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More "Predicament" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about it, you will see that whatever grievance you may have, it is, after all, a very trivial one compared with the burden that weighs on me just now, and I should much prefer not to have anything to do with disputes between the passengers until we are out of our present predicament.' ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... there was no harm in her acceptance of Shiel's escort—that neither he nor she meant anything by it—that it was on her part merely a sort of an acknowledgment that he had been awfully good to her in her present predicament. Besides, if she needed further excuse, she had no reason for supposing Shiel to be in love with her—and had her father not spoken to her about it, she would not have remarked anything different in his glances, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... faintly, affecting not to notice that his guests' glasses had been emptied. With all his soul he repented the impulse that had led to his predicament. Amid the throes of his mental arithmetic he recognised that he had been deceived in himself, that he had no abiding passion for bohemia. How much more pleasing than to board and lodge this disreputable collection would have been the daily round of amusements that he had ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... obliged to dispense with a nap. I walked up and down my splendid hall instead, longing desperately for a mouthful of fresh air by way of dessert, or a few minutes' chat with my friends, who I dare say were in exactly the same predicament. ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... first Discourse, delivered to the Academy students on the 10th of December, 1879, the new President took occasion to estimate the modern predicament and general position of Art, as a prelude to the consideration of its special developments, in later Discourses. "I wish in so doing," he said, "to seek the solution of certain perplexities and doubts which will ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... help her out of her predicament when the belated motor came racing down the slope. As a matter of fact, I was wrong when I said that a man brought me here in an automobile. It was she who did it. She gave the order. He merely obeyed,—and not ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... this desperate predicament when Chang of the Cavern became in a sense the saviour of his country. This he effected by two actions which called for uncommon intelligence and moral force: (1) By assuring the British Government that he would at all costs maintain peace in Central ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... erythema and calorific effulgence of the physiognomy, aeteologized by the perceptiveness of the sensorium, in a predicament of inequilibrity, from a sense of shame, anger or other cause, eventuating in a paresis of the vase-motorial, muscular filaments of the facial capillaries, whereby, being divested of their elasticity, they become suffused with a radiance ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... in the hands of this big yellow man was disconcerting. To be calmly lugged off was almost humiliating. No one who was not a good sport could have grinned as Rawson did at his own predicament. ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... pursued by Mr. Venizelos in this predicament he himself explained to the parliament in the speech delivered at the close of the war against Turkey from which I have already quoted. He declared to his astonished countrymen that in his desire to reach a close understanding with Turkey he had arrived at the point where he no ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... only laughed because he had paid his money at the hole in the door like the rest of us. T'nowhead sat at the end of a form where he saw round the glass and so saw no ghost. I fear my public may be in the same predicament. I see the little minister as he was at one-and-twenty, and the little girl to whom this story is to belong sees him, though the things I have to tell happened before she came into the world. But there are reasons why she should ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... seen the boat board, but had not seen her turned adrift without oars, as the fog came on just at that time. The yacht was left with only three seamen on board, and, should it come on bad weather, they were in an awkward predicament. Mr Hautaine had taken the command, and ordered the guns to be fired that the boat might be enabled to find them. The fourth gun was loading, when they perceived the smuggler's cutter close to them looming ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... Stanway, that the ways of Providence were past finding out. Stanway sympathised with him, partly from motives of diplomacy, and partly from a genuine misunderstanding of the case; for Twemlow, mild, earnest, and a generous supporter of charities, was much respected in the town, and his lonely predicament excited compassion; most people looked upon young Arthur as ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... out the stocking, (a striped relic of the departed Frau Kordwaener,) and from it counted out and paid Hopeful every cent that was due him. But there was one thing that sat heavily upon Hopeful's mind. He was in a predicament that all of us are liable to fall into—he was in love, and with Christina, Herr Kordwaener's daughter. Christina was a plump maiden, with a round, rosy face, an extensive latitude of shoulders, and a general plentitude and solidity of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... wait. Oh, dear! Isn't this a queer predicament to be in, and not a chocolate left?" she wailed, as she looked in the box. "Empty!" she cried ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... his predicament, whipped up their horses and galloped beside the platform, reviling and jeering at him. Wemple scrambled to his feet and put his arm about Barbara, as though fearful they might yet try to take her from him. She leaned over the rail, ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... furious. She fully realized Ruth's predicament, although she was not in her chum's car. "Please don't get out of sight of Ruth's car, Mr. Meyers," Bab urged her companion. But he paid not the slightest attention ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... herself. It seemed to her that no girl, certainly no girl in Adams, had ever done such a thing. Her freedom of mind now failed her. Another heredity asserted itself. She felt very much as her mother or her great-grandmother might have felt in a similar predicament. It was as horrible as dreams she had sometimes had of walking into church in her nightgear. She was sure that she must not move, and the more so because at a very slight motion of hers there had been a motion as if in response from the man on the porch. Then there was another drawback. Some ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... conscience? Before I answer this, pray tell me in my turn what better defence is there against the machinations of a wicked, or the errors of a weak Monarch, than the impossibility of finding a minister who will lend himself to vice and folly? Every English Monarch, in such a predicament, would sacrifice his opinions and views to such a clear expression of the public will; and it is one method in which the Constitution aims at bringing about such a sacrifice. You may say, if you please, ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... this issue of additional paper money find herself in as unfortunate a position as did Cuba when Weyler endeavored to force paper money upon the people there. With an increase of twenty per cent. on taxes of all kinds, and with a paper money of doubtful value, Spain will indeed be in a sorry predicament. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... a personal interview with Napoleon. To this request the court proposed to accede; but Savary, who had posted himself behind Hulin's chair, at once declared this step to be inopportune. The judges had only one chance of escape from their predicament, namely, to induce the duke to invalidate his evidence: this he firmly refused to do, and when Hulin warned him of the danger of his position, he replied that he knew it, and wished to have an interview ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... experienced was curiosity. He forgot himself in it: it was as if he were considering somebody else's strange predicament. But even that sort of interest was dying out when, looking to his left, he saw the accustomed shapes of the other bungalows looming in the night, and remembered the arrival of the thirsty company in the boat. Wang would hardly risk such a crime in the ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... our distress became not only more pressing, but serious, and each succeeding step, buried us deeper. At length a sergeant of grenadiers stuck fast, and declared himself incapable of moving either forward or backward; and just after, Ensign Prentice and I felt ourselves in a similar predicament, close together. 'I find it impossible to move; I am sinking;' resounded on every side. What to do I knew not: every moment brought increase of perplexity, and augmented danger, as those who could not proceed kept gradually subsiding. From our misfortunes, ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... I got a little flurried coming out of the yard, and looking round on the envious chaps who were watching me—it was as bad as getting married—at least, I should think so, never having been in that predicament myself. I have escaped that dilemma, for," he concluded, "when a man is always going backwards and forwards between two points, what is the use of a wife, a coachman could never be much more than half married. Now, if the law—in the case of coachmen—allowed two wives, that would be quite another ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... the end of my resources. I had always thought I could talk on ordinary topics as well as the average man, but in the presence of this girl, with everything in the world unsaid, I could not think of one word to say. The doctor soon saw my predicament and hastened to assist me, and the remark which he selected shows again his wonderful self-possession in the midst of overwhelming difficulties. He waved his hand gently toward me to attract ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... for Mrs. Sherman, stray scraps of recollection, such as these, flitted through her mind and helped to while the time away. Then, as she still waited, she grew gradually more composed, less unfamiliar with her surroundings, and the strange predicament in which she found herself. She could, at length, look at the door she supposed led into Mrs. Sherman's room, without such a quick contraction of the heart as caused her breath to come in labored gasps, could make some sort of sketchy outline of the part ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... compact, he felt as though he had betrayed a confidence. Once they had forgotten all about football practice, and it frightened him; but she seemed not to have realized the gravity of the thing, and he laughed the alarming incident away. During lectures, he tried to reason himself out of the predicament. It was entirely possible that this feeling toward her was but another instance of habit, a natural affection for a chum, with some subtle influence of sex combining to frighten him into thinking it more serious. But he ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... officers' launch reappeared later in the morning, this time with Captain Wilson himself on board, to try his luck in getting the Spray into port, for he had heard of our predicament. It was worth something to hear a friend tell afterward how earnestly the good harbor-master of Mauritius said, "I'll find the Spray and I'll get her into port." A merry crew he discovered on her. They could hoist sails like old tars, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... require only bankers and mechanics. Would it not be well to advertise the fact and save trouble and time to those thousands of applicants who, you say, are in the same predicament as myself? I came here to do national work of some ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... came the call from the post office to go to work. It placed me in a most trying predicament. The sixty-five dollars I could earn regularly every month was a terrible temptation. I couldn't decide what to do. And I'll never be able to forgive the postmaster of Oakland. I answered the call, ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... child. Its mind is not capable of comprehending the condition which makes its suffering so sharp. Its little brain is too feeble, hardly strong enough to direct its awkward and bulky body, much less to solve such an incredible predicament as being utterly destitute of help, in a world fashioned upon ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... a truly delightful little book, despite the sad predicament in which the Twins find themselves. Beppo and Beppina are twelve years old and are the older children of the aristocratic Marchese Grifoni. They are taken by their family nurse to visit the cathedral in the centre of the city of Florence, for it is Easter Saturday. Unfortunately ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... certain. I strongly objected to being mixed up in that. I felt certain that if we could only start a fight the morale would improve and that we would have every chance of extricating the whole force from its predicament. I led out our cars therefore from the Hotel de Ville, and forcing our way through crowds of infantry and civilians we reached a corner where I found about four hundred Infantry. I implored, and swore, and ordered them to follow us against the enemy, but only one came, jumping ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... plain, strong, faithful man you may know and refer every act of your character to him. Ask yourself what he would do in your predicament, then go and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... philosopher who had told his king of the birth of the child, nodded his head sadly and left the presence. Why did kings have to get so blown up as to be inhuman? He sympathized with the girl and her predicament. If it had been his to say, he would have had the child proclaimed divine a thousand times in preference to shedding one drop of her blood. But then, he had seen Too-che sauntering home from the well, with her water jar on her head, and her hips ...
— The Sun King • Gaston Derreaux
... of Mr. Parish, and entertain very little apprehension about the cough; but my over-exertions in town have reduced me to a state of much debility; and, until the cough be gone, I cannot be permitted to take any strengthening medicines. This places me in an awkward predicament; but I think I perceive a degree of expectoration this morning, which will soon relieve me, and then I shall mend apace. Under these circumstances I must not expect to see you here at present; when I am a little recovered, it will be a pleasant ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... just telling Bert to get it out when I turned around, and there was Morty sitting in it not four feet away from me. He had his cap on and his leather coat, and I saw at once that I had made a terrible mistake. Before I could even think what to do he saw my predicament and leaped out, insisting that I—should take his place. I murmured something about being sorry and tried to move away, but he caught my arm and wouldn't let go. He was so eager and excited and made such a scene that I allowed myself to be bundled ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... my dismissal and walked off, my happiness considerably damped by the awkward predicament in which we stood. Clearly McGregor meant business; and at this moment McGregor was all-powerful. If he kept the reins, I should lose my love. If the President came back, a worse fate still threatened. Supposing it were possible to carry off the signorina, which I doubted very ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... our laager was a great hindrance to me in my work. Indeed, I opened a correspondence with the Government on the matter, and begged them to forbid it. But here again my efforts were unavailing. Later on, we shall see in what a predicament the Republican laagers were placed through the toleration ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... around us, the heavy atmosphere told of a coming storm, and ere to-morrow our path would be blocked up. America is the land of invention; and here we were, on the dreary shore, in the dusky twilight—a situation which requires the aid of philosophy. We were something in the predicament of the Russian sailors in Spitzbergen, we wanted light to guide us on the "blaze," without which we could not keep it; but beyond the gleam of a patent congreve, our means extended not. One of our company, however, a native of ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... down, head peering under the berth. Now he got up without apology, revealing the man who had summoned the conductor. He was dusty, alert, cheerful, and he dragged up with him the dead man's suit-case. The sight of it brought back to me at once my own predicament. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... trainload of extremely disgusted gentlemen in an uproar of fancy vests and neck-wear being spilled from their pullmans in San Antonio in the early morning following the fight. Which also partly accounts for the unhappy predicament in which "Cricket" McGuire found himself as he tumbled from his car and sat upon the depot platform, torn by a spasm of that hollow, racking cough so familiar to San Antonian ears. At that time, in the uncertain light ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... some vast cataclysmal event, which, by destroying us out-of-hand, may save us the slow misery of extinction by disease, despair, and the enmity of every man against every other. What Columbus can help us out of such a predicament? ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... and still more to pronounce what will not. I am at this moment in that uncertainty (on our own score); and it is no small proof of the author's powers to be able to charm and fix a mind's attention on similar subjects and climates in such a predicament. That he may have the same effect upon all his readers is very sincerely the wish, and hardly the doubt, of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... one does not die so soon, or with so little suffering. Men in your predicament have been known to live three days before they went mad, and four more before ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Tommy had gone home in several states of mind—reckless, humble, sentimental, most practical, defiant, apprehensive. At one moment he was crying, "Now, Grizel, now, when it is too late, you will see what you have lost." At the next he quaked and implored the gods to help him out of his predicament. It was apprehension that, on the whole, played most of the tunes, for he was by no means sure that Grizel would not look upon the affair of the glove as an offer of his hand, and accept him. They would show her the glove, and she would, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... it was the young lady who attracted me. You will, I trust, assume I had enough interest in her father to palliate my conduct in a measure. Be generous in your judgment. How do you know you will not be in the same predicament? Think of it! A young woman beautiful beyond my feeble powers of description; her eyes of a heavenly blue; her luxuriant hair like a mass of spun gold; her complexion matched to the tint and transparency ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... "A pleasant thing for a woman of her talent to be thrown away to save you the friction of housekeeping. If you had paid half the attention to her happiness that she did to your dinners you would not be in your present predicament." ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... now in orbit somewhere overhead, was well within the planet's gravitational field and could not use its Lawlor drive to escape with news of their predicament. In the normal course of events it would be years before a colony ship capable of landing or blasting out of a planetary gravitational field by rocket-power was dispatched to find out why there was no news from Xosa II. There was no such thing ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... respectful and earnest interest. In brief manner he explained to all on board that he had thrown to the winds all idea of merchandising or privateering; that his pardon and his ship's clearance were of no value to him except he should happen to get into some uncomfortable predicament with the law; that he had no idea of sailing towards St. Thomas, but intended to proceed up the coast to burn and steal and rob and slay wherever he might find it convenient to do so; that he had brought the greater part of his crew from the desert island where Blackbeard ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... an exact analysis, will see that Lavradi, sentenced to be transported for ten years to the presides, comes to ask pardon of the king. Every one knows how freely the severest penalties were in the sixteenth century measured out for the lightest offences, and how warmly valets in a predicament such as Quinola's, were welcomed by the spectators ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... Somehow realizing her strange predicament, the girl at once became obedient to Cleo's orders. She turned exactly as directed, made her way down the branches to the unobstructed tree trunk, where she backed to the tall, strong ladder, placed securely against the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... committee told him they would send a check. Having no money to pay a hotel bill, he took the train back. Reaching Philadelphia after midnight he boarded a trolley and told the conductor who he was and his predicament, offering to send the man the money for his fare next day. But the conductor was not to be fooled, said he didn't know Dr. Conwell from Adam, and put him off. And Dr. Conwell walked twenty long blocks to his home, chuckling all the way at the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... vast flight of birds hovering about his head, and uttering loud shrieks and cries of anger; some darting down and attacking him from behind, and others wheeling round and flying at his face, which he had the greatest difficulty in defending. The midshipmen, seeing the predicament that he was in, hurried forward to his assistance; when the birds, undaunted by their appearance, commenced an assault on them, and they too had to beat a retreat, pursued by their persevering foes. In vain they struck about them with their muskets, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... mention this silly business again. What I did, every living man who had found himself by your side would have done, and most men in a far more dexterous manner. And, indeed, if instead of yourself, the merest stranger—the poorest creature in the parish, man, woman, or child, had been in your predicament, I think I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... playing, I never do," said Frank, dismayed at the sentimental predicament out of which he was to rescue the absurd couple. Beth had disappeared behind ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... although at ten o'clock we each avidly took our third of half a pint of water, there were no further complaints of thirst. And here let me mention, for the benefit of any reader who may be so unfortunate as to find himself at any time in a similar predicament, that I then made the important discovery that the most effectual method of assuaging thirst with a very limited quantity of water is not to gulp it down and have done with it, but to sip it slowly, about a teaspoonful at a time, and retain each ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... forest with a train of pack horses, one of which was laden with an iron-bound chest. After entertaining these forced guests at dinner, Robin had them witness his archers' skill and listen to Allan a Dale's music, ere he set forth the knight's predicament and appealed to the bishop to lend him the necessary money. When the bishop loudly protested he would do so gladly had he funds, Robin ordered his baggage examined and divided into three equal shares, one for the owner, one for his men, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... light increased, we saw, at the distance of three miles to the westward, another ship in a far worse predicament than we were, inasmuch as she was completely surrounded by ice, though she still floated in a sort of basin. The wind held to the northward, so that we could stand clear out of the passage should it remain open long enough. She by this time had discovered ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... arrangements inside the house, I find myself in the same predicament as the French surgeon, a specialist upon setting the bones of the arm, who, when a patient was brought him with his right arm broke, expressed his sorrow at being unable to be of assistance, as his specialty was the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... startling and overwhelming truth. He could not remove the powder by the way he had come. In fact, he doubted if he could effect his own escape that way, so thickly were the sleeping savages dispersed about the entrance to the tunnel. In this predicament, and with the intensity of his thinking, great beads of perspiration started to his forehead, and he clenched ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... centralized power, laugh at the trepidation of ours. But the fault is not in the principle of self-government, but in the accident which brought to the helm such an amount of inexperience. Monarchy with a feeble head is even in a worse predicament. Louis XV., the Spanish and Neapolitan Bourbons, Gustavus IV., &c., are ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... at all moments, into the eyes of Death; he too who had eyes to see Death and the Terrors and Eternities; and surely it was with perfect courage and piety, and valiant simplicity of heart, that he bore himself, and did and thought and suffered, in this trying predicament, more terrible than the usual death of men. All strength left to him he still employed in working: day by day the end came nearer, but day by day also some new portion of his adjustments was completed, by some small stage his task was nearer done. His domestic and other affairs, of ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... revenue, and often he was without a copper to his credit. He was, therefore, constrained to dine sumptuously with friends, when he would have found a solitary salad a sweet alternative, and independence far more acceptable. The state of the exchequer was very often alarming, and his predicament might have cast a stronger man into the depths; but Paul could fast without complaint, when necessary, for he had fasted often; and, to confess the truth, he would much rather have fasted on and on, than parted with any of the little souvenirs that made his surroundings charming in spite ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... opinion of the great advantages which would arise to literature from the LOGOGRAPHIC PRESS. Nevertheless Mr. Walter was left to struggle with the interest of some, and the prejudice of others, and, though he was honoured by the protection of several persons of high rank, it happened in his predicament, as it generally happens in predicaments of a similar nature, that his foes were more active than his friends, and he still continued to struggle with every difficulty that could arise from a very determined opposition to, and the most illiberal ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... Search the Castle from turret-chamber to dungeon! You will find nothing but the most monastic emptiness. I've turned into a hermit. Haven't they made that discovery yet? My recent deliverance from what I must admit was a decidedly awkward predicament in the Channel has sobered me to such an extent that on my life I begin to doubt if I shall ever be anything but a dull dog again. Yes, that's the truth, Jake. You can take it or leave it. But I'm coming to see Maud ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... was now in a very sad predicament. Billy, seeing that the other children were out of his reach, devoted his entire time and attention to her, and her only safety was in lying flat on the ground. If she so much as lifted her head to reconnoitre, he would plant a full blow ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... overheard, tears welled up to my eyelids, and compassion overcame my still lurking distrust; her sobs alone broke the silence which ensued, and I was never in my life more painfully embarrassed. Fortunately the return of my neighbor relieved me from my peculiar predicament. No sooner did Adele hear him enter the adjoining room, than she opened the door of communication, and threw herself ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... been ideally happy, for they had forgotten their mess-box, and had only a light lunch. They had only their lap-robe for bedding. They were in a predicament; but the girl's chief concern was lest "Honey-bug" should let the wolves get her. Though it is scorching hot on the desert by day, the nights are keenly cool, and I was wondering how they would manage with only their lap-robe, when ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... seeing Hal's predicament, charged forward with a shout; and then the reason that the Austrian had turned to give battle ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... the girl, "you are but now coming to a true sense of your predicament. I marvelled that you felt so resentful about the first offence, when the second was so much more serious. Am I ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... clothes, or not properly dressed, then such delinquent was no longer indulged with the exemption, but had his kit subjected to a daily, or weekly, or monthly scrutiny, as the case might be. As long as he was in this predicament, he was obliged to exhibit every article in proper condition, and was not at liberty, without asking leave, to destroy even such worn-out things as an old Jew clothesman would turn up his beard at. ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... dollars to his name; he was painfully aware of the fact, and here were these six boys who would know it too in about two seconds. He was rattled, and sat looking at the pile of bills as though charmed. He racked his brain for some way out of the predicament, but the only thing he could think of was to wonder whether the portrait on the top note was that of Hendricks or Rufus Choate. "It can't be Choate," suddenly occurred to him. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... backs against the deck, and played chess until the rising tide and the block and tackle on the boom-lift enabled us to get her on a respectable keel again. Years afterward, down in the South Seas, on the island of Ysabel, I was caught in a similar predicament. In order to clean her copper, I had careened the Snark broadside on to the beach and outward. When the tide rose, she refused to rise. The water crept in through the scuppers, mounted over the rail, and the level of the ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... telegraphed to me, in Chicago, detailing his predicament, and asking instructions. He was much surprised at receiving an answer from Philadelphia, where I then was. I telegraphed him in cipher, congratulating him on his success so far, and told him not to mind the ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... of 1852, efforts were made to reorganise the University, and to commence a forward movement. The new Board of Governors authorised and established under the amended Charter found the University in an unsatisfactory and almost hopeless predicament. It was struggling under lamentable deficiencies in its educational arrangements; it was faced by heavy pecuniary embarrassments and altogether inadequate resources. It was, in short, destitute of funds. Even its buildings had been ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... melancholy conclusion that his wife was a witch. The victim in Motherwell's ballad of the Demon Lady, or the poor fellow in the Arabian tale who discovered that he had married a ghoul in the guise of a young and blooming princess, was scarcely in a more sorrowful predicament. He grew nervous and fretful. Old dismal nursery stories and all the witch lore of boyhood came back to his memory; and he crept to his bed like a criminal to the gallows, half afraid to fall asleep lest his mysterious companion should take a fancy to transform him into a horse, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... to have got into such a predicament while having a good time at a gladiatorial show! As you know, I went to Macedonia on business; it took me ten months; I was on my way home with a very neat sum of money, and had nearly reached Larissa, which ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the generals leading the Army of the Potomac was accused of the "longing for the Presidency," which placed the occupant in a peculiar predicament. Of General "Joe" Hooker, it was said in the press and in the Washington hotels that he was the "Man on Horseback," and would, at the final success of clearing out the rebel beleaguers, set up as dictator. Hence the letter which Lincoln ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... in Eve's predicament— I sha'n't be happy till I've sinned; Away!" She lightly rose, and sent Her ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... the first time that aspect of their predicament really registered. Posted outlaws might, within reason, be shot on sight without further recourse to the law. If that label stuck on the crew of the Queen, they had practically no chance at all. And when he saw that Ali was no longer inclined to retort, ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... limmer?" repeated he in a great rage. "By the great oath, you had better leave my grandfather's head." Upon matters coming this length, the wily wife of Camp-del-more thought it proper to assume a more conciliatory aspect. Telling the claimant the whole particulars of the predicament in which she was placed, she promised faithfully that if his honour would only allow her to carry off his grandfather's skull or head in a peaceable manner, she would restore it again when done with. Here, after some communing, they came to an understanding; and ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... painful predicament, and Reginald was justly horrified. Could he venture out and display the weakness of the British Navy in the face of a crew of unwashed Greek matelots? On the other hand, could he skulk in his cabin and allow the Master to doubt his courage and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... reported, to recover a sum of money belonging to the pretender, which had been embezzled by his adherents in that country. Whatever may have been his inducement to revisit his native country under such a predicament, certain it is, he was discovered, apprehended, and conducted to London, confined in the Tower, examined by the privy-council, and produced in the court of king's-bench, where his identity being proved by several witnesses, he received sentence of death, and was executed at Tyburn. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... my answer that I was in a similar predicament with respect to the French language, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... the door expectantly, and then replaced the empty wallet in his pocket. There was no use waiting here any longer. He could not dine, if he wished. Never before in his life had he been confronted by such a situation. Once or twice he had been in Harndon's predicament, but that had meant no more to him than it meant to Harndon—nothing but a temporary embarrassment. The difference now was that Harndon could still telephone his father and that he could not. Here was a significant distinction; it was something ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... used to tell a story of a man who had but one idea, which was a wrong one. The couple who dote upon their children are in the same predicament: at home or abroad, at all times, and in all places, their thoughts are bound up in this one subject, and have no sphere beyond. They relate the clever things their offspring say or do, and weary every company with their prolixity and absurdity. Mr. Whiffler takes a friend by the button at a street ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... In this perilous predicament, indeed, he found himself placed between hope and despair—but certainly the latter was by much the most predominant feeling of his mind—situate upon a sunken rock in the middle of the ocean, which, in the progress of the flood-tide, was to be laid under water ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... breath, after many penultimate puffs, has been sobbed forth by sorrowing contractors, as if the world itself were about to be converted into a blank. There is a fashion of eulogy, as well as of vituperation, and, though the Lottery stood for some time in the latter predicament, we hesitate not to assert that "multis ille bonis flebilis occidit." Never have we joined in the senseless clamor which condemned the only tax whereto we became voluntary contributors, the only resource which gave the stimulus without the danger or infatuation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... tongue, takes his 300 yards down the deep water at a single run, and then goes helter-skelter over a cataract, which had occupied him most of the preceding Sunday to ascend, after many a sinewy but unsuccessful spring! Will patience avail a man any thing in such a predicament, when he ought rather to run like an Arab, or dive like a dolphin, "splash, splash, towards the sea," notwithstanding the chance of his breaking his neck among the rocks, or being drowned while trying to round a crag which he cannot clamber over? Let us ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... invitation to me (in the morning) to go out and witness the whipping which was to be given to the enemy's cavalry. Riding to the front, I readily perceived that the information was correct, and I had to send a brigade of infantry out to help Sturgis, thus relieving him from a rather serious predicament. Indeed, the enemy was present in pretty strong force, both cavalry and infantry, and from his vicious attack on Sturgis it looked very much as though he intended to bring ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... passages which have led me to conclude that the Odyssey is written by a woman. A girl, such as Nausicaa describes herself, young, unmarried, unattached, and hence, after all, knowing little of what men feel on these matters, having by a cruel freak of inspiration got her hero into such an awkward predicament, might conceivably imagine that he would argue as she represents him, but no man, except such a woman's tailor as could never have written such a masterpiece as the Odyssey, would ever get his hero into such ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... dog at the same time I heard barking furiously. Having dispatched this second intruder, I saw that my dog had the first one, entangled in the branches of a fallen tree. I searched for my balls, and was vexed to find that I had left them at home. In this predicament I cut with my knife, a knot from a beech limb, put it in my rifle, and took deadly aim at the enraged wolf. The wooden ball struck him between the eyes and ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... vision of faith and tenderness, to receive her image,—stands and waits for the pity and the help of you and me, her brothers and her lovers. We long to rescue her and take her to our hearts; we are touched by her predicament, as Michelet tells us the heart of the beholder is moved by the bound Andromeda of Puget,—that great artist in whom dwelt the suffering soul of a depraved age, and who all his life long sculptured forlorn captives,—"Ah, would I had been there to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... question whether organic evolution has been caused by physical agencies or by intelligent design is in precisely the same predicament. There can be no logical doubt that, theoretically at all events, the physical agencies which the present chapter is concerned with, and which are conveniently summed up in the term natural selection, are as competent to produce these so-called mechanical contrivances, and the ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat, that God designed that that particular swallow should snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man and the gnat are in the same predicament. If the death of neither man nor gnat is designed, I see no good reason to believe that their first birth or production ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... French's attentions seriously, or built any hopes upon them, but chided Ben for putting such a construction upon her innocent actions, and informed him, as proof of his folly, and in the strictest confidence, that Colonel French was engaged to her Aunt Laura. She expressed her sorrow for his predicament, her profound belief in his innocence, and her unhesitating conviction that he would be ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and forced to action, it was Blanche's nature to behave after the manner of a mule in the same predicament, and to affect stronger contrary convictions than she really felt. It was true, she said rather bluntly: she did think there was very little, if any, difference between many doctrines held ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... standing they still had in the neutral world that unless Germany won the war in a decisive way, their world connections would disappear forever and they would be forced to begin all over after the war. Faced by this predicament, they demanded a ruthless submarine warfare against all shipping in order that not only England but every other power should suffer, because the more ships and property of the enemies destroyed the more their chances with the rest of the world ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... a great shout of distress and excitement as he realized that he was in a decidedly perilous predicament. The oil of the lamp had ignited ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... without saying a word to any one? They could arrive at only one conclusion: that he was guilty of stealing from his schoolmates and that, fearing to face the charges against him, he had run away like a coward. If the worst should happen—if he should not come out alive from the predicament in which he now found himself—his name would be remembered forever as that of one who had neither ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... for wondering whether Mr. Ogilvie would come. What was it to her? Suppose he should; suppose the rest. What a predicament! How unreasonable and conceited, even to think of such a thing, when her mind was made up. What could result, save tossings to and fro, a passing gratification set against infinite pain, and strife with her own heart ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... were revealed in each syllable; but Jean de Courtois was apparently deaf to the mean opinion his conduct was inducing among those who had extricated him from a disagreeable if not actually dangerous predicament. He squirmed convulsively, and half sobbed his inability to realize the true nature of anything that had happened either to himself ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... my predicament—and the glimpse I had of myself "hungry and homeless"—the humour of the whole situation suddenly came over me, and, beginning with a chuckle, I wound up, as my mind dwelt upon my recent adventures, with a long, loud, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... produced at Dorset Garden, 1682 (4to, 1682), the author introduces a certain damsel Philippa, who, disguised as a page, follows the loyal Sir Charles Kinglove with whom she is enamoured. At the end of the second Act her boy's clothes involve her in the same predicament as befalls Olivia in Act IV of The Younger Brother. Although Genest prefers Mrs. Behn's treatment of the situation, it must, I think, be allowed that D'Urfey has managed the jest with far greater verve and spirit. Honest Tom D'Urfey is in fact one of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... the St. Lawrence, to General Amherst; but, during the trip, the vessel was overhauled and taken by a French privateer, the despatches having been previously consigned to the deep. Stobo might have swung at the yard-arm in this new predicament, had his French valet divulged his identity with the spy of Fort du Quesne; but fortune again stepped in to preserve the adventurous Scot. There were already too many prisoners on board of the French privateer. A day's provision is allowed the English vessel, which soon landed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... favour of his convicts, assimilates their condition to that of the black slaves, whom the philanthropic efforts of Wilberforce, and others, succeeded in emancipating. The parallel is—to say the best—very surprising and unexpected. Convicts in the colonies stand in the same predicament, with regard to society, as their fellow-culprits at home; and the gallant Captain would hardly preach a crusade for the liberation of all the prisoners in England—for all who are undergoing the discipline of our houses of correction. To be compelled to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... fellow-boys may know him. Is he to be shouted at with, "Come here, what's your name?" or is he to be called (as if in high rebuke), "Boy?" And yet there are grown-up folk who do all this without hesitation, failing to remember their own predicament at a by-gone period. Boys are as useful, in their way, as any other order; and if they can be said to do some mischief, they can not be said to do it negligently. It is their privilege and duty to be truly active; and their Maker, having ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... separated in the middle of each of his legs. He might as well have attempted to clothe himself with cobweb continuations; they came to pieces almost with a shake. The waistcoat and coat were in the same predicament; they had not the principle of continuity in them. Everybody was lost in amazement, except Mr Pigtop, whose amazement, quite as great as ours, was lost in his still greater rage. It was extremely unfortunate for Joshua Daunton ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Waller and sundials, and a thousand pleasant things that, at one time or another, had befallen him or some one else. A rose touched life at a hundred pretty points. A rose was interesting because it had a past. On this the realist's comment was "Mush!" or words to that effect. In like predicament, he would give a detailed account of the properties of Rosa setigera, not forgetting to mention the urn-shaped calyx-tube, the five imbricated lobes, or the open corolla of five obovate petals. To an Ibsen or a Cezanne one account would ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... due to the absence of water; but there is also the chance of going astray—getting lost in the absence of landmarks. To be astray in a wilderness of any kind is a perilous predicament for the traveller—in one without ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... and thinking the matter over at his leisure, Reed admitted, with an impersonal candour, that it was very easy for his guests to err in tact. A man in his predicament was bound to be a trifle flooring; it did not affect the question in the least that he was in no wise responsible for the predicament. It had resulted, quite simply, from his natural instincts, not from any conscious thirsting for fame and for consequent Carnegie medals. However, the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... store, in company with Major Brown. When I looked for my gun, I found that I had left it behind me. I got cold consolation from Major Brown when I informed him of my loss. Then I told him that the general had sent for me to shoot a match with him, and that if the old man discovered my predicament there would be trouble. ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... clear enough, only deservedly heavy. I was still quarrelling with myself for my indiscretions and my incivilities, one and all the result of his wine and my weakness, and this new predicament (another and yet more vulgar result) was the final mortification. I swore aloud. I simply could not see a foot in front of my face. Once I proved it by running my head hard against a branch. I was hopelessly and ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... the author, making a desperate effort to compose himself, "I'm the first to admit the lack of foresight on my part which has placed us in this deplorable predicament; but the fact remains that we're suspected of a serious crime against this Government, and until we can prove ourselves innocent it's necessary to protect our liberties as best we may. I fortunately have ample funds, and I can ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... discouraging, but there was no help for it; he now knew exactly where they were, and how much greater than even he had imagined was the necessity for immediate action; so he turned his glances in a southerly direction, and sought to discover the most direct road out of their unpleasant predicament. Here he met with an ample reward for his trouble in climbing the tree, for he saw that, if they pursued their way due south—as they could now do, directing their course by the moon—they would have to travel through at least seven miles of forest; whilst ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... their death. Hence their masters have suffered losses, besides the expense incurred in buying what they ought to have raised upon their own estates, and this perhaps at a dear market: and in this wretched predicament Mr. Steele appears to have been himself when he first went to the estate. His slaves, he tells us, had been reduced in number by bad management. Even for six years afterwards he had been obliged to buy several hundred bushels of corn; but in ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... aristocrat, was really a man of the people, sharp to a miracle in all the detail of the humblest kind of life, and apparently unable to keep from exposing himself to scandal in many sorts of mean and vulgar predicament. ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... some whisht, she was, weth you and your fine gentleman ways of not sleeping along o' she, when she found the way she was in...." He laughed, a tiny, little old thread-like laugh, as out of the trough of the years there floated up to him Phoebe's predicament and his advice as to how to meet it—a thin little thread of laughter that spanned the years and connected that time of which he spoke with this present moment by the bed of death. The laugh died away and fell again into the abysses from which ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... they would be below the clouds, and soon after that, landing so far inside the German lines that by no possibility could they hope to regain their own. It was a bitter time for Bob. Dicky, curiously enough, took the first realization of their predicament less hard. He was all eyes to see what fate had in store for them in the way of a ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... getting deeper and deeper into his predicament, like a man in quicksand. The plain fact was, Jerry's father didn't approve of charge accounts, and Jerry wasn't likely to change his mind for him, candy or no candy. Then, when somebody broke into Mr. Bullfinch's house next ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... should have listened sweetly, and been saved. As it is, I frankly confess that I have spent the last five days in repenting our quarrel. You were right, and I was wrong, and, as you see, I handsomely acknowledge it. If I ever emerge from this present predicament, I shall in the future be guided (almost always) by your judgment. Could any woman make a ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... very like it, and there are more of us in the predicament of the men of Gotham than are ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... of the premises, maybe we can stumble across something that may aid us. At any rate, it will give us something to do and keep our minds off the predicament we are in." ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... in Lyvern," said Miss Wilson. "Take this card to Mr. Marsh, the jotmaster, and tell him the predicament we are in. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... outer casing of the iron tower; they were about the breadth and depth of shallow saucers, almost imperceptible dents, with no corresponding bulge on the interior surface. In fact, the thing looked altogether too safe; though it may not prove quite an agreeable predicament to be thus boxed up in impenetrable iron, with the possibility, one would imagine, of being sent to the bottom of the sea, and, even there, not drowned, but stifled. Nothing, however, can exceed the confidence of the officers in this new ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... treatises of this lover of labor are still extant, but for readers of the present age, the printed and unpublished are nearly in the same predicament. Moses and Aristotle are the chief objects of his verbose commentaries, one of which is dated as early as May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458-468.) A modern, (John Le Clerc,) who sometimes assumed the same name was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... between his convictions, and the retention of political office. It was a situation all the more embarrassing, because he had so often asserted the direct responsibility of a representative to his constituents. He extricated himself from the predicament in characteristic fashion. He reaffirmed his convictions; sought to ward off the question; but followed instructions when he had to give his vote. He obeyed the letter, but violated ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... thesis at all. The idea of the dove sent forth from the ark fluttering over the heaving swells of the deluge, in vain endeavour to secure a rest for the soles of its feet, represents not inaptly the unfortunate predicament of his spirit with regard to a solid [208] faith on which to repose amid the surges of doubt by which it is so evidently beset. Yet although this is his obvious plight with regard to a satisfying belief, he nevertheless undertakes, with characteristic confidence, to suggest a creed ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... — N. state, condition, category, estate, lot, ease, trim, mood, pickle, plight, temper; aspect &c. (appearance) 448, dilemma, pass, predicament. constitution, habitude, diathesis[obs3]; frame, fabric &c. 329; stamp, set, fit, mold, mould. mode, modality, schesis[obs3]; form &c. (shape) 240. tone, tenor, turn; trim, guise, fashion, light, complexion, style, character. V. be in a state, possess a state, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... love—no need to be ungenerous or selfish—and could, therefore, afford to extend my sympathy to the sufferings of another. It was some vague prompting of this kind, that had caused me to draw up—some idea of offering consolation. The repelling reception was altogether unexpected, and placed me in a predicament. How was I to escape from it? By holding my tongue, and riding on? No; this would be an acknowledgment of having committed an act of gaucherie—to which man's vanity rarely accedes, or only with extreme reluctance. ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... parliamentary situation, knowing it to be in the power of the convention to accept another delegation regardless of its regularity, as the Republicans had done at Syracuse in the previous week. But the delegates derisively laughed at his awkward predicament as they adopted the resolution by a vote of 90 ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Italians, and hence doubly impatient to return into Germany, from which it had been absent much longer than the terms of feudal service required, obliged Frederic to think of finishing his campaign, and marching home directly, if he did not mean to be left alone in the heart of a hostile country; a predicament into which the desertion of his men was already beginning to betray him. He accordingly took the road back into Germany soon after he had made restitution to the pope as above described; and after running ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... thus closed, the lessees were in a predicament. By a specific clause in their lease they were prevented from using the building for any purpose other than the acting of stage-plays, and now Parliament by a specific ordinance had forbidden the acting of stage-plays. Hence the lessees, some of whom were poor persons, ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... a passing thought to be remembered and turned over at a more propitious time. Margaret's whole thoughts now were bent on her present predicament. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... Junius, as one piece, as one consistent plan of operations: and I would contrive it so, that, if I were defeated, I should not be disgraced,—that even my victory should not be more ignominious than my defeat; I would so manage, that the lowest in the predicament of guilt should not be the only one in punishment. I would not inform against the mere vender of a collection of pamphlets. I would not put him to trial first, if I could possibly avoid it. I would rather stand the consequences of my first error than carry it to a judgment that must disgrace my ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the United States, by the expectation of offices in his gift, the answer is, that judges of state courts are equally exposed to the same influence—that all state officers, from the highest to the lowest, are in the same predicament; and that this circumstance does not, therefore, deprive them of the character of ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... she said coaxingly, "my sister and I are in the very same predicament! Quite identically the very same ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... frigate came in, towing a boat. She passed close to us. On her deck stood ten men heavily ironed, their features, which we could clearly see, showing that they felt themselves to be in a dangerous predicament. The frigate sailed on, and brought up in the ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... mean time Maurice had received a visit from the young student at the University,—the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,—an instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and the instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke it with the ease which implied ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... similar loss myself to understand you. My store of sensible remarks is copious on most occasions—but I'm darned if I ain't dried up in the face of this! Might I venture to ask what that venerable Chief Christian at Tadmor would say to the predicament in which I find my young Socialist ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... border of the cliff and anxiously George waited to discover what means would be used for his rescue. That he would be left in his predicament he was convinced was not to be ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... thoroughly aware of my predicament, I grew frightened and my anger slipped from its moorings. "See here," I cried, "your little story of innocence and virtue is very clever, but I've looked ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... got it at last," Said Aunt Mary, when Hannah entered; "and a pretty looking thing it is! Really it is too bad to have a thing sent home in that predicament." ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... he was profoundly disturbed. This was no ordinary predicament. He knew that unless the priest relented they stood small chance of seeing sun and stars again. Would he relent? Roldan's own indomitable will and growing ambitions responded to the awful forces in the man, overgrown and abnormal as ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... Staff turned back to the telephone and asked for the manager of the exchange, explained his predicament and was promised that, if the call could be traced back to the original station, he should have the number. He was, however, counselled to be patient. Such a search would take time, quite possibly ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... design, or only with such instinctive design as gives no account of itself to the intellect) Phoebe, just at the critical moment, drew back; so that her highly respectable kinsman, with his body bent over the counter and his lips protruded, was betrayed into the rather absurd predicament of kissing the empty air. It was a modern parallel to the case of Ixion embracing a cloud, and was so much the more ridiculous as the Judge prided himself on eschewing all airy matter, and never mistaking a shadow for a substance. The truth was,—and it is Phoebe's only excuse,—that, although ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fitted to carry conviction to every unprejudiced reader, the impossibility of uniting slavery with freedom under the same Government. Either all must be free or the mass subject to the few—or there is actual war. This principle is finely brought out in the predicament of the Quaker confronted by a fugitive with wife and child who had seen a sister sold and conveyed to a life of shame on a Southern plantation. "Am I going to stand by and see them take my wife and sell her?" exclaimed the negro. "No, God help me! I'll fight to the last breath before they shall ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... late evening I learnt that the hotels were all closed long ago, the townsfolk having gone to bed "with the chickens"; it was suggested that I had better stay at the station, where the manageress of the restaurant kept certain sleeping quarters specially provided for travellers in my predicament. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... period of enlistment had expired and the crisis of the war was over. But unfortunately for them, General Amherst at Crown Point found the force at his disposal insufficient, he could not spare a man, and Monckton, who commanded at Quebec, was in precisely the same predicament. Lawrence at Halifax had no troops at his disposal. Unless, therefore, the Massachusetts men remained Fort Frederick would be left without a garrison. In this emergency the Massachusetts legislature took the responsibility of extending the period of enlistment ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... He is what I should call adaptable. He said by all means to extricate Harold from this wretched predicament, not only on account of the property interests involved, but on account of his moral and spiritual welfare; that, while in spirit he holds deathlessly to the indissolubility of the marriage tie, still it ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... swallowed the younger fish, who, for aught he knew to the contrary, or cared, might have been his own son; and his confidence in his capacity being ably supported by his appetite, he undertook a contract to which he was unequal in the matter of expansion. He couldn't disgorge, being in the predicament of the boa-constrictor who swallows a hen head first, and finds her go against the grain when he would fain reconsider the subject. The head of the inside fish was partially digested, but that process had imparted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... information concerning the tender situation: astern stepfather, an unwelcome suitor of his choosing, and a lover of her own. Her inability to write and thus communicate with the latter is the immediate cause of the present overflow. The traveler beholds in this predicament a remarkable sentimental opportunity and offers his services; he strokes her cheek, her tears are dried, and they part like brother and sister. The episode is unquestionably inspired by the episode of Maria of Moulines; in the latter development of the affair, the sentiment, which is expressed, ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... few French words. He always said, "When I lived with the Christians, I drank wine like them." Some of the people, in a joke, would call him a Christian. He was a bad scholar, and very bitter against the Wahabites, whom he delighted to picture to himself in the pleasing predicament of carrying the Jews to hellfire on their backs. I myself one day had a quarrel with a Wahabite. The Wahabite called me a kafer. I retorted, "Why, what are you? You are nothing but a Wahabite." He was so angry that he was about to draw his knife ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the advancing army. Already the lads had been challenged several times, but upon explaining their predicament had been allowed to continue on their way. Now they reached the first line of the advancing host, and an ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... they started to march on the next morning, were at first a little brighter, but soon a bitterly cold wind was blowing and high ice hummocks began to appear ahead of them. In this predicament Scott realized that it was both rash to go forward, as the air was becoming thick with snow-drift, and equally rash to stop, for if they had to spend another long spell in a blizzard camp, starvation would soon be staring them in the face. So he asked Evans and Lashly if they were ready ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... some men observed and some—wisely—ignored. This desperado John Ringo was among those who observed it; and one day, like poor old Don Quixote, he found himself trying to force conclusions with men whose ideas were more modern than his own, which led him—like Cervante's lean hero—into a bad predicament and also brought ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... looked upon as the champion boxer in that district, made a dead set on Paul. Jacker had often sought his friendship, and Paul had as often repulsed his advances. Jacker's own parentage lay under a cloud, and he felt angry that Paul, whom he regarded as in a like predicament, should refuse to be friendly with him. One evening, therefore, when Paul seemed less inclined than ever to be sociable, Jacker determined to have it out with him. He was passing through what is called the Church Town, when a number of youths, among whom Jacker was conspicuous, asked him to ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... of this predicament. He could escape the quicksand but he couldn't escape this. He looked about as if to consider whether he could make ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to the sword. Leading on the remainder of his troops he now came in contact with Isfendiyar and his two hundred and sixty warriors, and a sharp engagement ensued; but the coming up of Bashutan's force on his rear, placed him in such a predicament on every side, that defeat and destruction were almost inevitable. In short, Kahram was left with only a few of his soldiers near him, when Isfendiyar, observing his situation, challenged him to personal combat, and the challenge ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... Jericho's to fall. This century, which proudly boasts itself "heir to all the ages and foremost in the files of time," doffs its beaver to brazen effrontery, burns its sweetest incense on the unhallowed shrine of pompous humbuggery, while modest merit is in a more pitiable predicament than the traditional tomcat in Tartarus ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... inclination. Paul now found his ally too sorely beset to afford him that protection upon which he had relied, when he commenced, in his dotage, his career as a warrior. He was, therefore, only desirous of deserting his friend, and of relieving himself from his uncomfortable predicament, by making a treaty with his catholic majesty upon the best terms which he could obtain. The King of France, who had gone to war only for the sake of his holiness, was to be left to fight his own battles, while the Pope was to make his peace with all the world. The result was a desirable one ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate predicament, I should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in a foregoing part of this narrative), of their quitting the pursuit, when the general attention was fixed upon Oliver; and making immediately for their home by the shortest possible cut. Although I do not mean to assert that it is usually ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... hidden the tinned food, the boys still lingered in the vicinity of the Nelson. The machine lay shining in the sunlight, seeming to look reproachfully up at the boys, accusing them of getting her into a very bad predicament. ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of life and manners come out occasionally. Baker, the author of a work on algebra much esteemed at the time, wrote to Collins that their circumstances are alike, "having a just and equal number of chargeable olive-branches, and being in the same predicament and blessed condemnation with you, not more preaching than unpaid, and preaching the art of contentment to others, am forced to practise it." But the last sentence of his letter runs as follows: "I have sent by the bearer ... twenty shillings, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... from Fitchburg and annexed to Lunenburg." This request was denied. The honest people, who, for the sake of peace and reconciliation had favored the west at the previous meeting, were now thoroughly alarmed. They held the balance of power, and were in a very unpleasant predicament. If they voted to place the new house in the east, the west threatened to form a new parish; and if they favored the west, the east evinced strong symptoms of returning to ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... pleasant either; her feet were very tender and the pebbles and ruts of the road hurt them. Her blistered heels smarted. But physical pain was almost forgotten in the sting of humiliation. This was a nice predicament! If Kenneth Ford could see her now, limping along like a little girl with a stone bruise! Oh, what a horrid way for her lovely party to end! She just had to cry—it was too terrible. Nobody cared for her—nobody bothered about her at all. Well, if she caught cold from walking home barefoot on ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... removed by the Executive. If they gave the information and took proper measures to obtain it, they would upon the next nomination be rejected by the Senate. It would be unjust in me to place any other citizens in the predicament in which this unlooked-for decision of the Senate has placed the estimable and honorable men who were ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... through the whole city of Delft, and at last drove him to earth in his own lodgings, where they kept him besieged several hours. Through the intercession of Wilkes and the authority of the council of state, to which body he succeeded in conveying information of his dangerous predicament, he was, in his own language, "miraculously preserved," although remaining still in daily danger of his life. "I pray God keep me hereafter from the anger of a woman," he exclaimed, "quia non est ira supra ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... superficially," she said, "but he had one distinguishing trait patent to all, his inordinate fondness for practical jokes. Probably the predicament he found himself in was highly to ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... perish trying to keep alive," remarked Washington. "We have plenty of room to exercise ourselves here, and keep up a circulation, with no fear of being shot at by savages. It will not do to sleep in this predicament." ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... consistent plan of operations: and I would contrive it so, that, if I were defeated, I should not be disgraced,—that even my victory should not be more ignominious than my defeat; I would so manage, that the lowest in the predicament of guilt should not be the only one in punishment. I would not inform against the mere vender of a collection of pamphlets. I would not put him to trial first, if I could possibly avoid it. I would rather stand the consequences of my first error than ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not to be outdone in that line of art, George, when he had settled his army down in the soft ground, went to work satisfying the nation that he could build just as big sand heaps as any other general. In short, my son, George found himself in a worse predicament than he was in at Manassas, for his friend Johnston had a large army, and stronger works than Mr. Beauregard left behind him. So his army laid down its guns, and took up the spade, and went largely into the ditching ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... this be so, some excellent sentiment and eloquent romance will have to be taken with considerable modification. A few of the most indignant bursts (?) in Longfellow's fine poem of "Evangeline" may be in this predicament; and may have to be read, not exactly as so much gospel, but rather as rhetorical extremes, unsubstantial, but too elegant to be altogether discarded. In volumes alluded to, of the record commission, the dispatches, and letters, and other documents ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... crafty mind schemed for some other plan. Suddenly he saw the bottle, the contents of which had restored his reason. Reaching out slyly, he turned it around until he could read the label, and then, even in his predicament, he exulted over his discovery. It was the antidote. Like a flash came to him a shrewd scheme to use ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... time I heard barking furiously. Having dispatched this second intruder, I saw that my dog had the first one, entangled in the branches of a fallen tree. I searched for my balls, and was vexed to find that I had left them at home. In this predicament I cut with my knife, a knot from a beech limb, put it in my rifle, and took deadly aim at the enraged wolf. The wooden ball struck him between the eyes and killed him ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... had been for the greater part of his adult life. All that he cared to know was that resentment was in his heart,—resentment that the family of Rodaine should be connected in some way with the piquant, mysterious little person he had helped out of a predicament on the Denver road the day before. And, to his chagrin, the very fact that there was a connection added a more sinister note to the escapade of the exploded tire and the pursuing sheriff; as he walked ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... and have any intercourse, it seems as if they ought to be the better for me. I wish, instead of sixpence, I had given the poor family ten shillings, and denied it to a begging subscriptionist, who has just fleeced me to that amount. How silly a man feels in this latter predicament! ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... unless leave shall be demanded and obtained previously of the inhabitants thereof; a recommendation of Congress to the States in favor of the British who have not borne arms, possessing property in America; of the non-residents and loyal inhabitants in the same predicament, &c. &c. &c. But this article depends entirely on the recommendations of Congress, the States being ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... Ruth's body was resting, her mind was working actively, darting hither and thither in an effort to find a way of escape from their fearful predicament. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... every appearance of real play, and indeed their compositions partook of the nature of ingenious end-games, in which it was usual to give Black a predominance of force, and to leave the White king in apparent jeopardy. From this predicament he was extricated by a series of checking moves, usually involving a number of brilliant sacrifices. The number of moves was rarely less than five. In the course of time the solutions were reduced to shorter limits and the beauty of quiet (non-checking) moves began to make itself ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... become distasteful to Armitage, who inwardly was floundering for a method of escape from the predicament into which his folly had led him. He had no wish to pose as a freak in her eyes. Still, no solution ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... crew of four, all of whom had acquired the English, like himself, in a prison-ship, and with these men he now prepared to land; for, as yet, he had made little progress in the business which brought him into his present awkward predicament, and he was not a man to abandon an object so dear to him, lightly. Finding himself in a dilemma, he was resolved to make an effort to reap, if possible, some advantage from his critical situation. Accordingly, after he had ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be conveyed to the consul Claudius. At the same time two troops of Samnites were sent with them as an escort. Having made their way to the consul, the letter was read by means of an interpreter, and the captives were interrogated; when Claudius, coming to the conclusion that the predicament of the state was not such as that her generals should carry on the war, each within the limits of his own province, and with his own troops, according to the customary plans of warfare, and with an enemy marked out for him by the senate, but that some unlooked for and ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... remembers also to have seen a man come out at the east door and go into the closet, at this moment. But here the witness made a mistake. He thought that Mr. Warren went through the east door, but Mr. Warren says that he came along the entry, and had not been in or out of that door. What then is the predicament in which Prescott has involved himself? Three different men must have gone into that recess in the short space of two minutes; two of them at least, must have been in the closet at the same minute; and the east door must have been ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... back at the foot of the tree. It is probable she would have encountered Girty or a member of his band of redmen, rather than have this young man find her in this predicament. It provoked her to think that of all the people at the fort it should be the only one she could not welcome who should find her in ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... earnestly needed it. A sense of humour in a queer abstract way provides a quality of companionship—it gives a man the power to be a pal to himself—to talk to himself aloud—to laugh at adversity—to spot the comic side in the most pathetic predicament. Each day provided something new in the matter of discomfort or alarm. The calls he was obliged to make upon his resources of humour were therefore severe and exacting. Over and over again he had need to remind himself that there was something classically funny in three financial giants ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... spot. She will probably ask Richard Clyde who the little country girl was, whose water-pail he was so gallantly carrying, and I know he will speak kindly of me, though he will laugh at being caught in such an awkward predicament. Perhaps to amuse her, he will tell her of my flight from the academy and the scenes which resulted, and she will ask him to show her the poem, rendered so immortal. Then merrily will her silver laughter ring through ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... little bonnet, adorned by the gay plumage of a tropical bird, worn close upon her head. At first glance she was as bewitchingly beautiful, as entirely charming, as she had seemed to Dan the day before. He blushed to the roots of his hair and for the moment quite forgot the extraordinary predicament in which he was placed. Madame de la Fontaine rose, a bright smile beaming from her soft blue eyes, and waited for ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... predicament last described, the contrary of all this happens. The perpetual menacings of danger oblige the government to be always prepared to repel it; its armies must be numerous enough for instant defense. The continual ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... destroyed by accident, and their lives are sometimes saved by it. And if you'll put away metaphysics, come out of the cloud in which you have hid yourself in your dreamy speculations, I will furnish you with a case in point, showing that a man may get into a very unpleasant predicament, where he runs a great risk and gets some hard knocks, and yet be able to thank God for it, in perfect earnestness of spirit. A case of the kind came under my own observation, and while there was not much philosophy, or abstract speculation about it, there was a great deal of hard practical ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... caught Jessie's, and found an imp of mischief dancing there. She was enjoying the predicament in which he found himself. Out of the tail of that same eye he discovered that two more flat-footed squaws were headed ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... he told of how Joe and he had been tied hand and foot, and lashed to poles, and buried in leaves, and threatened with a slow death by torture; at other times bursting into a hilarious laugh as he held forth on the predicament of Mahtawa, when that wily chief was treed by Crusoe in the prairie. Young Marston was there, too, hanging about Dick, whom he loved as a brother and regarded as a perfect hero. Grumps, too, was there, and Fan. Do you think, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... complained to the duke of Calabria, who was with the army at Sienna, of a breach of the truce; and he endeavored to prove, by letters and embassies, that it had occurred without either his own or his father's knowledge. The Florentines, however, found themselves in a very awkward predicament, being destitute of money, the head of the republic in the power of the king, themselves engaged in a long-standing war with the latter and the pope, in a new one with the Genoese, and entirely without friends; for they had no confidence in the Venetians, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the cleverest and most ingenious of these tricks was only clear to me many years after, when we were so wholly at one on this subject that I could laugh at my own predicament then. It was this: You see, with us, women are kept as different as possible and as feminine as possible. We men have our own world, with only men in it; we get tired of our ultra-maleness and turn ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... fresh hope and courage. Charley was getting along far better than he had dared to hope during the night. He soon would be well enough to take command, and then, thought Walter, they would soon find their friends. He had great confidence in Charley's ability to get them out of their present predicament. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... they had yet been suspected. For more than a quarter of a century these two kids kept this secret in the innermost recesses of their hearts, and it is only recently that they dared to reveal their terrible predicament. ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... to oppose their entrance into the town; besides, your appearance in the pulpit may lead to the sacrifice of your own most precious life, and the lives of many others who will no doubt stand forth in your defence. Whether, therefore, you ought, in such a predicament, to think of preaching, is a thing to be ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... at Barclay before I replied. His face was as blank as a piece of white paper. His eyes, however, danced in his head as if he enjoyed my predicament. ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... happy, for they had forgotten their mess-box, and had only a light lunch. They had only their lap-robe for bedding. They were in a predicament; but the girl's chief concern was lest "Honey-bug" should let the wolves get her. Though it is scorching hot on the desert by day, the nights are keenly cool, and I was wondering how they would manage with only their lap-robe, when Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, who cannot hold malice, made a round ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... had to be shoved farther and farther out, increasing the distance they had to wade. By two o'clock it had all been accomplished, and Kit, despite his two breakfasts, was weak with the faintness of hunger. His knees were shaking under him. Shorty, in similar predicament, foraged through the pots and pans, and drew forth a big pot of cold boiled beans in which were imbedded large chunks of bacon. There was only one spoon, a long-handled one, and they dipped, turn and turn ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... another, had befallen him or some one else. A rose touched life at a hundred pretty points. A rose was interesting because it had a past. On this the realist's comment was "Mush!" or words to that effect. In like predicament, he would give a detailed account of the properties of Rosa setigera, not forgetting to mention the urn-shaped calyx-tube, the five imbricated lobes, or the open corolla of five obovate petals. To an Ibsen or a Cezanne one ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... a predicament, as I did not wish the President to believe that the band was not at all times able to respond to his wishes. Fortunately, one of the bandmen remembered the melody and played it over softly to me on his cornet in a corner. I hastily wrote out several parts for ...
— The Experiences of a Bandmaster • John Philip Sousa
... kinds conducted in private; and the house, of course, is not responsible for the stakes. Money may be lost on parole there; but the loser who will not or can not make good his promise, generally finds himself in a dangerous predicament. For though there be a few men here who came attracted either by curiosity or because they have nothing else to do, the majority are professional gamblers, whose revolvers are always kept ready ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... actually pursued by Mr. Venizelos in this predicament he himself explained to the parliament in the speech delivered at the close of the war against Turkey from which I have already quoted. He declared to his astonished countrymen that in his desire to reach a close understanding with Turkey he had arrived at the point ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... or indirect attempts He seek the life of any citizen, The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive Shall seize one half his goods; the other half Comes to the privy coffer of the state; And the offender's life lies in the mercy Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice. In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st; For it appears by manifest proceeding That indirectly, and directly too, Thou hast contrived against the very life Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd The danger formerly by me rehears'd. Down, therefore, and beg ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... was well deserved—some historians say so—but it was none the less terrible when it came; and I can imagine that the predicament of Meadows and young Hart, standing behind the barred gates of the Consulate, could have been little worse, mentally, than that of the wretches outside praying to them in the name of Heaven ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... had been apprehensive concerning my own predicament. What would happen to me when these men discovered my presence? I could never fight my way out as Wolf Larsen had done. And at this moment Latimer ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... as he was to these instruments of torture, forthwith went, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Evidently the protest might have been sent in an envelope, as in Paris, and even so all Angouleme was sure to hear of the poor Sechards' unlucky predicament. How they all blamed his want of business energy! His excessive fondness for his wife had been the ruin of him, according to some; others maintained that it was his affection for his brother-in-law; and what shocking conclusions did they not draw ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... when one is placed in such a predicament as that in which I then found myself, one's wits are suddenly sharpened, and a new sense is given to one. Whether that is so or not, I was as certain as if I actually saw him that my assailant was the butler, Hollins. And I should have been infinitely surprised if any other voice than his had spoken—as ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... worthy setting. Surely it is a moral crime, an inexcusable folly to tolerate a disease with its inevitable train of dire consequences, up to the point when the discomfort compels one to seek treatment. There are patients, of course, who have good and sufficient excuses for their painful predicament; they have, for example, tried persistently for relief and cure, but have failed to find a physician competent to treat their particular case. How many unskilled prescribers there are, and how glaring their shortcomings! Some hold out taking inducements ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... mobile {111b}. Like any or like all of these, a medley of rags, and lace, and fringes, unfortunate Jack did now appear; he would have been extremely glad to see his coat in the condition of Martin's, but infinitely gladder to find that of Martin in the same predicament with his. However, since neither of these was likely to come to pass, he thought fit to lend the whole business another turn, and to dress up necessity into a virtue. Therefore, after as many of the ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... sitting up, and speaking in the steady resolute voice that had so early rendered him thoroughly their master, but much perplexed and dismayed, and entirely unassisted by Theurdank, who stood looking on with almost a smile, as if diverted by his predicament. ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seize this opportunity of compelling the Government to go their lengths, and to make such compliance the condition of their support. Government are so indignant that they want to break off with the 'Chronicle' altogether; but then they will be left in the awkward predicament of having no morning paper whatever in their service. What nettles them the more is, that they made the 'Chronicle' what it is, and raised it by their exertions from the lowest ebb to its present very good circulation. Just before Peel's hundred days it was for sale, ...
— 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
... put him in the embarrassing predicament of having either to accept against his will, or to decline and appear ungracious," submitted Beatrice. "No, it is evident that ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... was very kindly. He remembered that if he were in any other difficulty he would turn quite naturally to her for advice, although he had known her so short a time, and he regretted that in his present predicament he was debarred from putting the case before her. And yet, why not? He might put the supposititious case of a friend, and ask what the friend ought to do. He dismissed this a moment later. It was too much like what people did in a novel, and besides, he could not carry it through. ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... from the Toy and tried to make some sense from my predicament. The little thing lay innocent and silent in my palm. It wouldn't tell me whether it had been keyed to me, the real Cargill, some time in the past, or to Rakhal, using my name and reputation in the Terran Colony ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... I declared. So I did, through the spruce woods and over the field as fast as my feet could carry me, thanking my stars that there was a Max to go to in such a predicament. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to have watch and ward to-night," resumed Eve, after the general pause had continued some little time. "Is it not possible for the elements to put us in the same predicament as that in which we ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... hour will be passed in a most unprofitable manner, and perhaps the social spirit of the company be not a little marred. How much better to say: 'Well, that is a subject I know nothing about: I will not undertake to judge.' Supposing all who are present to be in the same predicament, they might dismiss the barren subject, and start another on which some one could throw real light, and from which, accordingly, all might derive ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... gamboled past, all snickering, of course, at his predicament. In this state of utter misery he arrived at last at the field, where, to his amazement, quite a group of Fifth-Formers came up and surrounded Miss McCarty, chattering in the most bewildering manner. Dink seized the opportunity to ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... sea coast of Cornwall, where you know nobody, and nobody knows you. You must go incognito, as 'Miss' or 'Mrs.'—anything you please. Your rest-cure will consist primarily in being set free, for a time, from Lady Ingleby's position, predicament, and perplexities. You must send word to all intimate friends, telling them you are going into retreat, and they must not write until they hear again. You will have leave to write one letter a week, to one person only; and ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... Malise faced their predicament with some philosophy. Sholto ate his heart out with uncertainty as to the fate of his sweetheart. The Lord James chafed at the compulsory confinement and at the consistent ill success which had pursued them. But Malise, unwearied ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... in this deplorable state of mind that Rodriguez' glance fell on the merry eyes and the solemn predicament of the man in the leather coat, standing pinioned under a long branch of the oak-tree: and he determined from that moment to disappoint la Garda and, I fear also, my reader, perhaps to disappoint you, of the hanging that they at least had ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... Alimentive and Cerebral types and would have the Alimentive's fat body with a large highbrow head of the Cerebral. The possession of these two highly developed but opposite kinds of systems places their owner constantly in the predicament of deciding between the big meal he wants and the small one he knows he should ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... in another predicament: this ridiculous little Bambou insists upon coming with us! No, he will take no denial, we must take him with us. This is out of all reason, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... should Protagoras be preferred to the place of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own wisdom? Must he not be talking 'ad captandum' in all this? I say nothing of the ridiculous predicament in which my own midwifery and the whole art of dialectic is placed; for the attempt to supervise or refute the notions or opinions of others would be a tedious and enormous piece of folly, if to each man ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... with a word. Another might discourse like an angel and it would be useless. I said everything I could think of, to no purpose. And so it is: there are those attractions!—just as, with her, Willoughby is the reverse, he repels. I'm in about the same predicament—or should be if she were plighted to me. That is, for the length of five minutes; about the space of time I should require for the formality of handing her back her freedom. How a sane man can imagine a girl like that . . . ! But if she has changed, she has changed! You can't ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the characters of her ministers, to raise and keep up a dangerous ferment among the people, by which her life and government were endangered. She could not fail to resent these efforts, which greatly perplexed her measures, and obstructed her design. Her ministers were sensible of the dangerous predicament in which they stood. The queen's health was much impaired; and the successor countenanced the opposite faction. In case of their sovereign's death, they had nothing to expect but prosecution and ruin for obeying her commands; they they saw no hope of safety, except in renouncing their principles, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... another man when in a similar predicament, I concluded to let circumstances shape my plan of action, and set forth for Mrs. Raynor's house. The walk was a long one, but I turned in order to pass under the tree where I had begun to dictate to Sylvia; and glad I was that I did so, for to the twig on which I had hung the case ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... plausible speculation, which has been and will again be chanted, that we, being a luxurious nation, must by force of good logical dependency be liable to many derivative taints and infirmities which ought of necessity to besiege the blood of nations in that predicament. All enterprise and spirit of adventure, all heroism and courting of danger for its own attractions, ought naturally to languish in a generation enervated by early habits of personal indulgence. Doubtless ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the look-out from the mast head reported a vessel aground off the starboard bow, with a second vessel close by, and, seemingly, in a similar predicament. Our thoughts at once adverted to the two troopships which left last night, so we hurried on, and, arriving at the spot, found we had surmised correctly. One only, the steamer, was aground; her consort, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... search of the premises, maybe we can stumble across something that may aid us. At any rate, it will give us something to do and keep our minds off the predicament we are in." ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... that I made the acquaintance of a foreign spy who was acting as waiter in the hotel. He was so well informed on higher politics, as well as on military matters, that I guessed he must be an officer of the intelligence staff, and he was most helpful and kind to me in my predicament. ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... personally whenever a parliamentary battle or a contest with the secret follies of the court took place,—on the eve of a struggle with the popular mind, or on the morrow of a diplomatic discussion which divided the Council into three separate parties. Caught in such a predicament, a statesman naturally keeps a yawn ready for the first sentence designed to show him how the public service could be better managed. At such periods not a dinner took place among bold schemers ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... to tell a story of a man who had but one idea, which was a wrong one. The couple who dote upon their children are in the same predicament: at home or abroad, at all times, and in all places, their thoughts are bound up in this one subject, and have no sphere beyond. They relate the clever things their offspring say or do, and weary every company with ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Ananda's first thought was, "The lad is in a fit;" the second, "It were a pious deed to deliver him from his tormentors;" the third, "By good management this may extricate me from my present uncomfortable predicament, and redound to the glory ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... extreme. And yet he could not believe that Denis had told her, and Vanessa and Tribe had surely not had time to do so. He had seen them ascend the steps of the terrace. Besides,—why should they? Nevertheless, the predicament was an awkward one. He had counted on speaking ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... two parties the bishop, whose motives and intentions are, however, not brought out with sufficient clearness. Like the proverbial fifth wheel of a wagon he seems out of place and embarrassing, whenever he appears—a predicament, to be sure, which he shares with the Church itself in those times, whenever not ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... at frequent intervals as he thought of the predicament he was in through no fault of his own. More than once he glared malevolently at the sleeping Lamy; then the troubled look would come again to his eyes and he would resume his pacing, muttering to himself, staring into the blue veil of the night. Once he sat down and removed ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... exclaimed Mr. Y——, completely put out of temper by the utter ludicrousness of our awkward predicament. "What should I do? Were I a man in your position and a believer in all you are brought up to believe, I should take my revolver, and in the first place, shoot all the vampire bats in the neighborhood, if only to rid all your late relations from the abject bodies of these ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... theory. All these methods and devices have become obsolete; and though the spirit of hero-worship that animated those who listened to the ancient tales still possesses mankind at certain seasons, Romance must now submit to the hard conditions of modern Realism. In this predicament it finds a new and satisfactory embodiment in the form of Memoirs concerning the great Emperor and his companions, which dispense copious anecdotes of his court and camp, his sayings and doings, his domestic habits, his private manners and peccadilloes. If these particulars can be served up ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... succeeded in persuading the governor to forward a letter from her to her brother, Friedrich Graevenitz, in which she implored him to visit her; but she received no answer from that estimable personage. In point of fact, he was in an awkward predicament himself. True, he had sided against his sister openly, but the Duke, not relishing a too glaring reminder of the past, had commanded him to retire to Welzheim. At Eberhard Ludwig's death Graevenitz waited upon Karl Alexander, who, honest ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... with a feminine pen and feminine ink on masculine sheets of neuter paper, and encloses it in a masculine envelope with a feminine address to his darling, though neuter, Gretchen. He has a masculine head, a feminine hand, and a neuter heart."[405] Anglo-Saxon gentlemen were in about the same predicament, before William the Conqueror came in his own way to their help and rescued them from this maze. In the transaction which took place, the Anglo-Saxon and the French both gave up the arbitrariness of their genders; nouns ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... back to Fort Lyon." I did not need an escort unless they complied with my orders. I had orders from my headquarters and they were supposed to be at "my service" as escort of the mail and express. Well, Major Pendelton was in a "pickle"—it was a predicament he did not know how to get out of. He wanted to get through as soon as possible and knew that if he went back with the Lieutenant, he would be delayed. He thought he had too much money to be left with me without the escort. ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... doing it would have afforded her one moment of pleasure. On the other hand, I had sworn most solemnly to the great Sagewoman that I would devote the remainder of my natural life to the dissemination of the principles in which she had instructed me. I often wondered at my strange predicament. Here I was being censured by the reincarnated soul of the great Sage-woman for carrying out the very work she taught me, and for fulfilling ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... "estero," my mule fell, with my leg underneath him, pinning me in the mud. The poor beast was exhausted, and would not move. Night had set in—it was quite dark, and I had lagged some distance behind my companions: fortunately they heard my shouts, and, soon returning, extricated me from my awkward predicament. Without further mishap we reached Esquipula, a village inhabited mostly by half-breeds, and slung our hammocks for the night in a small thatched house belonging to the mining company, who kept many of their draught ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... pursuit of knowledge, the mood evaporated. Perhaps she was aware of this and laid her plans accordingly, for on the last evening of the session, as he came down the steps of the college and turned toward Fetter Lane, he saw her standing under the lamp-post at the corner. A frightful predicament! It was one thing to read about Johann Wolfgang Goethe and his free emotional development, about Arthur Schopenhauer living in Venice with his mistress and writing philosophical works, or to approve the newly translated vapourings of Frederick Nietzsche. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... reach the camp? One of the men had evidently seen us and was pointing us out to his companion. We rushed down the Jacob's Ladder, but by the time we reached the river bank they were in midstream and heading rapidly northward. Our shouts merely brought forth derisive laughter. We were certainly in a predicament. First we ran back up the cliff, and tried from there to gain the attention of the rest of the fellows. They evidently saw us but couldn't make out what we wanted. Then we ran down to a point opposite the island and called to them. ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... they hauled Pud back, though all three were on the ground and nearly over the edge before the two could stop the heavy Pud. A yell from the opposite shore told them that Mr. Waterman and Mr. Anderson had seen their predicament. Bob and Bill held on and slowly pulled Pud up to them. When all three at last arose, probably only a minute later, they were bathed in perspiration, as they had all been under a ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... of the barn, I found myself on alighting outside with the star-bespangled firmament above me, and—what do you think under me—I hardly like to say, but nevertheless it was a manure heap! I was booked to remain in this—perhaps more healthy than agreeable—predicament for some time; for, despite my struggles to regain liberty of thought and action, I could ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... gave a great shout of distress and excitement as he realized that he was in a decidedly perilous predicament. The oil of the lamp had ignited ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... mind up in a moment, and by way of answer told him the whole story of our voyage, and the predicament in which we found ourselves. He heard me with the keenest interest, and when I had done he patted ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... summons from the authorities, and went up to matriculate at St. Ambrose's College, Oxford, He presented himself at the college one afternoon, and was examined by one of the tutors, who carried him, and several other youths in like predicament, up to the Senate House the next morning. Here they went through the usual forms of subscribing to the articles, and otherwise testifying their loyalty to the established order of things, without much thought perhaps, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... being gorged with plunder come there to eat, drink and amuse themselves and have as little stomach for fighting as the soldier of Lucullus had after having enriched himself; but the officers of the army of the Loire are, poor fellows, in a very different predicament; they have not even been paid what is due to them, and they, having none of those nice felicities (to use an expression of Charlotte Smith's)[41] which make life agreeable, are ready for any combat, to set their life on any cast, "to mend it, or to be rid of 't." The Prussians indulge ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... unless ye utter by the tongue words to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken, for ye will speak to the air?" And as others did not understand the Corinthians speaking in unknown tongues, so it seems, too, that the Corinthians themselves were in the same unfortunate predicament with the Shakers, in not knowing the meaning of what they themselves said on these occasions. This is clear from this argument of Paul:—"Wherefore, let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue, pray that he may interpret." Why, pray that he may interpret, if he understood ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... first book of the series entitled "Dorothy Dale, a Girl of To-day," we find Dorothy striving bravely to induce Tavia to give up her stagey ways. Every predicament in the story was a "scene" to Tavia, while but for Dorothy's intervention, and gentle determination, these scenes would have been turned into tragedies for the wily Tavia. Then, in the second book, "Dorothy Dale at Glenwood School," Tavia and the young ladies of that ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... fists and growling voice, as he told of how Joe and he had been tied hand and foot, and lashed to poles and buried in leaves, and threatened with a slow death by torture,—at other times bursting into a hilarious laugh as he held forth on the predicament of Mahtawa when that wily chief was treed by Crusoe ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... from the Greek are in the same predicament as the Latin of the third period—phaenomenon, phaenomena; criterion, criteria, &c.; words which are only indirectly of Greek origin, being considered to belong to the language from which they were immediately introduced into the English. Such are deacon, ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... was outside! How were we going to begin to bring order out of this chaos? The sledges were completely snowed up; whips, ski-bindings, and harness largely eaten up. It was a nice predicament. Fortunately we were well supplied with Alpine rope, and that did for the harness; spare straps came in for ski-bindings, but the whips were not so easy to make good. Hanssen, who drove first, was bound to have a fairly serviceable whip; the others did not matter so much, though it ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... gray, as well as treacherously innocent and pensive—and he reflected woefully that she had quite too much spirit altogether for an Egyptian dame of stone. She was making it very hard for him. What caprice might not possess her while on shore, and the ship to sail within a few hours? It was not a predicament for sabre play. And he made the mistake of trying to ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... of nervousness, and, I rather think, did all sorts of awkward things; but so, I dare say, do other people in the same predicament, and I did not trouble my head much about my various mis-performances. One thing, however, I can tell you: if her Majesty has seen me, I have not seen her; and should be quite excusable in cutting her wherever I met her. "A cat ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... certain priests whom he suspected of intrigue. On the other hand, he proved a generous friend to those well-disposed Canadians who had laid down their arms and maintained their neutrality, allowing them all the liberty and freedom consistent with the dangers of his own predicament. No French inhabitants, however, were allowed to work upon the batteries or fortifications, to walk upon the ramparts, or to frequent the streets after dark without a lantern; and if found abroad after tattoo-beating ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the girls back into their seats, making many anxious inquiries as to whether any of them were hurt, and they drove rapidly away before a crowd had time to gather. The girls were breathless with laughter and excitement; it had all happened so suddenly they had not time to realize their awkward predicament before they were back into their places again. Lancy was the only one who did not laugh over their tumble, and his frequent apologies made them feel that he ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... that acceptance of office is alone necessary to qualify a man for a statesman, a similar doctrine has not yet prevailed in the world of science. One of these gentlemen, who has established his reputation as a chemist, stands in the same predicament with respect to the other two sciences. It remains then to consider Captain Sabine's claims, which must rest on his skill in "PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY AND NAVIGATION,"—a claim which can only be allowed when the scientific world are set at rest respecting the extraordinary nature ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... altogether distinguished person, that of a gentleman abundantly settled, but of a bachelor markedly nervous—at this crisis it was, doubtless, that he at once most measured and least resented his predicament. If he should go he would almost to a certainty find her, and if he should find her he would almost to a certainty come to the point. He wouldn't put it off again—there was that high consideration for him ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... type of rascal whom he would prefer to deal with most fittingly by kicking him, were revealed in each syllable; but Jean de Courtois was apparently deaf to the mean opinion his conduct was inducing among those who had extricated him from a disagreeable if not actually dangerous predicament. He squirmed convulsively, and half sobbed his inability to realize the true nature of anything that had happened either to himself or to ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... could possibly ask Fairford for a small additional loan—but what of the rest? Well, there was Clare. He had always known there would be no other way. And after all, the money was Clare's—it was Dagonet money. At least she said it was. All the misery of his predicament was distilled into the short silence that preceded his answer: "Yes—I ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... around as well as the drifting snow would permit, when coming along my tracks was a large yellow dog. My heart gave a bound of delight, and jumping up, I let a 'cooey,'[A] to tell its master that some one was in the same predicament, as ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... equally fatigued ... all so exhausted as to be unable to cope, on broken or woody ground, successfully with any resolute enemy.... I learned that we had marched without a dollar, without a loaf of bread, without a commissary, and without a spare cartridge—a pretty predicament in an enemy's country, surrounded by thousands of armed men.' It was apparent to Gugy that Sir John Colborne, in issuing his orders, had greatly underestimated the difficulty of the task he was setting for the troops. After crossing the river ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... this ridiculous scene, that I could scarcely assist my terrified boy out of his awkward predicament. At last, by coaxing the monkey, offering it a bit of biscuit, and gradually disentangling its small sinewy paws from the curls it grasped so tightly, I managed to relieve poor Fritz, who then looked with interest at the baby ape, no bigger ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... off to summon the Magister from the Lady Mary's room, and the maid from the Queen's, he continued for a while to soliloquise as to Udal's predicament. For he had heard the Magister rail against matrimony in Latin hexameters and doggerel Greek. He knew that the Magister was an incorrigible fumbler after petticoats. And now, he said, this old fox was to be bagged ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... 1682 (4to, 1682), the author introduces a certain damsel Philippa, who, disguised as a page, follows the loyal Sir Charles Kinglove with whom she is enamoured. At the end of the second Act her boy's clothes involve her in the same predicament as befalls Olivia in Act IV of The Younger Brother. Although Genest prefers Mrs. Behn's treatment of the situation, it must, I think, be allowed that D'Urfey has managed the jest with far greater verve and spirit. Honest Tom D'Urfey is in fact ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... side of the life of Clotilde's fiance. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] Some time before this M. de Chaulieu made one of the portentous conclave assembled to extricate Mme. de Langeais, a relative of the Grandlieus, from a serious predicament. [The Thirteen.] ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... only known, Roger was already enduring considerable self-inflicted penance for getting into a predicament which made it ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... seems to require only bankers and mechanics. Would it not be well to advertise the fact and save trouble and time to those thousands of applicants who, you say, are in the same predicament as myself? I came here to do national work of some ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... sometimes of a great city, constituting an earldom: such were the earldoms of Flanders, of Artois, of Anjou, of Paris, &c. It was then, that these great vassals of the crown had a claim to the title of earl, and accordingly assumed it.[14] Now, the territory of Dampierre was not in this predicament during the 13th century; it was only a simple lordship belonging to the lords ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... was laden with an iron-bound chest. After entertaining these forced guests at dinner, Robin had them witness his archers' skill and listen to Allan a Dale's music, ere he set forth the knight's predicament and appealed to the bishop to lend him the necessary money. When the bishop loudly protested he would do so gladly had he funds, Robin ordered his baggage examined and divided into three equal shares, one for the owner, one for his men, and ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... into the water. We were all so scared, with the water splashing, and she screaming at the top of her voice, "Save me! Save me!" that Jack got away. She scrambled out pretty lively, and when we got him in again, we were all seized with another fit of laughing at Totty, who, in her moist predicament, was jumping round to dry herself, because she didn't want to go home, that he crawled out as leisurely as possible. But we secured him at last, safe in the pail; and to prevent his crawling out, I clapped my ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... much that seemed to be blank indifference or rare self-mastery. Heat is a great agent and a useful word, but considered as a means of explaining the universe it requires an extensive knowledge of differences; and as a means of explaining character "sensitiveness" is in much the same predicament. But who, loving a creature like Gwendolen, would not be inclined to regard every peculiarity in her as a mark of preeminence? That was what Rex did. After the Hermione scene he was more persuaded than ever that she must be instinct ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... All the others in the room had taken their turn at the blood-sucking mechanism and now the frog-men croaked their order to the two fliers. They had forgotten their own predicament in the horror of the scene, but now it became real to them. They backed against ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... priest anathemas may threat— Predicament, sir, that we're baith in; But when honour's reveille is ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... In willing chains and sweet captivitie. But fie my wandring Muse how thou dost stray! Expectance calls thee now another way, Thou know'st it must be now thy only bent To keep in compass of thy Predicament: Then quick about thy purpos'd business come, That to the next I may ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... at the paper, he found that the words were totally obliterated; he was obliged to apologize to his audience; and, after much hesitation, sat down abashed. A father would be sorry to see his son in such a predicament. ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... was not a ruse of his but an inexplicable accident. How could he ever see the girl again? And yet, in this one respect he was innocent, and he wished she might know it. Besides, he was man enough to sympathize with her in her awful predicament. With what horror she must be thinking of her part in the tragedy! There was considerable generosity in his nature, and he actually debated, criminal though he was, whether he might not better let Darcy keep the loot and ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... conference, Ali, pretending to be engaged in a secret inquiry, considered how he could legally escape from this predicament. He spent some days in making plans which were given up as soon as formed, until his fertile genius at length suggested a means of getting clear of one of the greatest difficulties in which he had ever found himself. Sending ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... stood at the door expectantly, and then replaced the empty wallet in his pocket. There was no use waiting here any longer. He could not dine, if he wished. Never before in his life had he been confronted by such a situation. Once or twice he had been in Harndon's predicament, but that had meant no more to him than it meant to Harndon—nothing but a temporary embarrassment. The difference now was that Harndon could still telephone his father and that he could not. Here was a significant distinction; it was something ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... would have created, I suppose, some little sensation or scandal; but happily the prosecuting counsel in his very first words abandoned the count of murder for that of manslaughter, and I was thereby relieved from my predicament. ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... ashamed of yourself." He gave a sigh of relief when he saw Grace and the strange man approaching at a quick trot, the wagon and plank between them. His confidence in Grace had not been misplaced. He felt that they would soon be released from their perilous predicament. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... revolution in the method of holding landed property. Few things are more dangerous than to meddle with laws of inheritance: if care be not taken, the whole fabric of society may be overthrown. The unpleasant predicament which the French have got into on this account is most alarming—far more terrible than the wildest of their revolutions. How they are to get out of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
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