"Quandary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Yard to Paris regarding the stolen jewels was apparent. Yet the fact that the locked suit-case only contained books and that nothing had been found in our possession—thanks to the forethought of Duperre—the police now found themselves in a quandary. The man in the white spats whom we had seen in the Bois identified Madame as Marie Richaud, a Frenchwoman who had lived in Philadelphia for several years, and who had been implicated two years before in the great frauds on the Bordeaux branch of ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... the Standard Bank at the beginning of the siege. This sum the Boers had at one time considered was as good as in their pockets. It was believed the greater portion had since been absorbed by the natives, who were in the habit of burying the money they received as wages. In this quandary, Colonel Baden-Powell designed a paper one-pound note, which was photographed on to thick paper of a bluish tint, and made such an attractive picture that the Government must have scored by many of them never ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... thaws—the river at this point was only about nine feet across and about two and a half feet deep—but it was a treacherous place because it was so mirey. It stuck many freight wagons—I was in a quandary just how I would cross it. After climbing down off of the coach, looking around for an escape (?), a happy idea possessed me. I was carrying four sacks of patent office books which would weigh about 240 pounds ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... Country, the Boolooroo determined to have him patched, but for some time he could find no other Blueskin to patch him with. No one had disobeyed a command or done anything wrong, so the king was in a quandary until he discovered that a servant named Tiggle had mixed the royal nectar for Cap'n Bill, who had been ordered to do it at the time of his capture. This was sufficient excuse for the Boolooroo, who at once had Tiggle made a prisoner and ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... a commercial wire and told him to turn his red-light and hold everything. I was in somewhat of a quandary; the sending had been miserable, sounding unlike any stuff Dick had ever sent, and then the stopping of the whole business made it seem rather suspicious. Still Ashley's cut was an ideal place for a hold up, and the weather ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... fortunate," returned Ada "of course he will take charge of the baby, I confess I was in a quandary for I do not relish the idea of having the care of it, poor ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... overwhelmed at the prospect of such honor accorded me, and greatly touched, too, that my old friends should welcome me back so gladly, but I was in a quandary what to do: whether it would be more dignified to stay Bourbon in the middle of the road and await their approach, or whether to ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... fire or a seeming great murder mystery, which the paper will feature as important news, but which later will prove of no worth. Such stories should be cleared up and the results made known to avoid keeping the paper in a quandary over the outcome. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... were in a terrible quandary how to reconcile their desire to stand well with their richest fellow- townsman, and their dismayed recognition of that townsman's scandalous professional conduct. David smiled at this, but it made him bitter too. He had intended once more to call the congregation ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... celebration. In my mind, somehow, like a dream of a birthday in spring, comes a faint picture of a number of pioneer mothers, in my mother's partly furnished parlor. I rushed in after school and stood upon the threshold. I saw bright colors in stripes, and stars of blue that they seemed to be in a quandary how to place and how many to use. Was this the first flag made in St. Anthony? Was it made in the old Godfrey House, or was I only dreaming? Anyway, it was a real celebration that came after. The Declaration of Independence was read, I think by J. W. North, a volunteer choir of our best singers—Mrs. ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... as much of a quandary as ever as to what I should choose to consider the inevitable in my own path. It never occurred to me in this dilemma to seek advice from the elder members of my own family. They knew nothing really of my situation in Wallencamp, and even if they had been informed more ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... report. Aunt Harriet, who left you her love, has had the complete order for the Lorenz trousseau. She and I have picked out a stunning design for the wedding dress. I thought I'd ask you about the veil. We're rather in a quandary. Do you like this new fashion of draping the veil from behind the coiffure ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the emperor for the rite of baptism? Not he; it would be too much like rendering homage to a prince no greater than himself. The haughty barbarian found himself in a quandary; but soon he discovered a promising way out of it. He would make war on Greece, conquer priests and churches, and by force of arms obtain instruction and baptism in the new faith. Surely never before or since was a war waged with ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... not leave the manse with an easy mind, and the more he thought of what he had said, and what he had not said there, the more uneasy he became. He was in a quandary, he told himself, putting the accent on the last "a." To his surprise and consternation he found himself in doubt as to the course he ought ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... me in a quandary. The house was full of young men; how pick out the friend? Besides, this friend was undoubtedly a transient and gone long ago. My hopes seemed likely to end in smoke—my great coincidence to prove valueless. I was so ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... In this quandary, he ought, perhaps, to have abandoned his purpose and to have taken up some problem in pure mathematics, but here the perversity of human nature interposed. The forbidden, or at least difficult, road was the one he desired to travel, and he could not make up his mind to turn back, though ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... prostrate body in the dark as he crossed a ridge not far away. Cautiously he had investigated and had recognized Jase, who was unconscious and had lost much blood. His confederate paused for a time in a quandary as to what disposition to make of him. When to-morrow's news leaked out, wounded men would be suspected men, and those who accompanied them might share ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... quandary. Did Labrouk mean that the countersign was "Jesu," or was that word the broken prayer of his soul as it hurried forth? So strange a countersign I had never heard, and yet it might be used in this Catholic country. This day ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sail on his craft, soon brought her alongside the pinnace. As the sloop came up, the Indians opened the fight with fire-arms and spears; but Gallop's crew responded with their duck-guns with such vigor that the Indians deserted the decks, and fled below for shelter. Gallop was then in a quandary. The odds against him were too great for him to dare to board, and the pinnace was rapidly drifting ashore. After some deliberation he put up his helm, and beat to windward of the pinnace; then, coming about, came scudding down upon her before the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... horseman gradually became more distinct, he saw that the rider was in an odd quandary. He was striving to turn the animal in the opposite direction, but he would not obey. He flung up his head, sometimes reared angrily, and, though he maintained a walk, kept pushing straight on toward the bush, despite ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... And Edward Henry was placed in a new quandary. He knew not whether the small bedroom in the suite was for a child, or for his wife's maid, or for his valet. Quite probably it would be a sacrilegious defiance of precedent to put a valet in the small bedroom. Quite probably Wilkins's had a floor for ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... to cut off Macdonald's retreat. But with the dilatoriness which characterized all the Russian movements he came too late, a single detachment under Diebitsch falling in with the Prussians on their own territory. The Prussian general was in a quandary; he was quite strong enough to have beaten Diebitsch, but his soldiers were friendly to Russia and embittered against Napoleon. His own sympathies being identical with those of his men, and considering that he might in extremity plead his ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... happened that Marshal had no money, and his credit being at a par, and a warrant out to take him for a great debt, and another to take him for picking of pockets, he was in a great quandary how to escape both. He strolled into St. James's Park, and walking there pretty late behind the trees, a woman came up to the seat directly before him, when she fell to roaring and crying. Marshal being unseen, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Grace was trying vainly to make up her mind what to do. Should she go directly to the two mischievous sophomores, revealing the identity of the ghosts, or should she leave them in a quandary as to the outcome of their unwomanly trick? One thing had been decided upon definitely by Grace and her friends. They would tell no tales. Grace could not help thinking that a little anxiety would be the just ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... quandary she had to call upon the old cattleman. No man ever held a position with greater pride than Stillwell, but he had been put to tests that steeped him in humility. Here he scratched ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... quandary, he met his Jewish broker. He did not hesitate to address him, and, featherhead as he was, did not fail to tell him the plight he ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... cargo of human beings back to the home harbor of Kamchatka. Meanwhile a hurricane caught Pushkareff's ship, chopping the wave tops off and driving her ahead under bare poles. When the gale abated, the ship was off Kamchatka's shore and the Cossack in a quandary about entering the home port with proofs of his cruelty in the cowering group of Indian women huddled above the deck. {87} On pretence of gathering berries, six sailors were landed with fourteen women. Two watched their chance and dashed for liberty in the hills. On the way back ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... communication with the shore for the family who occupy the only house on the eighteen-acre island. I jumped up and seized the oars, and pushed with main and utmost might, but the "Yellow Boy" refused to budge, and I was in a quandary. The tide would not float me for another three or four hours, so to wait would spoil my whole morning, and if I stepped overboard and pushed off, should I not be breaking my contract by landing? I sat down a few minutes and held ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... character—character of which the original whiteness could never, never be restored! He would always be the boy who had sat in the stocks! And the words uttered by the Squire came back on his soul, like the voice of conscience in the ears of some doomed Macbeth. "A sad disgrace, Lenny—you'll never be in such a quandary." "Quandary," the word was unfamiliar to him; it must mean something awfully discreditable. The poor boy could have prayed for the earth to ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... the territory. The other party, inasmuch as the party that has lost has accepted the decision, has bound itself not to attack it and cannot go by force of arms and take possession of the country. In order to cure that quandary we used a sentence which said that in case—I have forgotten the phraseology but it means this—in case any power refuses to carry out the decision the Executive Council was to consider the means by which it could be enforced. Now that apparently applies to both parties but was ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... was in a quandary. She did not like to refuse; she coveted Mrs. Laval's notice; and this visit of Matilda's might be the means, perhaps, of securing it. Then, also, she and her daughter had in contemplation a journey to ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... in a quandary. He could see no way of warning the unsuspecting captain; and yet, even while he waited, the cowardly gang who thus purposed to desert their shipmates ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... revenue at once and which in the course of a few years would provide a sinking fund sufficient to extinguish the loan of L600,000. The offer was so favourable to the State that it placed the Government in a quandary.{50} The attitude of the Volksraad, too, was distinctly hostile to the dynamite monopoly; and on top of all came the representations of the Imperial Government upon the subject. It became necessary to do something to save the threatened 'cornerstone'; hence ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... rate there had come an annual meeting at which Nat Lawson found himself in a quandary. It followed on the heels of a rumor that it was the desire of certain shareholders to inject some "new blood," and thereby new life, into the loan company—that it would be a good thing, in short, for ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... requires a solemn promise that the servant will come on a certain day, and as often as not the day arrives without her. Our young lady has been round to a number of mistresses and 'priced' their places; she will not wilfully put you in a quandary, but if, after having engaged herself to you, she hears of another situation where there is less work or more wages, she takes it in preference, and leaves you to manage as best you can. Even when you have got her and ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... obstruction; arduousness, hardness; controversy, disagreement, objection, cavil; predicament, quandary, dilemma. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... involvement. nice point, delicate point, subtle point, knotty point; vexed question, vexata quaestio[Lat], poser; puzzle &c. (riddle) 533; paradox; hard nut to crack, nut to crack; bone to pick, crux, pons asinorum[Lat], where the shoe pinches. nonplus, quandary, strait, pass, pinch, pretty pass, stress, brunt; critical situation, crisis; trial, rub, emergency, exigency, scramble. scrape, hobble, slough, quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest; sea of troubles, peck of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... with care, but could find no trace of the others. Had they come thus far, or had they turned back, in a hunt for him? Jack was in a quandary over what to do next. Night was again coming on, and he had no desire to remain alone again, after his many adventures of ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... "He's the prosecuting attorney—only other lawyer in town. It wouldn't look right for either the judge or prosecutor to make the arrest. Curly might not like it." This all seemed true enough, and we fell into a quandary. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... "Kaiser's messenger, why not?" Being a most tall handsome man, this Kaiser's BOTSCHAFTER, striding along on foot here, the Guard-house Officials have decided to keep him, to teach him Prussian drill-exercise;—and are thrown into a singular quandary, when his valets and suite come up, full of alarm dissolving into joy, and call him ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... A QUANDARY.—If a boy should catch hold of your ear, and ask if he had the wrong pig by the ear, would you ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... but Paul did not leave the car. Locke was in some quandary what to do. To attempt to enter the house without Paul's seeing him and raising the alarm would, he realized, be impossible. Therefore he waited for nearly half an hour before his patience was rewarded by seeing Balcom ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... all one's Imperial relations, to say nothing of the Court officials, the Lord High Chamberlain, the Keepers of the Pedigree, the Diamond Sticks in Waiting, the Grooms of the Bedchamber, and the Valets Extraordinary—it was not fair to put their poor brains into such a quandary of contradiction and perplexity. And who shall tell the divine wrath of that august figure, obscurely visible in the recesses of ancestral homes, upon whose brow had descended the diadem of Roman Emperors, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... but she wanted to know more than Mrs. Crofton was inclined to tell her about the circumstances—the really extraordinary circumstances, Janet—concerning Colonel Crofton's death. And now I'm rather in a quandary as to whether I ought to tell her what I heard, and indeed as to whether I ought even to send her the report of the inquest which appeared in a local paper, and which I at last managed ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... in a quandary how to treat her gallant buccaneer and rover of the high seas. England and Spain were at peace, and she could not give Drake an open royal commission to raid the commerce of a friendly power; but she did present him with a magnificent ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... The quandary was trying. Finally he concluded to stay where he was. The stranger might bring somebody back with him—possibly the lost child—such Lael was in ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... and rapidly more intolerable, Mr. Adams found himself straining farther and farther away from those Federalist moorings at which, it must be confessed, he had long swung very precariously. The constituency which he represented was indeed in a quandary so embarrassing as hardly to be capable of maintaining any consistent policy. The New England of that day was a trading community, of which the industry and capital were almost exclusively centred in ship-owning and commerce. The merchants, ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... one summer, John was in a quandary. Sunday meeting and Sunday-school he did n't mind; they were a part of regular life, and only temporarily interrupted a boy's pleasures. But when there began to be evening meetings at the different houses, a new element came into affairs. There was a kind of solemnity over ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... had talked so much about the matter that he now felt imperatively called upon to act, and he therefore sent General Whitesides to demand from the "Journal" the name of its contributor. Mr. Francis, the editor, was in a quandary. Lincoln had written the first letter, and the antic fury of Shields had induced two young ladies who took a lively interest in Illinois politics—and with good reason, for one was to be the wife of a Senator and the other of a President—to follow up the game with attacks in prose and ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... was in a quandary. Ordinarily he would have sided with the burgomaster of Masolga, but there were several considerations which made him pause. In the first place, he did not like the burgomaster, for he was very dictatorial and few things at the inn suited him and his party; in the second place, ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... through last night has put me in a bit of a quandary, both as regards you and Miss Carolan. Now tell me, would you mind very much if I left you to-day ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... Senator was in a quandary. What could he do? How begin? What gesture would be the most ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... a quandary. He hated the bigotry and narrow-mindedness which forbade the study of any subject but the time-honored Talmud. He himself had been as anxious as was Mendel to strive after other knowledge. On the other hand, he bore in mind ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... in a quandary now as to what to do. It might be better for us to let them escape, for then we would have only Thirkle and Buckrow to fight, and a sack of gold mattered but little. Yet I knew that they might take both boats; and then Captain Riggs and I and Rajah would be marooned ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... suffering than pleasure. I concluded that this unsatisfactory result was inseparable from the pursuit of illegitimate amours. I saw that my work had been interfered with, and that I was in debt, owing to the same cause. Yet I felt that I could never do without a woman. In this quandary I found myself thinking that marriage was the only salvation for me. Then I should always have a woman by me. I was sufficiently sensible to know that unless there were congenial tastes and sympathies, a marriage could not turn out happily, especially as my chief interests ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... reason to doubt the accuracy of this information, as Mr. Low had previously spent several months at these posts when engaged in the work of mapping out the peninsula. Conditions, however, had changed, unfortunately for us, since Mr. Low's visit to Labrador. Seeing the quandary we were in, Mackenzie got out an old three-inch gill net that had been lying in a corner of one of his buildings. He said he was afraid it was worn out, but if we could make any use of it, we might take it. We, too, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... when Adam shamefacedly claims they hid because they were naked, his maker demonstrates how his very words convict him of guilt, and inquires whether they have eaten of the forbidden fruit. Unable to deny his transgression, Adam states he is in a quandary, for he must either accuse himself wrongfully or lay the guilt upon the wife whom it is his duty to protect. When he adds that the woman gave him the fruit whereof he did eat, the judge sternly demands whether Adam was bound to obey his consort, reminding ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... allayed by the observation that Mr Sharnall himself had severely felt the strain of this mental quandary, for the organist said that he was upset by so difficult a question, and filled himself a bumper of whisky to steady his nerves. At the same time he took down from a shelf two or three notebooks and a mass of loose papers, which he spread open upon the table before him. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... of crooked work?" asked McKeever. He pushed back his chair. Fernand, studying his lieutenant in this crisis, approved of him thoroughly. He himself was in a quandary. Westerners fight, and a fight would be most embarrassing. ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... the romance is all it looks. We should be in a sweet quandary if anything happened to our sheet-anchor here. Just remember, in any danger, save Amanda first, then she will save us. But if she is lost, all is lost,' replied Lavinia, darkly, for she always took tragical views of life when ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... relish of a school-boy, rubbing his hands and laughing heartily as the orator went along. Aside from the ardent and unquenchable love that existed between them, the explanation may be found to a certain extent in Tazewell's love of humor. When Watkins Leigh's amusing letter of Christopher Quandary appeared in the Enquirer,—a paper, by the way, which, after the feud in the Jefferson administration, he never took in, thus showing that, if the democrats remembered his shortcomings, he did not forget what he deemed theirs—I took the number around to him, ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... idea to a particular case a person with the best of intentions may find himself immediately landed in a quandary. In saying to the country girl before him what would have suited the mass of country lasses well enough, Christopher had offended her beyond the cure ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... your indulgence in the name of charity, Monsieur," he said to Francois. "The Comedie-Francaise finds itself in the most awkward quandary. We have prepared a big gala performance at La Monnaie, to raise money for all those ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... lately lived in quiet ease, An' never wish'd to marry, O! But when I saw my Peggy's face, I felt a sad quandary, O! Though wild as ony Athol deer, She has trepann'd me fairly, O! Her cherry cheeks an' e'en sae clear Torment me late an' early, O! O, love, love, love! Love is like a dizziness, It winna let a poor body Gang ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... up to Bury Street, she was in a quandary. To confess that Fiorsen was here, having omitted to speak of him in her letters? Not to confess, and leave him to find it out from Aunt Rosamund? Which was worse? Seized with panic, she did neither, but told her father she was dying for ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... would he not? And when they thought that he might not, because this would be considered Christmas celebration and would only make the absence of present-giving the more conspicuous, as in the case of the Sunday schools themselves, they faced still another theological quandary: For if it was true that Christ was born, then Christmas was his birthday; and if Christmas was his birthday, wasn't it wicked not to pay ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... greatly lessened that I feel that to continue to take the lower amount would mean perpetual relief. But there have been so many warnings, including M.D.'s, of the dangers of under-nutrition, that I am in a quandary; and others of your ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... was in a quandary. She had heard all the rumours that were going about, but she knew that they had been kept from Mary Grant, and she thought that if Blake meant to talk business he might shock or ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... the boat boys. Then he ordered Bunster's wife to return to her family house. Had she refused, he would have been in a quandary, for his tambo would not have permitted him ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... eyes that night. Daybreak found him lying in bed, with the box under his pillow, a pistol at hand, and his eyes wide- open. He was in a graver quandary than ever. Now that he had the treasure in his possession, what was he to do with it? He did not dare to leave it in the room, nor was it advisable to carry it about with him. The discovery of the burglary in room 30 would ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... in a quandary," began the little lady who was used to having her own way, "and we hope you will help us out. With Polly's birthday coming on the eighteenth and Leonora's on the twentieth, and we planning for separate parties, it is strange ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... Mr. Hastings' baggage properly disposed of, himself paid, and supposed to be dismissed, Tode was in a quandary. Here was the train, and on it he meant to travel; but how to manage it was another question. It was broad daylight; sleep and Wolfie couldn't serve him now. He stuffed his hands into his pocket, and studied ways and ...
— Three People • Pansy
... possible. This renewed a contemplation which often had come into my thoughts in former times, when first I began to see the merciful dispositions of Heaven, in the dangers we run through in this life; how wonderfully we are delivered when we know nothing of it; how, when we are in a quandary as we call it, a doubt or hesitation whether to go this way or that way, a secret hint shall direct us this way, when we intended to go that way: nay, when sense, our own inclination, and perhaps business has called us to go the other ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... should prove to be a friend, my case might be better than before; if he should prove to be an enemy, I must act prudently and try to befool him. I must discover his intentions before making mine known. He, also, must be in a great quandary. ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... tribunal of the State, was a very serious matter to contemplate—a most hazardous extremity in any event. If spared from the fury of their troops, by ordering the execution, their death was certain at the hands of Judge Terry's avengers. In this quandary, the Executive Committee were as anxious for a safe way out, without blood or sacrifice, as any of the friends of Terry. Secretary of State Douglass came to San Francisco. He persuaded ex-Senator Gwin to interpose on Terry's behalf. Gwin dispatched Sam. J. Bridges, Appraiser-General, to Mare Island, ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... Cole rode in upon his donkey the King of Whatland lay dying in his palace, surrounded by all the luxury of the court. And as he left no heir, and was the last of the royal line, the councilors and wise men of Whatland were in a great quandary as to who should succeed him. But finally they bethought themselves of the laws of the land, and upon looking up the records they found in an old book a law that provided for just such ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... very highly of this person and had pensioned him. Formerly he lived up in the country with his family, but at present was old, penniless, and alone in the city. Now that her parents were dead she was in a quandary about keeping up her father's obligation to the old man. Out of her $8 a week it was hard to make both ends meet. She had to pay her own board and for this man also. She found that he needed to be taken care of in every way; she had to wash his face ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... exactly if poison had been given the cattle, or if they had eaten of a poisonous weed, of which he had no knowledge, Ted was in a quandary. But it was questions like this that came before cowmen on the range, and it was the successful ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... found myself in a quandary. I had determined to make a long tramp inland, and if necessary to ford or swim streams, and I could not determine whether or not it would be wise to take Walkirk with me. I concluded at last to take him; it would be awkward to leave him behind, and he might be of use. We ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... Here was quandary. I looked at Bell, but God forgive me, it was not with the old trustfulness. He was on the top shelf but one, just in line with the eyes, with gilt front winking in the firelight. I had set him thus conspicuous with intention, because of his calfskin binding, quite old and worn. A decayed Gibbon, ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... its realization upon the temper of the peoples and that of their neighbors. As under the given circumstances either solution was sure to encounter formidable opposition, which only a doughty spirit would dare to affront, compromise, offering a side-exit out of the quandary, was avidly taken. In this way the collective sagacities, working in materials the nature of which they hardly understood, brought forth strange products. Some of the incongruities of the details, such, for instance, as the invitation to Prinkipo, despatched anonymously, occasionally surpass satire, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... quandary. These men, with their cigars, were a menace to the forest. It made him nervous merely to look at the glowing tobacco and the careless way the men flicked the ashes about. He was almost panic-stricken at the idea of their passing into his ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... found herself in that special quandary reserved for independent American girls who want to have their ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... after the tiger. He fired several shots at the exposed head of the brute, but missed. He thought he would wait till he got nearer and make a sure shot, as he had only one bullet left in the boat. Suddenly the tiger turned round, and made straight for the boat. Here was a quandary. Even if lie killed the tiger with his single bullet it might upset the boat; the lagoon was full of alligators, to say nothing of weeds, and there was no time to get his heavy boots off. He felt his life might depend on the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... still light in Mary's eyes would have checked him, if not his own proper second thought and the fear of precipitating an ungovernable crisis. There had been shadows, real shadows, he was thinking wildly; they were not born of desert imaginings; and out of the quandary of his anguish came only the desire not to part from the Doge and Mary in this fashion! No, not until in some way equilibrium of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... consistently with his view of the law. Judge Sherwood meanwhile continued to sit on the bench alone, and to transact such business as came before him. Some influential members of the bar found themselves in a quandary. After Judge Willis's decision, they entertained grave doubts as to the legality of the Court, and hesitated as to the advisability of taking any further proceedings in cases committed to them, until the vexed question should be settled. Judge Sherwood, though he had dissented ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... three years to remain under legal tutelage. Perhaps Andrew Fraser may have been already coached upon his course by his unrelenting kinsman. And there is a fortune waiting for father and son in the perquisites." Madame Louison fell asleep in a vain quandary as to the precise age when men ceased to value wealth and to sell their souls for gold. That question was still undecided when the steamer Sparrow Hawk sped into ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... marvelous pushing forward of the poor white daily threatened to take even bread and butter from the mouths of the heavily handicapped sons of the freedmen. In the midst, then, of the larger problem of Negro education sprang up the more practical question of work, the inevitable economic quandary that faces a people in the transition from slavery to freedom, and especially those who make that change amid hate and prejudice, lawlessness and ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Edna, I am coming to-night, to ask your assistance in a Chaldee quandary. For several days I have been engaged in a controversy with Mr. Hammond on the old battlefield of ethnology, and, in order to establish my position of diversity of origin, have been comparing the Septuagint ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett's and the Signal ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... deuce of it was, that when the answers to the invitations came back, everybody accepted! Here was a pretty quandary. How they were to get twenty into their dining-room was a calculation which poor Timmins could not solve at all; and he paced up and down the ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be the purpose of her visit? Above all, how was I, on the outside, to find out? I walked down past the house. But that did no good. In a quandary, I stopped. Hesitation would get me nothing. Suddenly an idea flashed through my mind. I turned in and rang ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... how shrewd the fixed eternal gaze across his own old Father Thames! It assumed another character as the girl gazed in her turn, she seemed to intercept that stony stare, to distract it from the river to herself, and to her fevered fancy the grim lips smiled contemptuously on her and her quandary. He knew—he knew—those grim old eyes had seen it all, and still they stared and smiled as much as to say: "You are looking the wrong way! Look where I am looking; that way lies the truth you are poor fool ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... his chin. He seemed to be in some sort of quandary. First he scrutinized me from under his shaggy brows with a sharp gleam of suspicion; then his features softened and, with a side glance at the young woman who called herself Eunice, (perhaps, because she was worth looking at, perhaps because she ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... loyalists, and would have sent all their tobacco to the bottom of the salt sea had the king so ordained, and regarded all disaffection from the royal will as a deadly sin against God and the Church, as well as the throne, and knowing the danger which Mary Cavendish ran, I was in a sore quandary. Could I have but gone to those men whom I conceived to be in the plot, and talked with them on an equal footing, I would have given my right hand. But I wondered, and with reason, what hearing they would accord me, and I wondered how to move in the matter at all without doing harm ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... in a quandary. Some natures would have embraced them all, but his heart only sought the one 'sweet face' that had haunted him so long, and in his perplexity he sought our counsel. It was finally arranged that he should answer the entire lot, and appoint a meeting ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... mother's dinner-party. She was in a quandary about me, I saw, and to save words I offered to go over again and stay with the little Graeme. So it came to pass, one time being precedent of another, that in all the merrymakings I had small share, and spent the greater part of those bright days in Margray's nursery with, the boy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... quandary, and he quickly advanced to the rescue. Throwing one arm protectingly round Cameron's waist, ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... a quandary. It was a regular transaction, and it was by no means unusual to pay out money in this way. It was only the largeness of the sum which made him hesitate. He disappeared into his office and came back with two bundles of notes which he had taken from the safe. He counted ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... repentance. He flung himself all at once into the conversation, to bar and baffle any renewed allusion to that subject, and it was accident rather than intention which made him grasp Nehemiah in the vise of a quandary also. ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... So far from being angry with you, I am very thankful to you for coming. You have relieved me from a quandary. I didn't know how to return the work or to get the pay. For after what has happened, Morris, the cloth might have stayed here and the money there, forever, before I would have gone near ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of the fever. He got hold of my sympathies and secured my friendship. (More of him anon.) I had been here four or five days without seeing our guide, the boy with my satchel, containing my valuables, particularly the bills of lading of my houses. I was in a quandary and anxiety about it, not knowing what to do, when one day as I was going to dinner, something pulled my coat from behind, and looking around, what should I see to my great joy and satisfaction but the native boy with my satchel, contents there all safe. It was an instance of honesty ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... woman I don't care twopence about, and with a young jackass whom I could kick across the street! That is what I ought to have done!—why didn't I throw him down-stairs? But the mischief of it is that the thing is now inevitable; I can't back out? I declare I never was in such a quandary in my ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... him yet more completely. 'It is impossible,' wrote Louis XIV to Governor La Barre, 'to imagine what you mean by releasing Gillam's boat and relinquishing claim to the North Sea,' At the same time Louis was in a quandary. He would not relinquish the French claim to the North Sea; but he dared not risk a rupture of his secret treaty with England by openly countenancing Radisson's exploit on the Nelson river. Radisson was secretly ordered to go back to the ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... bet that La G. is not in a kind of quandary just now? Gods! what a pathetic love-scene it will make if it shall ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... I had expected; but by some unlucky chance it didn't explode, for I saw the line torn away by the men's legs, and heard the click o' the lock; so I fancy the priming had got damp and didn't catch. I was in a great quandary now what to do, for I couldn't concoct in my mind, in the hurry, any good reason for firin' off my piece. But they say necessity's the mother of invention; so just as I was givin' it up and clinchin' my teeth to bide ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... a passion, and she almost repented not having followed her first impulse to fly. She inwardly cursed that tenderness for her reputation, which had brought the more substantial part of her person into the present quandary. A vigorous defence was the only alternative ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... unfortunate offspring. He ignored the choice fruits and buds she picked for him, repaid her caresses with scratches, screams and snarls or received them in the most indifferent manner in those rare intervals when he did not violently resent them. Myla was in a quandary. Should she restore him to his mother by taking him back to the windfall? Should she desert him in the treetops, or should she cast him to the ground and thus be rid of him quickly and without trouble? No! She had ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... their backs on poor Bumpus, who found himself in a quandary, hardly knowing which course would be the worse for him to pursue, tag at the heels of these two adventurous comrades, and meet with what danger they might unearth; or stay ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... with my chamberlain, or if necessary to use cable, I shall arrange with your chief in Berlin for forwarding facilities. Be good enough to wait and I shall send you my secretary." Slapping me on the shoulder, "You'll not regret it, helping us out of this quandary." ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... shrewd to press him with questions, and so perhaps betray his own hand. As a matter of fact, the famous detective was in quite a quandary over the case, because of his conviction that some big game was secretly afoot, and his utter inability to strike any tangible clew ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... was so long since we had studied alligation, that we had really forgotten what it was, and so expressed a preference for it. "Very good, sir," said the maestro. "Will you not propound a problem?" From this quandary we escaped by stating that we could not think of doing so; that we had every confidence in his fairness and that he had better give it, as the boys were more accustomed to him. We have visited many classes ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... ended, the gods now prepared to launch the ship, but found that the heavy load of fuel and treasures resisted their combined efforts and they could not make the vessel stir an inch. The mountain giants, witnessing the scene from afar, and noticing their quandary, now drew near and said that they knew of a giantess called Hyrrokin, who dwelt in Joetun-heim, and was strong enough to launch the vessel without any other aid. The gods therefore bade one of the storm giants hasten off to summon Hyrrokin, and she soon appeared, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Things" includes also the things which one might have expressed worse, and covers the cases where a dexterous choice of words seems, at any rate to the speaker, to have extricated him from a conversational quandary. As an instance of this perilous art carried to high perfection, may be cited Abraham Lincoln's judgment on an unreadably sentimental book—"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like"—humbly ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... another, as also because of the impeditive interposition of many great rivers, the interjacent obstacle of divers wild deserts, and obstructive interjection of sundry almost inaccessible mountains,—whilst he was in this sad quandary and solicitous pensiveness, which, you may suppose, could not be of a small vexation to him, considering that it was a matter of no great difficulty to run over his whole native soil, possess his country, seize on his kingdom, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... everything, they put away the coffee pot and frying pan, folded the comforts, and went back to Aunt Ollie's for dinner; then to Walden in the afternoon. Because Mrs. Holt knew they would be there that day she had the house clean and the best supper she could prepare ready for them. She was in a quandary as to how to begin with Kate. She heartily hated her. She had been sure the girl had a secret, now she knew it; for if she did not attend the wedding of her sister, if she had not been at home all summer, if her father and mother never mentioned her name or made ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... contemplation which often had come to my thoughts in former time, when first I began to see the merciful dispositions of Heaven, in the dangers we run through in this life; how wonderfully we are delivered when we know nothing of it; how, when we are in a quandary, (as we call it) a doubt or hesitation, whether to go this way, or that way, a secret hint shall direct us this way, when we intended to go that way: nay, when sense, our own inclination, and perhaps business, has called to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... troublesome child to deal with. Penelope had divined that Mr. Pound was her father's arch-enemy, and she met his most benign approach with her head tilted defiantly and her eyes flashing, so that now, in a quandary, he asked: "What shall we do with ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... cruel suggestion, that," the woman cried. "I wish to be her friend, I am her friend. If I could only tell you everything, you would understand at once what a terrible situation, what a hideous quandary I am in." ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... middle of the afternoon, they were still inseparable. The watering over, we camped for the night several miles south of the railroad, the mixed herd having crossed it about noon. My guest of the past few days had come to a point requiring a decision and was in a quandary to know what to do. But when the situation had been thoroughly reviewed between Mr. Lovell and the Wyoming man, my advice was indorsed,—to trust implicitly to his corporal, and be ready to relieve the outfit ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... cocoa-nuts. The same great supervision was extended to the bananas, the bread-fruit, the cucumbers, the melons, and even the squashes, and always with the same results to the editorial larder. Once, however, this worthy did get himself in a quandary with his use of the imperial pronoun. A mate of one of the vessels inflicted personal chastisement on him, for some impertinent comments he saw fit to make on the honest tar's vessel; and, this being matter of intense interest to ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... He was in a quandary. It did not seem possible that the two nations pointed out by the seal and the wax could be engaged in such dirty business. He hoped to prove to his own satisfaction ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... happened to so radically change Mrs. Miller's estimate of and regard for the "Queen of Bedlam?" was Jean Bruce's natural question of her mother that night, and Mrs. Bruce was in a quandary how to answer and not betray the secret that had been confided to her. From having avoided and distrusted Miss Fanny Forrest, it was now noticeable to the entire garrison that Mrs. Miller was exerting herself ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... his kindness and went on my way very well content. But when I sat down to copy off the order I was put in quite a quandary. Traveling men meet such men as Harris frequently. He gave the order because he was friendly to the house, but he had not asked for prices on anything. What was I to do? I had several prices, for my figures were elastic, ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... one of the caverns formed by ancient lava flows and which are often treacherously concealed by a thin, brittle crust that a man of Kamehameha's bulk might easily break through. Much as they feared for the king's safety, the servants dared not leave the canoe unguarded. They were in a quandary indeed. ...
— Legends of Wailuku • Charlotte Hapai
... bright head. What a quandary for a thick-skulled old horseman! "Wal, it seems to me Slone didn't act so bad, considerin'. You'd told him you cared for him. If it wasn't for thet! ... I remember I did much the same to your mother. She raised the devil, but I never seen as she ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... a quandary, and grew, in one second, hot all over. Uncertain what amount of knowledge I ought to admit, I took refuge ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... if I go to a country house to make a good long visit, I want to stay about a month. A week here and then a week there is so unsatisfactory. However, after much thoughtful brooding over the question, I've cut out three, and that brings my quandary down to only two places to ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... I assure you, no! Yet am I his friend? Permit me to be candid, Miss Leslie. I'm in a deuce of a quandary. On the trip up to Aden, you'll remember, I told you something of the way he and I had knocked ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.—It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.—If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites—well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... you have no objection,' said I, attempting to relieve his quandary. He replied he had none whatever; that I would find him a trump, though rather low. 'He seldom comes out of this place!' ejaculated Prompt, leading the way through an extremely narrow and crooked passage into a dark cloister-like ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances, imagined a most intelligent way of escaping from the ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... regarded them as beasts, and had often warned others against them. But now he went to see them himself, and found to his joy that they followed the Scriptures, obeyed the Gospel and enforced their rules without respect of persons. For a while he was in a quandary. His conscience drew him to the Brethren, his honour held him to the Utraquists, and finally his own father confessor settled the ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... to him with a jerk or jump—perhaps because he was such a jumper—and he wore his hat well on the back of his head, because he had no fear of losing it. But for all that he found himself in a sad quandary now. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... was trying to think of something helpful to say, when the little man suddenly found a way out of his quandary. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope |
