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Exigency   /ˌɛksˈɪdʒənsi/   Listen
Exigency

noun
(pl. exigencies)
1.
A pressing or urgent situation.
2.
A sudden unforeseen crisis (usually involving danger) that requires immediate action.  Synonyms: emergency, pinch.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Exigency" Quotes from Famous Books



... reasonable taxes without distress. And to every other form of borrowing, whether for long periods or, for short, there is the same objection. These are not the circumstances, this is at this particular moment and in this particular exigency not the market, to borrow large sums of money. What we are seeking is to ease and assist every financial transaction, not to add a single additional embarrassment to the situation. The people of this country are both ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... right in front of me, and looking me full in the face, but old Mr. Peterson, my grandfather. "Why, bless my soul, Gordon," said he, after a long pause, "why, why,—whose dirty cloak is that you have on?" "Sir!" I replied, assuming, as well as I could, in the exigency of the moment, an air of offended surprise, and talking in the gruffest of all imaginable tones—"sir! you are a sum'mat mistaken—my name, in the first place, bee'nt nothing at all like Goddin, and I'd want you for to know better, you blackguard, than to call my new ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... curtailed stature of his figures. He was no less excellent in minuter works as a goldsmith, and in that capacity had worked for his patron a 'tavola d'oro,' a tablet or screen (apparently) of gold, with his utmost care and skill; it was a work of exceeding beauty—but in some political exigency his patron wanted money, and it was broken up before his eyes. Seeing his labor vain and the pride of his heart rebuked, he threw himself on the ground, and uplifting his eyes and hands to heaven, prayed in contrition, 'Lord God Almighty, Governor ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... serious and respectful and as dignified as was possible with the frivolous objections made by the opponents. The delegates showed an evident appreciation of the importance of the question at issue, which was about to be sacrificed as usual to political exigency. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... island, who were divided into a great number of petty nations, under a very coarse and disorderly frame of government, did not find it easy to plan any effectual measures for their defence. In order, however, to gain time in this exigency, they sent ambassadors to Caesar with terms of submission. Caesar could not colorably reject their offers. But as their submission rather clashed than coincided with his real designs, he still persisted in his resolution of passing over into Britain; and accordingly embarked ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... opinion that the Committee of the Bible Society should in the present exigency draw up an exposition of their views respecting Spain, stating what they are prepared to do, and what they are not prepared to do—above all, whether in seeking to circulate the Gospel in this country they harbour any projects hostile to the Government and the established religion; ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... in the valley—a contingency he doubted—it would not be a great task for him to go by night to Oldring's herd and pack out a calf. The exigency of the moment was to ascertain if there were game in Surprise Valley. Whitie still guarded the dilapidated rabbit, and Ring slept near by under a spruce. Venters called Ring and went to the edge of the terrace, and there halted to ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... room, then down into the double stable back of the house. But Matak was gone, and so was Terry's spare pony. Realizing the futility of searching for him in the night, he composed himself as best he could. It added another phase to the exigency—everything now rested with the patrols who were tirelessly combing the Gulf to ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... outset of the Government, without direct legislative authority, led to the use of banks as fiscal aids to the Treasury. In admitted deviation from the law, at the same period and under the same exigency, the Secretary of the Treasury received their notes in payment of duties. The sole ground on which the practice thus commenced was then or has since been justified is the certain, immediate, and convenient exchange of such notes for specie. The Government did, indeed, receive the inconvertible ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... eyes and the down of the upper lip. "Splendid!" said the Widow—and to tell the truth, she was not far out of the way, and with Helen Darley as a foil anybody would know she must be foudroyant and pyramidal,—if these French adjectives may be naturalized for this one particular exigency. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... and means of raising a supply seemed impracticable. The provinces were laid waste, and the city had already been drained of its last ducat. In this exigency a council met in his majesty's cabinet, to devise some expedient for obtaining resources. The consultation was as desponding as their situation, until Thaddeus Sobieski, who had been a silent observer, rose from his seat. Sudden indisposition ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... a just question, Sir Aymer," he said; "yet be assured I have no thought to sacrifice Beatrix. At this exigency, I have not an instant to devote to aught but this insurrection. I do not fear Darby—though he would desert to the rebels without hesitation if he thought it would advantage him—but Stanley's course will be his also—it ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... and vindication before Miss Florrie and his townsmen seemed of very small importance compared with the exigency at hand—the stealing by jail-breakers of the navy's best destroyer and ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... should return to Calicut, on which I advised him to take heed how he did so, as he would be in danger of losing all his silks, if it should be discovered that he had not paid the king's custom. Then he asked my advice as to what I thought was best for us to do in the present exigency, and I advised that we should travel along the shore, in hopes of finding some other bark for our purpose. They agreed to this proposal, and we accordingly travelled twelve miles along the shore, our ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... little hands like white flowers in the blue folds of her skirt, with her fine, sensitive outlook of fair face, and her dainty carriage; and she saw others—those girls and women in dingy skirts and bagging blouses, with coarse hair strained into hard knots of exigency from patient, or sullen faces, according to their methods of bearing their lots; all of them rank with the smell of leather, their coarse hands stained with it, swinging their poor little worn bags which had held their dinners. There were not many foreigners among them, except the ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... nazuranas or gratuities than he has, by their aid, this season, though he still holds the district as a trust manager. Ten, twenty, or thirty thousand rupees are paid for the use of one of these regiments, according to the exigency of the occasion, or the time for which it may ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... be permitted, then, to suggest the danger which may result to the political principles and to the future character as subjects of such of our young men among the higher ranks as the exigency of the case obliges their parents to send for a classical education to the colleges of ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... last, being advised to abandon the use of tobacco in all its forms, and being fully persuaded that he either must relinquish it voluntarily, or that death would soon compel him to do it, 'he summoned all his resolution for the fearful exigency, and after a long and desperate struggle, obtained the victory.' 'All the inconvenience' he experienced, 'was a few sleepless nights, and an incessant hankering after the accustomed fascinating influence ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey

... does not know that he is happy. If he ever has any consciousness, it is an isolated, momentary thing, with no relation to anything antecedent or subsequent. It lays hold on nothing. Not only have they no perception of themselves, but they have no perception of anything. They never recognize an exigency. They do not salute greatness. Has not the Autocrat told us of some lady who remembered a certain momentous event in our Revolutionary War, and remembered it only by and because of the regret she experienced at leaving her doll behind, when her family was forced ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... renders it expedient to increase our force and enlarge our expenses in the Mediterranean beyond what the last appropriation for the naval service contemplated. I recommend, therefore, to the consideration of Congress such an addition to that appropriation as they may think the exigency requires. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson

... The exigency caused by the war, moreover, has transformed the former practice of international intercourse. Co-operation has replaced competition. We are reorganizing and regulating our industries, our business, making sacrifices and preparing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... of knowledge unfolded before him, and in this way he was induced to direct his attention to astronomy. More and more this pursuit seems to have engrossed his attention, until at last it had become an absorbing passion. Herschel was, however, still obliged, by the exigency of procuring a livelihood, to give up the best part of his time to his profession as a musician; but his heart was eagerly fixed on another science, and every spare moment was steadily devoted to astronomy. ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... or Philistines—would undertake the case as one which had fallen to them by allotment of Providence; or that section whose service happened to be due for the month, without local regards, would face the exigency. But in any great national danger, under that stage of society which the Jews had reached between Moses and David—that stage when fighting is no separate professional duty, that stage when such things are announced by there being no military pay—not the army which is so ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... Marjorie's evasive answer, but once she had said good-bye to the two girls she began to deliberate within herself as to what she had best do. Here was an exigency against which she had failed to provide. She had resolved never to betray Constance to the girls, but now Constance had, by openly wearing the pin, betrayed herself. Either she would be obliged to go to Constance and demand her own or allow her to ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester

... printed whenever it is employed as a trisyllable; elsewhere the ordinary spelling has been adopted. (Not a little has been written about 'uprest' ("Revolt of Islam", 3 21 5), which has been described as a nonce-word deliberately coined by Shelley 'on no better warrant than the exigency of the rhyme.' There can be little doubt that 'uprest' is simply an overlooked misprint for 'uprist'—not by any means a nonce-word, but a genuine English verbal substantive of regular formation, familiar to many from its ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... letting the wild ones grow; for this purpose making an ally of the lion, the irascible part of his nature, and caring for all the parts in common, making them friends to one another and to himself." In this way he will meet the true exigency of his nature as a whole, with due regard to the proper order and subordination of the parts. He who lives otherwise, acts in contradiction to his rational self. (c. v., s. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... that the eschar remains a greater or less time over the wound according to the severity and exigency of the case. This case being less severe than the former one the eschar remained upon the wound during a much shorter period ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom

... man-of-all-work,—though aided in the day-time by two or three assistants from the village,—"O Lord! your worship! only ask me anything but that"—as, of course, on such occasions people are ready to do all but the very thing which the exigency demands,—"O Lord! your worship's honor! I couldn't for the world go round that corner of the house, to get to the stable; but if Nancy here—now Nancy, darlint, I know you will, honey—if she'll only go with me, I'll run for his reverence as fast as my poor legs, that's all of a tremble, will ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... was in. Beverly said he would wait in the passage. Mrs. Munroe proved to be a nice, motherly sort of a person, who, as it need hardly be said, was stone-deaf. It required some time for Matty to adjust her speaking apparatus to the exigency, but when this was done, Mrs. Munroe explained that Mr. Gilbert was dead,— that an effort had been made to continue the business with the old sign and the old good will, under the direction of a certain Mr. Bundy, who had sometimes been called in as an assistant. But Mr. Bundy, ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... was no one he wanted to marry, that he no longer wanted to marry at all; his wish to marry Blanche had been an exigency of the situation; in himself his instinct against inroads on privacy would never have inclined him towards it. Also there was no one girl he wanted, and he told himself there never would be again; all personal emotion was drained away from him. The only girl he even knew at all ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... immediate use; and with more solemn pomp of diction than he applied to the bank-note, might he inform you that, with the gentleman opposite, to whom he had hitherto been entirely a stranger, but who happened to be nearest to him at the time when the exigency occurred to him, he had just succeeded in negotiating a loan of "twopence." He was and is a great authority in political economy. I have known great anatomists and physiologists as careless of their ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... confidence in the absolute authority of Holy Scripture as the infallible test of theological truth, and inerrant guide in all matters of faith and practise." "The dogmaticians were led to maintain it [the verbal inspiration] by the exigency of the times and the stress of their severe dialectics. [The interest of the dogmaticians was to present the clear doctrine of the Scriptures on inspiration.] And as a result of their doctrines, they were logically obliged to claim the absolute impossibility of any kind of error or inaccuracy ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... a reward than one hundred purses of gold," remarked the eunuch. "The reward is proportioned to the exigency of the cue. Believe me, worthy ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli

... natives, in conformity with the usage of the country; and a recognition of property should exist in their persons; for it is obvious, from experiment, that authority cannot otherwise be established, or the necessary labour performed to produce an adequate return. While this invidious exigency obstructs the immediate manumission of the slave, it does not the less accelerate it, agreeable to the sound and humane policy adapted to his condition; but, on the contrary, is necessary to his complete emancipation; for he must first be taught the nature of the blessings of freedom, his intellectual ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... there is no distance which a well-appointed steamer may not easily accomplish with such store of coal as she can carry. She may not, indeed, stop at all these ports. It may be more convenient and economical to use sails a part of the distance, rather than steam. But, if an exigency required it, she could stop and find everywhere a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... by the law of nature—is faulty and condemnable at the tribunal of conscience. Hence it is that the right to such acts varies according to circumstance. What is just and perfectly innocent in one situation is not always so on other occasions. Right goes hand in hand with necessity and the exigency of the case, but never ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson

... more or less compelled to some kind of exertion for their mere subsistence. Like all compulsion, this has no doubt been considered a hardship. Yet we never find, when by their own industry, or any fortunate circumstance, they have been relieved from this exigency, that any one individual has been contented with doing nothing. Some, indeed, before their liberation, have conceived of idleness as a kind of synonyme with happiness; but a short experience has never failed to prove it no less remote from that ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... perhaps, if he confided his present dilemma to his sisters, they might come to his rescue, and in the exigency of sudden frosts save at least a portion of his crops from loss. They were fond of Lucy. Sometimes he had even thought they guessed his secret and were desirous of helping on the romance. At least, he felt sure they would not oppose it, for they had ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... Here exigency compelled N. to make surety doubly, yea, trebly, sure; but memory still forsaking him, the rascal, having put deeper and deeper significance into his voice with each repetition, dropped it altogether as he drew her close ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... hand, they may be the result of cowardice or inefficiency. Suppose, under trying circumstances, officers lose their heads and fail to properly handle their men, or if the latter prove cowardly and incapable of being moved with promptness to meet the exigency, great loss usually ensues, and this would be chargeable to cowardice or inefficiency. According to the loss way of estimating fighting regiments, the least deserving are liable to be credited with the best work. The rule is, the better drilled, ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... I have been placed making appeals to the virtue and patriotism of my fellow-citizens, well knowing that they could never be made in vain, especially in times of great emergency or for purposes of high national importance. Independently of the exigency of the case, many considerations of great weight urge a policy having in view a provision of revenue to meet to a certain extent the demands of the nation, without relying altogether on the precarious resource of foreign commerce. I am satisfied that internal duties and excises, with corresponding ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... and Lincoln, sent their retainers, and attended the rendezvous in person, to add religious enthusiasm to the patriotic zeal of the barons. Ten thousand soldiers, who had been sent over to Calais to reinforce Edward III.'s army, were countermanded in this exigency, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... hour when Chingachgook was expected still remained distant, Deerslayer had time enough to examine into the state of the defences, and to make such additional arrangements as were in his power, and the exigency of the moment seemed to require. The experience and foresight of Hutter had left little to be done in these particulars; still, several precautions suggested themselves to the young man, who may be said to have ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... secret was not one to yield to any mere puzzle-reader. She could safely trust it to my curiosity. All this I detected in her changing expression, before she made the slightest gesture which allowed me to secure what I felt to be the most valuable acquisition in the present exigency. ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... people of Pennsylvania to defend the State, saying that Philadelphia has not responded, while the enemy are in Chambersburg. He reproaches Pennsylvania for sniffling about the length of service when the exigency exists. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... idolaters did not regard that desertion well, and one day when the father was going on his rounds to catechise them in the woods, the pagans were awaiting him, and discharged upon him a shower of stones. He yielded to his contusions and wounds. He escaped with his life from this exigency, which was not little. But he was so ill-treated that he could not recover his health, which became worse; and recognizing that it was impossible to recover it there because of the utter lack of comfort, he determined to retire ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... evacuated by the enemy, Lieutenant John Cooper retired to civil life, and resumed business as a hatter in that city,—a worthy example of that American citizen soldiery which has always been equally ready to leave the ways of peace for its country's defense, and to return to them when the exigency ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond

... that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised according to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... may be a small beginning, but, as you go forward, Providence will develop other plans, and the more you do, the further you will see. I am happy to know that a beginning has been made. There are indications that a way has been so opened in providence that this exigency can be met. Within the last few years, the Chinese have begun to emigrate to the western parts of the United States. They will maintain themselves on small wages; and wherever they come into actual ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... exigency has arisen a grand vision of mine to build a flat of five or six rooms; a single landing of dining- and drawing-rooms, boudoir, bedroom, and kitchen with its apartment for a domestic. And, either by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... the first exigency of the kind, since the marriage of Giles Dauber to Madge Newsome of the Deercote, in which the discussion of a point so knotty and important had occurred. Giles dreamt not of the vast difference ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... tropical products, almost all of subsidiary significance in the production and consumption of the American people. This slight dependence upon foreign countries has been considerably reduced as the result of war exigency. The art products of France and Italy, the fine textile goods from Britain, the dye-stuffs, drugs, and scientific instruments from Germany—in a word, the great bulk of the imports from Europe, have either been cut out of American consumption or have been displaced, temporarily, at any rate, ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson

... said Mrs. Mann in response to Josephine's answer. There was not the slightest sense nor meaning in the remark, but it was, so to speak, her household note, learned through the exigency of being in the constant society of so many noisy children. She told everybody, on general principles, to "shet up," even when she wished for information ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... inverts; and I have submitted his assertion to more than 50. These have replied invariably that unless a man is himself homosexual, nearly all the pleasure of fellatio is absent. The fact is, the majority of inverts flock together not from exigency, but from choice. The mere sexual act is, if anything, far less the sole object between inverts than it is between normal men and women. Why should the invert sigh for intercourse with normal men, where mutual confidences ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the fashion increases the value of plate in proportion to the price of that fashion. The superiority of coin above bullion would prevent the melting down of the coin, and would discourage its exportation. If, upon any public exigency, it should become necessary to export the coin, the greater part of it would soon return again, of its own accord. Abroad, it could sell only for its weight in bullion. At home, it would buy more than that weight. There would be a profit, therefore, in bringing it home again. In France, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... that the brother whose appliances warm this house, warmed also our perishless hope, and nerved its grand fulfilment. Woman, true to her instinct, came to the rescue as sunshine from the clouds; so, when man quibbled over an architectural exigency, a woman climbed with feet and hands to the top of the tower, and helped settle ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy

... the most perfect example of Gluck's school in making the music the full reflex of the dramatic action. While Orestes sings in the opera, "My heart is calm," the orchestra continues to paint the agitation of his thoughts. During the rehearsal the musician failed to understand the exigency and ceased playing. The composer cried out, in a rage: "Don't you see he is lying? Go on, go on; he as just killed his mother." On one occasion, when he was praising Rameau's chorus of "Castor and Pollux," an admirer of his flattered him with the remark, "But ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... States of the election of Mr. Adams and General Pinckney. The military skill and approved bravery of the General must be peculiarly valuable to his countrymen at these trying moments." Let us have a military Vice-President, by all means, to meet this formidable exigency of Gabriel's peck of bullets, and this unexplained three shillings in the pocket ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... preserved and fostered hundreds of years before he was born, until warmed for human occupancy. At times the avenue was crossed by grass drives, where the original woodland had been displaced, not by the exigency of a "clearing" for tillage, as in his own West, but for the leisurely pleasure of the owner. Then, a few hundred yards from the house itself,—a quaint Jacobean mansion,—he came to an open space where the sylvan landscape had yielded to floral cultivation, and so ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... spelling in the same essay will be much appreciated by those who know how gladly children offer an orthographical alternative, in hopes that one if not the other may satisfy the exigency of the situation. ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... the public, would plead that if a Peerage or Knighthood may without disloyalty be refused, surely much more the minor grace proceeding from the monarch may be without impropriety declined by any of her Majesty's subjects who wish to serve her without reward, under the exigency ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... physical comfort amidst which Jesus was born were few and poor. But the environment, considered in the light of the customs of the country and time, was far from the state of abject deprivation which modern and western ways would make it appear. "Camping out" was no unusual exigency among travelers in Palestine at the time of our Lord's birth; nor is it considered such to-day. It is, however, beyond question that Jesus was born into a comparatively poor family, amidst humble surroundings associated with the inconveniences incident to travel. Cunningham ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... aspect of things had changed but little. The habits and customs of early days still remained. The position of the inhabitants was one of exigency. The absorbing desire to succeed kept them at home. They knew but little of what was passing in the world outside, and as a general thing they cared less. Their chief interest was centred in the ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight

... immediately stoned to death. The Athenian women, roused by a similar passion with the men, inflicted the same fate upon his wife and children—one of those excesses of virtue which become crimes, but for which exigency makes no despicable excuse. [96] The ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... exigency. Let us see how he meets it. That the Confession does teach the doctrine which the lady and her son ascribed to it, is as plain as anything can be. He decreed whatsoever comes to pass, and executes his decrees. Does he ask her what objections she has ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... and the answer to this question is the major. The minor then identifies the precise kind of likeness possessed by Socrates, as being the kind required by the formula. Thus the syllogistic major and the syllogistic minor start into existence together, and are called forth by the same exigency. When we conclude from personal experience without referring to any record—to any general theorems, either written, or traditional, or mentally registered by ourselves as conclusions of our own drawing—we ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... condemned and laughed at for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715 and 1745. That they failed, I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden until put to the touchstone of exigency; and that there is a caprice of fortune, an omnipotence in particular accidents and conjunctures of circumstances, which exalt us as heroes, or brand us as madmen, just as they are for ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... will have a continual sense of the necessities of his country at home; and therefore, by his position, be enabled to send us the earliest copies of M. Scribe's printed dramas; or, in cases of exigency, the manuscripts themselves. And now, Bobby, what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... that right," said he; "besides, weakness at such a time, and under such an exigency, is little short of wrong. It was unmanly in me to endeavor to secrete these gloves; more than unmanly for me to choose for their hiding-place the recesses of an article belonging exclusively to yourself. I acknowledge ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... poverty; one would imagine she must have been totally overwhelmed by such a sudden gush of misery. But this was not the case. She has, in fact, no delicate feelings. She forthwith accommodated herself to the exigency of her fortune; yet she still affects to keep state amidst the miseries of a jail; and this affectation is truly ridiculous. She lies a-bed till two o'clock in the afternoon. She maintains a female attendant for the sole purpose of dressing ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... contributions from the London Tavern Committee; the Dublin Mansion House Committee, and, to a limited extent, by private charity.[37] In June, 1822, Parliament voted L100,000 "for the employment of the poor in Ireland, and other purposes relating thereto, as the exigency of affairs may require." And in July, L200,000, "to enable His Majesty to take such measures as the exigency of affairs may require." The London Tavern Committee, with the aid of a King's letter, received ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... that fleet, those garrisoned towns, must be furnished with arms, ammunition, and provisions. An immediate and great expense must be incurred in that moment of immediate danger, which will not wait for the gradual and slow returns of the new taxes. In this exigency, government can have no other resource but ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... to be away over my party, and just getting back for Mrs. Curwen's. Isn't it too bad? Can't some of you young ladies—or all of you—make him stay?" As Mrs. Campbell talks on, she readjusts her spirit more and more to the exigency, and subdues her agitation to a surface of ...
— A Likely Story • William Dean Howells

... two regular courts were to be convened by the governor himself, or by his secretary, by sending out a warrant to the constables of every town, a month at least before the day of session. In times of danger or public exigency the governor and a majority of the magistrates might order the secretary to summon a court, with fourteen days' notice, or even less, if the case required it, taking care to state their reasons for so doing to the deputies when they met. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... declare that there should be no war; it was not true that the use of the word "neutrality" could have any such application to the future as to prevent Congress, when it should assemble, from declaring war should it see fit to do so. But meanwhile, Congress not being in session, and no exigency having arisen that made it desirable in the President's judgment to call an extra session, he, with the assent of the cabinet,—for Jefferson did not venture upon direct opposition,—issued a proclamation "to exhort and warn the citizens ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... Newville it was no phantom, no hallucination, but a reality, an exigency, demanding calm reflection, wise judgment, and prompt, decisive action. They had talked it over,—each in the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... was the captain of the forecastle, one of the most important and best-paid of the petty officers, hastened aft to relieve the chief of the expedition, who went to work with his own hands when the exigency ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... instant. The alarm was over, the sound of the oars had ceased, and still the survivors stood at their posts, as if expecting the attack to be renewed. Then came those personal thoughts, which had been suspended in the fearful exigency of such a struggle. The wounded began to feel their pain, and to be sensible of the danger of their injuries; while the few, who had escaped unhurt, turned a friendly care on their shipmates. Ludlow as often happens with the bravest and most exposed, had escaped without a scratch; ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... why are we here and idle? are not yon poor fellows looking up to us for advice and orders how to proceed in this exigency? Away, away, Mr. Merry; it is not a time to be drawing figures, in the sand with your dirk; the flood-tide will soon be in, and we may be glad to hide our heads in some cavern among these rocks. Let us be stirring, sir, while we have ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... thought was that something demanding instant attention had happened to the boom. He therefore ran at once to the man's assistance, ready to help him personally or to call other aid as the exigency demanded. Owing to the precarious nature of the passage, he could not see beyond his feet until very close to the workman. Then he looked up to find the man, squatted on ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... though not my own name, is a poetical substitute for it, and a mere figure of apostrophe. The poem is personal to myself," he continued, with a slight increase of color in his smooth cheek which did not escape the attention of the ladies,—"purely as an exigency of verse, and that the inspired authoress might more easily express herself to a friend. My acquaintance with Mrs. M'Corkle has been only epistolary. Pardon this digression, my friends, but an allusion ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... the third flight he pulled up to one side of the landing, and reconnoitred. It was on the next floor below, the first above the street, that Ekstrom had stopped. But in what quarter thereof? The exigency forbade the risk of one false turn. If Lanyard were to take Ekstrom unawares it must be at the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... active accession of Hardinge. Prim etiquette may pucker its thin lips, and solemn discretion knit its ponderous brows; but neither discipline nor prudence ran any risk of being injured or affronted by the veteran of the Peninsula. What the exigency required, he knew; what the exigency exacted, he performed. That those who censure would not have imitated his conduct, in defiance of the admonitions of the hundred-throated Sikh ordnance, we may allowably imagine. Such critics, being themselves governors-general, would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... approached the cottage, that the window of my room by which Archer and I had quitted it the previous night would be unfastened, I determined I would enter there, and, proceeding to my mother's door, call her up, and break the news as gently as the exigency of the case would permit, leaving her to act by Fanny as she should think best. Accordingly, I flung up the window, sprang in, and, throwing myself on the nearest chair, sat for a moment, panting from the speed at which I had come. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... intelligence, gauged to one idea, might be satisfied to wait only if waiting promised a climax. And as for the other's returning—this new-found deliverer who was so thoroughly of the mountains, yet whose dialect just now had savored of the "circuit-rider" type—she felt able to cope with that exigency after they were outside. So in her eagerness she had arisen, when Tusk stepped roughly to the door ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... professor. "There was a time when a fine intellect was thought important in an ambassador; nowadays it is enough if his excellency can hold his tongue and show his teeth. The question is, whether the low estimate of intellect in our day is due to the exigency of modern affairs, or to ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... of the creature that is produced; the creature taken in itself, with its nature and its necessary properties, is anterior to its accidental affections and to its actions; and yet all these things are in being [358] in the same moment. God produces the creature in conformity with the exigency of the preceding instants, according to the laws of his wisdom; and the creature operates in conformity with that nature which God conveys to it in creating it always. The limitations and imperfections ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... Immediately after the admission of a certain amount of miscalculation there comes a more or less exculpatory sentence, which sounds so right that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would walk through it, unless led by some exigency of their own position to examine it closely, but which yet, upon examination, proves to be as nearly meaningless as a ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... began. Again, somewhat oddly, yet forcibly, the Governor set before the Assembly the peril of the situation, and begged them to postpone less pressing questions to the exigency of the hour.[142] This time they listened; and voted ten thousand pounds in Virginia currency to defend the frontier. The grant was frugal, and they jealously placed its expenditure in the hands of a committee of their own.[143] Dinwiddie, writing to the Lords of Trade, pleads ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... hung over it in secret. He knew it through and through. Therefore, when He became a preacher, His language was saturated with it, and in controversy, by the apt use of it, He could put to shame those who were its professional students. But in His private life likewise He employed it in every exigency. He fought with it the enemy in the wilderness and overcame him; and now, in the supreme need of a dying hour, it stood Him in good stead. It is to those who, like Jesus, have hidden God's Word in their hearts that ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... namely, the employment of a part of the military force of the United States. The withdrawal of that force from its proper duty of defending the country against foreign foes or the savages of the frontier to employ it for the suppression of domestic insurrection is, when the exigency occurs, a matter of the most earnest solicitude. On this occasion of imperative necessity it has been done with the best results, and my satisfaction in the attainment of such results by such means is greatly enhanced by the consideration ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce

... came forward to address the lord-general. He noticed the dissolution of the late parliament, observed that the exigency of the time required a strong and stable government, and prayed his excellency in the name of the army and of the three nations to accept the office of protector of the commonwealth. Cromwell, though it was impossible to conceal the purpose for which he had come thither, could not yet put off the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... contrive a plan for my relief. Fear and excitement prevented all deliberate thought, and I walked to the counting-house confounded—almost delirious. I had taken no food. I could not break my fast until the exigency had passed away. I was sitting in the little room, filled with dismal apprehensions, when Mr Gilbert was announced, and suddenly appeared. As suddenly I resolved to tell him of my necessity, and to ask his aid or counsel. Blushing to the forehead, I confided my situation to him, and asked what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... the relief of the squadron depends more on the refreshment of the ships' companies than on cleaning the ships. By the hurry the latter must be performed in, unless the ship continues a month or five weeks in port, which the present exigency will by no means admit of, the men would be so harassed and fatigued that they would return to me in a worse condition than when they left me.... However, I shall endeavor to comply with all their Lordships' ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... was wholly unaccomplishable; it might, possibly, have been effected, but even that is by no means certain, if they had not been deprived of the chief hero's most fertile mental resources, ever rising with the exigency, which his fatal wound had effectually prevented—and which no other man must be censured for not possessing; because, perhaps, no other man ever did possess them in so eminent a degree. Besides, justice demands a due acknowledgment, that those who may rank among the greatest of men, having others ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... pride, and the consequent drain on their purse. Their style of living may, in this latter case, be squared, without jar or reproach, to their real revenues, and life be to them worth the living, while they gradually and lovingly lay aside, for any future exigency, something each year on which, in old age or disaster, they may confidently lean, and which, though it may not be great, yet shall, in a reasonable life, be sufficient to tide them to, and ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... and, as the same cause had left me with few sympathies, it was taken for granted that the unfairness of their assault would provoke no censure. They were mistaken. In the moment of my greatest difficulty, William Edgerton dashed in among them. My exigency rendered his assistance a very singular benefit. My nose was already broken—one of my eyes sealed up for a week's holyday; and I was suffering from small annoyances, of hip, heart, leg, and thigh, occasioned ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... that all virtue may partake in its sphere of the gifts of nature, augmented by the ingenuity of man, is the arduous, but interesting, task of wise legislation. It would not be reasonable to expect, that every case should be met, and every exigency anticipated, by adequate arrangements; but it is the duty of power, in whomsoever it is placed, to exert itself with unremitting anxiety, so as in the arrangements of man to approximate to the dispositions of nature, which ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... prepared for any exigency, they made the whole round of the house; but found all the fastenings secure, and everything ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... sworn to obey the laws, and to guarantee the safeguards of the Constitution; but I say to you—" and here his hand came down with an emphasis unusual in his nature—"law or no law, Constitution or no Constitution, an exigency existed under which she had to leave Washington, and ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... The exigency of these times was great; and men of courage and capacity, wise in council and prompt in action rose to meet it. They were not men ennobled merely by their appearance on the stage at the time when great scenes were passing. They ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... exercise except when it was absolutely necessary to keep from freezing. As a natural consequence, they were almost as fresh at night as they had been in the morning, and if they failed to find wood for a fire, or were compelled by some unforeseen exigency to travel throughout the twenty-four hours, they had the strength to do it. An inexperienced traveller under the same circumstances, would have exhausted all his energy during the day in trying to keep perfectly warm; and at night, wet with perspiration and tired out by too much violent exercise, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... to inquiries from the Massachusetts legislature as to whether the Southern attitude was "bluster" or "firm Resolve", Winthrop wrote, "the country has never been in more serious exigency than at present". "The South is angry, mad." "The Union must be saved... by prudence and forbearance." "Most sober men here are apprehensive that the end of the Union is nearer than they have ever before imagined." Winthrop's ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster

... discussion of such extreme cases be of any possible benefit. On the other hand, he who familiarizes himself with the idea that under such a stress of circumstances what else were wrong becomes right, will be prone to apply similar reasoning to an exigency somewhat less urgent, and thence to any case in which great apparent good might result from a departure from strict veracity. Far better is it to make literal truth the unvarying law of life, and then to rest in the assurance that, should an extreme case present itself, ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... separate card, but her name is engraved, or may be written, beneath that of her mother (or chaperon) on a card employed for these joint visits. After a year or so of social experience (the period being governed by the youth or maturity of the debutante, or by the exigency of making way for a younger sister to be chaperoned), the young woman becomes an identity socially, and has her separate card, subject to the general rules for women's cards, even though she continues to pay her most formal visits in ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... always full; and they are capitally kept houses. That, of itself, is enough to keep any man busy. The whole burden of both hotel and farm rests on his shoulders. And yet he is elder and member of the board of trustees, and on hand, in every kind of exigency, in the church. He is one of the public school commissioners, is active in getting new roads laid out, and public improvements introduced, is the real founder of our new academy, and, in short, has a hand in every good work that is ever undertaken ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott

... opinion could not take alarm at phraseology so guarded and at the same time so decided; and yet it proved broad enough to include every great exigency which the conflict still had ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... subjects, and about thirty thousand hired from other princes, either wholly by the Queen, or jointly by her and the States. The Duke immediately informed the court of the dispositions he found among the foreign generals upon this occasion; and that, upon an exigency, he could only depend on the British troops adhering to him; those of Hanover having already determined to desert to the Dutch, and tempted the Danes to do the like, and that he had reason to suppose ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... instruct the people in their political duties. No enlightened Protestant congregation would endure this interference. No Protestant minister dares ever to discuss direct political issues from the pulpit, except perhaps on Thanksgiving Day, or in some rare exigency in public affairs. Still less would he venture to tell his parishioners how they should vote in town-meetings. In imitation of ancient saints and apostles, he is wisely constrained from interference in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... wrong—the sad deeds and wrathful words of party feud and civil war—between thy royal mother and myself; and though we may unite now against a common foe, much I fear that the Lady Margaret would brook ill a closer friendship, a nearer tie, than the exigency of the hour between Richard Nevile and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... property by all the lawful means of trade and industry. Instead of an absolute sacrifice, a moderate proportion was accepted by the ministers of the gospel; and in their weekly or monthly assemblies, every believer, according to the exigency of the occasion, and the measure of his wealth and piety, presented his voluntary offering for the use of the common fund. [131] Nothing, however inconsiderable, was refused; but it was diligently inculcated; that, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... conquest of the Spanish territory, had now become commander of the entire island. Performing all the executive duties, he made laws to suit the exigency of the times. His Egeria was temperance accompanied with a constant ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... a vessel was built, but where is she owned? To the security which the law of nations gives to such vessels against all nations, are added particular stipulations with three of the belligerent powers. Had it not been in our power to enlarge our national stock of shipping suddenly in the present exigency, a great proportion of our produce must have remained on our hands for want of the means of transportation to market. At this time, indeed, a great proportion is in that predicament. The most rigorous ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... They touched, I remember, on certain matters of technique, and the doctor confessed that he had a prejudice against some words that he could not overcome; for instance, he said, nothing could induce him to use 'neath for beneath, no exigency of versification or stress of rhyme. Lowell contended that he would use any word that carried his meaning; and I think he did this to the hurt of some of his earlier things. He was then probably in the revolt against too much literature in literature, which ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... see what Burgoyne's chosen route offered of advantage or disadvantage. The distance by it to Fort Edward is only twenty-six miles. By a good road, in easy marches, an army should be there in two days; in an exigency, in one. It was mostly a wilderness country, and, though generally level, much of it was a bog, which could only be made passable by laying down a corduroy road. There were miles of such road to be repaired or built before wagons or artillery could be dragged over it. ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... anchor, at the south-west point of the great Gulf of Nankin; where I learned by accident that two Dutch ships were gone the length before me, and that I should certainly fall into their hands. I consulted my partner again in this exigency, and he was as much at a loss as I was. I then asked the old pilot if there was no creek or harbour which I might put into and pursue my business with the Chinese privately, and be in no danger of the ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... strong central government, and that our democracy would be menaced with failure by that lack. That his prophecy has proved false and our federal government has become so strong is due only to the accidents of our history and the exigency of the tremendous problems we have had ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs

... both people and government of the United States have manifested the liveliest sympathy;) and advocate principles, entirely harmonizing with the official declarations of your government? And what is it I say to the people in my public addresses? I say, "the exigency of circumstances has raised the question of foreign policy to the highest standard of importance,—the question is introduced to the Congress, it must therefore be brought to a decision, it cannot be passed in silence any more. Your representatives in Congress ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... can only be by the diffusion of information from this central committee. An appeal must be made to the whole country, if this great destitution is to be met in any part by voluntary aid. The nation at large must be made fully acquainted with the exigency of the case, and we must be reminded that a national responsibility rests upon us. I will, therefore, suggest that this general committee should be made a national committee, and we shall then get rid of this little difficulty with ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh

... soon as he arrived in Germany. For now, said he, procrastination and the conciliatory demeanor of the Evangelicals, especially of Melanchthon and Brueck, had made it impossible to rouse the Emperor to such a degree as the exigency of the case demanded. (Plitt, 63.) Luther wrote: "For that shameless gab and bloodthirsty sophist, Doctor Eck, one of their chief advisers, publicly declared in the presence of our people that if the Emperor had followed the resolution made ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... that it contained nails, or other articles for traffic with the natives. The most diligent search, therefore, was made, and a large reward was offered for the finding of the quadrant, but with no degree of success. In this exigency, Mr. Banks was of eminent service. As this gentleman had more influence over the Indians than any other person on board the Endeavour, and as there could be little doubt of the quadrant's having been conveyed away by some of the natives, he determined to go in search of it into the woods; and it ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... mountains, or like the timid fox by the eager sportsman, were obliged in self-defense to meet cunning with cunning, and to borrow from the birds and animals their mode of eluding their pursuers by any device which in the exigency of the case might present itself to them. They had a creed of their own, and a code of morals which we dare not criticise till we find our own lives and those of our dear ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford

... course by Mrs. Lennox: still she had promised Letitia Ferguson to be gracious to the Seymours in their exigency, and to call on the Follingsbees; so there was a confusion all round. The young people of both families declared that they were going, just to see the fun. Bob Lennox, with the usual vivacity of Young America, said he didn't "care a hang who set a ball ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... actual, imminent, and fearful peril confronted her. Under such circumstances most women would have fainted, and, indeed, if Gwen had herself been asked how she would have acted under such a supreme test, she would have prophesied the same maidenly course as her own, yet, in the real exigency—how little do we know of ourselves, save what actual experience has taught us!—this is precisely what she did not do. When the horrible apparition first rose in her very face, as it were, a momentary weakness caught her and she clung to the sash for support. Then the wonderful fire of ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... supporter of an ancient name, they would confess was to be regretted. But I had many resources left. My brother would probably have received me into his family, and I might have been preserved from the sensations of exigency and want. And could I think of being obliged for this to a brother, who had always beheld me with aversion, who was not of a character to render the benefits he conferred insensible to the receiver, and who, it was scarcely to be supposed, ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin

... the soldiers remained in their camp, monotonously drilling day after day through all the summer and half the autumn. At length, on the eleventh of October, Dudley received a letter from Lord Sunderland, informing him that the promised forces had been sent to Portugal to meet an exigency of the European war. They were to have reached Boston, as we have seen, by the middle of May. Sunderland's notice of the change of destination was not written till the twenty-seventh of July, and was eleven weeks on its way, thus imposing ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... a girl wade a brook, innocently immodest, suddenly ceased for Neale. There was something else. He had only meant to tease; he was going to carry her; he started back. And then he halted. There was a strange earnestness in Allie's face—a deliberateness in her intent, out of all proportion to the exigency of the moment. It was as if she must cross that brook. But she kept halting. "Come on!" Neale called. And she moved again. Every time this happened she seemed to be compelled to go on. When she got into the swift water, nearly to her knees, then she might well have faltered. Yet ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... has acquired, in the United States, all the practical development which the imagination can conceive. It is unencumbered by those fictions which have been thrown over it in other countries, and it appears in every possible form according to the exigency of the occasion. Sometimes the laws are made by the people in a body, as at Athens; and sometimes its representatives, chosen by universal suffrage, transact business in its name, and almost under ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... case &c. 8. % Relative % 8. Circumstance. — N. circumstance, situation, phase, position, posture, attitude, place, point; terms; regime; footing, standing, status. occasion, juncture, conjunctive; contingency &c. (event) 151. predicament; emergence, emergency; exigency, crisis, pinch, pass, push; occurrence; turning point. bearings, how the land lies. surroundings, context, environment 229a[TE 232]; location 184. contingency, dependence (uncertainty) 475; causation 153, attribution 155. Adj. circumstantial; given, conditional, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... organized, we shall generally find that it is likewise utility. Architecture, for instance, has all its forms suggested by practical demands. Use requires our buildings to assume certain determinate forms; the mechanical properties of our materials, the exigency of shelter, light, accessibility, economy, and convenience, dictate the arrangements ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... friend. He was in the habit of calling in upon their families in a social and respecting way. In all their troubles and adversities he trained them to counsel with him, and gave them the advantage of his riper judgment and larger vision. In cases of exigency his means were at their service in the way of loans to tide them over the hard times. His friends have seen, more than once, coming from his private office some of the hard-fisted men of toil in his employ, with tears streaming down their faces. He had called them ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... notice. In her struggle every day for food and warmth for her children, she had no leisure for the indulgence of self- congratulation. Like the woman of Scripture, she had only "done what she could," in the terrible exigency that had broken the dreary ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... trust your Honors will not question that to God, who seeks not the death of the sinner, belongs obedience rather than to man. We feel certain that your Honors will exhibit yourselves, in this pressing exigency and sorrowful season, as men and christians, and conclude with God's help, an honorable and reasonable capitulation. May the Lord our God be pleased to grant this ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... particularly the Channel fleet) that they will cause the public worship of Almighty God to be duly and regularly performed on board the ships under their command, and that nothing but the most pressing exigency shall prevent Divine service from being publicly read every Sunday on board the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... with utter dread, that he leaned against one of the tall carved posts, and hated himself for having left her with a heartlessness that his worst enemy could not have surpassed. Then aroused into new and spasmodic energy by the exigency of the case, he seized the lamp, and going out to the hall, made the house ring from basement to attic with her name. No reply, but that hollow, melancholy echo that sounds so lugubriously through empty houses, was returned; and he jumped down stairs with an impetuous ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify. The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded. Suppose, by some forced constructions ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... of the Bank of England meet the demands of public exigency at the time; it also created an institution which was to become vitally important in the expanding life of the nation. This custodian of the public money and manager of the public debt of Great Britain is now the largest bank in the world. The only other financial institution that could show an ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... Westminster, should be free and open to receive and protect them. He likewise directed that all cities and towns should, without contradiction or opposition, receive the citizens and permit them free exercise of their manual labours: he promising, when the present exigency had passed away, to take care the said persons should be no burden to such ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... them, and small daily offerings were made to them, over and above what fell to their share on solemn feast-days. In return, they became the protectors of the household, its guardians and its counsellors. Appeal was made to them in every exigency of daily life, and their decisions were no less scrupulously carried out by their little circle of worshippers, than was the will of the feudal god by the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... coming of the morrow he was on his way to Versailles, and my Lady Dunstanwolde, having received news of the sudden exigency and his departure, sate in her chamber alone gazing as into vacancy, with a hunted look in her ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... treatises illustrating the work of the office, and books of reference innumerable, are there; and the stationery shows a delightful variety of shape, size, and texture, adapted to every conceivable exigency of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... few enquiries, and dropped the subject; but the following week, she heard him enter with unusual haste; it was to inform her, that he had made interest with a person of some consequence, whom he had once obliged in a very disagreeable exigency, in a foreign country; and that he had procured a place for her friend, which would infallibly lead to something better, if he behaved with propriety. Mary could not speak to thank him; emotions of gratitude and love suffused her face; her blood ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft

... make any suggestion as to the details of the proposed system. The wisdom of Congress, aided by the experience and the advice of the Executive, will no doubt be sufficient for the great exigency. But in any plan which may be adopted, certain general principles must obtain. They must look to these cardinal points: the actual and complete emancipation of the slave, and his education as far as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in committee of correspondence upon matters of great importance. This waits on you by Mr. Oliver Wendel, who is one of a committee of this town to communicate with the gentlemen of Salem and Marblehead, upon the present exigency. ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... that I had myself advanced the amount in cash. It was considered as bribery, as a douceur from the government, because I at once agreed to take the smallest sum with which I could have been satisfied in a case of the greatest exigency. Thus the bill went from my possession, and if it be paid, will certainly not be paid to me. Hence, Madam, I consider my honour to be suspected! not on account of my discharge, which, if I had not received, I should have applied for. You look serious, Madam! Why do you not laugh? ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... Nothing was wanting to complete our situation but the addition of physical evil to our moral plague, and that is come in the shape of the cholera, which broke out at Sunderland a few days ago. To meet the exigency Government has formed another Board of Health, but without dissolving the first, though the second is intended to swallow up the first and leave it a mere nullity. Lord Lansdowne, who is President of the Council, an office which for once promises not ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... should think fit. He employed it, he says, for the Mahratta expedition. Now he began that letter on the 29th of November by telling you that the bribe would not have been taken from Cheyt Sing, if it had not been at the instigation of an exigency which it seems required a supply of money, to be procured lawfully or unlawfully. But in fact there was no exigency for it before the Berar army came upon the borders of the country,—that army which he invited by his careless conduct towards the Rajah of Berar, and whose hostility he was obliged ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... rarest descriptive talent, of pertinacity, loyalty to personal conviction, and a manly, firm, yet not unkindly spirit, could be imagined than the position thus assumed, and the manner in which he met the exigency. As we gazed and listened, we understood clearly why, as a man, Cooper had been viewed from such extremes of prejudice and partiality; we recognized at once the generosity and courage, and the willfulness and pride of his ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... tongue, whereby he could set out his parts to the best advantage.' She was diverted by his flights of fancy emphasized by the broad Devon accent, which, to the day of his death, he never lost, or tried to lose. She must have been conscious of depths of capacity, to which, whatever the exigency, appeal was never made in vain. But the surpassing attraction for her was the feeling that he and his grandeur were her ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... shift of speakers then, this time a private, still too rangy, but his looseness of frame seeming already to conform to the exigency of uniform. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... whatever political exigency may have dictated this short-tenure system, it was economically unsound and could not remain long in practice. The measures adopted to soften the aspect of these wholesale changes in the eyes of the hereditary nobility whom they so greatly affected, have been partly noted ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... benefit of the respondent. Every person in the room, indeed, at length became convinced that the young Indian had told the truth, and that he could know nothing of Gaut's guilt, though unconciously made a witness in his favor; with the view, probably, of meeting just such an exigency as had occurred ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... was immediately apprized of this unexpected and unwelcome visit. In the exigency, the beldame was awakened and consulted; she averred that it was always unlucky to kill a seal, but suggested that the animal should be deprived of sight, and a third time carried out to sea. To this hellish proposition the besotted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various

... it happened. There is an excellent fellow—once a minister—I will call him Isaacs—who deserves well of the world till he dies, and after—because he once, in a real exigency, did the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, as no other man could do it. In the world's great football match, the ball by chance found him loitering on the outside of the field; he ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... observed in the Roman Catholic Church. On the birth of his child, he set before the little band of his fellow-believers his reluctance to countenance the corruptions of that church, and his inability to go elsewhere in search of a purer sacrament. He adjured them to meet his exigency and that of other parents, by the consecration of one of their own number as a minister. He denounced the anger of the Almighty if they suffered his child to die without a participation in the ordinance instituted by the Master whom they professed to serve. So earnest ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... "In this exigency," to adopt the language of an enlightened practical educator and eminent statesman, "we need far more of wisdom and rectitude than we possess. Preparations for our present condition have been so long neglected, that we now have a double duty to perform. We have not only to propitiate ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew



Words linked to "Exigency" :   crisis, exigent



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