"Circumvent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its formal beauty, and set themselves deliberately to avoid it. Miss Chalice, who had a clever dexterity which impressed Lawson notwithstanding his contempt for feminine art, started a picture in which she tried to circumvent the commonplace by leaving out the tops of the trees; and Lawson had the brilliant idea of putting in his foreground a large blue advertisement of chocolat Menier in order to emphasise his abhorrence of the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... eight-and-forty hours on end. The more his persecutor besought him not to trouble himself to turn out, the more suspicious was the crafty Wegg that indications had been observed of something hidden somewhere, and that attempts were on foot to circumvent him. So continually broken was his rest through these means, that he led the life of having wagered to keep ten thousand dog-watches in ten thousand hours, and looked piteously upon himself as always getting up and yet never going to bed. So gaunt and haggard had he grown ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... scramble for the vagrant hat, which now seemed possessed with an evil spirit, for it flew back and forth, and bounded here and there, like a living thing, finally distinguishing itself by blowing between the horse's front and hind legs, Rebecca trying to circumvent it by going around the wagon, and meeting it ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Mantell, we find that at one time Lyell contemplated publishing a book in the form of 'Conversations in Geology[42],' without putting his name to it. This was probably suggested by the manner in which Copernicus and Galileo sought to circumvent theological opposition in the case ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... combined for a "malicious enterprise." Such an enterprise was the breaking of a law. So when Parliament passed acts regulating wages, conditions of employment, or prices of commodities, those who combined secretly or openly to circumvent the act, to raise wages or lower them, or to raise prices and curtail markets, at once fell under the ban of conspiracy. The law operated alike on conspiring employers ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... said Warren Hastings did, in the said proposal, endeavor to circumvent and overreach the Council-General, by converting an apparent and literal compliance with their resolution into a real and substantial opposition to and disappointment thereof. For his first proposal was, to withdraw the Company's troops from the Vizier's country on the pretence ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... afterwards, Nazerbeg met with one Haji Comul,[113] whom God made an instrument to disclose the devilish project of the balloches to circumvent and destroy us, and who now revealed the particulars of their bloody designs. Nazerbeg was amazed, and even chid Comul for not having told this before the goods were landed. As the time appointed for the landing of the ambassador ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... scientist ought to get something out of it for himself. Ferguson certainly knew how. Can't you imagine him sitting up there, cocking his hair" (an odd phrase, but Chantry understood), "and deciding just how to circumvent the coroner? I can." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the trapper, when the other had delivered his reasons; "it is very rational, for what man cannot move with his strength he must circumvent with his wits. It is reason that makes him stronger than the buffaloe, and swifter than the moose. Now stay you here, and keep yourselves close. My life and my traps are but of little value, when the welfare of so many human souls are concerned; ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... could hear Earle poking the fire. He could hear the low mumble of his voice, the soft treble of Marian's. They avoided him now as if he were a plague. He did not try to make it out. His master was providence. He could not question the decrees of providence, but he would circumvent them if he could. Once he had broken a collar. He began to plunge, but was jerked back, coughing and choking. He lay down, and with his paws tried to pull the collar over his head. Worn out at last, he crawled underneath ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... was the name on the umbrella that saved the situation in this case. That is the way to circumvent the man with an umbrella conscience. I see him eyeing his exchange with a secret joy; then he observes the name and address and his solemn conviction that he is an honest man does the rest. After my experience to-day, I think I will engrave my name on my umbrella. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... anything from him that would tend to his crimination. What authority, however, failed to perform, that craft brought about. On the suggestion of Earl Temple, another painter, who had been also in America, was put into the same ward with John, in order to circumvent and entrap him. Fellow-feeling caused the taciturn prisoner to open his mouth. His brother painter pretended to sympathise in his misfortunes, descanted largely on his travels in America, and professed principles similar to his own. The travelled painter did ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... face. She had invented ways to rid the race of the inferior and thus give the remainder strength to fill her higher—or, let us say, her more amusing—though still unconscious and accidental intentions. And, actuated by the highest gifts of the enlightenment, we were seeking to circumvent her. In this republic I saw the black beginning to mingle with the white—in Europe there was taking place an economic catastrophe to save three or four diseased and wretchedly governed races from the one mastery that might ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Lone Wolf was out of sight, young Munson stepped back in the shadow of the wood, and quickly placed himself behind the trunk of a large tree. He had learned the nature of the Indian race too well for him to give this precious specimen any chance to circumvent him. Had he remained standing in the moonlight opening, after the Apache entered the wood, the latter could not have had a better opportunity to pick him off without danger to himself. Had he meditated any such purpose, when he wheeled to fire ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... sentiment against slavery was becoming such that the Legislature of Michigan passed a law prohibiting the use of jails to detain fugitives. Frederick Douglass and John Brown found many friends of their cause in Detroit. Of the many organized efforts made to circumvent the law and assist fugitives one society purchased land and established homes for as many as 50 families between 1850 and 1872. Farmer, "History of Detroit and Michigan," I, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... literally, something gone upon; vent'uresome; ad'vent; adventi'tious, accidental, casual; advent'ure (-ous); circumvent'; contraven'tion; con'vent, a monastery, a nunnery; conven'ticle, a place of assembly; conven'tion (-al); event'(-ful); event'ual; invent' (literally, to come upon), to find out, to contrive; inven'tion; invent'ive; invent'or; interven'tion; ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... I'm talking of the old Laws of England as administered by his Majesty's Judges; study them, and you will be astonished at their straight common-sense and justice. I'm not holding any brief for lawyers—I'm frank, you see—the business of lawyers is to wriggle round and circumvent the truth, to muddy evidence, confuse witnesses and undo justice. I'm just ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... belief and asked for an answer to his message or something of the kind? He might by good luck get a letter or find out enough about them to explain what had happened in Canada. The vague plan appealed to him strongly. He was savage at the way he had been tricked, and it would be something to circumvent the people who had made him a tool. Besides, he could not go to the police yet: Lawrence's secret must be kept. He must first of all gain such a hold on Daly as would render him powerless to injure his comrade. After that, when he knew how far ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... did not betray Him—that was Judas's act—Peter denied Him—Thomas doubted—Pilate pronounced sentence—it must be a figment to say that these were our acts; we did not watch Him like the Pharisees, nor circumvent Him like the Scribes and lawyers; by what possible sophistry can we be involved in the complicity of that guilt? The savage of New Zealand who never heard of Him, the learned Egyptian and the voluptuous Assyrian who died before He came; how was it ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... regards the tricks, we can easily satisfy you," said Mr Ross. "And it will be amusing to see how a young Irish gentleman can circumvent them; for you will find out, before you get through with them, that tricky dogs are not only very clever, but very provoking, ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... the house, Tyndall had advanced a sum of money to his friend, and with his usual generosity, not only received interest with the greatest reluctance, but would have liked to make a gift of the principal. He writes, "If I remain a bachelor I will circumvent you—if not—not. It cleaves to me like dirt—and that is why you wish to get rid of it." To ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... senses, and nought will content me, But pois'ning Poll Ady who helped circumvent me; Come tell me the means, for no power shall prevent me: Oh, give me revenge, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the distracted vermin running over them at pleasure. The performance lasted some ten minutes." Persons there are, weak enough to view with loathing and aversion certain sable insects that stray at night in kitchen or in pantry, and barbarous enough to circumvent and destroy the odoriferous coleopterae by artful devices of glass traps and scarlet wafers. Such persons will probably form their ideas of Typee's cockroaches from their own domestic opportunities of observation. That were unjust to the crew of the Julia, and would give no adequate idea ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... it is, the study and practice of war was an element of strength. It developed physical courage, and taught man to endure suffering and hardships. It developed intellectual power in the struggle to circumvent and overcome enemies. It led to the device and construction of arms, machines, engines, guns, and bridges, for facilitating the carrying on of successful warfare; all of this was instrumental in developing the inventive genius and engineering skill ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... to walk on the king's ground. To circumvent the king, hero fills a sledge with earth taken from his own orchard, and has himself drawn into the presence of his Majesty. When challenged, the hero protests that he is not on the king's ground, but his own. This same ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... of grass without trees, but you seldom see a treeless horizon. The ostrich is generally seen quietly feeding on some spot where no one can approach him without being detected by his wary eye. As the wagon moves along far to the windward he thinks it is intending to circumvent him, so he rushes up a mile or so from the leeward, and so near to the front oxen that one sometimes gets a shot at the silly bird. When he begins to run all the game in sight follow his example. I have seen this folly taken advantage of when he was feeding ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... in 1818 by a commercial treaty between the East India Company and the Sultan, the chief object of which was to circumvent the Dutch on the subject of tin. By another treaty, in 1826, it was agreed that the Sultan should govern his country according to his own will; that no force should be sent either by Siam to "molest, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... our plans to grow trees in rows according to parentage, so they tried to improve our technique. We almost called in the F. B. I. to circumvent their machinations. Jamming an open tin can over the planted nut seemed to help. When the sprout came up we turned up the edges of the split can bottom just enough to let the tree through, but the sharp jagged edges ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... respectful tone, "there aint a man in the Territories has ever put the dust onto Ike Iveson's pants. Here's twenty-five dollars," diving deep into his hip pocket and pulling out a plug of tobacco, a knife, and a roll of bills, "which is a standin' offer to any man who can circumvent that there trick. And I want to say," he continued, with a subdued eagerness in his tone, "I'll make it fifty if you do ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... he could pick her the rarest flowers and herbs and show her his woodland friends; and it had only ended in this, and an exhibition of William Henry! He ought to have saved HER from something, and not her husband. Yet he had no ill-feeling for Burroughs, only a desire to circumvent him, on behalf of the unprotected, as he would have baffled a hawk or a wildcat. He went home in dismal spirits, but later that evening constructed a boyish letter of thanks to the apocryphal Belcher and told him ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... governor) of Orestes, to circumvent Clytaemnestra, tells her a fictitious story of her son's death by a fall in a chariot-race. ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... completely enveloped in the embrace of a mato-palo, or parasitic fig tree. This clearing certainly deserves its name, for it commands a "charming view" of the green Pampaconas Valley. Opposite us rose abruptly a heavily forested mountain, whose summit was lost in the clouds a mile above. To circumvent this mountain the river had been flowing in a westerly direction; now it gradually turned to the northward. Again we were mystified; for, by Raimondi's map, ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... polish off some batches Of political dispatches, And foreign politicians circumvent; Then, if business isn't heavy, We may hold a Royal levee, Or ratify some acts of Parliament; Then we probably review the household troops— With the usual "Shalloo humps!" and "Shalloo hoops!" Or receive with ceremonial and state An interesting Eastern Potentate, ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... head of the department. Furthermore, Seward had had the amazing coolness to assume that Lincoln would certainly accept his Thoughts and that the simple President need not hereinafter be consulted about details. He aimed to circumvent Welles and to make sure that the Sumter expedition, whether sailing orders were issued or not, should be rendered innocuous. The warship Powhatan, which was being got ready for sea at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was intended by Welles ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... reverses at Ai, (32) the terror inspired by the Israelites grew among the Canaanitish peoples. The Gibeonites planned to circumvent the invaders, and form an alliance with them. Now, before Joshua set out on his campaign, he had issued three proclamations: the nation that would leave Canaan might depart unhindered; the nation that would conclude peace with the Israelites, should do it at once; and the nation ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... dexterously managed to preserve the same distance between them by shifting round in a sidling fashion as he and Eric advanced. "I tell you what, laddie, you go round one way, and I shall take the reverse direction. By that means we will circumvent the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... is like stirring mud or not letting a sleeping dog lie. It is an attempt to deny, circumvent or otherwise escape from the consequences of the interlacing of the roots of things with one another. It professes to appease our ultimate "Why?" though in truth it is generally the solution of a simplex ignotum by a complex ignotius. This, at least, ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... English Government, beginning from the highest, the king's ministers, through the Lords-Lieutenants and Chief-Justices of Ireland, down to the lowest officials, one and all kept in their pay men of all ranks of life, who, at the bidding of their employers, were ready to circumvent the victims of an odious policy, and under the guise of friendship, interest, common acquaintance, to discover, and even, if needed, to invent facts and circumstances which might be turned against them, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... addressing himself to our guide, "that if he will make me commander-in-chief of his forces, I will show him how white warriors manage to circumvent their enemies." ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... horse, and I am ready to pay a good price'—I always makes a point, I say, to furnish him with an animal worth the money; but when I sees a fellow, whether he calls himself gentleman or not, wishing to circumvent me, what does I do? I doesn't quarrel with him; not I; but, letting him imagine he is taking me in, I contrives to sell him a screw for thirty pounds, not worth forty shillings. All honest respectable people have at present great confidence in me, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... on the door by means of a curved ribbon of steel, was difficult to circumvent. It was hopelessly cracked; but of an evening, at the slightest provocation, it clattered behind the customer with ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... 'twould astonish thee. I observed it but now, when I went to fetch the water." "Nay, but, Calandrino, make sure she be not Filippo's wife," quoth Bruno. "I doubt 'tis even so," replied Calandrino, "for he called her and she joined him in the chamber; but what signifies it? I would circumvent Christ Himself in such case, not to say Filippo. Of a truth, comrade, I tell thee she pleases me I could not say how." "Comrade," returned Bruno, "I will find out for thee who she is, and if she be Filippo's ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... had something far more serious to do than to laugh. How to circumvent the designs of these men? That was ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... are numerous enough on the Cotswolds. They are wonderfully difficult to circumvent, nevertheless. You crouch down under a wall, while your men go ever so far round to drive them to you; but it is the rarest thing in the world to bag one. Their eggs are very difficult to find in the breeding season. It is the male bird that, like a terrified and anxious mother, flies ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... key stone of their fraud is just the point your mighty cute rascals always leave unsecured. Come along with me, stranger, and we'll just work up this sum a little, two heads are better than one. Yours is a little muddled, but mine's pretty clear, and if I don't circumvent that old sarpint, Coyle— ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor
... "Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each To other speedy aid might lend at need; Whether his first design be to withdraw Our fealty from God, or to disturb Conjugal love, than which, perhaps, no bliss Enjoyed by us excites his envy more; Or this or worse, leave not the faithful side ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... in point. There is a complete coiner's outfit—which, for obvious reasons, I shall not describe—and the process is explained from A to Z. Now-a-days the "smasher" is a difficult individual to circumvent. He works preferably with real silver, and with coins like sixpences and shillings which are not so closely scrutinised as those of higher denominations. Of course, even in a genuine sixpence the silver is not ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... business is the fact that although everybody knew the man not a shot was ever fired at him. That shows the fairness of the Fenians. A member of the Brotherhood would have been promptly dealt with, you bet. But Kennedy was an open enemy, and had a right to circumvent us if he could. Give us credit for some chivalrous feeling. We certainly deserved it, as ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... general atmosphere of subtlety and slyness about the man that forced itself upon me, young as I was; and the way he kept eyeing me as we talked made me feel that I had to do with one that would be hard to circumvent if it came to a matter of craftiness. And at last, after a lot of thinking, as I walked about in the dusk, it struck me that Crone might be for taking a hand in the game of which I had heard, but had never ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... therefore, to talk much of universal peace or of a general disarmament. We must go in for preventive medicine, not for radical cure. We must cheat our foe, circumvent him in detail, not try to change his nature. In one respect war is like love, though in no other. Both leave us intervals of rest; and in the intervals life goes on perfectly well without them, though the imagination still dallies with their possibility. Equally insane when once aroused and under ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... even in the case of measures which were not unpopular. The Legislatures of Nebraska and Alabama have occasionally succeeded in passing amendments favored by politicians, by resorting to clever tricks to circumvent the constitutional handicaps. Only by outwitting the framers have they been able to ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various
... branches which were known to be friendly to me, and that a Divisional Conference of my enemies was summoned for the purpose of "organising" me out of Mid-Cork. I immediately resolved that if the issue were to be knit at all the sooner the better, and I took my own steps to circumvent the machinations of those who were out, so to speak, for my blood. Hence when the bogus delegates were brought together in Macroom one Saturday afternoon a little surprise awaited them, for as they proceeded to the Town Hall to deliberate their plans ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... indignantly shaken off the dust of his threshold, the more he was confirmed in it. To outwit the Jewry would be the bitterest revenge, to pay lip-service to its ideals and laugh at it in his sleeve. And thus, too, he would circumvent its dreaded design to seize upon his property. Deception? Ay, but the fault was theirs who drove him to it, leaving him only a leper's life. In the Peninsula they had dissembled among Christians; he would dissemble among Jews, aping the ancient apes. He foresaw no difficulty in the recantation. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... on, discussing the present situation and how best to meet it; the contingencies of the future, and how best to circumvent the active antagonism of Florence Grace Hallman and the colony for which she stood sponsor. They did not dream that Irish was giving his whole mind to solving the problem of raising money to build that fence, but that is ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... and the only person in the township of Oro whom old McAllister feared. She was a handsome girl, belonging to one of the leading Protestant families of the Flats; she was bold and fearless and had withal such a feminine ingenuity for inventing schemes to circumvent the schoolmaster that he regarded her with ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... the open space along which they had formerly been walking. He had been wise enough to keep this in mind when trying to circumvent the obstinate feline enemy that refused to let them pass. Once they found their trail, and it would be an easy matter to ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... law firm of Bowen & Hare was puzzling itself beyond reason in the effort to anticipate and circumvent the plans of the firm of Bosworth, Newnes & Grapewin, London, E.C.; while on the other side of the Atlantic Messrs. Bosworth, Newnes & Grapewin were blindly struggling to do precisely the same thing in relation ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... uninitiated cannot easily picture to himself the mental attitude of a former slaveholder toward property in the hands of a Negro. Such property belonged of right to the master, if the master needed it; and since ridiculous laws safeguarded the property, it was perfectly permissible to circumvent such laws. No Negro starved on the Cresswell place, neither did any accumulate property. Colonel ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... and, if I should entertain a like passion for him, there would be danger of my discovering to him all she said to me; that she well knew the ambition of that house, and how ready they were, on all occasions, to circumvent ours. It would, therefore, be proper that she should not, for the future, communicate any matter of State to me, but, by degrees, withdraw ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... advanced his camp into the territory of Rusella. Thither the enemy also followed, and although, since their late success, they entertained the most sanguine hopes from an open trial of strength, yet they endeavoured to circumvent the enemy by a stratagem which they had before practised with success. There were, at a small distance from the Roman camp, the half-ruined houses of a town which had been burnt in the devastation of the country. A body of troops being concealed there, some cattle ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... nephew on his mother's side, but is also next heir but one to the Littimer title. At the present moment he is blackmailing that unhappy creature, and is manoeuvring to get the whole of her large fortune in his hands. Reginald Henson is the man those girls want to circumvent, and for that reason they came to you. And Henson has found it out to a certain extent and placed you in ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... in Naples for any length of time is by no means an easy thing. It is necessary to hold long commune with the proprietor, to exert all the wiles of masterly diplomacy to circumvent cunning by cunning, to exert patience, skill, and eloquence. After a decision has been reached, there is but one way in which you can hold your vetturino to his bargain, and that is to bind him to it by securing his name to a contract. Every vetturino has a printed ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... representing the disgrace into which he had fallen, by joining himself with wizards and magicians, and declared his resolution to destroy us all. Montezuma was much offended by the proud independence assumed by his nephew, whom he now resolved to circumvent and make prisoner. For this purpose he entrusted his signet to six of his captains, whom he commanded to shew it to certain other leaders among his subjects, who were not well affected to the prince, and to communicate to them his orders to seize ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... tells one of his strange stories of a monk of this monastery, which is curious, as it relates to that dangerous and powerful subject of the harassed King of England, Henry II., who must have had enough to do to circumvent the art and cunning of the wily archbishop who was always working for his ruin and the exaltation of the Church. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground,as if 'twere Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'erreaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not? ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... no chance, no destiny, no fate, Can circumvent, can hinder, or control The firm resolve of a determined soul. Gifts count for nothing; will alone ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... I was in a murdering humour, and spent most of my hours, which should have been better employed, in contriving how to circumvent and fall upon them the very next time I should see them - especially if they should be divided, as they were the last time, into two parties; nor did I consider at all that if I killed one party - suppose ten or a ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... allowed to visit Beverly, the male sex being regarded by Miss Woodhull as a sort of natural enemy whose sole aim in life was to circumvent, deprive and rob hers of its just rights. Miss Woodhull was essentially a militant suffragette and her stanch admirers, Miss Baylis and Miss Stetson were her enthusiastic partisans. Miss Atwell, the teacher of esthetic dancing and posing, who came thrice weekly to instill grace into the ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... farmer, "these be my principles. I'm a plain man, Mr. Feverel. Above board with me, and you'll find me handsome. Try to circumvent me, and I'm a ugly customer. I'll show you I've no animosity. Your father pays—you apologize. That's enough for me! Let Tom Bakewell fight't out with the Law, and I'll look on. The Law wasn't on the spot, I suppose? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... breeze Fans her fair face and curls the summer seas. The swelling sails, as far as eye can sweep, Look thro the skies and awe the shadowy deep, Lead their long bending lines; and, ere they close, To count, recognise, circumvent their foes, Each hauls his wind, the weathergage to gain And master all the movements of the plain; Or bears before the breeze with loftier gait, And, beam to beam, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... and taciturn from suburban excursions and from wanderings often rather aimless and casual among the boulevards and avenues of the town. He regarded them at such times with complacency however, for these were hours of diminished resistance: he had an idea that he should be able eventually to circumvent Delia if he only could catch her some day sufficiently, that is physically, prostrate. He liked to make them all feel helpless and dependent, and this was not difficult with people who were so modest and artless, so unconscious of the boundless power of wealth. Sentiment, in our young ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... national characteristic—intense impatience to obtain gigantic results in an incredibly short space of time. Unlike the English, who crawl cautiously along the rugged path of progress, looking attentively to the right and to the left, and seeking to avoid obstacles and circumvent opposition by conciliation and compromise, the Russian dashes boldly into the unknown, keeping his eye fixed on the distant goal and striving to follow a beeline, regardless of obstacles and pitfalls. The natural consequence is that his moments of sanguine enthusiasm are frequently followed ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... instructed in three accomplishments—to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth. Persia still rides and shoots; truth-speaking (praised be Ormuzd!) she hath discontinued as unbefitting an enlightened nation. Thou needest not, therefore, scruple to circumvent Aurelian. Offer him that which thou knowest will not be found in his treasury, seeing that it is unique in thine own; giving him, at the same time, to understand that it is the ordinary produce of thy dominions. So, while rejoicing ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... subordinates. At all levels of command it is the pet task of those "nearest the throne" to think up new ways to keep all hands from "bothering the old man." However positive an order to the contrary, they will not infrequently contrive to circumvent it, mistakenly believing that by this act they save him from himself. Many a compassionate commander leads an unwontedly lonely life because of the peculiar solicitude of his staff in this matter and his own failure to discover what is happening to ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... engaged in this pursuit. Of all their avocations, this "mimickry of war" best fitted them to thwart the savages in their purpose, and to mitigate the horrors of their peculiar mode of warfare. Those arts which enabled them, unperceived to approach the watchful deer in his lair, enabled them likewise to circumvent the Indian in his ambush; and if not always punish, yet frequently defeat him in his object. Add to this the perfect knowledge which they acquired of the woods, and the ease and certainty with which they consequently, when occasion ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... Davy is led up behind the standard maiden-blush rose, always serving as the prison. And now the tug of war rages round it, he darts here and there within his bounds, holding out his hand to any kind deliverer whose touch may set him free; and all the others run backwards and forwards, trying to circumvent the watchful jailor, Tom Tittler, who, in front of the rose-bush, flies instantly at whoever is ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gateway of a town where Mary was making a public entry. The English embassador, who was present, made this, and the other acts of the same kind, known to Elizabeth, and she was greatly incensed at them. She considered Mary as plotting treasonably against her power, and began to contrive plans to circumvent and thwart her. ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... postage gave rise to frequent attempts to defraud the Revenue, and many plans were adopted to circumvent the Post Office in this matter. Sometimes a series of words in the print of a newspaper were pricked with a pin, and thus conveyed a message to the person for whom the newspaper was intended. Sometimes milk was used as ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... result of the German submarine campaign it is possible that the United States may develop a fleet of underwater merchantmen to circumvent the enemy while this war continues, though there has been but little discussion of it. But even so, commonsense would indicate that such a fleet would be abandoned on the restoration of peace. If anything ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... dried after a wetting. Still, there were various uses for this horse's hide. It made fine strings and thongs, and the beast's flesh, as has been said, was a staple of the larder. The first great resolve of Ab and Oak, these two gallant soldiers of fortune, was that, alone and unaided, they would circumvent and slay one of these wild horses, thereby astonishing their respective families, at the same time gaining the means for filling the stomachs of those families to repletion, and ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... flushed face still blazing with wrath, which he made no effort to subdue, and his eyes red with prolonged debauchery, flashing like the eyes of a tiger—"here we are, too late to cut off the retreat o' these detestable reptiles from the woods, but not too late to circumvent them." ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... spoke. Philip said nothing because he was in a bad temper. And if you are in a bad temper, nothing is a good thing to say. To circumvent a dragon and then kill it, and to have such an adventure end in tea with Lucy, was too much. And he had other reasons for silence too. And Lucy was silent because she had so much to say that she didn't know where to ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... beggar-women, their filthy hands proffering matches, green apples, bootlaces, their strident tongues mastering the noises of the street, their rapacious, humorous eyes observant of all things. All these did Dr. Mangan encounter and circumvent, frustrating their apparent determination to commit suicide by those diverse methods of abuse, cajolery, and, on the part of the car, mechanical activity, that formed an important part of the necessary equipment of an Irish motorist ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... grave. Poor, dear old Dad! If he had only remembered these cheap lands and set them aside for me. It was the only real estate holding forgotten in the hard-driven bargain which vastly enriched old Hugh. But old Hugh shall pay; yes, to the last farthing. I will lock up my heart. I will circumvent his spies, and then await my own hour of triumph. It will be a fight to the finish and no quarter asked or ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... tribes, as the apostle did. His advice and assistance must often have been valuable to his countrymen, in their transactions with the Indians. Occasionally, perhaps, the governor and some of the counsellors came to visit Mr. Eliot. Perchance they were seeking some method to circumvent the forest people. They inquired, it may be, how they could obtain possession of such and such a tract of their rich land. Or they talked of making the Indians their servants, as if God had destined them for perpetual bondage to ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his dissolute government. A deputation was sent to the Emperor Charles to complain of the tyranny of the Duke and to expose his immoral life. This sealed Ippolito's fate, for Alessandro at once took steps, not only to checkmate the action of the deputation, but to circumvent the ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... from being dazzled by the torch which cannot fail to consume them. A half-bred, half-acting, half-thinking, half-daring caitiff, whose poorest thoughts—and those which deserve that name must be poor indeed—are not the produce of his own understanding. He expects to circumvent the fiery, haughty, and proud Nicephorus Briennius! If he does so, it will not be by his own policy, and still less by his valour. Nor shall Anna Comnena, the soul of wit and genius, be chained to such an unimaginative log as yonder half-barbarian. No—she shall have a husband ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... a single man of the ship's company who bore the loss of poor Mnemosyne dry-eyed. From the lieutenant down to the trimmer we had become sincerely attached to this affectionate little creature, and when unhappily, during the temporary absence of the steward, she ventured to circumvent the rim of an open condensed milk-tin, missed her footing and succumbed to a clammy death, there was not a more unhappy trawler patrolling the North Sea ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various
... fictitious errand, like a bone to a dog, to quiet him. Some devilry was afoot and he must be got out of the road. For a second the thought pleased him, the thought that at least one man held him worthy of attention, and went out of his way to circumvent him. But the gleam of satisfaction was gone in a moment. He could not even be sure that there was guile at the back of it. It might be all foolish honesty, and to a man cursed with a sense of weakness the thought of such a ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... broad sky, everything was laid bare to the windows of the yellow office. She felt certain that should the dusty knight reappear, he would be recognized from afar, and that Rufus Carder would circumvent any plan he might have. He would stop at nothing, that she knew. She wondered if the law would excuse a man for murdering an intruder who had once been warned off his premises. She did not doubt that Carder would be as ready with the shot-gun she had noticed ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... gallery! There go! [GUENDOLEN goes.] Another lesson to me! You might bid A child disguise his heart's sore, and conduct Some sly investigation point by point With a smooth brow, as well as bid me catch The inquisitorial cleverness some praise. If you had told me yesterday, "There's one You needs must circumvent and practise with, Entrap by policies, if you would worm The truth out: and that one is—Mildred!" There, There—reasoning is thrown away on it! Prove she's unchaste... why, you may after prove That she's a poisoner, traitress, what you will! Where I can comprehend ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... soon as the news was known in England. But the campaign resolved itself into long and harassing attacks, ambuscades and reprisals, extending over many years. There could be no pitched battles with Indians; they gave way, but only to circumvent and surprise. The whites were resolved to make no peace, and to give no quarter to man, woman or child. The formerly peaceful settlement became inured to blood and cruelty. But the red men could not be wholly driven away. Just ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Dodge case was beginning to tell on me, for it was keeping us at work at all kinds of hours to circumvent the Clutching Hand, by far the cleverest criminal with whom Kennedy had ever had ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... circumvent the Gospel and explain Christ in this his own diabolical way: "Indeed Christ is meek, gentle, and merciful, but only to those who are holy and righteous. If you are a sinner you stand no chance. Did not Christ say that unbelievers are already damned? And did not Christ ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... to receive the one of them." That was, either I must have kept out the fleet from entering the port (the which, with God's help, I was very well able to do), or else suffer them to enter in with their accustomed treason, which they never fail to execute where they may have opportunity, or circumvent it by any means. If I had kept them out, then had there been present shipwreck of all the fleet, which amounted in value to six millions, which was in value of our money 1,800,000 livres, which ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... for you to circumvent God?" Mike asked, wondering if he'd have to pry everything ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... to set about it? How might he plan against forces of whose very nature he was ignorant—save that he guessed them to be evil? How could he look ahead and scheme to circumvent the unguessable machinations of the unknown?... His wits, like wild things in a cage, battered themselves to exhaustion against the implacable bars ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... that Manoury should advance a little further and he would have been almost totally defeated. Resolutely, energetically, and with a sang-froid to which homage must be rendered, Von Kluck proceeded to circumvent this danger. He ordered back to the north two of his army corps, recrossed the Marne, and threw himself ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... to produce exquisite things she in her turn crushes them. By chance, or with a fine irony, she uses as her instruments the very beings whom he, in his reckless fury of incompetent breeding, has himself procreated. And whether he will ever circumvent her by learning to breed better is a question which no one ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... I must own that I am rather an obstinate old man. The more firmly Sergeant Cuff kept his thoughts shut up from me, the more firmly I persisted in trying to look in at them. As we turned into the shrubbery path, I attempted to circumvent him in another way. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... uttered in their councils she faithfully repeated to the trader Isaac Thomas, who conveyed the intelligence personally or by trusty messengers to Sevier and Robertson at Watauga. Thus the settlers were enabled to circumvent the machinations of Cameron until a more powerful enemy appeared among the Cherokees in the spring of 1776. This was John Stuart, British superintendent of Southern Indian affairs, a man of great address and ability, and universally known and beloved among all the Southwestern tribes. Fifteen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... paddled by fierce and crafty Mingoes. Though Providence has lent to those who inhabit the woods eyes that would be needless to men in the settlements where there are inventions to assist the sight, yet no human organs can see all the dangers which at this moment circumvent us. These varlets pretend to be bent chiefly on their sundown meal, but the moment it is dark they will be on our trail as true as hounds on the scent. We must throw them off. These lakes are useful at times, especially when the game takes the water," continued ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... predict for him. And though he forecast it accurately enough without the intervention of any soothsaying, this no more helped him to avoid it than if he had been an old-world tragical hero, whose friends were seeking by vain devices to circumvent the promulgated decrees of his destiny. Dan, indeed, took no steps of that sort. For him, as for most of us, the skirts of circumstance were as the meshes of the net in which Fate holds us, and his evil star was an object of which it seemed very hard to get ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... time of his service in Gaul drawing toward a conclusion, he turned his thoughts more and more toward Rome, endeavoring to strengthen his interest there by every means in his power, and to circumvent and thwart the designs of Pompey. He had agents and partisans in Rome who acted for him and in his name. He sent immense sums of money to these men, to be employed in such ways as would most tend to secure the favor of the people. He ordered the Forum to be rebuilt with great magnificence. He arranged ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... are all ready, Thy throne's defenders, each proud heart bent By the assault th' invader's black projects To circumvent. ...
— The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems • Alexander Pushkin and other authors
... George put me out of temper the other day, and I was determined, if he had got a good thing, to cut the ground from under his feet. All your communications from Ullerton tend to show me that he has not got hold of a good thing, and that in any attempt to circumvent him I should only be circumventing myself, wasting your time, and my own money. This Judson family seems numberless; and it is evident to me that the Reverend John Haygarth's fortune will be a bone of contention amongst the Judsons ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... sections, been avoiding the main question in the drainage of our rich prairies, and that is the improvement of the natural water courses so that they will carry off the drainage water of sections for which they afford outlets. Every feasible plan and device has been used to circumvent the forces of nature and relieve valuable farm lands from surplus water. In the flat sections of our State nothing will serve this purpose but the deepening of our large sloughs by constructing capacious open ditches. ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... and the turner, who was a New Yorker, stopped his lathe to listen to our parley. When he heard me turn to go up stairs, he shouted: 'Hillo! Johnny Bull, they were rather too many for you. You must get up a little sooner in the mornin', if you want to circumvent Yankees! Look ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... "He has established some very complete system of surveillance that we must try to circumvent. For the moment we had ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett |
