as we know, that valuable person Don Manuel Melchior, and who played the father's ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that first suggested the hope of liberation to the slave. Hannibal would have imperilled his character of a protector of Italian towns had he encouraged a slave revolt, even if the Phoenician had not shrunk from a precedent so fatal to his native land. But one of the unexpected results of the Second Punic War was to kindle a rising in the very heart of Latium, and it was the African slave, not the African freeman, that stirred ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... [8] The precedent descriptions of Sorrow herself, of Misery, and of Old Age, are even finer than the above, which, however, I have preferred for three reasons. First, it has been less often quoted; secondly, its subject is a kind of commonplace, and, therefore, shows the poet's strength of handling; thirdly, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... succeed. People never suspect until they have a precedent. Will you consider it? At least consider it. Remember, if there is a risk, it is I who am running it. On your own showing, you ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... instructions received from Richmond. It was Lincoln's contention that the government of the United States could not treat with rebels (or, dropping the word "rebels," with its own citizens) in arms. "The first step in negotiations, must," said Lincoln, "be the laying down of arms. There is no precedent in history for a government entering into negotiations with its own ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... between the Executive Government and the House of Assembly. As Englishmen especially plume themselves on the fact that the members of their legislative bodies are unremunerated, it is somewhat difficult to understand how this exception was made in John Arthur's favor. As a precedent it is to be hoped that it has not been followed; for it is obvious that such an arrangement, however advantageous or pleasant to individual members, might throw grave suspicions on the purity of public men, and introduce ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... saying to him when we came to consider "the state of polite learning" among us, "You mustn't expect people to keep it up here as they do in England." But it appeared that his countrymen were only wanting the chance, and they kept it up in honor of him past all precedent. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... practical genius of the Romans. They did not consider what would be the cleverest way of getting over a difficulty, but what way was indicated by analogous cases; and they assigned less influence to the impulse and spirit of the moment, than to precedent and example. Their peculiar character prompted them to ascribe the origin of their laws to early times, and in their desire to justify the continuity of their institutions, and to get rid of the reproach of innovation, they imagined the legendary history of the kings of ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... believe that this intelligence was any thing but satisfactory; I could not help conjuring up visions of a long and wearisome captivity—of hope deferred and expectations disappointed—with Stoddart's melancholy situation as a near precedent. I managed to make myself for a short time as thoroughly uncomfortable as if I were already a prisoner, but soon a sense of the great foolishness of indulging in this tone of thought came over me, and making a strong effort to shake off the gloomy shadows of ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... a stubborn aversion was shown to investigations that might have revolutionary results—proving that our false systems of education teach men not to think independently, but to adhere closely to precedent authority, fashion, popularity, and habit, which is the inertia of the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... rapidly growing. In nations of the highest civilization, where the Christian character of the people was reflected in the government, some serious disputes had been settled by arbitration, and every time this humane method was adopted a precedent was created which made war appear more and more useless and barbarous. The world was now becoming so much changed that such a good example was contagious, and the result was that the aerial warships and the deadly dynamite did not ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... fortune of the author to take part in a movement without precedent in the history of the world, and the incidents concurrent with, together with those subsequent to that movement, have furnished the material for this book. It has been the object of the writer to weave into the story of his ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... successors far outbid him in absurdity. To a number of people a precedent is always a point of departure—an example to be imitated with violent exaggeration. After our sculptor came a deluge of imbecility. We are then among stone-cutters who shrink from nothing; we are treated ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... of suspense is not without precedent in archaeology. "Antiquarian lore," as Dr. Munro remarks by implication, can "distinguish between true and false antiquities." {5a} But time is needed for the verdict, as we see when Dr. Munro describes "the Breonio Controversy" about disputed stone objects, a controversy which began in 1885, ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... of her sedentary habits such abrupt decisions were not without precedent in Zeena's history. Twice or thrice before she had suddenly packed Ethan's valise and started off to Bettsbridge, or even Springfield, to seek the advice of some new doctor, and her husband had grown to dread these expeditions because of their cost. Zeena always came back laden with expensive ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... mechanically sawn to a set line. Now and again the blackbird feels the beauty of the time, the large white daisy stars, the grass with yellow-dusted tips, the air which comes so softly unperceived by any precedent rustle of the hedge. He feels the beauty of the time, and he must say it. His notes come like wild flowers not sown in order. There is not an oak here in ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... had neither name nor thought 190 In their great bosoms; who would have foreseen That Nature could be filed to such a crime[453] As sons 'gainst sires, and princes 'gainst their realms? Your sin hath made us make a law which will Become a precedent 'gainst such haught traitors, As would with treason mount to tyranny; Not even contented with a sceptre, till They can convert it to a two-edged sword! Was not the place of Doge sufficient for ye? What's nobler than the signory[454] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... great so-ever the Persons might be that patronized them. But after all, says he, I think your Raillery has made too great an Excursion, in attacking several Persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can shew me any Precedent for your ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... youth of twenty-six should entertain a design so broad and bold implies singular intellectual intrepidity. He had neither model nor precedent. The vastness and novelty of the undertaking increase admiration for the remarkable ability with which the task ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... determine its nature. That taste and odor are particularly difficult to get any unanimity about is an old story, and it follows that it is still more difficult clearly to understand possible illusions of these senses. That disease can cause mistaken gustatory impressions is well known. But precedent poisoning may also create illusions. Thus, observation shows that poisoning by rose-santonin (that well-known worm remedy to which children are so abnormally sensitive) causes a long-enduring, bitter taste; sub-cutaneous ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... strikingly embodied the feelings of those he describes, has significantly expressed it. And having taken measures for publishing their declaration to the world, the convention closed their proceedings by appointing a committee, selected as combining the most happily an acquaintance with form and precedent with a knowledge of the ways and wants of the people, to draft a constitution to be submitted to a new convention, which the people were invited to call for that purpose. In response to that call, a new convention assembled at Windsor, in the month of July following, and proceeded, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... they agreed to refrain from going to the Lord's Table for a year, that all the Church might by that time have knowledge and proof of their consistent Christian life, though so young in years. This discipline, I thought, would be good for them; and the Lord might use it as a precedent ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... his part; nor can it be altogether accounted for by the explanation that "he was by nature a poet," for he did experiment with the prose medium to the extent of using it twice. He had the brilliant and innovating precedent of the Decameron, and yet, while adopting some of its materials, he abandoned its medium. He was given the opportunity of ante-dating the introduction of technique into the English prose short-story ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... conviction that has taken place since the passing of the Act, and will serve as a precedent throughout all England. I congratulate the country upon the efficacy of the tribunal to which it has been submitted. The court has listened with great and becoming attention to the arguments of ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... your precedent? Christ washed the feet of fishermen in order to give us an example of humility, and to teach us that we should be willing to serve any one in his name. I heartily approve of mission chapels as outposts; but, as in ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... title, that he is no more. He was a man loved and honoured by all who knew him, and in his youth was, I have heard, the inventor of a burnt rum punch, much patronized on Derby night. Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great state. Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have far-reaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold alliance to the Stars and Stripes. The power of Treaty may yet prove a vast engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true place as a political fable. What ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... the road they took." Then every Glug who was not too fat Turned seventeen handsprings, and jumped on his hat. They fined the Glug with the cast in his eye For looking both ways—which he did not deny— And for having no visible precedent, which Is a crime in the poor and a fault in ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... is only following a family precedent," said Ross. "For generations back the eldest son has alternately been in the Navy ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Master Betty's acting, and would be as soon over. The comparison did not hold. Master Betty's acting was so far wonderful, and drew crowds to see it as a mere singularity, because he was a boy. Mr. Kean was a grown man, and there was no rule or precedent established in the ordinary course of nature why some other man should not appear in tragedy as great as John Kemble. Farther, Master Betty's acting was a singular phenomenon, but it was also as beautiful as it was singular. I saw him in the part of Douglas, and he seemed ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... regiment? I hear, too, that to make the gift still sweeter, 55 The Duke has given him the very same In which he first saw service, and since then, Worked himself, step by step, through each preferment, From the ranks upwards. And verily, it gives A precedent of hope, a spur of action 60 To the whole corps, if once in their remembrance An old deserving soldier makes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... fear as the governing power, and, from long acclimatization, the Portuguese might almost count as African. This man of a superior race came and set himself up in authority over them, in defiance of all precedent, law, everything; and they submitted with dull indifference. The sweets of freedom are not always appreciated by those who have known the easy ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... he replied:—"Why, it would not do to hang men limply for being guilty of a little piracy. Some of our leading chiefs might object to the precedent. But I will gladly aid you in looking for Signor Zappa; and if you catch him, of course you will be at liberty to treat him as you think fit. To be frank with you, I do not think you will find him unprepared in ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... sharp, merciless and logical veracity with which he discriminates between the solemn judgment of a tribunal and a stump speech from the bench,—the startling narration of decisions and statutes, practice and precedent, condensed into a few of the closing pages of the Oration, with which the discussion read by Chief Justice Taney in the famous case of Dred Scott is confronted and exposed,—are among the greater merits of this elaborate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... their natural fruit, and all the efforts of the Honnetes Gens to stay the tide of corruption were futile. Montcalm, after reaping successive harvests of victories, brilliant beyond all precedent in North America, died a sacrifice to the insatiable greed and extravagance of Bigot and his associates, who, while enriching themselves, starved the army and plundered the Colony of all its resources. The fall of Quebec, and the capitulation of Montreal were ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... mankind. The laws are mostly made by lawyers, and so made as to encourage and compel litigation. By lawyers they are interpreted and by lawyers enforced for their own profit and advantage. The whole intricate and interminable machinery of precedent, rulings, decisions, objections, writs of error, motions for new trials, appeals, reversals, affirmations and the rest of it, is a transparent and iniquitous systems of "cinching." What remedy would I propose? None. There is none to propose. The lawyers have "got us" and ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... to others was finally fixed. The practical difficulty of getting at a captain of conspicuous ability, to make of him a flag-officer, was met by one of those clumsy yet adequate expedients by which the practical English mind contrives to reconcile respect for precedent with the demands of emergency. There being then no legal limit to the number of admirals, a promotion was in such case made of all captains down to and including the one wanted; and Lord St. Vincent, one of the most thorough-going of naval statesmen, is credited ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... about the Democratic convention which assembled three weeks later in Chicago. The Northeastern States and a few others sent delegations in favor of the gold standard, but free silver and the West were in the saddle. This was demonstrated when, in the face of all precedent, the nominee of the national committee for temporary chairman was rejected in favor of Senator John W. Daniel of Virginia, a strong silver man. The second day of the convention saw the advantage pushed further: each Territory had its representation increased ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... transactions with the Mongols previous to 1281. In that year they relate that a mission of ten nobles and 1000 horse came from the Emperor to demand gold and silver vessels as symbols of homage on the ground of an old precedent. The envoys conducted themselves disrespectfully (the tradition was that they refused to take off their boots, an old grievance at the Burmese court), and the King put them all to death. The Emperor of course was very wroth, and sent an army ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... nobility, with no clear line of division between them. They are in fact the very rich, whose families have some prominence, and the moderately well off. For it may be noticed that among nobles of all times and countries, although wealth unaided may not give titles and place, it is pretty much a condition precedent for acquiring them. A man may be of excellent family, and poor; but to be a great noble, a man must be rich. In old France the road to preferment was through the court; but to shine at court a considerable income was required; and so the noblesse de cour was more or less ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... Kentucky authorities although Kentucky's Governor had made a requisition which had been honored and granted by Governor McKinley of Ohio. Buchwalter held that the negroe's life would not be safe in Kentucky and refused to hand him over to the Kentucky authorities. This was a ruling without precedent and the attorneys for Walling and Jackson hoped to work on the Judges prejudices against Kentucky and obtain a similar ruling in their cases. Public sentiment however, was too strong, and no matter how much ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... French critic, says that the world has produced only about half a dozen men who deserve to be placed in the first class. The elements that make up this super-superior man are high intellect, which abandons itself to the purpose in hand, careless of form and precedent; indifference to obstacles and opposition; and a joyous, sympathetic, loving spirit that runs over and inundates everything it touches, all with no special thought of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... and turns me over to the officials. These worthy gentlemen, after asking me to ride around the custom-house yard, pretend to become altogether mystified about what they ought to do with the bicycle, and in the absence of any precedent to govern themselves by, finally conclude among themselves that the proper thing would be to confiscate it. Obtaining a guide to show me to the residence of Mr. Abbott, the English consul-general, that energetic representative of Her Majesty's ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... presenting. This has been an affair where it is desirable to manifest great rigor; for otherwise the other correction that I have tried to apply for the honor and defense of this royal house will not be sufficient. On the contrary it would be a damaging precedent, so that others might follow similar acts of audacity. In what pertains to me I shall always endeavor to do justice, although, with these appeals, it is impossible to do it in time, or with the energy that is necessary. Especially ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... a formal renunciation of all right of succession to any part of her mother's dominions which might at any time devolve on her; though the number of her brothers and elder sisters rendered any such occurrence in the highest degree improbable, and though one conspicuous precedent in the history of both countries had, within the memory of persons still living, proved the worthlessness of such renunciations.[1] A few days were then devoted to appropriate festivities. That which ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Beatrice, St. James reveals he has been sent hither by Christ to examine Dante upon hope, whereupon our poet, lifting his eyes "to the hills," gains courage enough to answer thus: "Hope is the certain expectation of future glory, which is the effect of grace divine and merit precedent." St. James is so pleased with this answer that he glows even more brightly, as St. John, "who lay upon the breast of him, our Pelican," appeared, shining so brightly that Dante, turning to ask Beatrice who he is, discovers ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... the result would be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment, would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment which is patent on the record, and which, if sanctioned, might be drawn into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Pacific, the island of Hawaii was then annexed to the United States as an extra-territorial possession, or coaling station, this being effected by a joint resolution of the two Houses of Congress, under the precedent of 1845 established in the case of Texas,—a method of procedure the constitutionality of which was at the time formally called in question by the State of Massachusetts, and against which Mr. Webster made vigorous protest in the Senate. In thus possessing ourselves ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... very old and very wise. Much of her wisdom is on record and available for reference; but more of it works in the unconscious blood of those who serve her. She has a thousand years of experience, and can find precedent or parallel for any situation that the force of the weather or the malice of the King's ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... for the kirk, following this precedent, endeavoured to obtain addresses to the same purpose from the corporations, and though they proved unsuccessful in most, they procured them from several of our most considerable conforming corporations; and that too at a critical juncture, when numbers ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... superficialness and mock-mystery of the medical science of those days, like a miner sinking his shaft and running a hideous peril of the earth caving in above him. Especially did he devote himself to these plants; and under his care they had thriven beyond all former precedent, bursting into luxuriance of bloom, and most of them bearing beautiful flowers, which, however, in two or three instances, had the sort of natural repulsiveness that the serpent has in its beauty, compelled against its will, as ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... so comprehensive and so far beyond all precedent, that it could never have been made without a corresponding offer of concessions on a large scale. The Earl of Salisbury in his proposal formally invited the Parliament to adduce the grievances which it had, and promised in the King's name to redress all such so far as lay in his ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... of the family she was always welcomed, because she furnished so much fun. She nearly always fetched some little thing to her host—not her hostess—a fowl, or a pat of butter from her one old cow, or something of the kind, because, she said, "Abigail had established the precedent, and she was 'a woman of good understanding'—she understood that feeding and flattery were the way to win men." She would sometimes have a chicken in a basket hung on the off pummel of her old saddle, because at times she fancied she could not eat anything but chicken soup, and she did ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... think that some species of serfdom, peonage, or other form of compulsory labour is not slavery, and may be introduced without a violation of their pledge." Schurz, therefore, recommended negro suffrage as "a condition precedent to readmission."[1045] ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... which ever implanted in its Constitution a provision for taking at regular periods a census of its people. The makers of that instrument seemed to have an intuitive sense of the importance of such a step, for they had no guide and borrowed from no precedent. It is true the fundamental law provides only for an enumeration of persons, but under the authority given to Congress to "provide for the general welfare" such laws have heretofore been passed as have rendered our census reports ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... is the stronger for the moral life. For every real dilemma is in literal strictness a unique situation; and the exact combination of ideals realized and ideals disappointed which each decision creates is always a universe without a precedent, and for which no adequate previous rule exists. The philosopher, then, qua philosopher, is no better able to determine the best universe in the concrete emergency than other men. He sees, indeed, somewhat better than most men, what the question always is,—not ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... should say pleasant things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... paying pounds to the men Who fought, wearing soles of brown paper, supplied In your wise, frugal way. Follow precedent then! Remember pence saved, not your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... of the flag of a neutral or an enemy under the stress of immediate pursuit and to deceive an approaching enemy, which appears by the press reports to be represented as the precedent and justification used to support this action, seems to this Government a very different thing from an explicit sanction by a belligerent Government for its merchant ships generally to fly the flag of a neutral power within certain portions of the high ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... of this country we may search in vain for a precedent to this case. In the past we have had to try Indians and half-breeds ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... charge of their interests, and for this duty estates were set aside. This party or lineage was called ayllu If there was no second son, or if there was one who was incapable, the duty was to be passed on to the nearest and ablest relation. And that those to come might have a precedent or example, Manco Ccapac made the first ayllu and called it Chima Panaca Ayllu, which means the lineage descending from Chima, because the first to whom he left his ayllu or lineage in charge ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... in case of fire. It's an inheritance from steamboats—pure precedent—and useless, for a submarine cannot catch fire. Why, a few turns of that wheel when in the awash trim would admit enough water in two minutes to sink the boat. I've applied for permission ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... 'Oh! that's a precedent,' said Lance, ostentatiously winking at Felix, who was very glad the ice was broken. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... displayed by Governor Cleveland in thus vetoing a measure in which so large a number of his political supporters might be supposed to feel so deep an interest, this is not the place to speak. But it is creditable to him as a lawyer that alone without a single precedent to guide him, relying upon his own judicial sense, and rejecting the opinion of a former Attorney-General, he challenged "the validity of this appropriation under that section of the Constitution." The Protectory, he says, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... order permitting the departure south of all persons subject to the conscript law of the Southern Confederacy. Many applications have been made to me to modify this order, but I regarded it as a condition precedent by which I was bound in honor, and therefore I have made no changes or modifications; nor shall I determine what action I shall adopt in relation to persons unfriendly to our cause who remain after the time ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... the Town, and the everyday sanity of the Schools, with all their observations and information, their commonsense and experience, their customs and conventions, even their morals and their law, for a deeper ethical insight than any rule or precedent can afford, for a fuller and freer intellectual outlook than that which has been derived from any technical experience or empiric skill, for an imagery which is no mere review of the phantasmagoria of the senses. In our age of the ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... upon hearing this remark, lowered his head and gave himself to protracted reflection. "You're indeed grown dull!" he cried; "why you've a precedent ready at hand to suit your case! Cousin Lin's birthday affords a precedent, and what you did in former years for cousin Lin, you can in this instance likewise do for cousin Hsueeh, and it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... principles the conduct of this man, precedent to the ever memorable 6th of April, 1815, can be justified, we cannot determine. The indiscriminate confinement of both officers and men in the same prisons, and those the most unfit, decayed, and loathsome of any which the ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... for these two boys we are emigrating, and he has written back to say that the Bishop has no objection to a special confirmation's being held by the Bishop of Matabeleland when he comes to stay here next week. At the same time, he says the Bishop doesn't want it to become a precedent." ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... the other hand, have anticipated, that in proportion to the strength of character required for the effort, and to the absence of distracting sentiments, whether respect for precedent, or affection for ideal beauty, would be the energy exhibited in the pursuit of the special objects which the youths proposed to themselves, and their success in ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... going to begin when I was unlacing your boots, but the idea struck me that to propose holding a lady's foot instead of her hand, would be too ludicrous a variation from all precedent. What a sensitive girl you are, Cecil! I am sure you knew what was coming, for I felt you drawing into a shell of consciousness, that would have made me nervous too, if I had not been ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... legislation, and you will find no precedent for such a profligate act of tyranny, exercised by a majority over their fellow legislators, nor for such an impudent contempt of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... writing in my hand, I will tell you this you now seek, together with all else pertaining to your sovereignty intrusted me for communication. I will tell you when the glory is open to you, and the time for setting forward to make it yours—even the dawning of the term of preparation necessarily precedent to the movement itself. Now am I understood? Will my Lord tell ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... trumpery." It had, indeed, to contend with more slights than his. Like all originals, it was obliged to wait for the death of the envious and the self-loving, before it acquired a popularity which surpassed all precedent. Foscolo says, that Macchiavelli and Ariosto, "the two writers of that age who really possessed most excellence, were the least praised during their lives. Bembo was approached in a posture of adoration and fear; the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... cavillers—those who have ears and hear not—are less excusable. Almost a recluse,—declining even an interview with her publishers,—in ill-health, in poverty, and with waning youth, she poured out her precious ointment from alabaster boxes, and there were not wanting Pharisees. But hampered by precedent and somewhat barren of enthusiasms as are almost all productions now, how could we do aught but welcome this spontaneous and ever-fresh fountain bubbling into the sunlight, albeit without geometrical restrictions, and bringing as it did such treasures ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... bill creating this commission came before the House I spoke against it, and voted against it, for two reasons. In the first place, I believed it was a dangerous precedent to subject the Presidency of the United States to such a game of chance as was contemplated by the bill then under consideration. Either Hayes or Tilden had been elected, and the result ought to be ascertained according to ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... vapour, by an illusion that unspeakable darkness which we all of us know to exist, but which we hypocritically deny, and determine never to confess to one another? Here again, however, Zachariah had his advantage over others. He had his precedent. He remembered that quagmire in the immortal Progress into which, if even a good man falls, he can find no bottom; he remembered that gloom so profound "that ofttimes, when he lifted up his foot to set forward, he knew not where or upon what he should set it next;" he remembered the flame ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... muddlers, were generally responsible for these mishaps, which, however, always became righted in time for the wedding. Or even had he been a pork butcher, and there were many in the neighbourhood, I could have thought of him as a swineherd, and so found precedent ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... Precedent's slave, this mountebank decides As great Authority, not Reason, guides. "'Tis not for him, degenerate wight, to say Faults can be mended at this time of day, For Coke himself declared—no matter ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
