"Alternative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a severe disappointment to Bessy, and left her an alternative that required more than courage, but she did not vacillate. She sped swiftly on in the dark, for the electric lights were few and far between, until the black of the gloomy building, where the boys had their club, loomed up. On the corner Bessy saw a man standing with his back to a telegraph pole. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... sensational a case. She had poisoned her mother; she had poisoned her friend Mrs. Pocock—how and when that lady in fact died we do not know; she was still in correspondence with Cranstoun; she was secretly married to the keeper's son, a step to which the circumstances of their acquaintance left her no alternative; her fortune was being employed to bribe the authorities; the principal witnesses against her had been got out of the way; she had (repeatedly and in divers ways) escaped; finally, as she herself, with reference to these reports, complained—"It has been said that I am ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... days before, it had been announced that the French government required of these poor fellows that they should either enlist at once in the regiments destined for service in Algiers, or immediately leave the country—offering them the alternative of military slavery, or banishment from the country in which they had ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... the most satisfactory manner, the conviction that we were now in the only passage leading to the westward that existed in this neighbourhood. Notwithstanding, therefore, the present unpromising appearance of the ice, I had no alternative left me but patiently to await its disruption, and instantly to avail myself of any alteration that nature might yet effect in ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... startled the ears of his wife in her pregnancy, with these words, when her lying-in was near at hand: "Two things there are which I wish for; that thou mayst be delivered with very little pain, and that thou mayst bring forth a male child. The other alternative is a cause of greater trouble, and providence has denied us means {for bringing up a female}. The thing I abominate; but if a female should, by chance, be brought forth at thy delivery, (I command it with reluctance, forgive me, natural affection) let it be put to death." ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... if any one will rescue it. Sometimes the father must express by a ritual act (e.g. taking up the newborn infant from the ground) his decision whether it is to live or not. With these customs must be connected that of selling children into slavery, which, when social hardship is great, is an alternative to infanticide. The Jews abominated infanticide but might sell their children to Jews.[904] Abortion by unmarried women is due to the penalties of husbandless mothers, and is only in form in the same class with abortion by the married. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... such an alternative before, but I met it without a moment's hesitation. "No, I would not care to go into service," I replied, and as I did so the lady's face showed mingled ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... stand to the consequences of his OR, were he the most cruel father that ever was recorded in romance, to fill up the alternative." ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... own bedding. From my childhood, I never stayed out overnight. When I did not find sleeping under the roof of my friends inviting, night watch in the school, you may be sure, was still worse. However repulsive, if this was a part of the forty yen a month, there was no alternative. I had to ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... "that I have any particular objection in detail to your excellent scheme of Government. My only objection is a quite personal one. It is, that if I were asked whether I would belong to it, I should ask first of all, if I was not permitted, as an alternative, to be a toad in a ditch. That is all. You cannot argue with the choice of ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... the Marlborough Downs. The country folk, always picturesquely minded, call them "Grey Wethers," and indeed in North Wilts, it is not hard to conjure up their poetic resemblance to a flock of titanic sheep, reclining at ease upon the pasturage of the Downs. The alternative name Sarsen, has an interesting derivation. It is a corruption of the word "Saracen." But what have Saracens to do with Wiltshire? Frankly nothing. The name has come to the stones from Stonehenge itself, and is a part of that ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... 116, were a MS. addition to the printed text of 'British Bards'. An alternative version has been pencilled on ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... loathing and incredulity. Impossible that his own son could have schemed and carried out so vile an attack upon a helpless person, who had once been his nearest and dearest companion. And yet, the account in the paper gave him no alternative but to believe it. Nevitt and Guy Waring had been inseparable friends. They had dined together, supped together, played duets in their own rooms, gone out to the same parties, belonged to the same club, in all things been closer than even the two twin brothers. Some quarrel seemed ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... hundred "dead heads," the success secured by their applause would undoubtedly be questioned. If twelve hundred paying spectators were present, the success of the piece was almost out of the question. The author chose to run the risk of the latter alternative. Such is the history of this first representation, where so many people appeared to be made so uncomfortable by their elevation to ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... We were not married, that I could sit forever smoking while she hummed. Even in Black Log, etiquette requires that a man talk to a woman when in her company; and when the woman ceases to listen, the wise man departs. That was just what I did not want to do, and only one alternative was left me. I got out the letter and held it ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... prejudices and ignorance of the voyageurs, and the imperfect state of maritime science, may truly be considered the most astonishing upon record. It must be observed, too, that this was no involuntary boat expedition—no desperate alternative of some foundering ship's crew—but the deliberate, carefully considered project of an experienced sailor; and that the hardihood evinced in its conception was surpassed by the resolution, perseverance, and skill, with which it was conducted ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... respected on the Mississippi. My own appearance in high-heeled French boots and other corresponding gear, for a tramp over stubble and marsh, amused him equally; but my wardrobe was exclusively metropolitan, and there was no alternative.' It was hard and exciting work, the novice discovered, to trudge through peas, beans, turnips, and corn, soaked with showers, and muddied to the knees till his Parisian boots were reduced to the consistency of brown paper. He came home, much to his own relief, without having brought ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... out, the attitude of the Italian government was a matter of extreme moment to France and the Entente. Much, perhaps the fate of Europe, depended on whether they would remain neutral or throw in their lot with the Teutons. They chose the former alternative and literally saved the situation. The question of motive is wholly irrelevant. Later on they were urged to move a step farther and take an active part against their former allies. But a powerful body of opinion and sentiment in the country was opposed to military ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... provides half of us with wives without any trouble to ourselves. Whatever we are, they have got to take us. The average dancing young woman living in luxury in her father's house is between the devil and the deep sea. We are frequently the devil; but it is not surprising that she can't face the alternative—a poverty to which she was not brought up, and in which she has seen her old spinster aunts. But I suppose in your case ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... the fire from the wounded German birdman, the Dewey now had but one alternative. The approach of other air raiders made it necessary for the submarine to dive away into the depths to safety. To linger longer on the surface was but to court the continued fire of the birdmen overhead who apparently were incensed over the wounding of ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... cool, sunny day in the latter part of October when we weighed anchor and passed through the Golden Gate. I had leased the yacht for a year, and had made alternative plans in case Le Mire should tire of the sport, which ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... he present to the man whose daughter he sought to marry? At the first hint of "detective" the old forger would inevitably suspect his motive and turn him from the house, forbidding Emily to speak to or even look upon him again. There was an alternative, and although he shrank from it as unworthy of her faith and trust in him, Morrow was forced to accept it as the only practicable solution to the ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... you then," I continued—"for I will take no note of your other alternative, which perhaps it was a pity you let fall—I understand you rather to offer me encouragement in case I should desire to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Washington and other gentlemen had, not to withdraw from their allegiance to the Crown, but to remain faithful, and exhaust the very last chance of reconciliation, before they risked the other terrible alternative of revolt and separation. Let traitors arm, and villains draw the parricidal sword! We at least would remain faithful; the unconquerable power of England would be exerted, and the misguided and ungrateful provinces punished and brought back to their obedience. With ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... believe at that moment, if the choice were given me, I would rather have been the "Adam of that Eden" than the proudest of those generals that ever led a column to victory! Fortunately, or unfortunately—it would not be easy to decide which—the alternative was not open to me. It was while I was still musing, I found myself at the foot of a little eminence, on which stood a tower, whose height and position showed it had been built for the view it afforded over a vast tract of country. Even from where I ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the annual worth of L40 with slighter duties attached to it, he still continued to express dissatisfaction at his fortunes, and desire a sinecure canonry in England that would enable him to live in literary ease at home. When, however, an alternative was presented to him of returning to the Pontifical Secretariate, through the intercession of one of his powerful Italian friends, Cardinal Adimari, Archbishop of Pisa, he rudely scouted the overture ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... a dangerous situation he was. He must risk his life if he swam out to sea. The only other alternative was to leap over the net. That he did, jumping as quickly as he could over ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... anything about Bayreuth, to say that he objected very much to the Englishmen who came in knickerbockers—in bicycle costume. When I mildly suggested that if they came without knickerbockers or the customary alternative he would have better reason to complain, he asserted that he and his family had a great respect for the theatre, and it shocked them to find so many Englishmen who did not respect it. I mention this ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... complaining of a great nuisance; how the height of that part of Parnassus quite spoiled the prospect of theirs, especially towards the east; and therefore, to avoid a war, offered them the choice of this alternative, either that the Ancients would please to remove themselves and their effects down to the lower summit, which the Moderns would graciously surrender to them, and advance into their place; or else the said Ancients will give ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... and gratified by her complaisance that he had no alternative, save to duplicate it, when the following evening brought ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... pointed toward an opening at his feet. If that failed there was still another way. In the final alternative, each turret could go on firing by itself. So the Germans must have done on the Bluecher and on the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst in their last ghastly ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Unexpected and alternative spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation punctuation, possible typographer's errors and omitted words, and incorrectly numbered chapters and page numbers have been retained as they appear in the original publication. Where the lead character's name has been spelt with an OE or oe ligature, the ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... The alternative here allowed us is irresistible—either our author is egregiously in error, or he has made a great discovery. Who can doubt it? We feel at once driven to the wall by the horns of so dexterous a dilemma; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... whole, if the evidence is worth anything, there are real objective ghosts, and there are also telepathic hallucinations: so that the scientific attitude is to believe in both, if in either. And this was the view of Petrus Thyraeus, S.J., in his Loca Infesta (1598). The alternative is ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... and conquered by the Mohammedan Arabs. But not the fiercest persecution could induce the Fire-worshipers to change their religion for that of the Koran. Preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostasy or persecution at home, the aboriginal Persian inhabitants fled to other lands, settling immense colonies in Surat and Bombay, where their descendants form in our day a large and valuable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... source of our folk-tale or has been derived from it. The fact that not all the literary versions agree entirely, and that the story as a folk-tale seems to be so universally known, makes it seem more likely that the second alternative expresses the truth; i.e., that the romance has been derived from the folk-tale. In the Tagalog version the title runs thus: "The Story of Three Princes, sons of King Fernando and Queen Valeriana in the Kingdom of Berbania. The Adarna Bird." The poem is long, containing 4136 ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... frankly avowed that he still scrupled at some articles, such as purgatory, the worship of the saints, and the power of the pope. And it must be remembered that his motives were not purely selfish. The alternative seemed to be indefinite civil war with all its horrors, and Henry deliberately but regretfully sacrificed his confessional convictions on the altar of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labor cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life; if this or Communism, were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be but as dust in the balance."—John Stuart Mill, "Principles of Political Economy." Mill strove diligently to "reform" the bourgeois world, and to "bring it to reason." Of course, in vain. And so it came about that he, like all ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... comments it suggests emphatically that the Government of the day is not and never can be satisfactory, it refrains from embarrassing our statesmen with too many concrete proposals for alternative methods. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... He picked up his axe, appearing to weigh the resumption of his task against a reply to this straight question. He must have found the alternative too dreadful; he leaned upon the axe, thus winning something of the dignity of labour, with none of its pains, ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... of good. But if essence is of the class of good, generation must be of some other class; and our friends, who affirm that pleasure is a generation, would laugh at the notion that pleasure is a good; and at that other notion, that pleasure is produced by generation, which is only the alternative of destruction. Who would prefer such an alternation to the equable life of pure thought? Here is one absurdity, and not the only one, to which the friends of pleasure are reduced. For is there not also an absurdity ...
— Philebus • Plato
... old proverb, and the alternative the plough presents to those who would thrive by it; Fleda thought of Mr. Didenhover; Mrs. Rossitur would fain have suggested that such an important person must be well paid; ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... terrible and scathing. Yet, to turn a deaf ear to a father's prayer; to disregard a mother's injunction; to incur, perhaps, the guilt of parricide; to hazard the judgments of the Almighty;—how awful the alternative! ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... scoundrel from a summary vengeance; possibly I might not have done it, had I known what the alternative would be. Where is that man now?" he asked, with ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... his own, besides his wish to strengthen his countrymen against the English, for desiring the presence of Tisquantum's warriors in the approaching contest. He hoped to place Henrich in such a position, that he would have no alternative but either to lead the Nausetts against his own people or to excite their distrust, and even hatred, by refusing to do so. He expected, and wished, that he should adopt the latter course; for he knew that ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... when he went to read the Mozart trio with her for the first time, and very likely she would call on Olga Bracely herself, though nobody had asked her to, and take all the wind out of Georgie's sails. Sickening though that would be, he could not face the alternative, and he opened his copy of the Mozart trio with a sigh. Lucia did push and shove, and have everything her own way. Anyhow he would not tell her that Olga and her husband were dining at The Hall tonight; he would not even tell her ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... the old proverb and the alternative the plough presents to those who would thrive by it; Fleda thought of Mr. Didenhover; Mrs. Rossitur would fain have suggested that such an important person must be well paid; but ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... of the day, that a fever is come on, and that for a day or two past the King has had a constant sweating of the head, to which he was at no time before accustomed. According to wishes or fears, men construe this crisis to portend health or decease; the political effect in the alternative, being in the first case uncertain, in the second case certain. The bent of this is against us, as few narrow motives and personal considerations may extend and favour the active spirit of subornation which stalks in open day, with each hand full of patents of honour and purses ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... to begin the negotiations anew; and as the rich prizes to be won in the Chinese lottery had attracted general attention in the European financial world through the advertisement which the Revolution had given the country, a host of alternative loan proposals now lay at ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... "The alternative is, that I have already set the dial to eternity, Dent," grinned Tode. "Eternity in the fifth dimension. Didn't know I'd worked that out, did you? A pleasant little surprise. No, don't try to move. My hand is on the lever. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... protection, And tadpole young Lords too in every direction,— Things created in haste just to make a Court list of, Two legs and a coronet all they consist of! The prospect's quite frightful, and what Sir George Rose (My particular friend) says is perfectly true, That, so dire the alternative, nobody knows, 'Twixt the Peers and the Pestilence, what he's to do; And Sir George even doubts,—could he choose his disorder,— 'Twixt coffin and coronet, which he would order. This being the case, why, I thought, my dear Emma, 'Twere best to fight shy of so curst a dilemma; ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... fathers! Look at your genealogical tree with the branches of the New Testament, a d you will find the roots in us." Polish culture cannot be foisted upon the Jews. Barbarous as may appear the plan of expelling the Jews from Poland, the persecuted tribe will rather submit to this alternative than renounce its ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... strongest scruples about poverty and starvation. Your moralists are quite unscrupulous about both: they make virtues of them. I had rather be a thief than a pauper. I had rather be a murderer than a slave. I don't want to be either; but if you force the alternative on me, then, by Heaven, I'll choose the braver and more moral one. I hate poverty and slavery worse than any other crimes whatsoever. And let me tell you this. Poverty and slavery have stood up for centuries to your sermons and leading articles: they will not stand up to my machine guns. ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... should be either good or bad; or he should be good as well as bad; or he should be neither good nor bad. There can be no alternative possible besides these four propositions, none of which can be accepted as true. Then there must be some misconception in the terms of which they consist. It would seem to some that the error can be avoided by limiting the sense of the term 'man,' saying ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... of native and non-Spanish blood are practically a unit in desiring both to expel the friars and to confiscate their lands ... This proposed confiscation, without compensation for the Church lands, was one of the fundamental policies of the Insurgent Government under Aguinaldo." As an alternative, the Secretary of War accepted the proposal of the Holy See to send a new Apostolic Delegate, with necessary instructions to negotiate the affair amicably. Therefore, in transmitting this reply to Cardinal Rampolla on July 15, Gov. Taft closed the negotiations ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... melancholy alternative, but the only one to save the ship from foundering. Afterwards we must trust to our anchors; and if they failed to hold with the wind as it then was, we could not fail of being driven on the inhospitable coast of Africa. And who could tell how many might reach the shore alive!—perhaps none. ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... and more to be depended upon," said Norman. "None of you appreciate Tom. However, you must hear my alternative. If you think my going would be too much grief for papa, or if Tom be set against helping him in his practice, there is an evident leading of Providence, showing that I am unworthy of this work. In that case I would go abroad and throw myself, at once, with all my might, into the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... hand here is a metre,(62) for the irregularities of which no remedy is offered by alternative readings in the Versions, but Duhm and others reduce these only by padding the text with particles and other terms. Yet these very irregularities have reason; they suit the meaning to be expressed. Thus while some of the couplets are in the Qinah metre, it is instructive that ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... by writing a letter to a newspaper. He did not send it in the end, for his better judgment prevented, but he had to do something by way of protest, and the only alternative was to tell his wife about it, when she would look half puzzled, half pained, and probably reply with some remark about the general cost of living. So he ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... everywhere people are to be found who have seen everything. This unexpected testimony from the archer re-encouraged the recluse, whom this interrogatory was forcing to cross an abyss on the edge of a knife. But she was condemned to a perpetual alternative of hope and alarm. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... wild species, since commingled by intercrossing. On this view, the aboriginal species must either at first have produced quite fertile hybrids, or the hybrids must have become in subsequent generations quite fertile under domestication. This latter alternative seems to me the most probable, and I am inclined to believe in its truth, although it rests on no direct evidence. I believe, for instance, that our dogs have descended from several wild stocks; yet, with perhaps the exception of certain indigenous domestic dogs of South America, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... of slavery and their disposition to aid such colored people as were within their circle. Such conduct could not escape observation, and the result was their banishment from their Southern home. They were given the alternative of "behaving themselves" or going North to live. They were not long in deciding, and they became residents of Philadelphia. Here they joined the Quakers, because of their coincidence of views on the slavery question. They had before been Presbyterians, having ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... palpably alien mise en scene, should ever have suggested a personal experience and provoked The Quarterly to its infamous and immortal utterance: "If we ascribe the book to a woman at all, we have no alternative but to ascribe it to one who has, for some sufficient reason, long forfeited the ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... approaching? We have nothing to say in defence or extenuation of the insolence, injustice, and cruelty with which, after the victory of the republicans, he and his family were treated. But this we say, that the French had only one alternative, to deprive him of the powers of first magistrate, or to ground their arms and submit patiently to foreign dictation. The events of the tenth of August sprang inevitably from the league of Pilnitz. The ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to the king and parliament. Although these were couched in moderate and respectful terms, expressing their unaltered attachment to the king and his family, deploring that there should be aught but peace and good-will between them, and entreating him not to drive his children to the dreadful alternative of taking up arms in their defence, yet, like those that had gone before them, they were received with contempt or indifference, and failed to awaken in the king's mind any sentiment of mercy, or desire on the part of the parliament for reconciliation ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... which may seem to have reasonable probability, but without discussion of the authorities; secondly, where the rendering is not quite literal (and in other cases where it seemed desirable), to quote the words of the original or to give a more literal version; thirdly, to add an alternative version in cases where there seems to be a doubt as to the true meaning; and lastly, to give occasionally a short explanation, or a reference from one passage of the author ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... need hardly tell you that this commission struck me as being a strange one; but, in my position with Mr. Forley, I had no resource but to accept it without asking questions, or to break off my long and friendly connection with my client. I chose the first alternative. Business prevented me from doing my errand on Monday last—and if I am here to-day, notwithstanding Mr. Forley's unexpected death, it is emphatically because I understood nothing of the matter, on knocking at this door; and therefore felt myself bound, as executor, ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... more into the team, and travelled down to Charchester with the others. And at this point a painful alternative faces me. I have to choose between truth and inclination. I should like to say that the Bishop eclipsed himself, and broke all previous records in the Charchester match. By the rules of the dramatic, nothing ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... Everybody was stricken with horror. Nothing availed to make the beast loosen his hold, until suddenly he withdrew his teeth from the child's face and fastened them once more in her shoulder. At last, as no other alternative presented itself, some one placed a pistol to his ear and killed him. The baby on being released still breathed, but was so torn and disfigured that the sight ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... military staff, observations were made in his presence, relative to the conduct of the naval captain ill with the fever, that he could not permit. He gave a flat denial to them, and the consequence was, that language was used which left no alternative but ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... this fact, that if any one of them is absent, he is the very man to be first called for. From this it may be understood that it is not an easy matter to vary from the rigid system which holds its alternative of diligence or discharge over all beneath its control. We have referred to Mr. Stewart's habits of order as a means by which he controls his vast business with apparent ease. To explain this more explicitly, we may state that ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... A beggar, Sir Edward Trenchard a beggar, see my children reduced to labor for their bread, to misery perhaps; but the alternative, Florence detests him, still the match would save her, at least, from ruin. He might take the family name, I might retrench, retire, to the continent for a few years. Florence's health might serve as a ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor
... his alternative remedy of a piece of coral hung round the patient's neck much more rational. The drop from the science of Celsus is much more striking here than the drop from the art of Celsus' contemporary Manilius. An intermittent imperial patronage of letters lingered on. The elder ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... slope. He could not go far enough to lift his machine, but he could reach to wiggle it off its hook and then guide it, in some measure, enough to ease its fall and keep its damageable parts clear of the water. At least he believed he could. In any event, he had no alternative choice and time was flying. After what he had already done he felt he could do anything. Success, however wearying and exhausting, gives one a certain working capital of strength, and having succeeded so far he would not now fail. His success ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... altogether improper for poor people is not quite obsolete. There are not wanting persons who still entertain the most dreadful apprehensions of the "march of intellect," as it has been termed; who see no alternative but that it must over-turn every thing that is established, and subvert the whole order of society. I would willingly impart comfort to the minds of those who are afflicted with such nervous tremours, but I fear, if the demonstration of experience ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... purchase food for himself or his horse. About daybreak Johnson came and told him that the Moors were asleep. The awful crisis had now arrived; a cold perspiration stood on his brow as he thought of the dreadful alternative and reflected that one way or the other his fate must be decided in the course of the day. To deliberate was to lose the only chance of escape; so, taking up his bundle, he stepped gently over the negroes sleeping ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the celebrated Peace of Augsburg (1555) which left to each German prince and each town and knight the liberty to choose between the beliefs of the Roman Church and the Lutheran, provided only for religious freedom for the rulers, and only one alternative. Calvinists, for example, hated equally by Catholic and Lutheran, were not included. So deeply was the idea of Church and State as inseparable embedded in the minds of men that no provision was made for the religious ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... of course, miserable screws, and some of them a little vicious. I had a dreadful fright - the passage in my mother's letter is recrossed and I see it says the end of /94: so much the better, then; but I would like to submit to you my alternative plan. I could meet you at Hawaii, and reconduct you to Hawaii, so that we could have a full six weeks together and I believe a little over, and you would see this place of mine, and have a sniff of native life, native foods, native houses ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... upon the colonies at the first opening of spring. Further information made it certain, that their place of gathering was in the Narragansett country, in the south-westerly part of the colony of Rhode Island. There was no alternative but, as a last effort, to strike the enemy at that point, with the utmost available force. A thousand men were raised, 527 by Massachusetts, 315 by Connecticut, and 158 by Plymouth. Massachusetts organized a company of cavalry and six companies of foot soldiers, Connecticut ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... plantation store, so that, upon the expiration of his three-hundred-day contract, the laborer almost invariably owes his employer a debt which he is quite unable to pay. As he cannot obtain employment elsewhere in the colony under these conditions, he is faced with the alternative of being shipped back to China a pauper or of signing another contract. There is no breaking of the law by the planter, you see: the laborer is perfectly free to leave when his contract has expired—as free as any man can ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... arrangements for bringing in his family. The furniture he had previously agreed to take at a valuation, and the sum had been appropriated in liquidation of your father's debts. I had already been permitted to remain longer than was usual, and had no alternative but to quit, which I did not do until the last moment. I could not leave my address, for I knew not where I was to go. I took my place in the coach, and arrived in London. My first object was to secure the means ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... the alternative," replied Helen with a little laugh. "I've had my full of drifting like a ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... no alternative for the Negro citizen but to work out his salvation under the Constitution, as other citizens have done and are doing. It will be a long and tedious process before the equitable adjustment has been attained, but that does not much ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... "There's no other alternative. It's one of the laws of Nature. I well remember dreaming that I was a disused columbarium which had been converted into a brewery and was used as a greenhouse. I was full of vats and memorial tablets ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... dreamed of what materials was made that young compounder of doses at Greshamsbury he would have met him in consultation, morning, noon, and night, without objection; but having begun the war, he was constrained to go on with it: his brethren would allow him no alternative. Thus he was continually being brought up to the fight, as a prize-fighter may be seen to be, who is carried up round after round, without any hope on his own part, and who, in each round, drops to the ground before the very wind of his ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... allotted him; true also, in resenting this insult, he would break the laws of Heaven as well as of his country; true, in doing so, he might take the life of a young man who perhaps respectably discharged the social duties, and render his family miserable, or he might lose his own—no pleasant alternative even to the bravest, when it is ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... interlocutor's premisses and tell him to build up his precious northern civilization on a basis of slavery; or he would reject them and advise him, with Samuel Butler, to make a bonfire of the machines. The latter is, indeed, the more probable alternative; for it is that to which the more thoughtful and prophetic (perhaps one can add also, the more Hellenic) of our modern guides are turning. When men so diverse as Tagore the Indian sage and Rathenau the German Trust magnate tell ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... dealing. But we must face the hard facts of the necessity of retaliation against the revolting deeds of the Inquisition and the determined, intriguing policy of worming Popery into the hearts of a Protestant nation, and then we realize that Drake's methods were the "invention" of an inevitable alternative either to fight this hideous despotism with more desperate weapons and greater vigour than the languid, luxury-loving Spaniards had taken the trouble to create or succumb to their tremendous power of wealth and wickedness. Drake was the chosen instrument of an inscrutable destiny, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Longueville, who gives the letter, has strangely failed to identify Sandy with the famous Richard Napier, parson, physician, and astrologer, of the well-known family of Napier of Merchistoun. His father, Alexander Napier, was often known as "Sandy"; and the son held the alternative names also. Great Lindford is two and a half miles from Gothurst; and it is possible that Protestant friends, perhaps Laud himself, urged on the good parson the duty of looking after the young ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... purchased his life. As Breugger wrote with brutal crudity to Kepler: 'What profit did he gain by enduring such torments? If there were no God to punish crimes, as he believed, could he not have pretended any thing to save his life?' We may add that the alternative to death for a relapsed apostate was perpetual incarceration; and seven years of prison may well have made Bruno prefer death ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... {MODIFIER LETTER SMALL G} small raised g a a with macron ("long" mark) a i o vowel with breve ("short" mark) ' ' "forward" and "backward" apostrophes All letters shown are rare. The words in which they appear are listed at the end of the file, before the Errata, with alternative spelling. ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona in 1881 • James Stevenson
... waiting, waiting, knowing that ere long I shall get a little clipping from the Somerville Journal, written by Kate Sanborn; and then I shall know what the book is. If it's good, she'll say so, and if it isn't, I think she would say so; but that alternative never has come to me. But I would far rather have her true words of dispraise than all machine-made twaddle of nearly all the book columns of our great ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... with a convent!" The good Princess had not lost her judgment. She knew that, by her compact of marriage, she had to choose, on becoming a widow, between a convent and the chateau of Montargis. She liked neither alternative; but she had greater fear of the convent than of Montargis; and perhaps thought it would be easier to escape from the latter than the former. She knew she had much to fear from the King, although she did not yet know all, and although he had ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... said the Count. "I have an alternative. I have just drawn my balance at my banker's, a considerable sum, and I am now to place it in your hands. It will be so much for you and so much less——" he paused, and smiled with an air of malignity ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... important. I hold a great deal of money of hers in my bank. She first gave me a start. I cannot, without appearing ungrateful, act contrary to her will. Place yourself in my position, and judge impartially of the terrible alternative between obliging you and displeasing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... preserves, the world would have wagged on better or worse, the pitcher gone to the well, the scythe to the corn, and the student to his book; and no one been any the wiser of the loss. There are not many works extant, if you look the alternative all over, which are worth the price of a pound of tobacco to a man of limited means. This is a sobering reflection for the proudest of our earthly vanities. Even a tobacconist may, upon consideration, find no great cause for personal vainglory in the phrase; for although tobacco ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... preparing to land, for the purpose of either releasing their comrades from captivity, or inflicting exemplary punishment upon the farmer by whose treachery it was supposed that they had suffered. But when the particulars of his behaviour were related, the latter alternative was at once abandoned; and it was determined to force a dismissal of the captives, by advancing up the country, and laying waste every thing with fire and sword. The whole of the light brigade was accordingly ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... an appointment in the dragoons, the designation of the one regiment of cavalry then a part of our army. His alternative selection was the Fourth Infantry. To this he was attached as a brevet second lieutenant, and after the expiration of the usual leave spent at home, he joined his regiment at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. Duties were not severe, ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... other alternative, the American or the English master, but remember that it is only by absolute submission that you will obtain the best instruction which he is capable of giving. If you do not compel him to tax his mind with remembering ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... recover himself by the use of the other. If I demonstrate that I am not a knave, he may exclaim, "Oh, but you are a fool!" and when I demonstrate that I am not a fool, he may turn round and retort, "Well, then, you are a knave." I have no objection to reply to his arguments in behalf of either alternative, but I should have been better pleased to have been allowed to take them one ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... a cab as far as the old place by the side of the river. In an hour's time I hope to be on my way to Canterbury. Now, you are quite sure you all know what to do? It's confoundedly awkward to have one's plans upset like this, but a clever man always has an alternative scheme on hand, and I've got mine. There, that will do. ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... his extremity Harry could not avoid noticing that Roger hesitated when he came to "or—or not;" the brave lad could not bring himself to utter the alternative ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... circumstances to assume command of the expedition, several sheets of open water appeared where ice had been expected, and the anxious charioteer was more than once obliged to risk the lives of the whole party by driving out to sea on the floes—that being better than the alternative of remaining where they were, to die ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... middle of the summer he had been forced to ask for more money. He was days nerving himself to make the call; but there was no alternative—it was either that or shut down. He had written the stockholders that it would surely be the last, and his relief and gratitude had been great at ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... Allies don't understand that the only people murdered by them Bolsheviki was the property-owners which objects to their property being taken, and that as a matter of fact them poor Bolsheviki are simply obliged to take the property, there being no other alternative except working ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... Coercion the Alternative to Secession.—Repudiation of it by the Constitution and the Fathers of the Constitutional Era.—Difference between Mr. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... corrected herself, with a twinkle in her eyes and a curl of her lips, in the midst of her earnestness, "is the shortest and safest road to growing well-to-do within the briefest space of time, you had better adopt the latter alternative. If I had been a man and a doctor, I ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... things, let us know our subject. Here is a task before which we quail in this generation of vast vistas. But there is no alternative for us. No amount of method will remove the curse of the superficially informed. Let us devote ourselves to smaller fields if we must, but let us not tolerate ignorance among those who bear the burden of passing on, with its flame ever more ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... of Queen Esther is one often appealed to as a precedent. When a woman is placed in similar circumstances, where death to herself and all her nation is one alternative, and there is nothing worse to fear, but something to hope as the other alternative, then she may safely follow such an example. But when a woman is asked to join an Abolition Society, or to put her name to a petition to congress, for the purpose of contributing her measure ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... addressed looked at the ladies, and shrugged his shoulders slightly as much as to say. "You see I have no alternative." ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... perhaps, nothing except the pageship at Court that could have gone more against Major Oakshott's principles than to leave his son in the house of a prelatical minister, but alternative there was none, and he could only express how much he was beholden to the ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he hasn't capital he can emigrate. That is what numbers of fellows do. If he has interest, he can get a commission in the militia, and from that possibly into the line; or he can enlist as a private, for the same object. There is a third alternative, he can hang himself. Of course, if he happens to have a relation in the city he can get a clerkship; but that alternative, I should say, is worse than ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... solicitous to employ what time we have to the greatest advantage. Before devoting years to some subject which fashion or fancy suggests, it is surely wise to weigh with great care the worth of the results, as compared with the worth of various alternative results which the same years ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... the mother country, it would be an intolerable exercise of authority to prevent them from having recourse to the homely products of their own industry and ingenuity. Under existing circumstances, indeed, there is no alternative between permitting them the use of their own manufactures, and compelling them to go naked, or to clothe themselves like the aborigines of the country in the skins of animals. There is but one remedy for the disease of the colony: it is ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... very richly supplied with playhouses in Pepys's day. But public theatres in active work at this period of our history were not permitted by the authorities to exceed two. "The Opera" and "the Duke's House" are merely Pepys's alternative designations of the Lincoln's Inn Field's Theatre; while "the Theatre," "Theatre Royal," and "the King's House," are the varying titles which he bestows ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... the Americans were pushing hard the garrison of Ninety-six; they were nearly reduced to extremities, and in a few days must have surrendered; but the rapid advance of Lord Rawdon left Greene no alternative but to storm or raise the siege. On the 18th of June, he made a furious assault upon the place; but, after a desperate conflict of nearly an hour, was compelled to retire. Next day he retreated, crossing the Saluda on the 20th, ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... all around. Clemens sent Webster to tell him that he believed the simplest, as well as the most profitable for the author, would be the twenty per cent. arrangement. Whereupon Grant replied that he would take the alternative; as in that case, if the book were a failure, and there were no profits, Clemens would not be obliged to pay him anything. He could not consent to the thought of receiving twenty per cent. on a book published at ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... alternative under more fairly-sounding names, but we cannot escape the reality; and we know not, after all, whether there is deeper sadness in a broken Mirabeau or Byron, or in the contented prosperity of a people who once knew something ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... miles off as the crow flies. The quickest way to get there, the line nearest to the crow's line, would be to leave the road here and ride through Hadleigh Wood, under the bare beeches, among the somber pines, along the gloomy rides; and the alternative route would be to turn to the right, hold to the open road, and follow its deflected course past the Abbey gates and park, and all round the wild forest. That way would be three miles longer than the other way. He turned ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... the camp carpenter. We approached this worthy, but he ridiculed the suggestion that he should give some of the wood to us for our intended purpose. We could buy the boards if we liked. As there was no alternative source of supply we did so, and the price of purchase showed that the carpenter cleared nine shillings on each crate! With much difficulty we built our three extra beds between us, but the outlay for ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... I, "I perceive you are a humorist. Lo, here in this car are already three humorists. Under these unfortunate circumstances, I have no alternative but to ask you ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... Seeing me in some dismay at the sight of this uninviting domicile, she laconically observed there was that or none, unless I chose to sleep in a four-bedded room, which had three tenants in it,—and those gentlemen. This alternative I somewhat indignantly declined, and in no very good humour retired to my cabin, where vile familiars to the dormitory kept us from closing our weary eye-lids till the break ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... the solemn reply, "have a little patience, Cyn. The fact is, you are my Fate—there is no mistake about it!—and must be either cruel or kind, and there's no alternative!" ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... more probable source of inspiration in the art of building are the Romans, who established the famous collegia of architects referred to in the list of alternative theories given in the Masonic Cyclopaedia. Advocates of the Roman Collegia origin of Freemasonry might be right as far as operative masonry is concerned, for it is to the period following on the Roman occupation of Britain that our masonic guilds can with the greatest degree of certainty be ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... his property except in virtue of judicial sentence. These and other principles John habitually disregarded, with the consequence that in time he found himself without a party and driven to the alternative of deposition or acceptance of the guarantee of liberties which the barons, the Church, and the people were united in demanding of him. The upshot was the promulgation, June 15, 1215, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... must give up something else. It involves a choice between alternatives; you can have either one freely, you cannot have both. It was to them as to Christ on the "exceeding high mountain," God or the world; God with the cross, or the world with Satan thrown in. And the same alternative ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... Bryophytes appears to be most naturally explained on an hypothesis of progressive sterilization of sporogenous tissue, such as has been advanced by Bower. On the other hand there are not wanting indications of reduction in the Bryophyte sporogonium which make an alternative view of its origin at least possible. With regard to the relationship of the Bryophyta and Pteridophyta the article on the latter group should be consulted. It will be sufficient to say in conclusion ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... alternative contented Herbert Onslow, and at the time he did not resolve on either. He had some little present income from home, some fifty pounds a year or so, and he would be satisfied to marry on that and on his salary as a clerk; but to this papa and mamma Heine ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope
... children had been remanded to slavery. I was torn from my mother, sold as a slave, and subjected to cruel indignities, from which I was rescued and a place given to me in this hospital. Doctor, I did not choose my lot in life, but I have no other alternative than to accept it. The intense horror and agony I felt when I was first told the story are over. Thoughts and purposes have come to me in the shadow I should never have learned in the sunshine. I am constantly ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... accepted, the Dukes, it is conjectured by Polwhele, not choosing to have so great a man for so near a neighbour. According to a local tradition, he carried out his alternative project of building at Colaton Ralegh, on land which he may be presumed to have bought of his father or eldest brother. In the garden of the Place he is said to have planted, as elsewhere, the first ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... cart, or to cry out for some one to rescue him, in which case, clothed as he was in the garb of the prison, he would be immediately recognized as an escaped convict, and sent back to his old quarters. This latter alternative was so dreadful to him that he resolved to endure the torture if possible; and he could not help shuddering when he thought that perhaps he might be placed in the same position ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the poor invalid alive. Much to her satisfaction, however, she found her better, and with some dawning prospects of ultimate recovery. She left with her mother the means of procuring such comforts as she considered might be suitable to her in the alternative of her convalescence, and had got more than home when she felt startled for a by the appearance of a person who seemed to have been engaged in some of these nightly outrages that were then so numerous in the country. The person in question had just leaped from ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... must be drawn solely from Scripture; for what can we affirm about matters transcending our knowledge except what is told us by the words or writings of prophets? And since there are, so far as I know, no prophets now alive, we have no alternative but to read the books of prophets departed, taking care the while not to reason from metaphor or to ascribe anything to our authors which they do not themselves distinctly state. I must further premise that the Jews never make any mention or account of secondary, or particular ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... reached that definite conclusion, the storm which had been brewing for several days swooped down upon them, and drove Ford to the alternative of riding in the teeth of it to town, which was not only unpleasant but dangerous, if it grew any worse, or retracing his steps to the Double Cross and waiting there until it was over. So that is what he did, with Rock to ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... were on their way out from England, and saw the great Ugahden caravan preparing to leave, but were undecided what to do—whether to go with them without our things from England, or wait and rely upon our strength in travelling alone. The latter alternative was unfortunately decided upon, and we saw our wonted protector ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... than pleasure involved, though. In the city your lives have been geared for continual deadly warfare. Now you're faced with the choice of a fairly peaceful future, or staying in the city to fight an unnecessary and foolish war. I offer the third alternative of the occupation you know best, that would let you accomplish something constructive at the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... policy was protection.... I believe, sir, almost every man from New England who voted against the law of 1824 declared that if, notwithstanding his opposition to that law, it should still pass, there would be no alternative but to consider the course and policy of the government as then settled and fixed, and to act accordingly. The law did pass; and a vast increase of investment in manufacturing ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... troops where required, changing the arrangements as opportunity offered, keeping the whole machine in due order; and by his presence animating all with the determination to win or die, and an almost equal readiness to accept either alternative. ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... avec Chagrin que vous vous tourmentes et mois aussi bien innutillement, et en tout sans [sens]. Ou vous voules me servire, ou vous ne Le voules pas; ou vous voules me protege, ou non; Il n'y a acune autre alternative en raison qui puis etre. Si vous voules me servire il ne faut pas me soutenire toujours que Blan [blanc] est noire, dans Les Chose Les plus palpable: et jamais Avouer que vous aves tort meme quant vous Le santes. Si vous ne voules pas me servire, il ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... BALFOUR, on his retirement from the post of Foreign Secretary, will take up the arduous duties of caddie-master at St. Andrew's is not yet fully confirmed. Meanwhile he is known to be considering the alternative offer of the secretaryship to the Handel Society. In this context it is interesting to hear that, according to a Rotterdam agency, Sir EDWARD ELGAR has just completed a series of pieces for the mouth-organ, dedicated to Sir LEO CHIOZZA MONEY, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... alternative was very inviting. The unwelcome alteration in their circumstances was after all not altogether without its compensations, because from the moment of arriving at this decision their love for each other seemed to be renewed and intensified. They remembered with acute regret that hitherto ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the other occupants of the little wagonette in front had been for some time shouting to them to moderate the pace of their horses, but as the driver of Crass's brake was too drunk to understand what they said he took no notice, and they had no alternative but to increase their own speed to avoid being run down. The drunken driver now began to imagine that they were trying to race him, and became fired with the determination to pass them. It was a very narrow road, but there ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... alone on the following day. That meeting would decide every thing. She might, perhaps, throw some light upon what was at present a profound mystery to me. At all events, my course was clear. Under the circumstances in which I was placed, I felt that there lay but one alternative before me. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... which still keep the stage and form a part of the permanent repertoire of every lyric theatre, the artists singing them are compelled to choose between sacrificing the words or the music. The former alternative is generally preferable, the musical phrase in many such cases being of the greater relative importance. Another way is, to meet the difficulty boldly by supplying another text which mates itself more happily with the musical phrase. ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... gaze his host felt himself morbidly guilty, but there was a thrill of gladness in his heart that now welcomed the grim alternative of the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... tremor which ran over her shoulders like a chill, and smiled when he read it as the outward signal of inward terror. He had no doubt in the world that she would lay hold of his alternative to save herself and her plans for others, as quickly as he, coward at heart, would sacrifice a friend for his ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... to their inimitable excellence. The three dialogues which we have offered in the Appendix to the criticism of the reader may be partly spurious and partly genuine; they may be altogether spurious;—that is an alternative which must be frankly admitted. Nor can we maintain of some other dialogues, such as the Parmenides, and the Sophist, and Politicus, that no considerable objection can be urged against them, though greatly overbalanced by the weight ...
— Menexenus • Plato
... economic evils of monasticism, the increasing flagrancy and grossness of superstition, the aggressive factiousness of the ecclesiastics, the cruelty of bigoted tribunals—these things disgusted and wearied the more enlightened spirits, and the English philosophy only held out an inspiring intellectual alternative.[29] ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... victory. The Dane produced credentials of his victories, without a single defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow, Warsaw, and several of the petty courts in Germany; and challenged the Scotch Bacchanalians to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else of acknowledging their inferiority. After man overthrows on the part of the Scots, the Dane was encountered by Sir Robert Lawrie, of Maxwelton, ancestor of the present worthy baronet of that name; who, after three days and three nights' hard contest, left ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... night's orgy over the rhino carcass was desirable. The fact that the big water-hole below camp had not only remained unvisited, but apparently even desired, led him to deduce the existence of another, alternative, drinking place. He had yesterday explored some distance downstream; therefore ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... the old house of the past and ravage the larder, and would gladly, even resolutely, continue in illusion if it were possible for the broadest honey-store of reminiscences to hold out for a length of time against a mortal appetite: which in good sooth stands on the alternative of a consumption of the hive or of the creature it is for nourishing. Here do lovers show that they are perishable. More than the poor clay world they need fresh supplies, right wholesome juices; as it were, life in the burst of the bud, fruits yet on the tree, rather than potted provender. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... would make not only all mathematical principles, but all knowledge in general, all sciences, and all arts innate; there would be no ground even for the exclusion of wisdom and virtue. Therefore, either all ideas are innate or none are. This is an important alternative. While Locke decides for the second half of the proposition, Leibnitz defends the first by a delicate application of the concept of unconscious representation and of implicit knowledge, which his ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... it so. They clung to the faith that they were by right the masters here, and we the slaves, and so infatuated were they that they brought in English troops and force to back them up. There was no alternative but to fight. Would you have had me on the other ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... great object, of course, is to get out of this country somehow, and to make your way back to England. My first is to see Inez and find out whether she will follow my fortunes or remain to become some day Marchesa of Sottomayor. If she adopts the former alternative I have to arrange some plan to carry her off and to get out of the country, an operation in which I foresee no little difficulty. Of course if we are caught my life is forfeited, there is no question about that. The question for us to consider is how ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... forswear the dot, for it would be but one more old custom giving way to necessity. In that case the sincere, hardworking and not very humorous women of this class no doubt would find full compensation in the home, and promptly do her duty by the State. But I doubt if any other alternative will console any but the poorest intelligence or the naturally indolent—and perhaps Frenchwomen, unless good old-fashioned butterflies, have less laziness in their make-up than any ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... hooked on, and, in short, made all ready for setting, and I returned aft to Ryan's side, having to claw my way to him along the rail in preference to creeping along the deck upon all fours, which seemed to be the only alternative method of making headway against the wind. The sea was by this time getting up, and the air was full of spume and scud-water, caught up from the surface of the sea and the crests of the waves and swept ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... have signed—and I don't believe that you will refuse. It is either that, which means full liberty, plenty of money, a life which is never monotonous, often amusing, and sometimes dangerous; or an alternative which I ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... admits not of this alternative. I am all gratitude upon it. I cannot express how much I should be delighted with the charming hope you have given me, were you not next Wednesday, if you stay, to be another man's. Think, dearest creature! what an heightening of my anguish ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... it whereas he, Rives, was anxious to restore it to the rightful owner. If Jimmy would help him to do this, get the money and turn it over to him, he would see that he was suitably rewarded. If Jimmy refused to fall in with the plan outlined, the alternative was a jail sentence; for it had been only with great difficulty that he had persuaded Nickleby to refrain from putting Stiles in jail ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... you mean that you have left her alone, you had better not spared her; you had better sought divorce; then one of two things would have happened—either she would have disproved the charges brought against her, or she would have been set free! either alternative much better than her ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... should be investigated in a Public Court, and that Dr. Litter will at once apply for a warrant for his apprehension on the charge of theft, and that the whole matter will then be gone into in a Police Court. I cannot doubt but that he will accept the first alternative, for the second will be ruin ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... having taken care to see that the window was well closed, he returned to the supper-room. He was no sooner gone than the boy took the charcoal from the stove and threw it into the street; and when Adelaide came to undress, there was no fire. Cold as it was, however, she had no alternative but to go to bed without one, for there was not a bell in the apartment; and Mazzuolo, who had lighted her to the door, had locked her in, under pretence of caring for her safety. Karl, having watched this proceeding, accompanied him back to the supper-table, where they ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... skulk many more before the end of the session. Richardson's resolutions, introduced before I made any move or gave any vote upon the subject, make a direct question of the justice of the war; so no man can be silent if he would. You are compelled to speak; and your only alternative is to tell the truth or tell a lie. I cannot doubt ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne |
