"Prevarication" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... misrepresentation; mendacity, perjury, false swearing; forgery, invention, fabrication; subreption^; covin^. perversion of truth, suppression of truth; suppressio veri [Lat.]; perversion, distortion, false coloring; exaggeration &c 549; prevarication, equivocation, shuffling, fencing, evasion, fraud; suggestio falsi &c (lie) 546 [Lat.]; mystification &c (concealment) 528; simulation &c (imitation) 19; dissimulation, dissembling; deceit; blague^. sham; pretense, pretending, malingering. lip homage, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... approaching caused Don Quixote to halt in the middle of the road, calling upon them to stand until they acknowledged Dulcinea del Toboso to be the peerless beauty of the world. This challenge was met with prevarication, which enraged Don Quixote, and clapping spurs to Rozinante he bore down upon the company with ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... robbers of the eighty-three departments, at the head of which are the exemplary names of the members of the Directory of Paris—fathers of their country! There is in this such a complication of ingratitude and fraud, prevarication and perverseness, philosophical hypocrisy and perfidious moderation, that on the instant we rally round the decrees and around yourselves. Continue faithful, mandatories, and if they obstinately persist in not permitting ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... such thing were to happen, how could we resist any error?—how could we correct those who err? If you declare that the people of one city cannot be composed to peace, what should we make of the whole world's universe were it deceived by our prevarication? The series of canons coming down from our fathers, and a multifold tradition, establish that the authority of the Apostolic See is set for all Christian ages over the whole Church. O emperor, if anyone made any attempt against the public laws, you could not endure it; do you think it is ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... was dark, or worse than dark upon the subject—an obscurity enlightened by flashes of delusive light. Two housemaids, and an odd man who looked after the coal scuttles, were produced, and gave their evidence in a manner which would have laid them open to the charge of rank prevarication and perjury, as to the receipt of a certain wooden box, which at some stages of the inquiry became hopelessly entangled with a hamper from the Petersfield fishmonger, and a band-box ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... tried another prevarication—with better results this time. "You will be the first person she writes to, of course." As that excusable lie passed his lips, his float began to tremble. Here was a chance of changing the subject—"I've got a fish!" ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... The least approach toward prevarication, or concealment of their childish misdemeanors, should be treated as a grave fault. To prevent, as far as possible, all attempts at disguising the truth, penalties for faults should rarely be of so severe a nature ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... prevarication and confusion. You've always been an idle dog, Roger, so I think 'a gentleman of no occupation' will be a sufficiently correct description. You are very well connected by ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... enjoyed his dozing prevarication. It made her forget that he was no longer a sleep-loving schoolboy. She went quietly to his bedside and laid a hand on his ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... the rigor of his monastic life is perfectly true, but it was no reason why in 1512 he should counsel men to become monks. He had not yet come to the full knowledge of the wrong principles underlying that mode of life. To adduce such inaccuracies as evidence of prevarication is itself an insincere act and puts the claimant by right in the ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... forbid its representatives abroad to be accompanied by their wives. France has seen such times—England and America have glanced that way. Women, like men, often do not know that the big prizes gravitate where they belong; instead, they set traps for them, lie in wait and consider prevarication and duplicity better than truth. When women use their beauty, their wit and their pink persons in politics, trouble lies low around the corner. But this sister of Seneca was never seen in public unless it was at her husband's side; she asked no favors, and presents sent to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Frank Oldfield, when they were shut in alone, "I'll have a straightforward statement, without any prevarication, or I give you over at once into custody. If you can't clear yourself, and I don't see how you possibly can, there's the jail before you, the only place ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... say to explain it?" inquired Polly, with maiden's curiosity in learning to what extent of prevarication a deacon would go in order to make three ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... once, as she is glib of tongue, adroit in apologies, and lies with as much alertness and as little thought of conscience as a blackbird chatters. It is difficult for people who have been trained from childhood in the school of verities,—who have been lectured for even the shadow of a prevarication, and shut up in disgrace for a lie, till truth becomes a habit of their souls,—it is very difficult for people so educated to understand how to get on with those who never speak the truth except by mere accident, who assert any and every thing ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... equilibrium. And during the following week he gradually gained more and more confidence. The telltale certificate hidden in his bureau drawer was, of course, a drawback to his peace of mind, and the recollection of his recent outbreak of prevarication and deception was always a weight upon his conscience. But, to offset these, there was a changed air about the Phipps' home and its inmates which was so very gratifying that, if it did not deaden that conscience, it, at least, administered to it an ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... most where most collected, a positive little orgy of the senses and riot of the mind. Let me at the same time make the point that—such may be the snobbery of extreme youth—I not only failed quite to rise to the parental reasoning, but made out in it rather a certain sophistry; such a prevarication for instance as if we had habitually said we kept the carriage we observably didn't keep, kept it because we sent when we wanted one to University Place, where Mr. Hathorn had his livery-stable: a connection, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... which is made upon any other than reciprocated affection, is an unreasonable and irreligious one. "Parents have no right," says Paley, "to urge their children upon marriage to which they are averse;" "add to this," says he, "that compulsion in marriage necessarily leads to prevarication; as the reluctant party promises an affection, which neither exists, nor is expected to take place." To proceed to marriage, therefore in the face of absolute dislike and revulsion, is irrational ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... aroma of his drugs and the gleam of his lancet. Once I had been his patient and then I had trembled at his approach. When he took my little wrist in his big hand, I remember with what reluctance I stuck out my quivering tongue, black, as I feared with evidences of prevarication. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... that the name Sappho was not applied to Lady Mary, but to women in general; and acted with a degree of mean prevarication which greatly added to the amount of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... come, I say, to the morality of it. To break a solemn promise is a kind of prevarication; that is certain, there is no coming off of it; and I might enlarge here upon the first fault, namely, of making the promise, which, say the strict objectors, they should not do. But the tradesman's answer is this: all those promises ought to be taken as they are made—namely, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... offered the prognosis that Johann might well develop into a typical pathological swindler. He came of a family of five brothers and sisters, one of whom was incarcerated for a year on account of stealing. One sister was noted for her tendency to prevarication. Several of them were remarkably unstable, at least early in life. All of them are said to have learned very unwillingly in school. One brother of ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... to take boiled chicken," his lordship sharply retorted, "That, sir, is no answer to my question; I ask you again if you will take venison, and I will trouble you to say yes or no, without further prevarication." ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... breath, and clothing tainted with offensive odors. He poisons the atmosphere that others must inhale, and disputes their rights to breathe a pure, untainted air. The free use of tobacco by young people dulls the acuteness of the moral senses, often leads to prevarication and deceit in the indulgence, and is apt to draw one downward to bad associates. It is not the speed but the direction that tells on the future character and destiny ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... boar, and shun him. He may be an outcast from their society: but, after all, his honesty and candour will wear better and longer than their sham and shoddy. His "Nay, nay," and "Yea, yea," will outlast and outshine their double-tongued prevarication and flattery. Better a boar—if you know him to be such—than a wolf in sheep's clothing. A rough friend is more ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... cousin," Pao-y said to her smilingly, "tell me without any prevarication which of the three ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... deference to his rank, gave him precedence, and stepped into another apartment to hear his story. He accused Holbein of the violence, but suppressed the provocation; whereat Henry broke into a towering Tudor rage, and, after reproaching the nobleman for his prevarication, said, "You have to do with me, Sir. I tell you, that of seven peasants I could make seven earls like you; but of seven earls I could not make one Holbein. Do not molest him, if you value your head." And ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... the worst of impressions on the Washington Government. The clumsy prevarication of attempting to show that a steamer other than the Sussex had been torpedoed in the belief that it was a war vessel merely sufficed to complete the accumulating circumstantial evidence in the possession ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... book—a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Lying indeed! Why, you hate prevarication. As for murder, your friends know you too well to mention the subject in your hearing, except in immediate connection with capital punishment. You are, of course, willing to make some allowance for ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... the truth, and produce the letter," she resumed, "I will give you this, as your reward for finding, and restoring to me, something that I had lost. If you persist in your present prevarication, I can, and will, make that sheet of note-paper you have stolen from me nothing but waste paper in your hands. You have threatened Mrs. Glenarm with my interference. Suppose I go to Mrs. Glenarm? Suppose I interfere before ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... his cure, that I must bring my nephew to vote for one Colonel Courtly, a gentleman whom I had never heard tidings of till that instant. I told the rector I had no power over my nephew's vote (God forgive me for such prevarication!); that I supposed he would give it according to his conscience; that I would by no means endeavour to influence him to give it otherwise. He told me it was in vain to equivocate; that he knew I had already spoke to him in favour of esquire ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... seems ubiquitous throughout the range of physical phenomena of spiritism, and false pretence, prevarication and fishing for clues are ubiquitous in the mental manifestations of mediums. If it be not everywhere fraud simulating reality, one is tempted to say, then the reality (if any reality there be) has the bad luck of being ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... in my opinion, he is himself the most pleased) the fidelity and sincerity of his judgments equal their depth and weight; he is a philosopher who teaches us virtue. Let us see whether we cannot defend him from this reproach of falsity and prevarication. All that I can imagine could give occasion to this censure is the great and shining lustre of the Roman names which we have in our minds; it does not seem likely to us that Demosthenes could rival the glory of a consul, proconsul, and proctor of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Clavering ever was at any of her parties; she replied, 'So certain, that I always told him he need not use any ceremony, but come in his boots.' It will be remembered that General C. was sent to Newgate for prevarication on that account, not having recollected in ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... want for illustration if we consult the records of our civil wars; there we may trace the whole art in all the nice management of its shades, its qualities, and its more complicated parts, from invective to puff, and from inuendo to prevarication! we may admire the scrupulous correction of a lie which they had told, by another which they are telling! and triple lying to overreach their opponents. Royalists and Parliamentarians were alike; for, to tell one great truth, "the father of lies" is ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... of him, and desired still to think so well, that she was sorry at any faults which rendered him less worthy of her good opinion. The cold civility of his letter had this effect—her clear, her acute judgment felt it a kind of prevarication to promise to write and then write nothing that was hoped for. But, enthralled by the magic of her passion, she shortly found excuses for the man she loved, at the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... to see how the insulting interrogatories would be angrily resented, and answers be refused, or given in the most injudicious manner, by perfectly innocent persons; while demands for inventories of valuables were met by prevarication and concealment, when the object of the commissioners was suspected of being spoliation. The letters of Leyton and Legh convey the impression that the fouler the scandals unearthed or retailed, the more enjoyment and ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... to have prevaricated in making peace between Abraham and Sarah, which is not so surprising; for while one Rabbi teaches that prevarication is under certain circumstances allowable, another asserts it absolutely as a duty; for it is written (1 Sam. xvi. 2), "And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... This prevarication, which was equal to a refusal, offended the Bretaks, as it was an infringement of the Sakai custom of sharing like brothers all they possessed. They insisted upon their right and at last obtained a handful of salt, given ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... Sarai which would follow. Haunted with this fear, he told her to say that she was his sister—which was not a direct falsehood, but only so by implication. According to the Jewish mode of reckoning relationship, she might be called a sister; and Abram stooped to this prevarication under that terrible dread which, in the case of Peter, drove a true disciple of Christ to the brink of ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... he enter upon his wanderings in real earnest. He pulled street-cars, delivery wagons, drays and ash-carts. He was sold to unsuspecting farmers, who, when his evil traits cropped out, swapped him unceremoniously and with ingenious prevarication by the roadside. In the natural course of ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... cheated Mr. Young out of his nomination, turns out to be the mere phantom of a disordered imagination, instead of a logical deduction of truth, if the facts which have been urged in support of this charge, are the mere creatures of misrepresentation, prevarication and falsehood; this alone will settle the controversy, and fix the imputation, upon its unprincipled authors. The loop on which this absurd tale is made to hang, is the frail and feeble certificate ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... Sir Walter Raleigh was tried as unfairly, and with as many lies and evasions as the judges and law officers and every other authority in Church and State habitually practised under such a King. After a great deal of prevarication on all parts but his own, it was declared that he must die under his former sentence, now fifteen years old. So, on the twenty-eighth of October, one thousand six hundred and eighteen, he was shut up in the Gate House ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... the zealous defenders of the principles and methods of the Jesuits affirm that, in their advocacy of dissimulation and prevarication in the interests of a good cause, the Jesuits do not intend to justify lying, but are pointing out methods of proper concealment which are not within the realm of the lie. In this (waiving the question whether these defenders are right or not as to the fact) they seem even more desirous ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... will certainly be unable to preserve kindness and respect of manner towards those whose errors and failings are not met by internal self-control. You will be contemptuously heedless of the assertions of those whose prevarication you have even once experienced; those who have once taunted you with obligation will never be again allowed to confer a favour upon you; you will avoid all future intercourse with those whose unkind and taunting words have wounded ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... our queen, The Church of England's glory, Another face of things was seen, And I became a Tory; Occasional conformists base, I blamed their moderation, And thought the Church in danger was, By such prevarication. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... speak the truth," said Fanny, raising her voice to a somewhat insolent tone. "The club does not permit the slightest vestige of prevarication. ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... said, "I have no wish to frighten you. But you must see for yourself that it is utterly impossible for us to go on like this. You are keeping something from me. I want you to tell me quite quietly and without prevarication what it is." ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Prevarication of every kind partakes of the very essence of lying, being not only subversive of social happiness, by preventing all confidential intercourse amongst mankind, but diametrically opposed to the commands of God. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... known all along, that Mr. Effingham owned the property, but that they did not choose he, or any other man, should presume to tell them what they knew already. In short, the end of this affair exhibited human nature in its usual aspects of prevarication, untruth, contradiction, and inconsistency, notwithstanding the high profession of liberty made by those implicated; and they who had been the most guilty of wrong, were loudest in their complaints, as if they ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... vainly inquiring his way in a tavern full of very rough customers, he wishes himself in the moon, and to the moon appropriately he goes. Mediaevalism can hardly be called anything but a rather enfeebling dream. If it were a real effort to live in the Middle Ages, your life would be one perpetual prevarication. You would be drawn by the steam engine to lecture against steam; you would send eloquent invectives against printing to the press, and you would be subsisting meanwhile on the interest of investments which the Middle ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... Benny, an unconvincing prevarication is of less practical value than—" he began, but he was interrupted by the appearance of a young lady who ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... and assert, especially we bishops who preside in the Church, that we may prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by a falsehood; let no one corrupt the truth by a perfidious prevarication. The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one in its entirety. The Church, also, is one which is spread abroad far and wide into a multitude by an increase of fruitfulness. As there are many rays ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... only two or three people can answer, and one or other of those persons shall answer it to me before long. I tell you, my lady, that I am determined to unravel the mystery of George Talboy's death. Do you think I am to be put off by feminine prevarication—by womanly trickery? No! Link by link I have put together the chain of evidence, which wants but a link here and there to be complete in its terrible strength. Do you think I will suffer myself to be baffled? Do you ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... was that he looked me straight in the eye. It takes practice to lie convincingly. And the Space Academy doesn't list the Art of Prevarication among its curricula. ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... the letter, somewhat to the other's surprise, for he had certainly been watching for an attempt at its destruction, or at least was prepared for prevarication and stratagem. He took the paper from its envelope and read it carefully. It was ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... hesitate to say of General White that he 'used' others, but his prudent selection of subordinates ensured that all units in his Brigade were well commanded. He was more than a good judge of character: hollow prevarication was useless with him, and bluff—though, when he liked, he was himself a master of it—a dangerous policy. Among the shrewd qualities of this man there were the abilities to summarize rapidly whatever he had been told, and to remember most of everything he saw. ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... these inquiries Morton found himself compelled not only to answer, but to answer the truth. Any prevarication or attempt at mystification fell to the ground at once under the Senator's tremendous powers of inquiry. It had been going on for four years, and would probably go on now till Mr. Puttock died. "A man ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... inner door. He had had too much experience in such matters to attempt any prevarication. The three men crossed the room quickly and Bellamy followed in the rear. He heard a cry of disappointment from the foremost as he opened the door. The inner ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... talking of any delightful girl but you!" he broke in with a voice that, as he afterwards learned, struck Mrs. Rooth's ears in the garden with affright. "I simply hold you, under pain of being convicted of the grossest prevarication, to the strict sense of what you said ten ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... had mentioned the plot to him, though nothing would induce him to admit that he had asked Cobham for a sum of money, or consented to take any active part. Still this was enough; and in the face of his unfortunate prevarication about the interview with Renzi, the jury could hardly act otherwise. For a summing up of both sides of the vexed question what shadow of truth there was in the general accusation, the reader may be recommended to Mr. Gardiner's ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... may not occasionally get a man seemingly into trouble, but I do say that it is the only right course, and that he is equally certain to get out of it again; whereas an opposite course must lead him into difficulties, and involve him more and more as he tries to extricate himself by prevarication, subterfuge, or falsehood. I therefore told the chief that I had come on shore hoping to open up a trade with him, under the belief that the country was no longer either in possession of the Dutch or French, ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... so much," said Mr. Romaine, "if you call it prevarication. The order in question emanated from the Count himself. He does not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "An unworthy prevarication," replied Catherine, "by which you seek to work my ruin, and accomplish your union with Anne Boleyn. And you will no doubt succeed; for what can I, a feeble woman, and a stranger in your country, do to prevent ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a sort of hotel," said the voice, doubtfully. My hesitation and prevarication had apparently not inspired my ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... literal interpretation of the Articles were able to use language which, whatever might be the error involved in it, could not fail to impress a grave sense of responsibility upon every truthful and honourable man who might be called upon, to give his assent to them. 'The prevarication,' said Waterland, 'of subscribing to forms which men believe not according to the true and proper sense of words, and the known intent of imposers and compilers, and the subtleties invented to defend or palliate such gross insincerity, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... attempt that had been made on his life as such knowledge could only distress them, and cause them needless anxiety and alarm in future. But the death of Fingal must be accounted for; and, let the consequence be what it might, it must be accounted for truly, and without prevarication. Therefore it was that Rodolph dreaded meeting those whose presence was the joy and the ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... refrain from testifying in favour of her through whom he had recovered his episcopal city? Wherefore did he not assert his right and do his duty as metropolitan and censure and suspend his suffragan, the Bishop of Beauvais, who was guilty of prevarication in the administration of justice? Why did not the illustrious clerics, whom King Charles had appointed deputies at the Council of Bale, undertake to bring the cause of the Maid before the Council? And finally, why did not the priests, the ecclesiastics ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... question here of extraordinary works and signs only (viz. miracles), the text is wholly irrelevant in regard to works of personal righteousness. St. Prosper teaches: "Human nature, created by God, even after its prevarication, retains its substance, form, life, senses, and reason, and the other goods of body and soul, which are not lacking even to those who are bad and vicious. But there is no possibility of seizing the true good ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... urged now is that this kind of thing makes for strength in literature. Short words are strong words. They have a snap and a grip to them that long words have not. Very few men would grow angry over having a statement called a "prevarication" or "a disingenuous entanglement of ideas," but there is something about the word "lie" that snaps in a man's face. "Unjustifiable hypothecation" may be the same as stealing, but it would never excite one to be called "an unjustifiable hypothecator" as it does to be called a thief. ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... are not to be done out of our Russians by any mere UNDER-SECRETARY FOR WAR; certainly not one who is capable of such prevarication. And anyhow, why should the Germans do all ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... to be answered, I had to collect my thoughts and admit, not without a little bashfulness, that my first account of my exploit had contained a slight prevarication. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... she alone had entered into the source of that prevarication, the complex feelings from which it sprang. But at that moment I could not forgive her for humiliating me. I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... must follow him to his Closet; and asking her whether she knew the Hand of the Letter he pulled out of his Pocket, went from her, leaving this Admonition aloud, If you will save your Husband, you must give me an account of all you know without Prevarication; for every body is satisfied he was too fond of you to be able to hide from you the Names of the rest of the Conspirators, or any other Particulars whatsoever. He went to his Closet, and soon after the Lady was sent to for an Audience. The Servant knew his distance when Matters ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to the general reader, that we shall ask him to be content with our assurance that these disgraceful attempts to injure a literary opponent and former friend assume severally the form of direct misstatement, suppression of the truth, prevarication, and cunning perversion; the manner and motive throughout being very shabby.[F] The purpose of all these attacks upon Mr. Dyce is not only to wound and disparage him, but to secure for the writer a reputation for superior sagacity and antiquarian learning; and we regret that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... no ballot box, forged no naturalization papers, intoxicated no voters, told no lies, surrendered no principle, countenanced no demagogism. He called things by their right names; and what others styled prevarication, exaggeration, misstatement or hyperbole, he called a lie. Though he was far from being undecided in his views, and never professed neutrality, or had any consort with those miserable men who boast how well they can walk on both sides ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... true; and this is not the place for prevarication. You wandered from your course. How did ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... to keep to the trenches on the way out and in, none of the houses that line the way are to be visited. It was a case for a slight prevarication. My water jar was out in the trench: I carried my rifle ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... fear of obtaining some unworthy charge against me instead of gratitude. But, as it is, when the performance will follow the promise this very day, I feel entirely confident not only of avoiding any shame for prevarication but of surpassing all mankind in good repute. [-4-] You all see that I am so situated that I could rule you perpetually. All the revolutionists either have been disciplined and been made to halt or have had pity shown them and so have come to their senses. My helpers have been made devoted by ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... you to remember, Garth, that every word I write, is the simple unvarnished truth. If you look back over your remembrance of me, you will admit that I am not naturally an untruthful person, nor did I ever take easily to prevarication. But, Garth, I told you one lie; and that fatal exception proves the rule of perfect truthfulness, which has always otherwise held, between you and me; and, please God, always will hold. The confession herein contained, concerns that one lie; ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... to have your admission of that without any of the prevarications that are usual in your kind. And I will say this, that here prevarication would avail you little. For we always have the truth in the end. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... the law. But when it came to repealing the law altogether, not one of the distinguished men here quoted was in favour of it. The principle of State regulation, against the adoption of which in America every art of prevarication has been employed, that principle is fully accepted by the English medical profession to-day. Was it fair for the editor of a leading journal to misstate so obvious a fact? Can one imagine that the leading representatives of medical science in England, the leading teachers ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... he said, huskily; "big ones as you've got. I—I want to pay for some vessel property!" He reflected that the few hundreds that the loss of the ancient Dobson called for lifted this statement out of the cheap level of prevarication. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Bernstorff's turn come? That it will come, indeed must come, is self-evident. The artist sees things too clearly as they are not to see also what they will be. He therefore skips the ignoble interlude of prevarication, quibble, and intrigue, and gives us Uncle Sam happy at last in his recovered simplicity. So we see him here, enjoying himself, as only a white man can, in a wholehearted spurning of lies, ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... of poetic excellence. His style is not that of Milton, who soared aloft into the eternal mansions and opened their portals to our astonished and admiring gaze, picturing to us "God in His first frown and man in his first prevarication." Nor is it that of Shakespeare, whose deep and subtle mind fathomed "the dark abysses of the human heart," and laid bare and naked the varied doings of mankind! Nor is it, least of all, that of Dante, who, with even greater boldness than ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... only in my private log for no eye but my own. I shall describe it all fully as a preparation for an official account, which must be drawn up when Elliott gets back. Billy Dawson used to say that there were three degrees of comparison—a prevarication, a lie, and an official account. We at least cannot exaggerate our success, for it would be impossible ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... depend upon it that in their future practice it must become perfectly familiar. The nice distinction of simulation and dissimulation depends but on the trick of a syllable; palliation and extenuation are universally allowable in self-defence; prevarication inevitably follows, and falsehood "is but in the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... my mind the savage and exulting eye of Thornton, when it read the damning record of Glanville's guilt; and in spite of my horror at the crime of my former friend, I trembled for his safety: nor was I satisfied with myself at my prevarication as a witness. It is true, that I had told the truth, but I had concealed all the truth; and my heart swelled proudly and bitterly against the miniature which I still concealed ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not insulted and annoyed by impertinent surveillance. Spies and informers have no countenance among us. We receive no accusation but from the conscience of the accused. His honor is the only witness to which we appeal; and should he be even capable of prevarication or falsehood, we admit no proof of the fact. But I beg you to observe, that in this cautious and forbearing spirit of our legislation, you have not only proof that we have no disposition to harrass you with unreasonable requirements, but a pledge that such regulations as we have found ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... called his attention to the manifest failure of the Political Department to comply with its repeated promises to keep us informed as to the progress of the trial and the passing of the sentence. The deliberate policy of subterfuge and prevarication by which they had sought to deceive us, as to the progress of the case, was so raw as to require little comment. We all pointed out to Lancken the horror of shooting a woman, no matter what her offense, and endeavoured ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... which was summoned soon after daylight, and continued to sit until nearly one o'clock the next morning, when two men and a woman were committed for trial; and a third man, in the progress of the investigation, was sent to gaol for prevarication. When the prisoners were arraigned at the bar, they all pleaded "Not guilty;" and, after an impartial trial, were acquitted. The singularity and cruelty of this man's murder appeared to be equal to that of Luken. A third murder was committed, ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... and prevarication is this! That one dissenting teacher accused to his prince of having censured the legislature, should presume, backed only by five more of the same quality and profession, to transcribe the guilty paragraph, and (to secure his meaning ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... truth, mother; listen to me." And in a voice that trembled with emotion, he rapidly related all he had learned by his visit to the baron, softening the truth as much as he could without concealing it. But prevarication was useless. Madame Ferailleur's indignation and disgust were none the less evident. "That woman is a shameless creature," she said, coldly, when ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Bruce had now definitely lost his temper. 'I can stand anything except prevarication. Anything in the world, but prevarication, I can endure, with patience. But not that! As if you didn't know perfectly well there's only one ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... many occasions I have resorted to prevarication; but on great occasions I have always told the truth. I regard this as a great occasion; and I won't be intimidated into breaking my promise. I solemnly declare that I did not know until this evening that Mrs. Juno was married. ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... is one of the family, Lady Morley accompanying him. He is as fond of the yacht as I am myself, and, fortunately again, it is the best medicine for both of us. Morley is, and must always remain, "Honest John." No prevarication with him, no nonsense, firm as a rock upon all questions and in all emergencies; yet always looking around, fore and aft, right and left, with a big heart not often revealed in all its tenderness, but at rare intervals and upon fit occasion leaving no doubt ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... hope you will never disguise it to any one, especially to me. Any prevarication, I promise you, will ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... the same thing? I wonder, Ralph that you can give way to such mean-spirited prevarication. What? 'It's not prevarication!' Don't say that now; you know it is. Ah! you may laugh, my boy, but you have promised to go with me and Jack to Africa, and ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... truth. Among Westerners nothing is more insulting sometimes than a philosophic temper; but in China you must, as a first law unto yourself, protect yourself at all costs and against all comers, and it generally requires a good deal of noise. Here the bully is not the coward. In respect of prevarication, it seems to be absolutely universal; the poor copy the vice from the rich. It seems to be in the very nature of the people, and although it is hard to write, my experience convinces me that my statement is not exaggeration. I have found the Chinese—I speak of the common people, for in my ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... again excuse me; but I have most particular business with a gentleman in this neighborhood; and having travelled all the way from Paris, expressly to have it settled, I beg that I may be excused the pain of prevarication. The circumstance of my having served under the great Duke of Malborough against my own King and countrymen is sufficiently explained when I acquaint you, that I was then a French Protestant refugee; but now, without changing ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... destruction after the lapse of hard upon half a century, yet it was a hundred to one that the whole would be claimed in the king's name under a talk of restitution, which signified that we should never hear more of it. On the other hand prevarication would not fail to excite suspicion, and on our not being able to satisfactorily account for our possession of the ship and what was in her, it might end in our actually being seized as pirates ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... themes for the display of his humour was the subject of prevarication. He seemed never to tire of ringing the changes upon the theme of the lie, its utility, its convenience, and its consequences. Doubtless he chose to dabble in falsehood because it is generally winked at as the most venial of all moral obliquities—a ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... the prophet Elisha than his beneficiaries. He raises the dead, surpasses our Standard Oil Company in the production of that valuable article of commerce, cures one man of leprosy and cruelly fastens the disease on his servant for being guilty of a pardonable prevarication. Only one of the women mentioned has a name. One is the widow of a prophet, whom Elisha helps to pay off all her debts; for another he intercedes with the Lord to give her a son; another, is the little captive maid of the tribe of Israel; and the last a wicked queen, Athaliah, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... to draw your eye away from the margin of the applied patch, and lead you to infer that, some of the needlework being obviously done on the velvet, all of it is. But to disguise in this way the line of demarcation, even if you succeed in doing it, is at best the art of prevarication. ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... hoodwinked her hearers completely. They uttered ejaculations of surprise involuntarily, but managed to refrain from any more open expressions of wonder. "Oh, yes, indeed!" Cicily continued, following blindly an instinct of prevarication that had been suddenly born within her brain. "Isn't it splendid? We just ended our strike to-day." She stared intently at Carrington with sparkling eyes. It filled her with secret delight to witness the expression of consternation on that gentleman's face; and she ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... cross-questioned the witness as to various matters, in the usual way, but tending, of course, to damage him by the answers which the questions necessitated—a horrible, but, perhaps, necessary ordeal perpetuated in our law-procedure. In these answers there was something like prevarication; so that the magistrate, Mr Sergeant Runnington, asked the witness at the close of the examination, whether he had any previous acquaintance with the gentlemen who had engaged him at half-a-crown a game, and then so candily communicated to him all their schemes? ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... while to live.—Every morning, seventy Paris newspapers and as many local gazettes in the large towns of the provinces expose, with supporting documents, details and figures, not merely their former crimes, but, again, their actual corruption, their sudden opulence founded on prevarication and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... them. The method of influencing the natures of women Is but a trick to further base ends. They injure boys by magical arts, And commit many atrocious crimes. They say their religion is the only true one, But their answers are full of prevarication. They say their book is the Holy Book, But the Old and New Testaments are like the songs of Wei and Cheng.[!] As to the people who are gradually being misled, I compassionate their ignorance; As to the educated who are thus deceived, I am wroth at their want of reflection. For these men are ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... have seen him this morning," murmured Penelope, thoroughly enjoying the unexpected situation. Her conscience was not troubled by the prevarication. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... meeting of the Sheikhs and people of the town in our apartments; and from the turn affairs began to take, we found it necessary to despatch a courier to Aroukeen, to beg the Tanelkums to wait a few days for us at that place. During the meeting began the first prevarication of the Tuaricks. The son of Shafou said that he did not agree to conduct us to Aheer—an assertion we contradicted strongly. At length he exclaimed: "Although I did not agree to this, I will nevertheless conduct you,"—making a new favour ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... a gentleman. I don't the least understand what you mean. It's some prevarication or paradox." Mrs. Wilson taps ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... "If the Queen should come to Chicago she would live here," and I comforted myself by saying, "You shall have your hour of wonder and romance, even at the expense of a prevarication." ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... moment had come, and she tried to grasp it like a nettle. Her adventurous rashness was, she admitted, undeniable. She had spoken the truth to the police officer about her identity and her spinsterhood because with unusual wisdom she judged that fibs or even prevarication on such a subject to such an audience might entangle her in far more serious difficulties later on. Moreover, with Inspector Keeble present, she could not successfully have gone very far from the truth. It was a pity that ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... those whose loving trust bound them most closely to him, Satan had represented that he was wrongly judged, that his position was not respected, and that his liberty was to be abridged. From misrepresentation of the words of Christ, he passed to prevarication and direct falsehood, accusing the Son of God of a design to humiliate him before the inhabitants of heaven. He sought also to make a false issue between himself and the loyal angels. All whom he could not subvert and bring fully to his side, he accused of ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... at him, in the utter difficulty of answering. "Basil"—she began, and stopped, not finding another word to add. For prevarication was an accomplishment Diana knew nothing of. She closed her eyes, that they might not see the ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... precisely put to allow of any prevarication. And still Daniel was bent upon gaining time, and avoiding any positive answer. For the first time in his life he said a falsehood; and, turning crimson all over, he ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... that the Supreme Being meant to describe and point out such a person as Jesus by such descriptions of the Messiah as are contained in the Old Testament, is certainly substantially to accuse him of the moat unjustifiable prevarication, and mockery of ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English |
