"Avoidance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The Puritanical distinction between clergy and laity had scarcely faded in his mind. The pastor of the First Church had belonged to a cherished class,—a class whose moral and intellectual consequence must be maintained by avoidance of all dangerous inquiries, common interests, and secular amusements. A minister attending a Jenny-Lind Charity-Concert in a play-house, or leading armed men in the most sacred cause for which human blood might be shed,—what offences would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... gardener were always rather perplexed by Madame Babette's evident avoidance of all mention of the De Crequy family. If she were so much interested in one member as to be willing to undergo the pains and penalties of a domiciliary visit, it was strange that she never inquired after the existence of ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... scene in the club, and he was determined to exchange no word; however, they had not gone through the formality of an open breach. The most prudent thing to do, therefore, was to turn and take another corridor. And Priam would have fled, being capable of astonishing prudence when prudence meant the avoidance of unpleasant encounters; but, just as he was turning, the woman in conversation with Mr. Oxford saw him, and stepped towards him with the rapidity of thought, holding forth her hand. She was tall, thin, and stiffly distinguished in the brusque, Dutch-doll motions of her limbs. Her coat and ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... salvation without hesitation, and with the full conviction that it was right. But remarks of his such as we have quoted, were consistent with a perfectly blameless demeanour in regard to the forms of conduct and belief as prescribed by the Church, with an avoidance of criticism and argument on ecclesiastical matters, which he knew were not his vocation, and above all with a complete abstention from such talk in the presence of his children. As to what concerns further the positive religious influence which he exercised over his children, any such impressions ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... members is, perhaps, the most difficult and delicate function of such an organization. It is one which cannot be performed to public satisfaction, nor without making many mistakes; and the avoidance of the latter is vastly more difficult when the members are so widely separated and have little opportunity to discuss in advance the merits of the men from whom a selection is to be made. An ideal selection cannot be made until after a man is dead, so ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... intended for such students as have already an elementary knowledge of the main facts of English history, and aims at meeting their needs by the use of plain language on the one hand, and by the avoidance, on the other hand, of that multiplicity of details which is ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... which leads us to avoid friction with another's nervous system. It must, however, be an avoidance inside as well as outside. The subterfuge of holding one's tongue never works in the end. There is a subtle communication from one nervous system to another which is more insinuating than any verbal ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... one came to the house and he had never been into the town with his father. With this realisation came a knowledge of other things—of things half heard at the office, of half looks in the street, of a deliberate avoidance of his father's name—the Westcotts of Scaw House! There ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... opinion, external attention suffices always and ever to satisfy substantially the obligation of reading the office and for the avoidance of mortal sin ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... checking of all impurity of thought and desire—the rendering of honor to whom honor, and tribute to whom tribute, is due—the cultivation of humility, meekness, gentleness, placability, disinterestedness, truth, justice, beneficence, charity, and other virtues—and the avoidance of pride, discontent, despair, revenge, cruelty, oppression, contention, adultery, suicide, and other vices and crimes ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... positive to keep it close to the right, let its sullen negativeness gravitate towards the wrong. It will be difficult to make coming generations understand, not the flaming antagonism to humanity, but the more brutal avoidance of it that ruled the political tone in this latitude, from 1836 to 1861. I have thought of the word bitterness, as expressing it; but though that might convey somewhat of its recoil when disturbed, it pictures nothing of its inhuman solicitude against all disturbance. Conservatism, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... passed as he stood courting through the casement of a ground floor. The soft air was full of the sweet of jasmine and orange blossoms from the open patios. Many people besides ourselves were passing, but in a well-bred avoidance of the dark figure pressed to the grating and scarcely more recognizable than the invisible figure within. I confess I thought it charming, and if at some period of their lives people must make love I do not believe there is a more inoffensive way ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... idea that it is immodest to use I is a superstition. Undue repetition of I is of course awkward; but entire avoidance ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... to be won by that kind of avoidance? Don't you feel rather, that the worst and most dangerous of all falsehoods is to resist temptation with a soul full of longing for it? And that it is easier to go unscathed ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... learning were opened, a stream of mechanized astronomical models poured into Europe. Astrolabes and equatoria rapidly became very popular, mainly through the reason for which they had been first devised, the avoidance of tedious written computation. Many medieval astrolabes have survived, and at least three medieval equatoria are known. Chaucer is well known for his treatise on the astrolabe; a manuscript in Cambridge, containing ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... said, "And, above all, we need a highly complicated government to keep all this accumulation of wealth in check and balance. No. You see, my friend, it takes social labor to produce products such as this, and thus far we have avoided that on Kropotkin. In fact, it was for such avoidance that my ancestors originally ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... were also to oppose the formation of an offensive and defensive alliance between the American powers, for, as Mr. Clay pointed out, the Holy Alliance had abandoned all idea of assisting Spain in the reconquest of her late colonies. After referring to "the avoidance of foreign alliances as a leading maxim" of our foreign policy, Mr. Clay continued: "Without, therefore, asserting that an exigency may not occur in which an alliance of the most intimate kind between ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... least as she could be without alienating her children or affecting more than she felt? Give herself to Him? How? Did that mean a great deal of church-going, sermon-reading, cottage visiting, prayers, meditations, and avoidance of pleasure? That would never do; the boys would not bear it, and Janet would be alienated; besides, it would be hypocrisy in one who could not sit still and think, or attend to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 2, A.M.—The events of the past 48 hours bid fair to wreck the expedition, and the only one comfort is the miraculous avoidance of loss of life. We turned out early yesterday, Oates, Gran, and I, after the dismal night of our pony's death, and pulled towards the forage depot [16] on ski. As we approached, the sky looked black and lowering, ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... what is forbidden.' (Q.) 'Why dost thou stand up to pray?' (A.) 'To express the devout intent of the slave submitting himself to [or acknowledging] the Divinity.' (Q.) 'What are the conditions precedent of standing up to pray?' (A.) 'Purification, covering the privy parts, the avoidance of soiled clothes, standing on a clean place, fronting [the Kaabeh,] a standing posture, the intent[FN212] and the magnification of prohibition.'[FN213] (Q.) 'With what shouldest thou go forth thy house to pray? (A.) 'With an intent of worship.'[FN214] (Q.) 'With what intent shouldest ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... voice in whispered conversation with the proprietor, but the two men withdrew into the shadow as he approached. An ill-defined uneasiness came over him; he knew the proprietor, who also seemed to know the Missourian, and this evident avoidance of him was significant. Perhaps his reputation as a doubtful Unionist had preceded him, but this would not account for their conduct in a district so strongly Southern in sympathy as Fair Plains. More impressed by the occurrence ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... blessedness. Heaven and hell are terms employed with wide latitude and fluctuating boundaries of literal and figurative meaning; but their essential force is simply a future life of wretchedness, a future life of joy; and salvation, in its prevailing theological sense, is the avoidance of that and the gaining of this. We shall not attempt to present the different theories of redemption in their historical order of development, or to give an exhaustive account of their diversified prevalence, but shall arrange them with reference to the most perspicuous exhibition of their logical ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... evil life. But even there, are the hopes held out before them such brilliant hopes? One goes back to her old home and her mother, and is thenceforward a marked creature among all the people who have known her, doomed to cold avoidance or impudent familiarity. One succeeds in getting work, of some menial kind, and must live a life of utter subjection of self and utter abnegation of pleasure, or will be suspected that she has a secret longing for the old life. Many hide themselves ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... dost thou stand up to pray?" "To express the devout intent of the slave acknowledging the Deity." Q "What are the obligatory conditions which precede standing in prayer?" "Purification, covering the shame, avoidance of soiled clothes, standing on a clean place, fronting the Ka'abah, an upright posture, the intent[FN300] and the pronouncing 'Allaho Akbar' of prohibition."[FN301] Q "With what shouldest thou go forth from thy house to pray?" "With the intent of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... which is known as the Catholic Reformation, but which, for reasons already indicated, is better called the Counter-Reformation, was Rome. It was an enterprise requiring consistency in the objects aimed at, variety in the means, combination with the Powers and avoidance of rivalry, an authority superior to national obstacles and political limitations. At first the initiative did not reside with the Papacy. Farnese, in whose pontificate the transition occurred from the religion of Erasmus to the religion of Loyola, allowed men to act for him whose spirit differed ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... stories; often trivial, but redeemed by the lightness of his touch, the avoidance of redundancy, the inevitable epithets, the culminating point and finish. He illustrates the extravagance of the day by the spendthrift Clodius, who dissolved in vinegar a pearl taken from the ear of beautiful Metella (Sat. II, iii, 239), ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... were cases that could not be turned away with a sharp answer. Bert Morrison, for instance. Bert had never mentioned her "investment" since the occasion already recorded; she greeted Dave with the sociability due to their long-standing friendship; and her calm avoidance of the subject hurt him more than the abuse of all his irate patrons. Then there was Merton, the widower with the sick lungs and the motherless boy, who had brought his little savings to the West in the hope of husbanding ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... element, then, in Christian diligence is economy of time as of most precious treasure, and the avoidance, as of a pestilence, of all procrastination. 'To-morrow and to-morrow' is the opiate with which sluggards and cowards set conscience asleep, and as each to-morrow becomes to-day it proves as empty of effort as its predecessors, and, when it has become yesterday, it adds one more to the solemn ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... of spoiling Geoffrey by making him of too much consequence. It came to be recognized in the household that his moods and humours were to be a sort of family barometer, and that all efforts were to be directed towards the avoidance of storms. Not that Geoff was passionate or violent. Had he been so, things would have sooner come to a crisis. He was simply tiresome—tiresome to a degree that can scarcely be understood by those ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... that has gone wrong, but insists on chiming to show everybody that it hasn't the least idea of the time;" and secondly, the men who "took no interest" in the problems of religion and morals; for a deliberate avoidance of them he had some respect, but for a professional moralist who took everything for granted, and for feeble materialists who did not "trouble their head" about such things, he had ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... deal of exhortation lately, now getting rather wearisome, about avoiding pretence in architecture, and that we should let things show for what they are. The avoidance of pretence should begin farther back. If the house is all pretence, we shall not help it by "frankness of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... herself—again the word "delicately" must be used —for one of Honora's first house-parties. Only an acute perception could have read in the lady's praise of Hugh a masterly avoidance of that part of his career already registered on the social slate. Mrs. Kame had thought about them and their wonderful happiness in these autumn days at Grenoble; to intrude on that happiness yet awhile would be a sacrilege. Later, perhaps, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... guards and others of the prisoners whom we distrusted. At other times we foregathered in dim corners of our huts as though by chance. We conversed covertly from the corners of our mouths and without any movement of the lips, as convicts do. This avoidance of one another was made the easier because of the arrangement of the personnel of each hut. The various nationalities were pretty well split up in companies, presumably to prevent illicit co-operation and each company was ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... on which the young hunter had seated himself is some paces distant from the path. He has a slight knowledge of this Indian family, and simply nods to them as they pass. He does not speak, lest a word should bring on a conversation—for the avoidance of which he has a ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... he must be careful that they be made with regard to circumstances, that they be consistent with social interests, that they have regard to the value of the object; and as to sensual desire, he should altogether keep away from it; and as to avoidance [aversion], he should not show it with respect to any of the things which are ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... Vyasanas, the attributes of kings, the qualifications of military officers, the sources of the aggregate of three and its merits and faults, the diverse kinds of evil intents, the behaviour of dependents, suspicion against every one, the avoidance of heedlessness, the acquisition of objects unattained, the improving of objects already acquired, gifts to deserving persons of what has thus been improved, expenditure of wealth for pious purposes, for acquiring objects of desire, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of the avoidance of technicalities have prevented a really full account of the written gesture of Charles Dickens; scanty as the foregoing account is, the illustrations it contains could not have been supplied by any one collector of Charles Dickens's letters. I ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... evening, and made the mouths of the Ballyfermot school-boys water, glowed undisturbed in the morning sunbeams, and secure in the mysterious tutelage of the night smiled coyly on their predatory longings. And this was no fanciful reserve and avoidance. Mick Daly, when he had the orchard, used to sleep in the loft over the kitchen; and he swore that within five or six weeks, while he lodged there, he twice saw the same thing, and that was a lady in a hood and a loose dress, her head ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Chatham Dockyard appear in many of the sketches in the Uncommercial Traveller and other stories. "One man in a Dockyard" describes it as having "a gravity upon its red brick offices and houses, a staid pretence of having nothing to do, an avoidance of display, which I never saw out of England." "Nurse's Stories" says that "nails and copper are shipwrights' sweethearts, and shipwrights will run away with them whenever they can." In Great Expectations the refrain, "Beat it out, beat it out—old Clem! with ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... occurs fibrillary fracture of soft structures and time is required for regeneration of tissue which has been injured or destroyed. Absolute rest is necessary where inflammation is acute and in sub-acute or chronic tendinitis avoidance of all work which causes irritation to the affected tendons ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... go out of the way of pain seemed to them so much easier than to secure pleasure. Deeply impressed as they were by the negative nature of pleasure and the positive nature of pain, they consistently devoted all their efforts to the avoidance of pain. The first step to that end was, in their opinion, a complete and deliberate repudiation of pleasure, as something which served only to entrap the victim in order that he might ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... a priest of the highest distinction." I accepted, and was very kindly treated by every one, but I did not retain the place more than a fortnight. I found that my new situation involved my making the outward profession of clericalism, the avoidance of which was my reason for leaving the seminary. Thus my relations with M. Gratry were but fleeting. He was a kindhearted man, and a rather clever writer, but there was nothing in him. His indecision of mind did ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... allow cooperation in the limitation of output, in the avoidance of cross freights, in gauging the market in advance, and in division of territory, all of which would allow cheaper mining and thus give larger leeway to conservational measures. This necessarily would be accompanied by government regulation. According to Van Hise,[55] ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... exalted virtues and could not be pressed into service as the type of them. For certainly types must look typical. May's comfort in these circumstances was that Marchmont's perfect breeding and instinctive avoidance of display, of absurdity, even of betraying any heat of emotion, saved her from the usual troubles which an unsatisfied lover entails on his mistress. He looked for her no doubt, but with no greater visible perturbation than if she ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... absorption of the party in their different pursuits, he was able to see more of Ethel than he had ever done. He was so different from the men she had known that he was a continual study to her. Instead of the studied indifference, shy avoidance, shy advances, culminating in a blunt and straightforward declaration of "intentions," which she would have thought natural in an admirer, followed by transparent, honest delight in the event of acceptance, or manly submission to the inevitable in the event of rejection, Captain Kendall ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... Wagner seem plebeian and bourgeois. Peasant-like though the music is, reeking of the soil, rude and powerful, it still seems to refer to a mind of a prouder, finer sort than that of the other man. The reticence, the directness, the innocence of any theatricality, the avoidance of all that is purely effective, the dignity of expression, the salt and irony, the round, full ring of every detail are good and fortifying after the scoriac inundations of Wagner's genius. The gaunt gray piles, the metallic surfaces, the homelinesses of Moussorgsky, are more virile, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... another hour the promenade in the Quadrangle was resumed. Not so dismally, however, as before. The tea had broken the ice wonderfully, and instead of the studied avoidance of the afternoon, one group and another fell now to comparing notes, and rehearsing the legends they had heard of Templeton and its inmates. And gradually a fellow-feeling made every one wondrous kind, and the little army of twenty in the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... ordinary energy, and the capacity of average minds. Economy, at bottom, is but the spirit of order applied in the administration of domestic affairs: it means management, regularity, prudence, and the avoidance of waste. The spirit of economy was expressed by our Divine Master in the words 'Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing may be lost.' His omnipotence did not disdain the small things of life; and even while revealing His infinite ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... breast. Those tenants were not expelled, but rather confirmed in possession, when the Inspector—after numerous questions, to which Miles returned vague unsatisfactory replies—adopted the role of the faithful friend, and gave him a great deal of paternal advice, especially with reference to the avoidance of strong drink and ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... elder brother waxing so generously warm; but when she smiled, Major Harper sighed, and cast his handsome eyes another way. All the evening he scarcely talked to her at all, but to Mrs. and Miss Ianson. Agatha was quite puzzled by this pointed avoidance, not to say incivility, and had some thoughts of plainly asking him if he were vexed with her; but womanly pride conquered girlish frankness, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... surplus that the secret of personal magnetism lies. Vital surplus should not only be safeguarded, but accumulated. It is the balance in the savings bank of life. Our health ideals must not stop at the avoidance of invalidism, but should aim at exuberant and exultant health. They should savor not of valetudinarianism, but of athletic development. Our aim should be not to see how much strain our strength can stand, but how ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... masts are so poor that they must all be renewed every two years, and sometimes oftener, when the only still useful parts are the futtock-timbers. But all the above can be found and made so much better in Portuguese Yndia that, considering the avoidance of the above wrongs and the bettering and more satisfactory price of the work, I shall try my utmost to avoid building ships here—sending to Cochin to have them built, or to buy them ready built; or sending wherever they may be found better and cheaper in those regions. If, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... to him his healing power over the body. It was the mind of the priest that had won him testimonial clocks and silver salvers from grateful patients. Often as he sat with some dingy-faced complainant, listening to a recital of sickness or uttering directions about avoidance of green meat, sauces, pastry, and liquids, till the atmosphere seemed that of a hospital, a pastry-cook's shop and a bar combined, he was silently examining the patient's soul, facing its probable ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... rebuke; and if we could suppose Lancaster to mean nothing more by tardy tricks than idleness and debauch, I should not possibly think myself much concerned to vindicate Falstaff from the charge; but the words imply, to my apprehension, a designed and deliberate avoidance of danger. Yet to the contrary of this we are furnished with very full and complete evidence. Falstaff, the moment he quits London, discovers the utmost eagerness and impatience to join the army; he gives up his gluttony, his mirth, and his ease. We see him take up ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... year? Thus each of the three great Pentateuchal festivals may reasonably and joyfully be observed by liberals and orthodox alike. We have no need or wish to make a change.' And of the actual ceremonial rites connected with the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, it is apparently only the avoidance of leaven on the first of the three that is regarded as unimportant. But even there Mr. Montefiore's own feeling is in favour of the rite. 'It is,' he says, 'a matter of comparative unimportance whether the practice of eating ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... should be read carefully and thoughtfully. A prime essential for success as an analyst is attention to details and the avoidance of all conditions which could destroy, or even lessen, confidence in the analyses when completed. The suggestions here given are the outcome of much experience, and their adoption will tend to insure permanently work of a high grade, while neglect of them will often lead ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... call a vessel "she"—isn't that nautical?) "is" as the song says "another's, and never can be mine!" so I can't change her name. I was overpowered by my feelings—and what does that mean but the swallowing, with a gurgle in the throat, of the silent tear, and the avoidance of the topic uppermost in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... human-creatures who appear to have some mysterious power of extracting a subsistence out of tidal water by looking at it, were gathered together about the causeway. As her father's boat grounded, they became contemplative of the mud, and dispersed themselves. She saw that the mute avoidance had begun. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the place: two of the dogs were fighting. The master got up. I thought with myself, "Now we shall see his notions of discipline!" nor had I long to wait. In his hand was a small riding-whip, which I afterward found he always carried in avoidance of having to inflict a heavier punishment from inability to inflict a lighter; for he held that in all wrong-doing man can deal with, the kindest thing is not only to punish, but, with animals especially, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... of the society; boredom; ennui; loss of purpose and direction; growing dissension; power struggle and avoidance of responsibility for trends that were little understood and generally beyond the control of ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... which consists in the mere avoiding demerit, appeals directly to the understanding, and can thus be foreshadowed in Rule, the loftier merit, which breathes and flames in invention or creation, can be apprehended solely in its results. Rule applies but to the excellences of avoidance—to the virtues which deny or refrain. Beyond these the critical art can but suggest. We may be instructed to build an Odyssey, but it is in vain that we are told how to conceive a 'Tempest,' an 'Inferno,' a 'Prometheus Bound,' a 'Nightingale,' such as that of Keats, or the 'Sensitive Plant' ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... I rose to my feet in a kind of mechanical impulse, determined to turn away from the dreadful contemplation of this formless Phantom, when suddenly, as if by a lightning flash of conviction, the thought came to me that it was not by coward avoidance that I could expect to overcome either my own fears or the nameless danger which apparently threatened me. I closed my eyes and retreated, as it were, within myself to find that centre-poise of my own spirit which I knew must remain an invincible force despite all attack, being in itself immortal,—and ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... to the character which has been assigned them. That some do deserve the character is undoubted—but there is no species of calumny to be received with such peculiar caution. It may be right to be on your guard, but it never should be the ground for a positive avoidance of the party accused. Indeed, in some degree, it argues in his favour, for it is clear that the whole charge they can bring against his character is an infirmity to which we are all more or less subjected; and he who looks for perfection ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... his disposition left the good cleric, like many another, much puzzled. Was there anything of foolish pride or misanthropy in Gordon's avoidance of society that would have welcomed him? Both his recorded speech and his poems are without evidence of either. Those who remember his taciturnity and little eccentricities also speak of his kindness of heart, generosity and ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... on he devoted his spare time more exclusively to polo and Persian; continuing his lessons to Honor; and rarely spending his evenings in the drawing-room, unless the girl's music held him spellbound, and ensured the avoidance of dangerous topics. Evelyn retorted by a renewed zest for tennis and tea-parties; an increasing tendency to follow the line of least resistance, regardless of results. Thus Honor found herself thrown more and more ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... to be valued, and the avoidance of wanton opposition honoured. All men are swayed by class feeling and few are intelligent. Hence some disobey their lords and fathers or maintain feuds with neighbouring villages. But when the high ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... her; and the proximity of the factory rendered Georges's avoidance of her even more apparent. To think that by raising her voice a little she could make him turn toward the place where she stood! To think that they were separated only by a wall! And yet, at that moment ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... Perhaps, imbittered by my own thwarted hopes, I exaggerated the danger in which Penelope stood. Perhaps, in my own vanity and jealousy, I magnified Talcott's sins, knowing well enough that, after all, he was no worse than most of his brothers. Yet there was a danger, and its avoidance was simple could I only induce the man before me to abandon his foolish pride. At least, said I, his brother should ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... met their success in that direction has been the cause of some comment among Natives. On more than one occasion they have asked whether the authorities were disappointed because, by their successful avoidance of bloodshed, the native leaders had forestalled the machine guns. But, be the reason what it may, this apparent ingratitude has not cooled their ardour in the ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... between them. Further, the conventional factors implanted in mankind from earliest childhood play their part. Many, perhaps, will see an additional cause in teleological considerations, aiming at the avoidance ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... himself. He did care, and must not; and then he went back over all their intercourse since her return home, two or three months before he left, and it was all alike on her part—a cool, indifferent avoidance ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... little book attempts to trace the more secret and solitary thoughts of Hugh, as his soul took shape under the silent influences of pensive reflection, that the current of his life was all passed in lonely speculation. He had a definite place in the world, and mixed with his fellow-men, with no avoidance of the little cares of daily life. He only tended, as solitude became more dear to him, and as the thoughts that he loved best rose more swiftly and vividly about him, to frame his life, as far as he could, upon simple ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... apparel for the purpose of display and show do not conform to modesty. "Loud" and flashy colors are not modest. The Bible does not forbid us to wear any particular shade, but there are shades and combinations that are showy and gaudy, and by their extremeness violate modesty, for modesty is the avoidance of extreme. Whatever we wear, it should be modest in color just as well as in ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... their nation and their church, and whose; conversation is intellectually vigorous but always polite; the occasional companionship of a woman of virtue, wit, and poise of manner; and, above all, the avoidance of public or private contentions. Culture and peace—and the greater of these is peace! The sentiment characterizes the first quarter of ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... it seemed very hard for me to speak to her in cold conventional terms—when, my heart was overflowing with love towards her; and, this made me appear constrained; while, she showed a shy avoidance of me, which, only natural as it was, pained me—although I was certain, all the time, that she had not changed towards me ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... this may be in theory the operation of the two systems, in actual practice it has been found that the hereditary principle has very little advantage over any other in respect to the avoidance of uncertainty and dispute. Among the innumerable forms and phases which the principle of hereditary descent assumes in actual life, the cases in which one acknowledged and unquestioned sovereign of a country dies, and leaves one acknowledged and unquestioned heir, are comparatively ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... us to understand the precise and definite meaning of the writers who used them, and the chances of misinterpreting or misunderstanding them are reduced to a minimum. It is I think well-known that avoidance of technical terms has often rendered philosophical works unduly verbose, and liable to misinterpretation. The art of clear writing is indeed a rare virtue and every philosopher cannot expect to have it. But when technical ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... quarter of a million inhabitants, was also surrendered peaceably to the Germans, and again the energy and initiative of an American, United States Vice-Consul J. A. Van Hee, had much to do with the avoidance ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... trumpet-major. It was easy enough on the night of the arrival, in the midst of excitement, when blood was warm, for Anne to be resolute in her avoidance of Bob Loveday. But in the morning determination is apt to grow invertebrate; rules of pugnacity are less easily acted up to, and a feeling of live and let live takes possession of the gentle soul. Anne had not meant even to sit down to the same breakfast-table with Bob; but when the rest ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... of the lavish amount of Byron's own writing which it embodies than, on account of the Memoir-compiler's doings. However, there is a considerable share of good feeling in the book, as well as matter of permanent value from the personal knowledge that Moore had of Byron; and the avoidance of "posing" and of dealing with the subject for purposes of effect, in the case of a man whose career and genius lent themselves so insidiously to such a treatment, is highly creditable to the biographer's good sense and taste. The Life of Byron succeeded, in ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... withstand the suggestions of her in the presence of her handmaid—supposed to be potent in nursing and herb-lore—whom she had detached to wait upon him, and he had returned politely formal acknowledgments to her inquiries. He had determined to continue this personal avoidance as far as possible until he was relieved, on the ground of that BUSINESS expediency which these events had made necessary. She would see that he was only accepting the arguments with which she had met his previous advances. Briefly, he had recourse to that hopeless ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... more lately: "Zoraida left no wholesome legacy in you, Makrisi." This Zoraida was a woman the knight had known in Constantinople—a comely outlander who had killed herself because of Sire Raimbaut's highflown avoidance of all womankind except ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... bondsman. Conditions were still so primitive that the relations between master and servant were yet on a basis that made the distinctions between them ones of convenience rather than convention, and thus Janice was forced to mark out a new line of conduct. At first she adopted that of avoidance and proud disregard of him, but his manner toward her continued to convey such deference that the girl found her attitude hard to maintain, and presently began to doubt if he could be guilty of the imputation. Nor could she be wholly blind to the fact that the groom ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... they have put, in 'Love and Death' or in 'Love among the Ruins,' what we might have expected from poetry, but could hardly have thought possible in painting. But a hundred years of studious convention and generality, of deliberate avoidance of the poignant, and the vivid, and the detailed, and the coloured in poetry had made Pitt's confession as natural as another hundred years of contrary practice from Coleridge to Rossetti have ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... The ingenuity of thousands of our most skilful men is now turned in this direction, and stimulated by a demand which will obviously insure a fortune to the successful competitor. The advantages of a breech-loading gun consist in the greater rapidity with which it can be loaded and fired, and the avoidance of the exposure incident to the motions of drawing the ramrod and ramming the cartridge. We are well aware that rapid firing is in itself an evil, and that a common complaint with officers is that the men will not take time enough ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... much the Art—or I may almost call it instinct—of Sight Recognition is developed by the habitual practice of it and by the avoidance of the custom of "Feeling". Just as, with you, the deaf and dumb, if once allowed to gesticulate and to use the hand-alphabet, will never acquire the more difficult but far more valuable art of lipspeech and lip-reading, so ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... in him, even as defeating the hopes of the Vaufontaines was more than a religion with the Duke. By no trickery, but by a persistent good-nature, alertness of speech, avoidance of dangerous topics, and aptness in anecdote, he had hourly made his position stronger, himself more honoured at the Castle Bercy. He had also tactfully declined an offer of money from the Prince—none the less decidedly because he was nearly penniless. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... this tribe the husband often has an intrigue with his sister-in-law (wife's sister or brother's wife), although they are in the relation of Kodi-molli and practise a modified avoidance. This he attempts to equate with Dieri group marriage. It is not however clear that it is more than what we have called a liaison. Our authority does not state that it is recognised as lawful by public opinion, nor yet that any ceremony initiates the relations[166]. ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... Government policy, since the failure of the Conference, of leaving things alone, was safe for the moment, but it did nothing for the Eastern Christians, gave no satisfaction to the demands made in the name of the Queen by Lord Derby on September 21st, 1876, offered no bridge to Russia for the avoidance of war, and therefore left the Turkish Empire and British interests exposed to the gravest danger. Concerted action was the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... The language is of the most refined delicacy, the thought is never boorish or rude; there is the self-collectedness which we find in the poetry of France and Italy during the Renaissance, and in England during the reign of Queen Anne. It exhibits the most exquisite polish, allied with an avoidance of every shocking or perturbing theme. It seems to combine the enduring lustre of a precious metal with the tenuity of gold-leaf. Even the most vivid emotions of grief and love, as well as the horrors of war, were banished ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... living men and women are concerned, the safely abstract is apt suddenly to become the perilously personal; and your future happiness may be seriously involved, before you realise the danger. I confess, I fail to understand the man's avoidance of you. He sounds the sort of fellow who would be friendly and pleasant toward all women, and passionately loyal to one. Perhaps you, with your sweet loveliness—a fact, my dear, notwithstanding the observations in the Park, of Miss ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... unusual in his habits was a certain avoidance of the Falcon Hotel and the society of womankind; and this, of course, was very well understood. It was natural that a man under a storm-cloud that might burst any moment and blot him out should wish to keep out of the range of women's emotional sympathy. Men's sympathy is of a different ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... events at home and abroad, Corrie rigidly obeyed his father's command to live so as to provoke no comment. But Isabel's boasted, perfect nerves were shattered beyond such control. She moped all day in her own room, rejecting Flavia's companionship, and fled from Corrie with unconcealed avoidance. Nor did she improve, as the days passed, but rather ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... with reluctance obeyed his instructions. Certainly no American official is in honor bound to remain silent under such an imputation which approaches a charge of faithlessness and of a secret, if not open, avoidance of duty. He has, in my judgment, the right to present the case to the American people in order that they may decide whether the imputation was justified by the facts, and whether his conduct was or was not in the circumstances in accord with the best traditions ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... dictionary, which scornfully terms it "humorous and colloquial". The humor, to be sure, is usually for other people, not for the person banting. Do you know, I wonder, the derivation of this word? It means, of course, to induce this too, too solid flesh to melt, by the careful avoidance of farinaceous, saccharine and oily foods, and occasionally its meaning is stretched by the careless to include also rolling on the bedroom floor fifteen times before breakfast, and standing up twenty minutes after meals. ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... parties, though without infringing on the reserved home coasting trade; the removal or reduction of burdens on the exported products of those countries coming within the benefits of the treaties, and the avoidance of the technical restrictions and penalties by which our intercourse with those countries ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... brown color, and is spotted with large, unequal, and irregularly-placed spots. Its bite is exceedingly dangerous, since it possesses a virulent poison; and, being in the habit of nearly burying itself in the sand, which is of the same color with itself, it is the more difficult of avoidance. Its size also favors its escaping notice, since in length it rarely much exceeds a foot. [PLATE ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... of Merry's avoidance of the lady of his first choice is probably true. Carlo Antonio Delpini was a famous pantomimist in his day at Drury Lane, Covent Garden and the Haymarket. He also was stage manager at the Opera for a while, and occasionally arranged entertainments ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... him. If, however, led to speak of himself or his exploits, the unaffected ease and simplicity of the man became at once evident. Never, by any chance, would an expression escape him that redounded to his own share in any achievement; without any studied avoidance the matter would somehow escape, or, if accidentally touched on, be done so very lightly as to make it appear ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... critic who would retain clearness of vision is the avoidance of abstract systems, which petrify and hinder the necessary flexibility of mind. Coolness of temper is also enjoined and scrupulously practiced. "It is only by remaining collected ... that the critic can do the practical man any service"; and again: "Even in one's ridicule one must preserve ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... wasted are all your various activities of measuring, comparing and co-ordinating; what has been trifled with are your expectations. And so far from contemplating with satisfaction the objective cause of all this vexation and disappointment, you will avoid contemplating it at all, and explain your avoidance by calling that chaotic or futile assemblage of ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... last conversation with Harry, had a new sense of her position. She had noticed before the signs of a change in manner towards her, a little less respect perhaps from men, and an avoidance by women. She had attributed this latter partly to jealousy of her, for no one is willing to acknowledge a fault in himself when a more agreeable motive can be found for the estrangement of his acquaintances. But now, if society had turned on her, she would defy it. It was not in her ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... began to pay more attention to the advice of the theorists of the game than before; and thereby they learned to realize the fact that strategic skill, and that equally important attribute, thorough control of temper, together with the avoidance of the senseless kicking habit in vogue, had more to do with success in their position than they had previously been aware. Those of the pitching fraternity who read up on the subject of skill in pitching, were told that the primary elements ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... from competitive social activities to the performance of the biological function for which she is specialized. This is especially true, as has been intimated above, since contraceptive knowledge now permits the exercise of sexual functions without the natural consequences, and the avoidance of motherhood no longer involves the denial of expression to the ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... the veins remain more susceptible to engorgement. Consequently, in order not to increase the strain these vessels naturally bear during the latter months of pregnancy, the precautions just mentioned for the avoidance of all the pressure symptoms should be strictly observed. Upon the first intimation that the veins are becoming dilated, a patient should be unusually careful to keep off her feet all that she can. Only in extreme cases will it be compulsory to go to bed. But, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... note of the fact that the other girls studiously left him to Miss Huling. If the avoidance had not been so marked, he would never ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... fireside. You can sew, and I—I'll read to you, Bessie!" This was a little too gross; even Mrs. Kenton laughed at this, the act of reading being so abhorrent to Colonel Kenton's active temperament that he was notorious for his avoidance of all literature except newspapers. In about ten minutes, passed in an agreeable idealization of his purpose, which came in that time to include the perusal of all the books on Italy he had picked up on their journey, the colonel said he would go down and ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... Twelve years ago Freedom was in danger, and the Union was not. . . . To-day practically Freedom is not in danger, and the Union is. With the loss of the Union, all would be lost." Mr. Seward, influenced by this belief, went farther in the direction of conciliation for the avoidance of war than his associates were willing to follow. His words gave offense to some who had long been his most earnest supporters,—a fact thus pointedly recognized by him: "I speak now singly for Union, striving if possible to save ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... he turned his face and she saw the two pin-points of light. That was enough. She told him about the theft of Lady Sellingworth's jewels, her neglect of all endeavour to recover them, her immediate plunge into middle-age after the theft, and her avoidance of general society ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... unaccustomed gust of affection swirled in the breast of the lad. Plain Anglo-Saxon as he was, with all that implies as to the avoidance of displays of emotion, nevertheless he had been for a long time in lands far from home, where the habits of impulsive and affectionate peoples were radically unlike our own austerer forms. So now, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... had troubled himself very little about his guardian, or his guardian's anxieties. He seemed to have been devoting a large share of his mind to the avoidance of his mother's old friends; and the Maxwells, for months, in spite of many efforts on their part, had seen little or nothing of him. Maxwell for various reasons had begun to suspect a number of uncomfortable ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... he valued the responsibility, abstaining from tobacco—which he loved—to keep pure his taste for vintages, and preserve a discriminating palate among sweets. An utterance of his would hint that even his avoidance of physical exercise ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fighting for the championship of the season, they are governed by rigid rules of living. They keep themselves fit by strict diet, by the avoidance of all dissipations, by hardening exercise, and by recuperative rest. But after the "big game" is won, they break training. They stuff themselves with rich food until their bodies and minds are sluggish. Then they celebrate their victory by some sort of ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... to recover the member of Osiris, which having been thrown into the Nile immediately upon its separation from the rest of the body, had been devoured by the Lepidotus, the Phagrus, and the Oxyrynchus, fish which of all others, for this reason, the Egyptians have in more especial avoidance. In order however to make some amends for the loss, Isis consecrated the Phallus made in imitation of it, and instituted a solemn festival to its memory, which is even, to this day observed ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... more cordial than the conduct of the Bostonians throughout; and there was a scrupulous avoidance of every topic that could wound British or ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... theorists, not content with showing that the good consists ultimately in a quality of conscious states, asserted that all of men's actions are actually DIRECTED TOWARD the attainment of agreeable states of experience or avoidance of disagreeable states. There is no act but is aimed for pleasure of some sort or away from pain; men differ, then, only in their wisdom in selecting the more important pleasures and their skill in attaining what ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... terrapin, canvas-back duck, and many other things the names of which alone were known to me. But of the reason for which you have summoned me here—I know nothing. Not one word have you spoken. I am beginning to fear from your avoidance of the subject that there is some trouble between you and Lucille. I beg that you will set ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... little which it is well to avoid. Copy what is good in them, but test in a critical spirit whatever you take, so as to be sure that you take only what is wisest and best for yourselves. More important even than avoiding any mere educational shortcoming is the avoidance of moral shortcoming. Students are already being sent to Europe to prepare themselves to return as professors. Such preparation is now essential, for it is of prime importance that the University should be familiar with what is being done in the best universities ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... education that Goethe evidently adumbrates there. But I believe, when people look into it, it will be found that they will not be very long in trying to make some efforts in that direction; for the saving of human labour, and the avoidance of human misery, would be uncountable if it were set about and begun ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... the total avoidance of the contentious question of political policy. But fifteen active Socialists sitting together at a period when parties were so evenly divided that a General Election was always imminent could not ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... any road we fell into ambushes, 'not once nor twice,' like the old king of Israel, we should guard ourselves against passing by that road again. He who has not learned, by the memory of his past failures, humility and wise government of his life, and wise avoidance of places where he is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... slid back to an incident which had occurred during their early days together. She had been very much alarmed by the appearance of a huge mastiff who was permitted the run of the house, and her uncle, noticing her shrinking avoidance of the rather formidable looking beast, had composedly bidden her take him to the stables and chain him up. For an instant the child had hesitated. Then, something in the man's quiet confidence that she would obey had made its claim on her childish pride, and, although white ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... unswerving Conservatism. I don't say you ought to be an uncompromising old-fashioned Tory—far from it: that alienates not only the dissenters, but even the respectable middle-class Liberals. What is above all things expected in a schoolmaster is a central position in politics, so to speak—a careful avoidance of all extremes—a readiness to welcome all reasonable progress, while opposing in a conciliatory spirit all revolutionary or excessive changes—in short, an attitude of studied moderation. That, if you will allow me to advise you, Le Breton, is the sort of thing, you may depend upon ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... principle in the soul which impelled to action. In an unperverted state it was directed only to things in accordance with nature. The negative form of this principle or the avoidance of things as being contrary to nature, ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... of a new beginning on the next, usually with some change of standing position, as well as of voice, has an obvious method. The slighter transition, or variation, within a main division, and the avoidance of the slight transition where none should be made, require the ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... his wonder at Captain Benwick, his feelings as to a first, strong attachment; sentences begun which he could not finish, his half averted eyes and more than half expressive glance, all, all declared that he had a heart returning to her at least; that anger, resentment, avoidance, were no more; and that they were succeeded, not merely by friendship and regard, but by the tenderness of the past. Yes, some share of the tenderness of the past. She could not contemplate the change as implying less. He must ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... he had come by it. When the flame was removed, Dick saw the doctor's face, and the fear came upon him again. The doctor wrapped himself in a mist of words. Dick caught allusions to "scar," "frontal bone," "optic nerve," "extreme caution," and the "avoidance of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... point she was very soon reassured. The consistent and unwavering friendliness of his attitude quieted her misgivings, and nerved her to treat him, if with less intimacy, at least without visible awkwardness. Whether he noticed her avoidance or not she did not know, but he certainly seemed to be withdrawing himself more and more out of her life. His work with her husband apparently occupied all his thoughts, and then there was Aunt Philippa also to keep him at a distance. ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... may be known as God over all creation, blessed for evermore) in the suspension of natural laws, but what has he revealed to us as his will during the time of the present dispensation of the church on this earth, as to his children using means for the avoidance of evil and securing of good, or depending entirely upon miraculous interference in answer to the prayer of faith for all need without reference to use ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... in divining the mental processes of two children hysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming of those fluttering little hearts, his inspired avoidance of a fatal false step at a critical point in the moral life of two human beings in the making—all this seemed as nothing to him—an incident of the day's routine already forgotten. He conceived that his real usefulness to society lay in the reform of arithmetic-teaching ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... there is a rumor that Milton died in a neighboring town, or a treaty of consequence was signed close by, choose another path! Let neither Oliver Cromwell nor the Magna Carta deflect your course! One of my finest walks was on no better advice than the avoidance of a celebrated shrine. I was led along the swift waters of a river, through several pretty towns, and witnessed the building of a lofty bridge. For lunch I had some memorable griddlecakes. Finally I rode on top of a rattling stage with a gossip for a driver, whose long finger pointed ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... hapless romance. An approach to complete reconciliation—for the existing partial estrangement had been discovered to be more unbearable than all besides—led to stormy scenes and violent discord, and resulted before very long in mutual avoidance, which was to be final. It is said that forgiveness is the property of the injured, and it should be remembered that whenever De Musset's name is mentioned by George Sand it is with the admiring respect of one to whom his genius made that name sacred, and who refused ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... men died without ever having ventured out of the neighborhood in which they were born. For them there was no hope of personal improvement, none of the bettering of their lot; there were no comprehensive schemes for the avoidance of individual want, none for the resistance of famines. Pestilences were permitted to stalk forth unchecked, or at best opposed only by mummeries. Bad food, wretched clothing, inadequate shelter, were suffered to produce their result, and at the end of a thousand years the ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Lake, grew the thickest patch of pipewort, with its small, round, grayish-white, mushroom-shaped tops on long, slender stems. If he had styled it Eriocaulon septangulare, would it have shown a closer knowledge of its habits than did his careful avoidance of its vicinity, his keeping line and flies at a safe distance, as he muttered to himself, "Them pesky butt'ns agin!" He knew by sight the bur-reed of mountain ponds, with its round, prickly balls strung like big beads on the stiff, erect stalks; the little water-lobelia, ...
— Fishin' Jimmy • Annie Trumbull Slosson
... He would not go, if he could help it, to the soup lines and children's canteens. Like many another man of great strength, he is a man of great sensitiveness. He cannot see suffering without suffering himself. And he dislikes thanks. The Belgians were often puzzled, sometimes hurt, by his avoidance of their heart-felt expression of gratitude. Mr. Whitlock was always there and had to be always accessible. So they could thank him and thank America through him. But they rarely had opportunity to ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... the end of the Civil War. The unity of purpose and the devotion to ideals which had overcome all difficulties during the combat had seemingly, at least, given way to partisan diversity of endeavor, to strife for supremacy in government and to the avoidance of the great problems of reconstruction. Time, patience and controversy would be necessary to bring about a wise settlement. The United States was face to face with the greatest problems that had arisen since the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... when Byronism was new, it may be questioned whether his destiny might not even yet have been modified. It may be questioned, and I think it should be doubted. It was in his horoscope to be parsimonious of pain to himself, or of the chance of pain, even to the avoidance of any opportunity of pleasure; to have a Roman sense of duty, an instinctive aristocracy of manners and taste; to be the son of Adam Weir and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... distance they took the burden as some savage bear, or perhaps one of those reputed "tanuki" so noxious in their pranks on humankind. Come closer it was seen to be a man. Any mad struggle to get free was treated to spear pricks applied with no great nicety beyond the avoidance of serious injury. Violent as were his struggles at times, it is doubtful if they could have walked him the long distance. For the days of his flight he had never rested; nor had these men in his pursuit. Yet he was unexpected game. The Yotsuya affair was taking a widening sweep. ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... and I fear for the future of the Theosophical Society if it follows the track of many of the religions and lets go its hold of knowledge of the other worlds, and comes to depend on hearsay, tradition, belief in the experience of others, and the avoidance of the reverification of experience. For it must be remembered that in giving a vast mass of knowledge to the world, H.P.B. distinctly stated that these are facts which can be reverified by every generation of observers; she did not give a body of teaching to be swallowed, ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... have my innings, and gave her her chance to free herself. And yet I was puzzled. Even he could hardly stand back to give Thesiger an innings. He may have had an inkling. There may have been something of his queer, scrupulous tenderness in this avoidance of her; there may have been his reckless propensity to take the risk; but I am convinced that even then his main object was—like Viola—to burn his boats. He was afraid that if he were to see Viola again he wouldn't ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... years old. She was capable of anything; in her remote avoidance of any passion, any regret, any anticipated pleasure, any spontaneity, she was inhuman. Hortense thought that she detected in the chit's mother something ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... busy, great, or pompous" (depicted in tragedy and the epic) and "the retir'd, soft, or easy" (depicted in the pastoral). From this analysis of "the Nature of the Human Mind," the characteristics of the true pastoral, such as the avoidance of the hardships and vulgarities of rural life, follow logically. Similarly, since a minutely drawn description deprives the reader's fancy of its naturally pleasurable exercise, pastoral descriptions should only set "the Image in the finest Light." Rapin, on the other ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... and in the Corinthian facade of the Wesleyan Chapel; it narrated the anecdote of his courageous speech from the portico of the Shambles during the riots of 1848, and it did not omit a eulogy of his steady adherence to the wise old English maxims of commerce and his avoidance of dangerous modern methods. Even in the sixties the modern had reared its shameless head. The panegyric closed with an appreciation of the dead man's fortitude in the terrible affliction with which a divine providence had seen fit to try him; and finally the Signal uttered its absolute conviction ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... inner truth or central principles of things, without anxiety for minor details, and it is by nature largely intellectual in quality, though not by any means to the exclusion of emotion. In outward form, therefore, it insists on correct structure, restraint, careful finish and avoidance of all excess. 'Paradise Lost,' Arnold's 'Sohrab and Rustum,' and Addison's essays are modern examples. Romanticism, which in general prevails in modern literature, lays most emphasis on independence and fulness of expression and on strong emotion, and it may be comparatively careless of form. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Love speak? In the avoidance of that which we seek The sudden silence and reserve when near; The eye that glistens with an unshed tear; The joy that seems the counterpart of fear, As the alarmed heart leads in the breast, And knows, and names, and greets its godlike guest: ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... lines and single passages which we are so apt to pause on, to read again and again, for the mere enjoyment of their splendid sound and colour. And this for a reason. The large and lofty character of Paracelsus, the avoidance of much external detail, and the high tension at which thought and emotion are kept throughout, permit the poet to use his full resources of style and diction without producing an effect of unreality and ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... Repression, avoidance of extremes, dignity under provocation are the marks of the gentle Sophoclean type and it is a ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... of it. It does not break of itself,—in the absence of such national establishments as are organised with the sole ulterior view of warlike enterprise. A policy of peace is obviously a policy of avoidance,—avoidance of offense and ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen |
