"Tantamount" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but continue to govern their lives by motives which are not harmonious with them. It is tacitly assumed on all sides that a consistent pursuit of Christians ideals will assure failure in social or business life. This, of course, is tantamount to a confession that social and business life are unchristian, and raises the same sort of grave questions as to the duty of a Christian as were raised in the early days of the Church under the heathen empire. ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... children, she would have no choice in respect to whose welfare should constitute the main business of her life; and it even became a question whether she would have a right to place them in circumstances so unfavorable for growth and education. Therefore, to marry might be tantamount ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... "is generally tantamount to a confession of inferiority, and an acknowledgment that the migrator is not likely to become a Fellow in his own College, and therefore takes refuge in another, where a more moderate Degree will insure him a Fellowship. A great deal of ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... became, in the Arctic squadron, tantamount to folly, although the proceeds of great consumption of powder were but small; nevertheless, stout men, who had not buttoned a gaiter since their youth, were to be seen rivalling chamois-hunters in the activity with which they stalked down ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... know he cannot dismiss me, if I have not been unfaithful. That I know from several instances—for example, hunter Rupert in Erdmansgruen. If I allowed myself to be dismissed without protest, it would be tantamount to a confession that I were dishonest. Nothing could be proved against Rupert, and he remained in his position. And who will employ a man that has been dismissed? Sir, from my father and grandfather I have inherited my honor, and I owe it to my children and children's ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... and proportionate allowance must be made for the French general. Every moment might bring the British cruisers in sight,—two important expeditions had already been baffled in that way,—and the absolute certainty, known to all parties alike, that delay, under these circumstances, was tantamount to ruin; that upon a difference of ten or fifteen minutes, this way or that, might happen to hinge the whole issue of the expedition: such a consciousness gave unavoidably to every demur at this critical moment the color of treachery. Neither ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... be persons knowing that for a certain period certain tasks were imposed on them, tasks tantamount to those in which all their coevals were simultaneously engaged. To-day they are persons not knowing, as who should say, where they are, and wishing all the while they were elsewhere—and mostly, as I have said, going elsewhere. Those who remain ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... without ships, as is clear and evident, and as such I declare the same. And, therefore, from the offers aforesaid results, and may be clearly inferred, the intention with which the said offers were made—which is tantamount to using force upon us and injuring us, as if we were men isolated in this island, and without respect for the will of God or of our sovereigns and lords, or for peace and friendship, or for the relationship that exists between them. And that the truth of my justification ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... But to put it boldly on a programme like that is practically tantamount to implying that ...
— Plays of Near & Far • Lord Dunsany
... "I am doing nothing of the sort. Your remark is tantamount to telling me that I am speaking a falsehood. But, of course, for all I know, the thing may be some other ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... ridged and linear scars to be self-inflicted. In Tanna the people produce elevated scars on the arms and chests. Bancroft recites that family-marks of this nature existed among the Cuebas of Central America, refusal being tantamount to rebellion. Schomburgk tells that among the Arawaks, after a Mariquawi dance, so great is their zeal for honorable scars, the blood will run down their swollen calves, and strips of skin and muscle hang from the mangled limbs. Similar practices rendered it necessary for the United ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... had at last awakened to the need of a serious foreign policy. It was publicly and widely commented on by the Southern press, thereby arousing an excited apprehension in the North, almost as if the mere sending of two new men with instructions to secure recognition abroad were tantamount to the actual accomplishment of ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... maintain a discreet silence during the canvass as to the points at issue. His reply to the suggestion was eminently characteristic of the man. "To maintain silence under, such circumstances," said he, "would be tantamount to deceiving the electors. It would be as culpable as to tell them a direct lie. Sooner than follow such a course I will cheerfully accept defeat." He could not even be induced to adopt the suppressio veri. So tender and exacting was his conscience ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... law as to provide for actual slavery. These States, however, gradually worked toward freedom in keeping with the spirit of the majority who framed the constitution, despite the fact that the indenture system in southern Illinois and especially in Indiana was at times tantamount to slavery as it was practiced in parts of ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... display in the trade-room—hats, ribbons, dresses, scents, tins of salmon—the pride of the eye and the lust of the flesh—tempted them in vain. They had but the one idea—tobacco, the island currency, tantamount to minted gold; returned to shore with it, burthened but rejoicing; and late into the night, on the royal terrace, were to be seen counting the sticks by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... existing questions of public policy; and did not, as so many generations of chamber rhetoricians continued to do in Greece, confine his powers to imaginary cases of political difficulty, or (what were tantamount to imaginary) cases fetched up from the long-past era of King Priam, or the still earlier era of the Seven Chiefs warring against the Seven-gated Thebes of Boeotia, or the half-fabulous era of the Argonauts. Isocrates was a man of sense—a patriot in a temperate way—and ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... she had come back to her old surroundings from some place far away. Everything about her now seemed sad and unfamiliar, though outwardly nothing was altered. Her parents had apparently forgotten the unhappy episode of the picture. It had been sent away to Grandchaux, which was tantamount to its being buried. Hubert Marien had resumed his habits of intimacy in the family. From that time forth he took less and less notice of Jacqueline—whether it were that he owed her a grudge for all the annoyance she had been the means of ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... magnificently to himself. He is conscious of a universal success,[292] even though bought by uniform particular failures. No advantages, no powers, no gold or force can be any match for him. I cannot choose but rely on my own poverty, more than on your wealth. I cannot make your consciousness tantamount to mine. Only the star dazzles; the planet has a faint, moon-like ray. I hear what you say of the admirable parts and tried temper of the party you praise, but I see well that for all his purple cloaks I shall ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the title of the book that stared me in the face. After refusing for a long time I finally weakened and signed the slip; but I did not place it on the book. To have done that would, in my mind, have been tantamount to giving consent to extradition; and I was in no mood to assist the detectives in their mean work. At what cost had I signed that commitment slip? To me it was the act of signing ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... prevented the latter, and in that feeling all the world appeared to conspire together against him, until, to his astonishment, he heard those sentiments boldly expressed from the lips of Jack, and that in a service where it was almost tantamount to mutiny. Mesty, whose character is not yet developed, immediately took a fondness for our hero, and in a hundred ways showed his attachment. Jack also liked Mesty, and was fond of talking with him, and every evening, since the combat ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... the coming of the searchers, rather than to allow herself to be carried still further from Helium, thus greatly reducing the chances of early discovery; but when she dropped toward the ground she discovered that the violence of the wind rendered an attempt to land tantamount to destruction and she ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the few Englishmen on the "Constitution" were enlisted with their own consent? For Capt. Dacres to say that his ship was weakened by allowing the ten Americans to go below, and then beaten by the efforts of the Englishmen on the "Constitution," was merely tantamount to saying that the victory hinged on the fact that Americans would not fight against their own country, while Englishmen did so willingly. But for Great Britain to exclaim against the American navy because it harbored a few Englishmen, was the rankest hypocrisy. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Louise that she turned abruptly and hurried out of the place without returning the good-morning which the German sent after her with the usual addition of her name. She resented it now, for if it was not tantamount to an introduction to that creature, it was making her known to her, and Louise wished to have no closer acquaintance with her than their common humanity involved. It seemed too odious to have been again made aware that ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... juice of the grape appeared simultaneously with the waiter. I made the request, and he brusquely replied, "You can't have it, it's contrary to law." In my half-drowned and faint condition the refusal appeared tantamount to positive cruelty, and I remembered that I had come in contact with the celebrated "Maine Law." That the inhabitants of the State of Maine are not "free" was thus placed practically before me at once. Whether they are "enlightened" I doubted at the time, but leave the question ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... merits of this particular case? The constitutional majority of the whole nation had elected a President whose election was held by both parties to be tantamount to the policy of non-extension of slavery into the Territories of the Republic, and into all States to be thereafter constructed; and before the President elect had entered upon his functions, before a single subsisting legal right (which might or might not be a moral wrong) had been interfered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Transvaal I know not, because I have not yet been there; but in Cape Colony and in the Free State he is much as I have depicted him, no better, no worse, than Americans and Australians, and as good a fighting man as either—which is tantamount to saying that he is as good as anything on God's green earth, if he only had ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... Doria! You shall be procurator. (The three masks come forward). What talk you of nobility in Genoa? Let them all throw their ancestry and honors into the scale, one hair from the white beard of my old uncle will make it kick the beam. It is my will that you be procurator, and that is tantamount to the votes of the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... "to have any idea what that party was up to in combination with others that until the loss which we all deplore I was gravelled—an expression which your ladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to consider tantamount to knocked over. Small likewise—a name by which I refer to another party, a friend of mine that your ladyship is not acquainted with—got to be so close and double-faced that at times it wasn't easy to keep one's hands off his 'ead. However, what with the exertion ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... demonstrate that chemical equivalents express the relative weight of atoms, or, in other words, that what the calculation of atomic equivalents leads us to regard as an atom is not composed of several atoms. This is tantamount to saying that MORE MATTER weighs more than LESS MATTER; and, since weight is the essence of materiality, we may logically conclude that, weight being universally identical with itself, there is also an identity in matter; that the differences of simple bodies are due solely, either ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... much uniformity is just as undesirable as an excess of irregularities. No change of any sort should be carried out without well considering whether such would be for the better, and also whether the garden in its altered state would yield a correspondingly greater amount of real pleasure, tantamount to the time and trouble involved in effecting the change. Presupposing that some change or other is to be done, great care must be taken not to destroy the roots of various perennials, which may be hidden beneath the surface, ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... previous night, and was told that there was not, at which information I was sorrier than ever for my hasty behaviour; for it was now evident that Machenga definitely refused the gifts that I had set out for his acceptance, and for a savage to refuse a gift is tantamount to a declaration of enmity, and I could ill afford to make an enemy of anyone in Mashonaland, still less of so powerful a personage as Machenga, the chief witch doctor and confidential adviser of ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... is tantamount to saying that in spite of the overwhelming circumstantial evidence, and in spite of the fact that he has run ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... permission, I consequently allowed those little deviations from the discipline of the service which must inevitably take place. Yet you have thought proper to interfere with my permission, which is tantamount to an order, and have made use of harsh language, and punished the young gentlemen for obeying my injunctions. You will oblige me, sir, by calling them all down, and in restraining your petulance for the ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... antagonist powers of repulsion and attraction. Remove these powers, and the conception of matter vanishes into space—conceive repulsion only, and you have the same result. For infinite repulsion, uncounteracted and alone, is tantamount to infinite, dimensionless diffusion, and this again to infinite weakness; viz., to space. Conceive attraction alone, and as an infinite contraction, its product amounts to the absolute point, viz., to time. Conceive the synthesis of both, and you have matter as a fluxional antecedent, ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... place, Science has no grounds for supposing that light is in any way absorbed or destroyed merely by its passage through the "ether," that imponderable medium which is believed to transmit the luminous radiations through space. This of course is tantamount to saying that all the direct light from all the stars should reach us, excepting that little which is absorbed in its passage through our own atmosphere. If stars, and stars, and stars existed in every direction outwards without end, it can be proved mathematically that in such circumstances ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... order to reassure them as to the dispositions of Turkey, do not constitute from a legal point of view a declaration of neutrality, according to the stipulations of The Hague Conventions; likewise the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, viewed in the same light, is not tantamount to a declaration of war. In fact, The Hague Conventions demand a formal declaration in both cases. But if the formal declaration of Turkish neutrality cannot be made before she has received an official notification of the existing war, it is nevertheless true that the head ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... some young man or young woman in finding a mate. It must be admitted that the subject has its capabilities of interest. Nature has her uses for the lover, and she gives him an excellent part to play in the drama of life. But is this tantamount to saying that his interest is perennial and all-absorbing, and that his role on the stage is the only one that ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... rebels to warfare. But the General believed in Paterno's good faith, although he declared the terms proposed unacceptable, and in like manner three other amended proposals were rejected, until finally the fifth document was accepted as tantamount to a Protocol of Peace to serve as a basis for the treaty. Here ends ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... been ignored, as related in another chapter. They have been fostered upon a smaller but equally effective scale. The semi-rigid Parseval and Gross craft have met with whole-hearted support, since they have established their value as vessels of the air, which is tantamount to the acceptance ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... was to be so." Now that the time for the transaction was present he felt almost sure it would never be transacted. But still he must go on with it. Were he now to abandon his scheme, would it not be tantamount to abandoning everything? So he wreathed his face in smiles,—or made some attempt at it,—as he ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... was employed also by Strigel, is ambiguous, inasmuch as the word "corruption" may signify an annihilation, or merely a perversion, or a corruption in the ordinary meaning of the word. In the latter sense the term applied to original sin would be tantamount to a denial of the Lutheran doctrine of total corruption. When Jacob Andreae, in his disputation with Flacius, 1571, at Strassburg, declared that accident is something which is present or absent without corruption of the subject, he employed the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... in point of fact hardly find a religious leader of any kind in whose life there is no record of automatisms. I speak not merely of savage priests and prophets, whose followers regard automatic utterance and action as by itself tantamount to inspiration, I speak of leaders of thought and subjects of intellectualised experience. St. Paul had his visions, his ecstasies, his gifts of tongues, small as was the importance he attached to the ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... This was tantamount to a dismissal, so Miller took his leave. Descending the doorsteps, he stood for a moment, undecided whether to return home or to go to the hotel and await the return of Dr. Burns, when he heard his name called from the house in a ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Reformation before the end of the sixteenth century, should ever have adopted them. Catholic communities have, since that time, become infidel and Catholic again; but none has become Protestant.' This is tantamount to regarding Protestantism as something fixed and final in itself, as a permanent and necessary form of Christianity. Here lies the fallacy which makes his reasoning, in spite of all its eloquence, but superficial. Protestantism, in truth, has never been more than a half-way ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... something close at hand and easy,—in place of something supposed to be remote and difficult,—is obvious. The whole of the earlier part of it, St. Paul affirms to be tantamount to the following injunction,—"Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven, to bring CHRIST down; or who descend into the abyss, to bring CHRIST up from the dead." Concerning which words of caution, we have to remark that ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... Protector's name of Oliver. Roland and Oliver were two celebrated horses, or, as some say, two pages of Charlemagne possessing equal qualities and hence, "I'll give you a Roland for your Oliver" was tantamount to "I'll give you as good as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... it seemed evident that Pons and Schmucke, being pious souls, would take any one recommended by the Abbe, with blind confidence. Mme. Cantinet should bring Mme. Sauvage with her, and to put in Fraisier's servant was almost tantamount ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... relieved however by the surprised flush which mantled on Mr. Locket's brow. He fell back a few steps with an injured dignity that might have been a protest against physical violence. "Really, my dear young sir, your attitude is tantamount to an accusation of intended bad faith. Do you think I want to steal the confounded things?" In reply to such a challenge Peter could only hastily declare that he was guilty of no discourteous suspicion- -he only wanted a limit named, a pledge of every precaution against accident. Mr. ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... their lives is the fear of birth,—that they shall have to leave the only thing that they can think of as life, and enter upon a dark unknown which is to them tantamount to annihilation. ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... batteries which bear that flag? Are not two frigates and a corvette placed under my orders ready to fight the French, meet them where they may? Has not the king sent publicly from Naples guns, mortars, &c., with officers and artillery, against the French in Malta? If these acts are not tantamount to any written paper, I give up all knowledge of what is war." This reasoning was of less avail than argument addressed to the general's fears. Nelson told him that, if he permitted the many hundred French who were ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the fashion of this world, but they were all thoroughly civilized. Palestine was a civilized country, and the Hebrews were a great people; and I consider the precedent set by our blessed Lord is a command to be followed in all time, and that his appearance in Judea is tantamount to his saying to his apostles, 'go and preach me and my gospel to ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... Hall, on receipt of this laconic epistle, unanimously declared that it was tantamount to a declaration of war, and that desperate measures must at ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... Joseph played, and played, and played, until the credulity of old John seemed like a cooked fish in a pot of porridge. The fact must be confessed that Joseph was so politically dishonest that to be for once honest was tantamount to a great victory over his traditional immorality. Knowing right well the traits of character this Joseph possessed, Jonathan would at short notice lend a willing hand to thrash other morals into his system. However, with a view of leaving this point ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... there is no real society but in France, no wit but in our great world, no real happiness but in Paris. Draw up another petition as quickly as possible, and send it to me. I will present it myself, and to tell you this is tantamount to a promise that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the startling doctrine that no regard was to be had to party in the selection of the great officers of government, which Mr. Gallatin considered as tantamount to a declaration that principles and opinions were of no importance in its administration. To lose sight of this principle was to substitute men for measures. Jackson's idea of party, however, was personal fealty. He engrafted the pouvoir personnel on ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... triumph and Mary Lawrie's power. That was out of the question, and as she was thus driven out of the house, she was entitled to show a little of her ill humour to the proud bride. She must go to Portsmouth;—which she knew was tantamount to a living death. She only hated one person in all the world, and he, as she knew well, was living at Portsmouth. There were to her only two places in the world in which anybody could live,—Croker's Hall and Portsmouth. Croker's Hall was on the whole the proper region ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... induced the executive committee of the Great Exhibition to decide upon excluding works of such elaborate labour and beauty, and these the works of an English artist, of the first standing, we are totally at a loss to conjecture. We say "excluding," for it is tantamount to exclusion to tell Mrs. Peachey that she must place such volatile work in a top gallery, exposed to the heat of a July sun, or withdraw them, although she had been previously allocated space on the basement of the building. Mrs. Peachey adopted ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... to speak about an "eternal unchangeable underlying substance" as I am afraid I did in the last pages of Luck or Cunning? but I am not going to be at the trouble of seeing. For, if the substance is eternal and unknowable and unchangeable, it is tantamount to nothing. Nothing can be nearer non-existence than eternal unknowableness ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... falling within the circle except at the two extremities of the diameter, was an ellipse, and it is not clear why his first attempt with an ellipse should have been just as much too narrow as the circle was too wide. The fact remains that he recognised suddenly that halving this error was tantamount to reducing the circle to the ellipse whose eccentricity was that of the old theory, i.e. that in which the sun would be in one focus and the equant in ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... rises higher than that," said Brennan ruefully. "He dislikes me to the point of blind, unreasonable hatred. He believes that I am the party responsible for the death of his parents and furthermore that the act was deliberate. Tantamount to a charge ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... more at Guestwick Manor, seeing that they certainly could not expect Lady Julia to call upon them at Guestwick. Mrs Boyce no doubt would patronise them, and they could already anticipate the condolence which would be offered to them by Mrs Hearn. Indeed such a movement on their part would be tantamount to a confession of failure in the full hearing of so much of the world ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... (B. C. 444); the claimants for a share in the gift underwent the ordeal of scrutiny as to their titles to citizenship, and no less than five thousand persons were convicted of having fraudulently foisted themselves into rights which were now tantamount to property; they were disfranchised [308]; and the whole list of the free citizens was reduced to little more ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... well the swift intimacies, frank and clean and fine, which spring up in the small, close-knit social circles of a city like Worthington. And he knew, too, and trusted and respected the judgment of Mrs. Festus Willard, whose friendship was tantamount to a certificate of character and eligibility. As against that, he set the unforgotten picture of the itinerant quack, vending his poison across the countryside, playing on desperate fears and tragic hopes, coining his dollars from the grimmest ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... don't see how he happened to think of it) he called Danvers up and asked him if he knew anything from 'Il Trovatore.' Phil saluted and said that he had heard it in London. Thereupon the colonel asked him if he could sing any of the airs. Phil hesitated, but the commanding officer's request is tantamount to a command, and after a moment he began the 'Miserere.' The men were still as death. Probably they had never heard it before. You, of course, remember that superb tenor solo—the haunting misery, the despair! And what do you think? When he got to the duet I took Leonora's part. Phil gave a ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... way that was tantamount to declaring that no daughter of his ever should become the wife of the person in question. Mabel had colored, trembled, half laughed, and looked uneasy; but, rallying her spirit, she said, in a voice so cheerful ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Gwynnes and Arabins. He wished to be what he called "safe" with all those whom he had admitted to the penetralia of his house and heart. He could luxuriate in no society that was deficient in a certain feeling of faithful, staunch High Churchism, which to him was tantamount to freemasonry. He was not strict in his lines of definition. He endured without impatience many different shades of Anglo-church conservatism; but with the Slopes and Proudies he could not go on ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... away, annoyed at the demand. To refuse to answer was tantamount to admitting the truth, and she would not lie to ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... showed before and declare aloud what she is, what she has been, and what she will be. There is no salvation for her otherwise than in her complete, indisputable sovereignty; and since she has always conquered by non-surrender, all attempts to conciliate her with the century are tantamount to killing her!" ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... it. When M. R. F. said that, and followed it up by rolling the claret (for which he called, and I paid), in his mouth, and saying, "My dear son, why do you drink this trash?" it was tantamount in him—to a paternal benediction on our union, accompanied with a gush of tears. The coolness of M. R. F. is not to be measured by ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... friends the Royal Nauticals, partly from the fact that there were no fewer than fifty-five locks between Brussels and Charleroi, we concluded that we should travel by train across the frontier, boats and all. Fifty-five locks in a day's journey was pretty well tantamount to trudging the whole distance on foot, with the canoes upon our shoulders, an object of astonishment to the trees on the canal side, and of honest ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the prosecutors was detected and exposed.' 'Hale's motives were most laudable; but he furnishes a memorable instance of the mischiefs originating from superstition. He was afraid of an acquittal or of a pardon, lest countenance should be given to a disbelief in witchcraft, which he considered tantamount to a disbelief in Christianity. The following Sunday he wrote a "Meditation concerning the mercy of God in preserving us from the malice and power of Evil Angels," in which he refers, with extreme complacency, to the trial over which he had presided ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... private fortune and a promising son, the Spaniards attacked his armament, his troops mutinied and deserted, and he returned to England, with a sullied fame, to meet a disappointed sovereign and implacable enemies. In such times, failure is tantamount to crime, and Raleigh was tried for offences he never committed. The most glaring injustice, harshness, and sophistry were resorted to, even by Bacon; but still Raleigh triumphantly defended himself. But no innocence or eloquence could save him; and he was executed ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... very sore and unhappy at this time, and who consequently was much in love with purity and anxious for severity, felt himself personally aggrieved by the acquittal. It was almost tantamount to a verdict against himself. And then he knew so well that bribery had been committed, and was so confident that such a one as Mr. Browborough could have been returned to Parliament by none other than corrupt means! In his present mood he would have been ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... are concerned. To any one of those present he might have said what he thought, had no one else been there to hear. That would have been the expression of a private opinion; but to speak before the four would have been tantamount to a public declaration. ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... remorseless vengeance of their enemies. The flame spread to Cyprus, where it was quenched by Hadrian, afterwards emperor. He expelled the Jews from the island. When Hadrian ascended the throne, in 117 A.D., he issued an edict which was tantamount to the total suppression of Judaism, for it interdicted circumcision, the reading of the law, and the observance ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... whistled as it searched busily among the black ravines. Then presently the shadow of the thousand-foot-high Khyber walls began to cover them, and King drew rein to count them all and let them close up. To have let them straggle after that point would be tantamount ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... typifies the human heart, which, when perfectly placid and clear, reflects the very image of the Deity. When you stand, therefore, in front of the shrine to worship, you see your own image reflected on its shining surface, and the act of worship is tantamount to the old Delphic injunction, "Know Thyself." But self-knowledge does not imply, either in the Greek or Japanese teaching, knowledge of the physical part of man, not his anatomy or his psycho-physics; knowledge ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... whom he had refused to lend money. The coroner at once despatched his runners to the place where this man lived, to bid the people of that village produce all their sickles without delay, at the same time informing them that the concealment of a sickle would be tantamount to a confession of guilt. The sickles were accordingly produced, in number about eighty, and spread out upon the ground. The season being summer there were a great quantity of flies, all of which were attracted by one particular sickle. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... under the provisions of the Defence Act Regulations. I immediately referred the question to the Crown Solicitor, who said it was a difficult question I had raised, but ruled finally that being bound over to keep the peace was not tantamount to a conviction within the meaning of the Regulations. Whether this was sound law or not I cannot say, but it gave me the opportunity to let Sergeant Kingston off easily. I at once sent orders to his commanding ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... go to cutting down mountains and bridging of rivers, or the other, which if too restricted may be referred to the States for amendment, securing still due measures and proportion among us, and providing some means of information to the members of Congress tantamount to that ocular inspection, which, even in our county determinations, the magistrate finds cannot be supplied by any other evidence? The fortification of harbors was liable to great objection. But ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... considering that the duties of citizenship rest as heavily upon woman as upon man. Is woman under less obligation to strive for the welfare and future of her country because she is a woman? To attempt to curtail the activity of woman in public life is tantamount to declaring that a woman must not love her country and must not dedicate any of her time to her duties of citizenship; that she must not feel the affection and devotion which the idea of native land and community ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... graduating exercises were over, and now to think of the triumph and malicious delight of the other girls was intolerable. Her lover should fly to her like homing-pigeon the instant he was released from prison. It was tantamount to treason that he should purpose anything else. Almira fretted herself into a fever. She wrote one long letter to the recreant Parson, and her sister Beaytrice, as they called her, followed it up with another still more alarming. Then, as he did ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... land of justice and the cradle of the law, which is simply justice that has taken cognizance of itself. On this account, Italy owes us justice. And she owes it to herself to put a stop to the greatest iniquity in the annals of history, for not to put a stop to it when one has the power is almost tantamount to taking part in it. It is for Italy as much as for France that we have suffered. She is the source, she is the very mother of the ideal for which we have fought and for which the last of our soldiers are still fighting in the ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... rashly destroyed, cannot find any way of converting it to the great and lasting benefit of his country. On the view of this subject, a thousand uses suggest themselves to a contriving mind. To destroy any power growing wild from the rank productive force of the human mind is almost tantamount, in the moral world, to the destruction of the apparently active properties of bodies in the material. It would be like the attempt to destroy (if it were in our competence to destroy) the expansive force of fixed air in nitre, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... There were many cases during the war where our girls sent sweaters to their sweethearts which would have induced strangulation in their young brothers. The amateur sweater of those days was, in fact, practically tantamount to German propaganda. ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... it's like the key in Blue Beard, which, I dare say, you have read of; rub it out on one side, and up it comes on the other. Say, by way of argument, that you have not obtained money by unfounded threats—a crime which the law holds tantamount to highway robbery. You have in that case obtained money for compromising a felony—that of polygamy. An awful position, my good sir, choose which ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... themselves. The first was to use the muslin herself; it would make summer garments for years. The chief reason against that was that she was a little old for muslin. The second course was to send the whole paraphernalia back to her dear friend, with or without a comment. But that would be tantamount to a direct accusation of fraud. Never any more, if she did that, could she dispense her dear friend to Riseholme like an expensive drug. She would not so utterly burn her boats. There remained only one other judicious course of action, and she got ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... to say—God forbid that I should—that connection with any existing church is the same as a connection with Jesus Christ, or that the neglect to be so associated is tantamount to secret discipleship; I know there are plenty of other ways of acknowledging Him than that, but I am quite sure that this is one department in which a large number of men, in all our congregations—and there are not a few in this congregation—need ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... insurrection, on plunder, pillage, and devastation. Mr. Mason's committee found no sentiment in the North justifying Brown, but the irritating and offensive course of the Virginia senator called forth a great deal of defiant anti-slavery expression which, in his judgment, was tantamount to treason. Brown was tried and executed. He would not permit the plea of unsound mind to be made on his behalf, and to the end he behaved with that calm courage which always attracts respect and admiration. Much was made ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... resorts thereto a right to withhold information that overrides the right of his interrogator. If the right of the latter to know is superior, then the hiding of truth would constitute an injustice, which is sinful, and this is considered tantamount to lying. And if the means to which we resort is not lying, as we have defined it, that is, does not show a contradiction between what we say and what we mean, then there can be no fear ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... RANSOM: "It was tantamount to telling me that she had been amusing herself with me instead of my lessons. It remanded our whole association, which I had got to thinking so romantic, to the relation of teacher and pupil. It was a snub—a heartless, killing ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... last persons to disgrace my sex by thus encouraging every one who may feel disposed to visit me, who may honor me with their graceful bows and their choicest compliments. It is true that young men too often mistake civil politeness for the finer emotions of the heart, which is tantamount to courtship; but, ah! how often are they deceived, when they come to test the weight of sunbeams with those on whose strength hangs the future happiness of ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... the Archbishop was an act of political folly, as being tantamount to a declaration that he was too good a man to countenance the designs of those who had usurped an unjust dominion over his flock. Had the promises of Chili been carried out in their integrity, both the Archbishop ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... paralyzed any exertion that might have been made to preserve a shadow of the Government. It may be said that if Dundee had lived to hold the commission of Mar, such a junction would not have been necessary, which amounts to no more than saying that the life of Dundee would have been tantamount to a restoration of the Stuarts Mar was not trained in camp, nor did he possess the military genius of Dundee. Had Montrose a moiety of his force things would have been otherwise. Mar, trusting to Seaforth's reinforcement, was inactive, and Seaforth was for a ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... any such inquiry as Mr. Chamberlain proposed would expose the flagrant insincerity of the Franchise Bill. On August 2nd he had telegraphed to President Steyn that compliance with the Joint Commission was "tantamount to the destruction of the independence of the Republic."[127] To the Dutch Consul-General[128] he was perfectly frank: "Defeats such as the English had suffered in the war for freedom, and later under Jameson, had never ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... to be done with the bishop? To allow him to continue in his high office was tantamount to a grave scandal to religion, and his person was not safe from the fury of the populace. He was replaced by Edmund Grindal, and spent the remaining ten years of his life chiefly in the security of the Marshalsea, without any undue vigour or harshness. Mary's first dean, Feckenham, had ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... estate is at present in your father's hands, you rather choose that I should make a jointure out of mine, tantamount to yours, be it what it will, it shall be done. I will engage Lord M. to write to you, what he proposes to do on the happy occasion: not as your desire or expectation, but to demonstrate, that ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the way for a submarine outbreak which would be extended with impunity owing to the Administration's hesitation in taking action that might not be sustained by the President's presumed successor, on the theory that Mr. Wilson's defeat would be tantamount to a ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... latter's account, from a snake living in his chamber? If, knowing one to be powerful, one's enemy doth not strive to subjugate him, he should at least make one friendly by the application of the arts of conciliation, gift, and the like. Even that would be tantamount to subjugation. Obtaining a respite by means of the art of conciliation, one's wealth may increase. And if one's wealth increaseth, one is worshipped and sought as a refuge by one's friends. If, again, one is deprived of wealth, one is abandoned by friends and relatives, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... project hardly savoured of a coming proposal, but for Sir Austin to confide one to a woman was almost tantamount to a declaration. So Lady Blandish thought, and so said her soft, deep-eyed smile, as she perused the ground while listening to the project. It concerned Richard's nuptials. He was now nearly eighteen. He was to marry when he was five-and-twenty. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is he who formed the revolutionary organisation, it is he who marched under the red banners.... The Russian who would give credence to this tale would show his disrespect for the Russian nation. To assert that it is only owing to the help of the Jew that the Russian people freed themselves is tantamount to saying that without the Jew, the Russian nation can not reach the road of its own emancipation. No, however great my respect for the exceptional gifts of the Jewish people may be, I will not refuse the Russian nation the ability of taking the initiative in the ...
— The Shield • Various
... while Burlingame, the pernicious lawyer of shady character, had remarked that he had the name of an impostor and the frame of a fop; but he wasn't sure, as a lawyer, that he'd seen all the papers in the case— which was tantamount to saying that the Orlando nut ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... whilst on my search for Burke, provided I made application for his assistance. At Carpentaria, having ascertained that Lieutenant Woods was himself anxious to accompany me, I wrote the foregoing letter (Number 1) applying for that officer. Captain Norman's reply to this letter I considered tantamount to a refusal, and accordingly arranged to take Captain Alison. Having done so, I may have stated to Captain Norman that I considered I could do very well on this occasion without any assistance ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... most disastrous consequences in its train. His whole empire, which is tantamount to saying the whole world, rose against Ahasuerus. The widespread rebellion was put down only after his marriage with Esther, but not before it had inflicted upon him the loss of one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, the half of his kingdom. Such was his punishment for refusing permission ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... but it will apply to the mechanism of animal and vegetable bodies only, if it is used to show that they too must have had a contriver who has a hand, or something tantamount to one; who does act; who, being a contriver, has what all other contrivers must have, if they are to be called contrivers—a body which can suffer more or less pain or chagrin if the contrivance is unsuccessful. If this is what Paley means, his argument is indeed ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... circulation in print, whatever remarks would constitute his speech in the debate, thereby making a still greater saving of the time of the body. This would, no doubt, be felt as the greatest innovation of all, being tantamount to the extinction of oral debate; there being then nothing left but the replies of the movers. We need not, however, go the length of compulsion; while a certain number would choose to print at once, ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... without making any impression upon the minds of any but Thaddeus junior, who, taking his cue from Harry, vociferously asserted that he, too, wished a glass of milk, and in such terms as made the assertion tantamount to an ultimatum. ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... division on account of the following circumstance. In a speech in the House of Lords the night before on the Post Office, Lord Lichfield[14] had attacked Mr. Wallace with great severity, and immediately after Wallace sent him a message which was tantamount to a challenge. Alvanley was employed to settle the quarrel, which he did, but it became necessary to instruct Baring to say something on the subject in the House of Commons, where Wallace was going to allude to it. Alvanley detained Baring so long that he was too late for ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... wholly unconscious of the abrupt wave of the hand which rendered this farewell tantamount to a dismissal, Mr Chester retorted with a bland and heartfelt benediction, and inquired of Gabriel in what direction HE ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... they two, she, Enid, and Godfrey, had had something tantamount to an emotional little scene the first time he had come to see her at The Trellis House. True, it had only lasted two or three seconds, but while it lasted it had been intense. Had Timmy Tosswill not burst into ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... name, which exists in France as Bruhiere and Brugiere, is not derived from the Saxon briwan (to brew), but the French bruyere (heath), and is about tantamount to the German Plantagenet ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... against them, marks the path of wisdom. This may be an example of the testing of "the way" previously spoken of, for true wisdom shines brightly out in the presence of an angry ruler. Folly leaves its place,—a form of expression tantamount to rebelling, and may throw some light on that stupendous primal folly when angels "left their place," or, as Jude writes, "kept not their first estate, but left their habitation," and thus broke into the folly of rebelling ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... affairs. To this despatch no reply was returned, whereas the house of commons and the country considered that a reply, prompt and indignant, should have been given. Mr. Milner Gibson, then especially hostile to the Palmerston government, moved what was tantamount to a vote of censure, on the ground of the silence of the cabinet under the singularly offensive despatch of the French minister. The combination of independent Liberals and Tories, upon this motion, threw out ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan |
