"Dilemma" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to her room and sat down to consider the best way out of her dilemma. The detective's friendliness, so frankly expressed, pleased her, in a way, yet she realized his vigilance would not be relaxed and that he was still determined, through her, to discover where Gran'pa Jim ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... should put forth a definite conception of matter, with clearly enunciated properties, and show, that the necessary result of a certain complex arrangement of the elements or atoms of that matter, will be the production of self-consciousness. There is no escape from this dilemma,—either all matter is conscious, or consciousness is something distinct from matter, and in the latter case, its presence in material forms is a proof of the existence of conscious beings, outside of, and independent of, what we ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... depended upon; and so, whenever it is possible, poor Mary Runnel is thrust forward to bear the odium of every mistake or falsehood. They have avowed themselves responsible for all statements signed by themselves, and have thereby brought themselves into more than one inextricable dilemma; but it is very funny, where a response or a matter of fact has not been thus certified, how invariably Mary Runnel is made to assume the discredit of it, on its turning out to be false. It is the most ingenious arrangement that could possibly ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Laird's inexperience in the art of making the worse appear the better garnishment, of hiding a darned carpet with a new floor-cloth, and flinging an Indian shawl over a faded and threadbare sofa. But I have said enough, and more than enough, to explain his dilemma to an unassisted bachelor, who, without mother, sister, or cousin, without skilful housekeeper, or experienced clerk of the kitchen, or valet of parts and figure, adventures to give an entertainment, and aspires to make it ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... it, since it had led him first to make objections against the treaty of Paris, and secondly to acknowledge that the Swedes would not abide by what they had agreed on at Compeigne. Grotius answered, that the High Chancellor was in the greatest dilemma, surrounded by enemies, and abandoned by his allies; that he himself had long solicited the money promised, but could never obtain payment; that the sending a French Minister into Germany, so often demanded, was agreed to much later than the good of the common cause required; and that the High ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... at an end, and forthwith began making inquiries as to the best mode of getting home. The coaches were all gone, steamboats there were none, save for every place but London, and posting, he said, was "cruelly expensive." In the midst of his dilemma, "Boots," who is always the most intelligent man about an inn, popped in his curly head, and informed Mr. Jorrocks that the Unity hoy, a most commodious vessel, neat, trim, and water-tight, manned by his own ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... it not! O help me Now, kind heaven! for who could be So prudential, so collected, As to know how best to act In so painful a dilemma? Is there in the world a being, Is there one a more inclement Heaven has marked with more misfortunes, Has 'mid more of sorrow centred?— What, bewildered, shall I do, When 'tis vain to be expected That my reason can console me, Or consoling be my helper? From my earliest misfortune Everything that ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... Here was a dilemma! Could it be possible that Newton Edwards, knowing that the detectives were upon his track, would continue to use his own proper name, and have letters addressed to him in that open manner? This was ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... too! How strange it seemed! He had not seated himself in a chair now for a very, very long time, and it seemed almost tiresome and awkward; but all the same it did nothing to help him out of his dilemma. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... into action under the restless impulses of suspicion and permanent distrust. No prince could hope for a cordial allegiance from his subjects, or a peaceful reign under the circumstances of the case; for the dilemma in which a Kalmuck ruler stood at present was of this nature; wanting the sanction and support of the Czar, he was inevitably too weak from without to command confidence from his subjects, or resistance to his competitors: on the other hand, with this kind of support, and deriving his ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... response than a gruff and muffled statement that "la maison est deja toute pleine de soldats." We persevered, however, and our efforts were finally rewarded, for we at last met an old woman to whom we could explain our dilemma. She seemed interested in our plight and, pointing to a man who was approaching and whom we discerned by the faint light of a dingy lantern which he was carrying, said: "Voila mon patron. Je lui expliquerai ce que c'est!" A whispered conversation followed, and ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... vain hope of reaching one of the beautiful persimmons hanging above him; but he failed each time, for a crab's legs are not made for climbing trees but only for running along the ground and over stones, both of which he can do most cleverly. In his dilemma he thought of his old playmate the monkey, who, he knew, could climb trees better than any one else in the world. He determined to ask the monkey to help him, and set out to ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... a dilemma one turns to the vitalistic and pragmatic speculations of a Bergson or a William James there is an almost more hopeless revulsion. For in these pseudo-scientific, pseudo-psychological methods of thought something most profoundly human seems to us to be completely neglected. I refer ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... lack of genial helpfulness about George that it sometimes vexes me to notice. You would have thought he would have welcomed the chance of assisting two old friends out of a dilemma; ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... fast. I know it is bad, and I knew then that something of a decisive kind must be done in order to relieve myself from the dilemma into which this little untoward circumstance had placed me. I remembered that on that occasion you were somewhat disguised, so that in your natural state, or in any other disguise you might wish to assume, it would be impossible to identify you ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... boy of my own, but have never had the courage to ask him what kind of father he thinks he has. He might tell me. Again I am facing a dilemma. Dilemmas are quite plentiful hereabouts. I must determine whether to regard him as an asset or a liability. But, that is not the worst of my troubles. I plainly see that sooner or later he is going to decide whether his father is an asset or a liability. We must go over our books ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... important bearing on Christ's character. The world calls Him good. Why? There is none good but God. So we are face to face with this dilemma—Either Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, or ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... matrimony, he is pretty safe. Then the Lieutenant Colonel is confirmed, as I tell my cousin the bishop. The Major is a widower, having tried matrimony for twelve months in his youth, and we look upon him, now, as one of our most certain men. Out of ten captains, but one is in the dilemma, and he, poor devil, is always kept at regimental headquarters, as a sort of memento mori, to the young men as they join. As for the subalterns, not one has ever yet had the audacity to speak of introducing a wife into the regiment. But your arm is troublesome, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... to perform it. In the first place, Tubbs could find no place to tie the boat up to, and as long as he sat in the boat and held on to the rock it was evident he could not land the grub. So he was in a dilemma. He did his best; he relaxed his hold for a moment and made a frantic grab at one of the brown-paper parcels. But it almost cost him his moorings, for the boat, taking advantage of its liberty, began to slide away out to sea, and it was all Tubbs could do to catch hold of the rock ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... moralists and educators find themselves facing an inevitable dilemma; first, to keep the young committed to their charge "unspotted from the world," and, second, to connect the young with the ruthless and materialistic world all about them in such wise that they may make it the arena for their spiritual endeavor. ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... a point of civility, offered to transfer the venison to that mansion; a proffer which was readily accepted by Bucklaw, who thought much of the astonishment which their arrival in full body would occasion poor old Caleb Balderstone, and very little of the dilemma to which he was about to expose his friend the Master, so ill circumstanced to receive such a party. But in old Caleb he had to do with a crafty and alert antagonist, prompt at supplying, upon all emergencies, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... se forever inert, unchangeable, indestructible, then we fall into the dilemma of a materialistic monism on the one hand, Manichaean dualism on the other. Even under the most spiritual interpretation we could offer—that, shall we say, of those today who try to run with the hare of religion and hunt with the hounds of rationalistic materialism—matter and spirit ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... prevent the salmon from ascending into Scotland, and the right of erecting it being an international question of law betwixt the sister kingdoms, there was no court in either competent to its decision. In this dilemma, the Scots people assembled in numbers by signal of rocket lights, and, rudely armed with fowling-pieces, fish-spears, and such rustic weapons, marched to the banks of the river for the purpose of pulling down the dam-dyke objected to. Sir ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... never do," he replied quickly. "You must never allow a color line to be drawn." He spoke with such evident feeling that I realized that his last word was said. We cannot exaggerate the importance of this fundamental dilemma. If we hope to win in any contest, we must unite, but the unwisest thing we can do, is to ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook
... of well-being left him. He straightened himself to face this problem, ignoring the hint of James, who was weaving circles about his legs expectant of more tickling. A man cannot spend his time tickling cats when he has to concentrate on a dilemma ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... I didn't believe a word of it. I was in a dilemma, and sat scratching my head. I could not prove that the man was lying, and therefore had ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... alliance with Lacedaemon—some governed by tyrants—others distracted with their own civil dissensions; there were none from whom the new commonwealth could hope for a sufficient assistance against the revenge of Cleomenes. In this dilemma, they resorted to the only aid which suggested itself, and sought, across the boundaries of Greece, the alliance of the barbarians. They adventured a formal embassy to Artaphernes, satrap of Sardis, to engage the succour of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I overheard you and I think you're just horrid!" Azalea came running back into the room, while Raymond Gale followed, evidently in a dilemma how ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... dilemma for the captain, who had, however, been longing to make his present venture, but shrank therefrom as too risky till opinions other than his own urged his attempt. But there was his position. If he kept to the darkness, ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... covenants to religion and reformation, those who were then unborn are yet engaged, and it passeth the power of all the magistrates under heaven to absolve from the oath of God. These times are like to be either very sinning or suffering times, and let Christians make their choice, there is a sad dilemma in the business, sin or suffer, and surely he that will choose the better part will choose to suffer, others that will choose to sin will not escape suffering. They shall suffer, but perhaps not as I do (pointing to the maiden) ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... of these delicate branches, high above his head, and so interlaced that he could make headway only by slowly and patiently disentangling them, as one would disentangle a skein of silk. It was a fantastic sort of dilemma, and not unpleasing. Except that the Father was in haste to reach his journey's end, he would have enjoyed threading his way through the golden meshes. Suddenly he heard faint notes of singing. He paused,—listened. ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... struggling with herself in this dilemma, "that the ability to inflict pain was one a true nature would delight to surrender. My father has ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... to her, "Salute thy lady for me and acquaint her with my love and longing and how passion is blended with my flesh and my bones; and say to her that in very deed I need a woman who shall snatch me from the sea of destruction and save me from this dilemma; for of a truth Fortune oppresseth me with her vicissitudes; and is there any helper to free me from her turpitudes?" And he wept and the damsel wept for his weeping. Then she took leave of him and went forth and Abu al-Hasan ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... The first class was represented by the School of St. Victor; the second by John of Salisbury himself; the third, by a class of schoolmen whom he called Cornificii, as though they made a practice of inventing horns of dilemma on which to fix their opponents; as, for example, they asked whether a pig which was led to market was led by the man or the cord. One asks instantly: What cord?—Whether Grace, ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... my tricks were only the result of skill, was angry that his guest should be so pestered; hence he began reproaching the Marabout. I stopped him, however, for an idea had occurred to me which would save me from my dilemma, at least temporarily; then, ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... this animal showed in all his actions that he knew how to take care of number one, always selecting his quarters where the water was cooler and the grass tender. But he had a very bad quality for a prairie travelling nag, which was continually placing his master in some awkward dilemma. One day that we had stopped to refresh ourselves near a spring, we removed the bridles from our horses, to allow them to graze a few minutes, but the savant's cursed beast took precisely that opportunity of giving us a sample of his estampede. Our English ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... Connecticut], we made a halt, which, by the by, happened every fourth day. We there met General Lafayette, whom my husband invited to dinner, as otherwise he would have been unable to find anything to eat. This placed me in rather an awkward dilemma as I knew that he loved a good dinner. Finally, however, I managed to glean from what provisions I had on hand enough to make him a very respectable meal. He was so polite and agreeable that he pleased ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... government to be an evil, though he differed from the modern anarchist in holding it to be a necessary evil; yet he needed a strong scientific administration for the purpose of rooting out inveterate abuses. And this was the dilemma that confronted him. He worked out his solution of the problem by laying out a whole system of morals and a science of politics, with Utility as their base and standard, which has profoundly influenced all subsequent legislation, and led eventually ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... him on the right track at once. He could tell his story if once he started at the beginning, though he found it impossible to make these strangers comprehend his present dilemma; so beginning from the time he left his own dooryard with the last cartload of potatoes, he gave them a detailed account of his wanderings up to the time when he met the fine young gentlemen in Halifax. But he had no idea how he got to Truro; that was all a blank ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... point, I gradually began to take off my coat. So far from being abashed at the movement, she seized hold of the sleeves and helped me off with it. I did the same with my vest, and still with the same result. Then I pulled off my boots, but with no better prospect of relief from my embarrassing dilemma. Finally I came to my pantaloons, at which I naturally hesitated. It was about time for the young woman to leave, if she had any regard for my feelings. I thanked her very cordially; but she showed no symptoms ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Poland and Lithuania, were seething with agitation and secret hope. The suspicions of Igelstrom were aroused. He resolved to take over the arsenal in Warsaw and to disarm and demobilize the Polish army. In this dilemma Kosciuszko was compelled to throw his all on one card or to fail. He therefore decided on the war; and in March 1794 he re-entered Poland as the champion ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... Fields. Upon one occasion, whilst performing the ghost in Hamlet, Mr. Hoole wandered incautiously from off the trap-door through which he had emerged from the nether world, and by which it was his duty to descend. In this dilemma he groped about, hoping to distinguish the aperture, keeping the audience in wonder why he remained so long on the stage after the crowing of the cock. It was apparent from the lips of the ghost that he was holding converse with some one at the wings. ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... into bed, after her regular prayer was said, she stayed awhile on her knees and put the whole of her seething dilemma before God. "Dear God," she said, "you know how unhappy Miss Princess is and young Doc, too. Please make them both happy, God. And please help me not feel sorry about the Pink Dress. For I just can't help feeling sorry. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... who are as much concerned for your safety as I am, have employed me as their orator, I desire to know whether you will have it by way of syllogism, enthymem, dilemma, or sorites?" ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... position—checked me—and in her artless manner, laid bare the fallacy of an inconsiderate assertion. In an instant I was aware of my conviction, I retracted my expression, and involved myself immediately in fresh dilemma. Again, and as gently as before, she made the unsoundness of a principle evident and glaring. How I closed the argument—the conversation and the interview—and escaped from her, I know not. Burning with shame, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... save in the imagination of the credulous populace. At a certain remote epoch, one of the Counts of Flanders, it was contended, had gambled away his countship to the Earl of Holland, but had been extricated from his dilemma by the generosity of Ghent. The burghers of the town had paid the debts and redeemed the sovereignty of their lord, and had thereby gained, in return, a charter, called the Bargain of Flanders (Koop van Flandern). Among the privileges granted by this document, was an express ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... glimmer through my mind. But, strange to say! I was neither astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it was a kind of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to display in extricating myself from this dilemma; and I never, for a moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as a question susceptible of doubt. For a few minutes I remained wrapped in the profoundest meditation. I have a distinct recollection of frequently compressing my lips, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Father Philemy could stand with a good conscience, so after getting himself out of the dilemma as well as he could, he shook Phaddhy again very cordially by the hand, saying, "Well, good-bye, Phaddliy, and God be good to poor Sarah's soul—I now remember her funeral, sure enough, and a dacent one it was, for indeed she was a woman that had everybody's good word—and, between you and me, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... which she had forgotten, idling here in her much-loved forest, as much a part of her home as her piano or her own roof-tree. She had been trying to understand what had been happening that summer. Let her try first of all to understand what she must do in that perfectly definite and concrete dilemma in which she had been placed by that strange sight of 'Gene Powers, fleeing back from the Eagle Rocks. She must look squarely at what she supposed was the legal obligation . . . she instantly felt a woman's impatience of the word legal as against human, and could not entertain the thought ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the Snake River, although late in the journey, gave us the opportunity to mend matters. About thirty miles below Salmon Falls the dilemma confronted us of either crossing the Snake River or having our teams starve on the trip down the river on the south bank. We found that some emigrants had calked two wagon beds and lashed them together, ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... some moments. To refuse was to insult a man of whom he had gratuitously asked a question. To promise with the intention of keeping his word was impossible. He found himself in an awkward dilemma. Rex helped him out of it with his ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... fragile boat was no protection from this fire. To attempt to run around and withdraw in the shallow stream was next to impossible, so after a hasty consultation the commander grasped the horns of the dilemma by running the boat as close to the shore as possible, where the troops immediately swarmed overboard in water up to their waists, quickly gained the protection of the shore and spreading out in perfect ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... a Dramatic Society were formed, both of which promised to have a flourishing existence, and Winona had the satisfaction of fixing a Past v. Present match for the following March. The prefects were magnanimous enough to bear her no ill-will, so on the whole she came out of a very unpleasant dilemma much ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... In this dilemma, I found it absolutely necessary to use every means for self-preservation; and having obtained the consent of the captain (who was not yet delirious) and the chief mate, I spoke to the only four men who were well, and represented to them, that going below would subject them to the infection; ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... dilemma, and Mr. Carlyle told him what to do in it. "Were you not at West Lynne some ten years ago?" he suddenly inquired, at the close of the conversation. "You denied it to me once at my house; but I concluded from an observation you let fall, that you ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... in a most unpleasant dilemma by the last vote in the House of Commons;[45] she feels all the force of Lord Derby's objections to risking another defeat on the same question and converting the struggle into one against the Royal Prerogative; ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... with only twenty miles more between them and Big Black Bridge. The springs of Anna's illness were more in spirit than body. Else she need not have lain sleepless that night at Clinton's many cross-roads, still confronting a dilemma ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... is not, but has refused to be, vice-treasurer. The parliament meets on Tuesday: the ministers of the House of Commons, who are to be rechose, can get nobody who is in Parliament to read the king's speech for them at the Cockpit the night before. They, I believe, are in a damned dilemma: how much that makes for us time must show. Cooper is bribed to be Secretary of the Treasury, by 500l. a-year for his life, upon the 4-1/2 per cents, in the Leeward Islands, the same that Pitt's pension is upon. He remains for the present, however, at Bath. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... resolution seemed to forsake them on this occasion. They saw themselves in danger of being surrounded and cut in pieces; their officers dropped on every side; and all hope of retreat was now intercepted. In this cruel dilemma, their spirits failed; they were seized with a panic; they faultered, they broke; and in less than five minutes after the engagement began, they fled in the utmost confusion, pursued by the enemy, who no sooner saw them give way ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... but feel that there was some truth in this, and that it was a dilemma not provided against in Aunt Isobel's teaching, that one may be so obliging to those one lives with as to encourage, if not to teach ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... me this great wonder. I must not be kept in suspense. Cannot Maude assist you? If so, I rely upon her in the present dilemma," said Guy, turning in ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... the dead, the theory of reincarnation seems to abolish that distinction between the worshipper and the worshipped which is essential to the existence of worship. But, as I also indicated, what seems a loophole or mode of escape from the dilemma may be furnished by the belief of these savages, that though they themselves are nothing but their ancestors come to life again, nevertheless in their earliest incarnations of the alcheringa or dream times their ancestors possessed miraculous powers which they have admittedly lost in ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... over to the guard? That was the easiest way for him, the greater disgrace to me. Yet if, by any chance, I proved later innocent of the charge, then he would become the laughingstock of the army. I heard his teeth grate savagely as he realized his dilemma, and laughed outright. ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... 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, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... into some untried evil, the mind wavers. The clock of thought ticks out its wish and its denial. To those who have never experienced such a mental dilemma, the following will appeal on the simple ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... of Tom Hardynge, declining the assistance of his friend, were understood by Lone Wolf; but, treacherous and faithless himself, he regarded them as only a part of a trap in which he was to be caught, and his whole purpose was to get out of the dilemma as quickly as possible. However hopeful he might be in a single hand-to-hand encounter with one of the men, he was not vain enough to think that he could master both. In their struggling they had approached ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... laughs in his sleeve as he hears the affrighted partridge call, and the timid hare rushing through the vines towards him; they approach, are within range of his gun, and ere long the shot-bag is emptied, and the sportsman is in that rare but agreeable dilemma of not knowing what to do with his ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... quieting of the dogs, and a vigorous exertion of hospitality, necessitating some striding up and down stairs, and much shouting to Mrs. Hornblower and her little niece, who rejoiced in the peculiar name of Dilemma; while Rosamond petted Tartar upon her lap, and the two elder clergymen, each with an elbow against the window-frame and a knee on the seat, held council, based on the Rector's old knowledge of the ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is the dilemma, in my opinion: either we admit the negro's testimony in courts of justice, and then our highest interests are placed at the mercy of a class of people who cannot be relied on when testifying under oath; or we deny ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... impossible to understand Irish history from the reign of Henry VIII. till the fall of James II.—nearly two hundred years—without constantly keeping in mind the dilemma of the chiefs and lords between the requirements of the English Court on the one hand and of the native clans on the other. Expected to obey and to administer conflicting laws, to personate two characters, to speak ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... has doffed them "'orrid knee-things;" Plush gives way to tweed and socks; And a hamper with the tea-things, Fills his place upon the box; With MARIA, JANE, and HEMMA, He is playing archest games, And they're in the sweet dilemma, Who shall make ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... who had neither court nor kingdom, nor where to lay his head, is upset at once by the argumentum ad hominem, that, according to the same rule, every believer ought to get crucified. No escape from this dilemma presenting itself to our friend D's devout but feeble mind, X follows up the assault, by asking him, as a deductio ad absurdum, whether he should like to see the Pope in sandals like St Peter. The catechumen falls into the trap at once; flares up at the idea of such degradation ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... dilemma! No way out of it appeared to me, for even if we did employ the great detective, our chance of finding the delinquent seemed exceeding small. I was thinking what could possibly be done to clear Rashid, when a familiar figure came into ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... all that, the elements of a very pretty dilemma in the psychology of morals in the case of Miriam Gale and John Arniston. True, the calf-skin Bible said when it was consulted, "The letter killeth, but ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... to be done? That was now the sole dilemma which tormented him—as the possible methods of obtaining the drink he craves, or the drug that gives him peace and radiant visions, torment the dipsomaniac or the morphia victim in his guarded prison. He thought of his instruments, those magic ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... felt the more inclined to indulge his mirth, as the character which Bruce had given him of Wandering Nathan, as one perfectly acquainted with the woods, convinced him that he could not have fallen upon a better person to extricate him from his dangerous dilemma, and thus relieved his breast of a mountain of anxiety and distress. But the laugh with which he greeted his approach found no response from Nathan himself, who, having looked with amazement upon Edith and Telie, as if marvelling what madness had brought ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... another, or the contrary; nor can they prove, or have they the least Assurance, he will not thus deal with them, without recurring to other Principles, which will hold equally strong against the Doctrines themselves—To this Dilemma are these Gentlemen inevitably reduced; they must either give up the Doctrines, or part with any Security of Dependance on God himself, as to their own Happiness. It will be in vain, here, to refer to the Goodness of God, though, on my Principles, the Argument would be unanswerable; ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... were clearly, and even eagerly, pointed out. It was urged, for instance, by Miss Younghusband that it was substantially impossible for her to play the part assigned to her; Miss Mann was in a similar dilemma, from which no modern views on the sexes could apparently extricate her; and some young ladies, whose surnames happened to be Low, Coward, and Craven, were quite enthusiastic against the idea. But all this happened afterwards. What happened at the crucial moment ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... pronounces the name of her husband,—she would consider it disrespectful towards him to do so; and it is often amusing to see their embarrassment when asked the question by any European gentleman. They look right and left for some one to relieve them from the dilemma of appearing disrespectful either to the querist or to their absent husbands—they perceive that he is unacquainted with their duties on this point, and are afraid he will attribute their silence ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... passage, and procured the light—in another moment he was at the side of the admiral, and the lantern slide being thrown back, he saw at once the dilemma into which ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... a match and the look of astonishment that Dave found on his face, as he stared about the inclosure, caused him to laugh, in spite of their dilemma. ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... were quite able to make a generous donation to their sovereign; while to others who lived in a narrow and pinched way he would represent that their economical mode of life must have made them wealthy. This famous dilemma received ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... superimposition, and mutual misattribution. But apart from pure consciousness these cannot be manifested or known, for it is pure consciousness alone that is self-luminous. Thus when we try to know the ajnana states in themselves as apart from the atman we fail in a dilemma, for knowledge means illusory superimposition or illusion, and when it is not knowledge they evidently cannot be known. Thus apart from its being a factor in our illusory experience no other kind of its existence is known to ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... dark coal-seam, good friend Labour, Humanity admits more than enough. But fix it so, whilst neighbour wars' with neighbour, And mine with mine about it? Task too tough, Too desperate dilemma, for a Statesman, Why you can't settle it with your own ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... mentioned? His eyes repeatedly sought that envelope which lay before him. Inside it must lie the secret of the whole tragedy. Should he risk everything and break the seal, or should he risk perhaps as much and tell the whole truth to Mademoiselle Idiale? It was a strange dilemma for a man ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to pour in a cupful of yeast to be mixed with warm water (you see I know all about it in theory), when a sudden panic seized me, and I was afraid to draw the cork of the large champagne bottle full of yeast, which appeared to be very much "up." In this dilemma I went for F——. You must know that he possesses such extraordinary and revolutionary theories on the subject of cooking, that I am obliged to banish him from the kitchen altogether, but on this occasion I thought I should be glad of his assistance. He came with the greatest ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... quivering at the stretch, and the old tactics had to be repeated. The fear all the while was that the fish, however well hooked at first, might eventually break away the hold; but I had not now to learn that in such a dilemma it is always well to be as hard with the fish as the tackle will bear, and the time arrived when the line became short and the fish subdued, and A., seeing his opportunity with the gaff, waded in amongst the boulders at the ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... conversation drew to considerable length, half an hour at least having elapsed. The captains who accompanied Cortes became impatient of delay, fearing that great numbers of the Mexicans might collect to the rescue of their sovereign, and that we should be oppressed under superior force. In this dilemma, De Leon exclaimed in his rough voice to Cortes: "Why, Sir, do you waste so many words? Tell him, that if he does not instantly yield himself our prisoner, we will plunge our swords into his body: Let us now assure our lives or perish." Montezuma ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... met, in February, 1855, to make choice of a Senator, a clique of anti-Nebraska Democrats held out so firmly against the nomination of Lincoln that there was danger of the Whigs leaving their candidate altogether. In this dilemma Lincoln was consulted. Mr. Lamon thus describes the incident: "Lincoln said, unhesitatingly, 'You ought to drop me and go for Trumbull; that is the only way you can defeat Matteson.' Judge Logan came up about that time, and insisted on running Lincoln still; but ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... sad dilemma, there came a Spaniard on board by composition to see our ship. He came on board again the next day, and we allowed him quietly to depart. The following day two Spaniards came, on board, without pawn or surety, to see ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... The Princess managed to secure a set of listeners at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly, as if carrying on the theme, she said in a deliberately loud voice, compelling attention: "Your Royal Highness, I am in a dilemma." ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... things. And—in spite of his ethical aloofness—he loved the Allies. He wanted them to win, and he wanted America to abandon a course that he believed was vitally necessary to their victory. It was an intellectual dilemma. He hid this self-contradiction from Matching's Easy with much the same feelings that a curate might hide a poisoned dagger at ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... ejaculated Courtenay. "Let us go a little further. We now come to the 'hobble,' or dilemma, if you prefer the latter word, in which we find ourselves. The unfortunate hitch in this business, as I look at it, is this. It so happens that we are not the captain- general's deputies, but two British midshipmen, and we want to go, not to the Barcos ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... The dilemma now confronting Washington was hydra-headed. Either way it was serious. On one side New England lay open to the enemy, on the other New Jersey. And an advance was also threatened from the North. If he stayed where he was, the enemy ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... limited a stock of expressions at my command, I naturally could not make much way, and the next day I was placed in a very disagreeable dilemma. I had hired a boy to show me the way to a church, and explained to him by signs that he was to wait to conduct me home again. On emerging from the church I could see nothing of my guide. After waiting for some time in vain, I was at length compelled ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... manner between him and a joiner, who is also the undertaker of the island, a well-conceived character. A storm is rising. Gabriel, after many wild and whirling words, leaves a message for his friends. He is bathing. And so he makes by suicide his last flight, his escape from the horns of the dilemma, too weak to decide one way or the other. The ending is ineffective, and the sudden repentance of the middle-aged sculptor (fat men with forty-five-inch waists never do seem wicked), who promises to marry his Lucie, the fiddle player, is very flat. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... brotherhood, and had been employed by the committee of Grand Masters to enter the office and secure for them the box, by which they expected to obtain the package. In this they were mistaken, and placed in a worse dilemma than before. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... subordinated the claims of the Whigs for the sake of working better with Lord Aberdeen, he laid himself open to charges of betraying his followers, and when he pressed their claims, he was accused of arrogance towards his chief. This, however, was a dilemma, the vexations of which wore off as places were apportioned and the Ministry got to its work; there was a more fatal incongruity in his position. He was technically a subordinate Minister, pledged to reform (as Prime Minister he ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... a dilemma which is sufficiently remarkable. Here we seem to have contrary results from the same cause. Since the popular assembly governs ministers, and frequently dismisses them, they are not able to govern their subordinates as did Colbert and Louvois, and these subordinates ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... serviceable in all kinds of weather. It seems likely, therefore, that the Americans strove to bring on the conflict in smooth weather; while the British were determined to wait until a heavy sea should lessen the force of their foes. In this dilemma several ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... was worth to take her to Waterloo; but to drive with her to the chambers of that nice gentleman who was, she knew, one of her master's greatest friends, seemed a shifting of responsibility which was quite a way out of the dilemma, for not for worlds would Susan do anything really to hurt ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... national soul. And he who seriously, patriotically, out of the abundance of his heart and the richness of his mind, and out of a lively sense of community with the myriads of German-speaking men and women seeks entrance into the world of letters, he faces in painful amazement the dilemma: People or literature? Human being or artist? Personality ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... all the meanderings of the ancient passages of the Halles, exploring in his panic terror what the fine Latin of the maps calls tota via, cheminum et viaria, our poet suddenly halted for lack of breath in the first place, and in the second, because he had been collared, after a fashion, by a dilemma which had just occurred to his mind. "It strikes me, Master Pierre Gringoire," he said to himself, placing his finger to his brow, "that you are running like a madman. The little scamps are no less afraid of you than you are of them. It strikes me, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... had, up to that time, been made forbidding the holding of the Belfast demonstration, this article was perhaps premature in its attempt to impale Babberly and his friends on the horns of a dilemma. ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... reproduce in his creatures of the imagination his own sufferings and fears. I think he was afraid of mental as well as physical decay, for he has studied insanity with the same assiduity as that displayed by Andreev in his nerve-wrecking story "A Dilemma." ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... all the other ministers were collectively just as responsible. For this discrimination the only precedent seems to be Fox's motion against Lord Sandwich in 1779. Mr. Gladstone's memorandum[77] completes or modifies the account of the dilemma of the conservative leader, already known from Sir Robert Peel's papers,[78] and the reader will find it elsewhere. It was the right of a conservative opposition to challenge a whig ministry; yet to fight under radical colours ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... trial." He did not name the oath he had taken to attempt nothing against Colonel John, nor to be a party to any attempt. He had slurred over that episode. He had dwelt in preference on the fact of the will and the dilemma in which it ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... an honest lad. I was hurt for my young friend and indignant with the man—too much so to reply, and as I rose to leave the room with a mortification that I cannot remember to have felt before or since, I paused at the door and said: 'Well, sir, in this dilemma, is there no other church to which you can direct me from which my friend can be buried?' He replied that 'There was a little church around the corner' where I might get it done—to which I answered, 'Then ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... and walked the springy floor a dozen times, nonplussed by the Major's dilemma. Pausing in his preoccupation before the open window he noted vaguely that the nuptial fires were yellowing before the approach of dawn: a moment and he started violently as the solution struck him and he whirled upon the ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... embarrassed by their dilemma as to be obliged to confess, either that the Church was for some time extinct, or that we have now a controversy with the Church. The Church of Christ has lived, and will continue to live, as long as Christ shall reign at the right hand of the Father, by whose hand ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... In this dilemma and strait an accident in the way of a "wind fall" (or I might more appropriately say, "bread fall") came to our regiment's relief. Jim George, a rather eccentric and "short-witted fellow," of Company C, while plundering around in some old out-buildings ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... with the learned men of Alexandria; and at another of these literary dinners, when Diodorus, the rhetorician, who was thought to have been the inventor of the Dilemma, was puzzled by a question put to him by Stilpo, the king in joke said that his name should be Cronus, a god who had been laughed at in the comedies. Indeed, he was so teased by Ptolemy for not being able to answer it, that he got ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... in a dilemma, my dear," she whispered to me. "There is young Hollingford, who has been coming about the Hall so much, and will be coming about; and then here is Arthur Noble; and you know, my dear, or perhaps you do not know that there has been a deadly feud between ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... that we did not mean to find any was about the only point that was clearly laid down during the Paris negotiations, although this was altered later. My branch was therefore little concerned in the business until, as has been mentioned on p. 216, the dilemma that various departments were in over the affair was thrust before the War Cabinet, and steps were taken to get something done. Even then, it took some weeks before we arrived at a clear understanding with the French and the Greeks ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... they have always failed to make their protests effective. The spirit of the times was against them. The Whigs represented the higher standards, the more definite organization, and the social inequalities of the older states, but when they attempted to make their ideas good, they were faced by a dilemma either horn of which was disastrous to their interests. They were compelled either to sacrifice their standards to the conditions of popular efficiency or the chance of success to the integrity of their ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... of the day, recognizing the dilemma and the difficulties, still cling to the miraculous, and to make the best of a bad bargain, offer dogma in the place of demonstration, and contradictory and blind belief in place of the ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... been as plainly visible to her as she was to him. On the other hand, if she was the survivor of some wreck and in distress—or, as he even fancied from her reckless manner, bereft of her senses, his duty to rescue her was equally clear. In his dilemma he determined upon a compromise and ran to his boat. He would pull out to sea, pass between the rocks and the curving sand-spit, and examine the sands and sea more closely for signs of wreckage, or some overlooked waiting boat near the shore. He would be within hail if she needed him, or she could ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... their anti-government scheme, and with safe consciences, swear to any government, but with such limitation, in regard they cannot be sure, but he that is now owned by civil society may be rejected, and another set up, who must be acknowledged. So they would be brought into an inextricable dilemma; either they must own them both to be God's ordinance, which is absurd; or then be perjured, by rejecting him to whom they had sworn; or then incur damnation, by refusing obedience to him, who is set up by the body politic. Such is the labyrinth of confusion ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... company of Mexican soldiers were drawn up with a field piece, making ready to annihilate the little American company, as they could do without the slightest difficulty before the gallant sailors could land and make a charge. Here was a dilemma indeed. Nothing could extricate the boat and its crew from their peril and not a man could raise a finger to ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... of her dilemma; let Ray imagine her engaged to Frank Lamotte, and he would not misconstrue her interest in Doctor Heath; as for Frank, he had been a suitor, and a most troublesome one, for so long, that she thought nothing of appropriating him to herself, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... memorial from the innocent dead distracted me for a few moments from further consideration of present difficulties, but soon the very nature of the bequest recalled them to my mind, by that allusion to a promise which more than any thing else lay at the bottom of the dilemma in which I found myself. For, humiliating as it is to confess, the persistency with which certain impressions remained in my mind, in spite of the glowing daylight that now surrounded me, warned me that it would be for my peace to leave this house before ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... makes our seeing dependent upon the eyes and nerves and brain does not even tend to show that there is not another chain of antecedents in which the eyes and nerves and brain as physical things are ignored. If we are to escape from the dilemma which seemed to arise out of the physiological causation of what we see when we say we see the sun, we must find, at least in theory, a way of stating causal laws for the physical world, in which the units ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... Hillsborough fell into a hot rage, and sent in his resignation. It was generally understood that he had no notion that it would be accepted, or that he would be allowed to leave upon such a grievance. He fancied that he was establishing a dilemma which would impale Franklin. But he was in error; he himself was impaled. No one expostulated with him; he was left to exercise "the Christian virtue of resignation" without hindrance. Franklin said that the anticipation of precisely this result, so far ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... question, and then breasted once more into the swelling tide of his subject. I call it his subject; but I think it was he who was subjected. The Arethusa, who holds all racing as a creature of the devil, found himself in a pitiful dilemma. He durst not own his ignorance, for the honour of Old England, and spoke away about English clubs and English oarsmen whose fame had never before come to his ears. Several times, and, once above all, on the question of sliding-seats, he was within an ace of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... actually realized and sustained for generations, in Leipsic, suppose, or Edinburgh, or Leyden, or Salamanca? This is the question of questions, to which we may demand an answer; and, according to that answer, observe the dilemma into which these furciferous knaves must drop. If they are comparing Oxford simply with some ideal and better Oxford, in some ideal and better world, in that case all they have said—waiving its falsehoods of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... God's will and leading. In the second place, no third person had been mentioned by her brother, whose chief anxiety had been for his bride and the white man, and it did not seem to Brighteyes creditable to quit the camp after all her risk and trouble without some trophy of her prowess. In this dilemma she put to herself the question, "Whom would Lightheart wish me ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... Austen?" he cried, extending a welcome hand; and, when Austen had told him his dilemma: "Come right along up to my lodgings. I live at the Widow Peasley's, and there's a vacant ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with such pains, and to stammer out something or other about the high and unexpected felicity of being presented to the most powerful, the most celebrated, and the most sincerely beloved monarch in the world, when he relieved me at once from my dilemma. He addressed me in French, speaking very quick, but distinctly, to ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... went wide of the point. The point was not a code for the parental treatment of canons' daughters. England was not waiting for information as to what Canon Lambert would do to a Miss Lambert in a given dilemma. H.G. Wells did not turn up in Hull with a Gatling gun and, turning it on the Canon's abode, threaten to blow the ecclesiastical wigwam to pieces if the canon did not immediately buy a copy of "Ann Veronica" for his daughter ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... passed into the field to the left and were already in bivouac; the other troops of our division were not visible at this point, and I was hesitating what direction to give the column. General Reynolds was sitting on his horse looking at us, evidently with much interest, and noticing my dilemma, rode up to my assistance at once. Addressing me as adjutant, he said: "Part of your corps has moved in yonder," pointing out the place. "If I were you I would go in here and occupy this field to the right ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... dared to lay the matter in its present form before the duke, lest it might seem impertinent and obtrusive in him towards one who had already extended unprecedented kindness and protection towards him; and yet he knew no other source upon which he might rely. In this dilemma, Carlton grew quite dejected. He was one of those persons who, notwithstanding he possessed a strong mind and determination of purpose, was easily elated or depressed in his spirits; and the present state of affairs rendered him ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... boundary of Holetown. Little paths, too, every now and then turned off from the main track and went into the pines, each leading to a cabin or bit of creek-bottom deeper in. They therefore were in a real dilemma concerning what to do; and Willy's suggestion, to eat lunch, was a welcome one. They determined to go a little way into the woods, where they could not be seen, and had just taken the lunch out of ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page |
