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More "Dilemma" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In this dilemma, Montrose, who considered the proposed armistice as a mere stratagem on the part of Argyle, although he had not ventured bluntly to reject it in presence of those whom it concerned so nearly, resolved ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... her peace of mind, however, only one other letter made such a request, but a new dilemma arose. Packages began to arrive with insufficient postage, and the crippled girl's pocket money vanished with alarming rapidity. The letter carrier always delivered the daily budget of mail to the ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the organ, if the organist failed to appear, believing that power would be given him. Christ Himself warned His disciples against embarking in an enterprise without counting the cost. But here I confess was the darkest point of my dilemma—was it cowardice and indolence to refuse to attempt what competent persons believed I could do? or was it prudent and wise to refuse to attempt what I, knowing my own temperament better, felt I could ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... front, and scarcely 500 yards distant, we saw a gate with embattled towers, the high walls of the city, and a bastion. We were soon descried by the enemy, who depressed their guns and fired at us with grape, fortunately without hitting any of our party. We were in a complete dilemma, under fire of the batteries, cut off from our force, and liable at any moment to be surrounded; so, deeming discretion the better part of valour, we turned about and ran with all speed to the rear, coming upon a troop of Horse Artillery, which ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... household. The laws concerning debt, in most countries, are so unmercifully severe, that I could not altogether disbelieve his statement; and my arrest, in the present circumstances, would have been a coup-de-grace to my father's affairs. In this dilemma, I asked Owen if he had not thought of having recourse to my father's other correspondent in Glasgow, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... reason of my despair, and the cowardly act I had attempted to escape her father's wrath. Brettison, old friend, I make no excuses to you now; but was I not sorely tried? Surely, few men in our generation have stood in such a dilemma. Can you feel surprised that, stricken from my balance as a man—a sane and thoughtful man—I should have acted as I did, and dug for myself a pit of such purgatory as makes me feel now, as I sit here making my ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... eyebrows with polite incredulity. MACARTNEY, sitting behind, proffered his. GORST planted it on his head; found it three sizes too small; still, if he held on to it, he might manage. "Mr. MELLOR," he commenced, but got no further with projected speech. Attention of House drawn to him his dilemma discovered: shout of laughter burst forth as hat gradually tilted forward, and GORST, deftly catching it by brim on tip of his nose, balanced it for fifteen seconds by Westminster Clock. Chairman seized opportunity of abstracted attention ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... in this dilemma, blushed, and without making the least reply, drew her veil over her face, thereby intimating a denial to her father's request, and sunk into the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... call, because, as his nervousness subsided, he disliked to cut a poor figure, but at this point in his dilemma what he had feared actually happened; as he brought his leg and almost half of his body up through the hole another piece of planking came away and he was left clasping the edge of rotten wood in a state of collapse hardly ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... so excited by the events of the evening, and the dilemma that he was placed in between conscience and love, that he did not sleep, or even doze, but remained as broadly awake as at noonday. As soon as the grey light began to touch ever so faintly the whiter objects in his bedroom he arose, dressed himself, and went ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... plenty of more refined and intellectual preachers, whose sentiments deserve at least the respect due to tender and humane feeling. They have found a solution, satisfactory to themselves, of the great dilemma which presses on so many minds. A religion really to affect the vulgar must be a superstition; to satisfy the thoughtful, it must be a philosophy. Is it possible to contrive so to fuse the crude with the ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... 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 room next ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... prefers to be in debt. Debts are chosen as the least of the evils. The natural resources are occupied and the opportunities of life are denied. Lands and all tools of production are withheld and the horns of the dilemma are debt or privation. The independent spirit shrinks from debt until the struggle of life becomes desperate, when he turns to the other ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... these that envy rules. If you inquire of people without influence you learn nothing from them, since they do not understand the matter; if you ask professional people they speak enviously or selfishly, and that constitutes our dilemma. Our attention may be called to envy by the speaker's hesitation, his reserved manner of answering. This is the same in all classes, and is valuable because it may warn us ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... general again sang out: “Sound the charge!” and yet the bugler was unable to obey the command. Quartermaster Hays, who had obtained permission to accompany the expedition, was riding near the general, and comprehending the dilemma of the man, rushed up to him, jerked the bugle from his hands, and sounded the charge himself in clear and distinct notes. As the troops rushed forward, he threw the bugle away, then, drawing his pistols, was among the first men that entered ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... effect of any base concession made by the present House of Commons, and, as a qualifying measure would not be accepted, it remains for you to decide whether you will, at any hazard, support a set of men who have reduced you to this unhappy dilemma, or whether you will gratify the united wishes of the whole people of ...
— English Satires • Various
... in showing how curiously some of our best varieties originate. Moreover, it suggests a dilemma. How is it possible that an Antwerp—one of the most tender varieties—could have been the parent of the hardiest known raspberry? How could a sort having every characteristic of our native R. Strigosus spring direct from ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... James to resist the dictation of his uncle, he privately accused those of the Scottish nobles who had joined the Reformers of meditated treason against His Majesty. This placed the king in a serious dilemma, for he could not proceed against Henry without the assistance of those very nobles accused as traitors. The wily Cardinal had hoped that James would, in self-defence, seek an alliance with France and Spain; but he was ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... Province, that he might not sadden with the one hand those whom he was gladdening with the other. Herein he compares favourably with Joseph, who sold corn to the Egyptians, but on such terms that they lost their personal freedom. Doubtless that holy man was placed in a dilemma between the necessity of satisfying a covetous King on the one hand, and that of rescuing a starving people on the other. Still I must think that the Egyptian, whose life was preserved, groaned over the loss of his liberty; ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... anxious to save the skins before leaving to return to the ship. But when eleven o'clock arrived with no news of you, I felt convinced that something had gone wrong, and then we all felt ourselves to be in a dilemma. For there were only two courses open to us: first, to stay where we were and await your return; or, secondly, to go in search of you. By adopting the first alternative, we should be on the spot where you would naturally expect to find ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... stopped, in fording a brook, to water old Prince, and were suddenly startled by the sound of thunder, Albert felt a little conscience-smitten that he had not traveled more diligently toward his destination. And when he drove on a quarter of a mile, he found himself in a most unpleasant dilemma, the two horns being two roads, concerning which those who directed him had neglected to give him any advice. Katy had been here before, and she was very sure that to the right hand was the road. There was now no time to turn back, for the storm was already upon them—one of those fearful thunderstorms ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... pantheism, which embraces all things, covers all sides of all questions. It sees no difficulties even between things which are morally opposites. Contradictions are not obstacles, and both sides of a dilemma may be harmonized. And to a great extent this same vagueness of conviction characterizes all the heathen systems of the East. The Buddhists and the Shintoists in Japan justify their easy-going partnership by the favorite maxim that, while "there ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... smack, and Milord's epigrams poisoned my memory of A Drama in Muslin. But they cannot be omitted without much re-writing, I said, and remembering my oath never to attempt the re-writing of an old book again, I fell back on the exclusion of A Drama in Muslin as the only way out of the dilemma. A wavering resolution was precipitated by recollection of some disgraceful pages, but a moment after I was thinking that the omission of the book would create a hiatus. A Drama in Muslin, I reflected, is a link between two styles; and a book that ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... by the man who rifled the papers. There were no footmarks and no other evidence as to his identity. I was at my wits' ends, when suddenly the happy thought occurred to me that you were in the town, and I came straight round to put the matter into your hands. Do help me, Mr. Holmes! You see my dilemma. Either I must find the man or else the examination must be postponed until fresh papers are prepared, and since this cannot be done without explanation there will ensue a hideous scandal, which will throw a cloud not only on the college, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... always been met by an unjust dilemma. When she has been disturbed the reply has been that till quiet is restored nothing can be done, and when a peaceful Ireland has demanded legislation the absence of agitation has been adduced as a reason for the retort that the request is ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... I had made up my mind what to do, and the conclusion seemed to afford me the means of escaping both horns of the dilemma into which I was plunged. I glanced at the memoranda which Mr. Whippleton handed to me, and I saw that about twenty-five thousand dollars would be required to make the purchase he contemplated. Our cash balance in the bank was about six thousand, and Mr. Collingsby was ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... house-to-house visitation was impossible, I abandoned the quest, and drove to a photographer's to buy some views of the town. The photographer proved to be a chatty, vivacious man, and full of information. I mentioned my dilemma to him. He said that the policeman had told the exact truth, but that my author, to his positive knowledge, was in the Crimea, "looking up material." Then he questioned me as to what we had seen at the Fair, mentioning one or two places ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... by the taunting intonation which pointed this remark, replied frankly, "I suppose I must have been guilty of imagining that I had; but, indeed, it was unpremeditated vanity. I really did not reflect upon the subject. I was only anxious to get over the dilemma in which we are placed ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... day without destroying its independence altogether; and to make the House of Lords a mere tool in the hands of every cabinet would be well-nigh impossible and politically absurd."[165] Therein must be adjudged still to lie (p. 116) the essential dilemma of English politics. ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... inspecting them with greater zeal than before, hoping, by continually looking at them, to be able eventually to understand their meaning, in which hope you may easily believe I was disappointed, though my desire to understand what they represented continued on the increase. In this dilemma I determined to apply again to the shopkeeper from whom I bought the tea. I found him in rather low spirits, his shirt-sleeves were soiled, and his hair was out of curl. On my inquiring how he got on, he informed me that he intended ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... he think a religion is, on this sector, anyhow? You think these savages dreamed up that six-armed monstrosity, up there, to express their yearning for higher things, or to symbolize their moral ethos, or as a philosophical escape-hatch from the dilemma of causation? They never even heard of such matters. On this sector, gods are strictly utilitarian. As long as they take care of their worshipers, they get their sacrifices: when they can't put out, they have to get out. How ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... opponent. Thus Augusta Goold and her friends were genuinely desirous of striking a blow at England, and really believed that their volunteers might do it; but this did not prevent them from finding infinite relish in the prospect of watching Mr. O'Rourke squirming on the horns of a dilemma. They took counsel together, and the result of their deliberations was peculiar. They proposed to invite Mr. O'Rourke to join his appeal to theirs, to pool the money which came in, and to divide it evenly between ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfortunately, impossible to entirely separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement, and so give a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... occasion, the Negro can never know whether he would be welcomed or not; if he goes he is liable to have his feelings hurt and get into unpleasant altercation; if he stays away, he is blamed for indifference. If he meet a lifelong white friend on the street, he is in a dilemma; if he does not greet the friend he is put down as boorish and impolite; if he does greet the friend he is liable to be flatly snubbed. If by chance he is introduced to a white woman or man, he expects to be ignored on the next meeting, and usually ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... her mistress fare without her?" he said ruefully "'Tis not to be thought of; they may be miles from home, even here, and I am too much a squire of dames to take such unkind advantage. There must be some other way out of my present dilemma than this," and rolling over on the mixture of grass and dry leaves which formed his resting-place he lay ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... mark the spots where noble enterprises perished for lack of physical vigor to embody them in deeds." Thus wrote the educator, Horace Mann. And his words apply with special force to the worker in the arts. One should bear in mind that the latter is in a peculiar dilemma. His nerve-racking, confining, exhausting work always tends to enfeeble and derange his body. But the claims of the work are so exacting that it is no use for him to spare intensity. Unless he is doing ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... just made things worse. Somewhere, human society had gotten into a trap, a vicious circle. It had reached the end of its progressive tether, it had no place to go, no place to expand, to great common goal. So ideologies arose to try to solve the dilemma of a basically static society, and they fought wars. And they reached a point, finally, where they could destroy themselves unless they broke the vicious ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... cylinder and the rings of the piston from the heat of the ignited gases. I have just learned that something of the kind is under trial. Another solution may possibly be found in the employment of a fluid piston; but here we are placed in a dilemma between the liquids that are decomposed and the metals that are oxidized at high temperatures. Next, the loss by radiation—15 per cent.—seems large; but this is to be attributed to the fact that the inside surface of the cylinder ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... forth in that direction, they would in all probability be cut off, and the fort fall into the possession of the enemy. This of course was not to be thought of. But what was to be done? To be without water in a protected siege, was a dangerous and painful alternative. In this agitating dilemma, one of the ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... compelled to follow his example. We at once sent back word that our poverty would not permit us to accede to their most modest request, and threw ourselves on the Superior of the convent to extricate us from our dilemma. A guard had now become a necessity, for the poor muleteer was so badly frightened by all the terrible things he had heard, that if we had promised him his weight in gold to be delivered at Beirut he would not have stirred ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... of the hill, listens and 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 game or ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... Here was a dilemma. Ridge could not, of course, obey this order, since every moment was precious. To disobey would cause his arrest and detention in the guard-house. Nor could he inform even this officer of the secret mission on which he was engaged. At that ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... his other hand, but he could not reach the little leather bag with its silver clasp. If he could have jumped out of the window, he would have done so without hesitation, but the aperture was not large enough. He could not help being amused by the dilemma in which he was placed by this young lady's inflexibility. He did not know a girl, his sister not excepted, whom, under the circumstances, he would not have left to the consequences of what he would have called her obstinacy. But ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... tears, either of pretended remorse or of real vexation at having committed himself. On several occasions Mahomed Akber personally, and by deputy, besought Skinner and myself to give him advice as to how he was to extricate himself from the dilemma in which he was placed, more than once endeavouring to excuse himself for not having effectually protected the Envoy, by saying that Sir William had drawn a sword-stick upon him. It seems that meanwhile the renewed negotiations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... presentation of this case, your Worship," he went on, "the Crown is in somewhat of a dilemma. We have secured one important and, I think, convincing witness—a man who has been closely associated with the prisoner, a Scandinavian named Hanson, who, considering himself badly treated by this gang, has been for a long time secretly getting together evidence of an incriminating ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... appeals founded on it. And as, with the so-called Christian, I desired to plead for honest declaration and fulfilment of his belief in life,—with the so-called Infidel, I desired to plead for an honest declaration and fulfilment of his belief in death. The dilemma is inevitable. Men must either hereafter live, or hereafter die; fate may be bravely met, and conduct wisely ordered, on either expectation; but never in hesitation between ungrasped hope, and unconfronted fear. We usually believe ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... aware that 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; ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... the sententious solemnity of the despairing hero, crossed in the prosecution of his love-suit. His clumsy interference in the intrigues of his friend only serves to augment his difficulties, and occasions many an awkward dilemma. On the other hand, the shrewdness of the heroine's confidantes never seems to fail them under the most trying circumstances; while their sly jokes and innuendos, their love of fun, their girlish sympathy with the progress of the love affair, their warm affection for their friend, ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... dilemma of her education, and madame's increasing sensitiveness about her appearance in the fifth class, by the death of the old grandmother. She went home to the funeral, and never returned—or at least she returned, but only for madame. There was a little scene in the parlor: Pupasse, ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... called her mammy, and was just such as the baron would have longed to call his son, but that he could by no means make his age correspond with his own departure for Palestine. He applied, therefore, to his wife for the solution of the dilemma, who, after many floods of tears, informed her husband that, walking one day along the banks of the river, a human form arose from a deep eddy, termed Tweed-pool, who deigned to inform her that he was the tutelar genius of the stream, and he became the father of the ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... however, cleared away but the minor half of the dilemma. Had she been willing to accept Martin's sacrifice of himself and marry him, there still remained the wall,—the obstacle that for generations had loomed between the peace of Howe and Webster and now loomed ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... of devoted attachment, and by actual and zealous as well as able services, and at length becoming in fact nearly as great a knave as the knaves (Duke of Buckingham for example) whose favor and support he had been conciliating,—till at last in some dilemma, some strait between conscience and fear, and increased confidence in his own political strength, he opposes or hesitates to further some too foolish or wicked project of his patron knave, or affronts his pride by counselling a different course (not a less wicked, but one more profitable ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... 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 if this be so, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... his task. Only a few lines are now required to fill the column, but Mr. Scalper finds on examining the correspondence that he has exhausted the subjects. This, however, is quite a common occurrence and occasions no dilemma in the mind of the talented gentleman. It is his custom in such cases to fill up the space with an imaginary character or two, the analysis of which is a task most congenial to his mind. He bows his head in thought for a few moments, and ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... chance of extrication from the dull drawing-room, because the etiquette of precedence is not rightly understood, and nobody knows who ought to be led out first; all the way down stairs a dead silence, and then the difficulty of distributing the company almost equals the previous dilemma of the drawing-room: wives are wittily warned against sitting by husbands, and two gentlemen are facetiously interdicted from sitting together; the hostess takes the top of the table to be useful, not ornamental, for fish and joint and turkey, must she carve; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... form to which we are accustomed. To emphasise the problem by offering it to us in an allegory, of which we are presumed to possess a key, serves only to revive Man Friday's question, or the old dilemma which neither intellect nor imagination has ever dealt with successfully. 'Deus aut non vult tollere mala, aut nequit. Si non vult non est bonus. Si nequit non est omnipotens.' It is wiser to confess with Butler that 'there may be necessities in the ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... for Richard, which we have hesitated to accept or refuse, wishful to do right, and afraid of doing wrong. In this dilemma, we cast ourselves at the footstool of mercy, my husband and mother uniting with me, and were fully enabled to roll our care upon God, who wonderfully undertook for us. I believe we have ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... mention the name of Marionetta; he trembled lest some unlucky accident should reveal it to Stella, though he scarcely knew what result to wish or anticipate, and lived in the double fever of a perpetual dilemma. He could not dissemble to himself that he was in love, at the same time, with two damsels of minds and habits as remote as the antipodes. The scale of predilection always inclined to the fair one who happened to be present; but the absent was never effectually ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... 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 us all very much. He had many Americans in his train, though, who were ready to ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... homesick, amid the myriad men of a busy city. He argued to himself that this was absurd, and yet he knew that he was longing for human companionship. When he looked about him for fellowship he found himself in a strange dilemma: those black folk in whom he recognized the old sweet-tempered Negro traits, had also looser, uglier manners than he was accustomed to, from which he shrank. The upper classes of Negroes, on the other hand, he still observed from afar; ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... us," cried Bill Witt grinning, as the group of boys retreated down the passageway leading forward from the conning tower into the main torpedo compartment. Lieutenant McClure and his officers were conferring together over the Dewey's dilemma. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... into that intersecting stream which you call a kennel, and I a river. Pray, Mr. Aberton, what do you think I did in that dangerous dilemma?" ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "that is a good way out of our dilemma. The villains will be carried far away from this vicinity and will without doubt get all that's coming to them. What more can we ask? We've won the game—taken every trick and made a clean sweep of the whole business. Now that I've got Lola home I don't much care ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... Here, then, was a dilemma! It would not be possible to go to every room, and examine the wardrobe of every scholar; besides, now it was known that the bit had been found, and might easily be made to lead to a discovery of the guilty ones, what more natural than that the dress should ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... can hardly be supposed he would have opposed his father's measures, or his reelection. Yet to have thrown his influence in their behalf, would have subjected him to the imputation of being moved by filial attachment rather than the convictions of duty. From this painful dilemma, he was saved by his foreign residence. He came home uncommitted to party measures, untrammelled by party tactics or predilections; and thus stood before the people, as he could wish to stand, perfectly unshackled, and ready to act as ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... abnegation that alone can hold a people to the political institutions of the old order and make them a willing instrument in the hands of the dynastic statesmen. The dynastic State is apparently caught in a dilemma. The necessary preparation for warlike enterprise on the modern plan can apparently be counted on, in the long run, to disintegrate the foundations of the dynastic State. But it is only in the long run that ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... St. Mary's, I should be compelled to return without finding any settler upon its banks at the proper point of departure for a portage to the Suwanee, it became necessary to abandon all idea of ascending this river. I could not, however, give up the exploration of the route. In this dilemma, a kindly written letter seemed to solve the difficulties. Messrs. Dutton & Rixford, northern gentlemen, who possessed large facilities for the manufacture of resin and turpentine at their new settlements of Dutton, six miles from the St. Mary's River, and at Rixford, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... her cook and had telephoned in vain for another. Dinner guests were expected and she was desperate. Finally, putting on her things, she went out, and she hadn't gone far when she met a neat-looking colored woman. She explained her dilemma and the colored woman listened in silence, then she said: "Where do yo' ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... no answer, but secretly groaned in his dilemma, and at length exclaimed: "Insatiate old man, have you no son, the thought of which may teach you to be just towards me and mine? What do I ask of you? Little,—or what would cost you little, yet you ask ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... in the garret. But no way out of the dilemma could I see. I had eaten up all the apples I had brought with me and I felt flabby and disconsolate. The sight of Uncle Abimelech stalking up the lane, as erect and lordly as usual, served to deepen ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... promise was a promise, even if made to a scamp; and then, besides—but there I hesitated; awful thoughts interposed to check me; else I wished to suggest that, perhaps, some two or three among that half dozen kings might also be scamps. However, I reduced the case to this plain dilemma: These six kings had received a promise, or they had not. If they had not, my case was better than theirs; if they had, then, said I, "all seven of us"—I was going to add, "are sailing in the same boat," or something to that effect, though not so picturesquely ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... presents of fruit and flowers, and little ornaments of gold which they gladly exchanged for the usual trifles. Cortes was most anxious to converse with them, but found to his disappointment that Aguilar could not understand their dialect. In this dilemma he was informed that one of the slaves was a Mexican, and could of course speak the language. This was Malinche, or as the Spaniards always called her, 'Marina.' Cortes was so charmed with her beauty and cleverness that he made her his secretary, and kept her ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... excursions in his canoe. On one of these occasions, when far down the river and in vigorous pursuit of a wounded duck, he had the misfortune to break his only paddle short off. In a moment he was helplessly drifting with the powerful current toward the open waters of Lake Erie. In this dilemma, his only resource was to paddle with his hands, and attempt by this tedious method to force his craft to the nearest shore. While he was thus awkwardly engaged, there came it ripple of laughter from close beside him, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... depended entirely upon his trusty navaja, which had never failed him before, and he very well knew that his vaunted band could not come to his rescue. However, he shouted to them to fire, counting upon the sudden terror that command would inspire to deliver him from his dilemma; and, indeed, the comedians, expecting a broadside, did take refuge behind the chariot, whilst even our brave hero involuntarily bent his head a little, to avoid ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... tormented by him. That other creature might reign over him like the full moon dispersing clouds. Well! this is the queerest predicament I ever heard of!' And on he wandered, almost as much diverted by the humour of the doubt, as annoyed by the dilemma. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... should they undertake the publication on their own account. We had no objection to raise a laugh at the expense of others; but to do it at our own cost, uncertain as we were to what extent we might be involved, had never entered into our contemplation. In this dilemma, our 'Addresses,' now in every sense rejected, might probably have never seen the light, had not some good angel whispered us to betake ourselves to Mr. John Miller, a dramatic publisher, then residing in Bow-street, Covent Garden. No sooner had this gentleman looked over ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... himself, not determined even by his own character. And if we ask what it really is that causes him to act, it must be answered, some caprice of the moment, some accidental impulse or arbitrary freak of fancy. The late Professor James makes a valiant attempt to solve the 'dilemma of determinism' by resorting to the idea of 'chance' which he defines as a 'purely relative term, giving us no information about that which is predicated, except that it happens to be disconnected with something else—not controlled, secured or {90} necessitated by other things in advance of its ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... the commentaries of his "best editions." In the pride of boyish learning, Vivian had limited his library to Classics, and the proud leaders of the later schools did not consequently grace his diminutive bookcase. In this dilemma he flew to his father, and confessed by his request that ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... like terrible, yet kind, ministrants proffering escape—escape from legalised violation!—escape from perjury, to her, the self-doomed Iphigenia! For her morbid fancy, whispered to by her intense tenderness, conjured up that dilemma between faith broken to her lover and abandonment of a dear parent to his fate. Despair suggested that self-destruction itself might seem venial, even before God, when rushed upon as the only alternative to perjury—to prostitution; for such her romantic purity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... speech-makers who then governed the country—demagogue lawyers, practised in all the sophistries of republican idealogy: "War for Peace, Lasting Peace at the End ..." (Requiescat) ... In these artifices the poor pacifists saw a way to get out of their dilemma; it was not a very brilliant way and they were not proud of it, but it was their only chance. They hoped to reconcile their pacific principles with the fact of violence by means of "big talk" which did not sound to them as outrageous as it really was. To refuse would have ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... song of "Tannhauser," who, with his C major, is supposed to go beyond Walther. Apart from this, the song of Walther loses by means of this higher C major much of the calm dignity which is its character. The dilemma can be solved only by the part of Walther being sung by a low tenor and that of Heinrich der Schreiber by a high tenor. The two parts therefore must be rewritten, and in all the ensembles Walther should sing the notes which in the score are assigned to Heinrich der Schreiber, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... and one can only buy oil and gasoline by going to a man named Etcheberrigary for it. His address is not given, but any one will tell you where he lives. They may not recognize your pronunciation, but they will recognize your dilemma at once and point the ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... a situation would have paralysed a greater mind than Matthias; and his own prudence would scarcely have extricated him from his dilemma. But the interests of the Roman Catholics were closely interwoven with the imperial authority; if they suffered this to fall, the ecclesiastical princes in particular would be without a bulwark against the attacks of the Protestants. Now, then, that they saw the Emperor wavering, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... other that they will not stand quietly by and see any one of their number favored by a gift of such importance; on the other hand, the presence of an American colony in Eastern Asia will be a thorn in the side of the great powers; we have, therefore, to choose which horn of the dilemma we shall accept. The final settlement of the matter will, no doubt, cause many new complications and material changes in the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... criminal to teach a slave to read; throughout the South, no book could be distributed among the servile population more incendiary than the Bible, if they could only read it. Will not our Southern brethren take alarm? The Society is reduced to the dilemma of either denying that the African has a soul to be saved, or of consenting to the terrible mockery of assuring him that the way of life is to be found only by searching a book which he is forbidden ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... their punishment would be the stripping them of all they were worth; though their judges (however fond of inflicting a chastisement so lucrative to themselves) were perhaps of as tainted a complexion as the delinquents. Mr Anson was not displeased to have caught the Chinese in this dilemma; and he entertained himself for some time with their perplexity, rejecting their money with scorn, appearing inexorable to their prayers, and giving out that the thief should certainly be shot; but as he then foresaw that he should be forced to take shelter in their ports a second time, when ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... one day the young officer, whose name was Don Lopez, informed me that he did not know how to act; he was so pestered with the jealousy and reproaches of his mistress, and requested my advice as to how to proceed. I laughed at his dilemma. "My dear Lopez," replied I, "introduce me to her, and depend upon it that she will give you no more trouble. I will make love to her, and pleased with her new conquest she ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... love neither has nor gains," said Hypatia. "The dilemma hath two sides, and both gain and loss are problematic. It is the ideal of love that enthralls us, not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... upper boxes Lady Erskin had a small unescorted party. Lady Erskin herself was a plump little miniature who was rather exercised over the dilemma of whether to display a huge feathery fan and obliterate herself, or to sacrifice the fan to the glory of being stared at by common people. With her was her sister, the wife of a country rector, who assumed such an ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... I got back to Jamaica; but they said that would not do, and that if I could not pay them they must appeal to the authorities, and that I must be detained. I was in despair. I was eager to be gone. I felt that I should not live if I remained. In my dilemma Lieutenant Lawford, who had a letter of credit on a merchant at Cape Francois, came forward in the most liberal and generous way, and supplied me with fifty dollars, which was all I required to satisfy the demands of ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... sure information that General Urrea, with the vanguard of a large Mexican army, will be here next month. Santa Anna will follow him quickly. You see that the city must either be defended or our men must retreat. I am going to Houston with this dilemma. Luis and Dare will join Fannin at Goliad. Now, my dear child, you have my place to fill. If Santa Anna takes possession of San Antonio, what will ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... who had ordered this ignominious punishment. Jovan had fled to Alessio, in Albania, with a price upon his head, and certain persons came to Marko to beg him to follow the assassin and bring back his head. Marko was then in L.'s service, and confided his dilemma to his master, who told him that if he but harboured such thoughts he was not fit to be his servant. Marko then refused, and Achmed Uiko accepted, murdering Jovan in a boat while fishing, and the head was subsequently displayed in Dulcigno. This is a noteworthy ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... with it. Hence the human intellect again and again makes the attempt to find an answer to the problem of the origin of species in a scientific way, and each endeavor of this kind necessarily ends with the dilemma that either the first individuals of a species, no matter whether it be the highest or the lowest, have been evolved out of inorganic matter, or they originated by descent from the most closely related species of their predecessors. The denial of ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... This dilemma, which applies in so simple a case, applies equally to any wide and sweeping system of Eugenist voting; for though it is true that the community can judge more dispassionately than a man can judge in his own ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... our masts. Five o'clock at last arrived and the tide-eddies ceased, but the stream continued to run until a quarter of an hour afterwards, when at last the brig began to drift out slowly. To add now to the dilemma and the danger we were in a breeze sprung up against us: had it continued calm we should have been drifted back through the deepest part of the channel, over the same ground that the flood had carried us in: we however made sail and beat out, and before dark had made considerable ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... course, the aggrieved brethren persisted in their right to name the Churches on their side. Knowing that they had the right so to do, and that public opinion would sustain them in it, Parris escaped the dilemma, by calling an ex parte Council; and the Churches invited to it were those of North Boston, Weymouth, Malden, and Rowley. The first was that of the Mathers. That Parris was right in relying upon the Rev. Samuel Torrey of Weymouth, is rendered probable by the circumstance ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... ourselves into an infinity of little, jealous, clashing, tumultuous commonwealths, the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord, and the miserable objects of universal pity or contempt. Some of the writers who have come forward on the other side of the question seem to have been aware of the dilemma; and have even been bold enough to hint at the division of the larger States as a desirable thing. Such an infatuated policy, such a desperate expedient, might, by the multiplication of petty offices, answer the views of men who possess not qualifications to ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... the least nonplussed by this recurrence of a dilemma for which he was not responsible. Von Kerber, of course, could have extricated him with a word, but von Kerber, for reasons of his own, remained, invisible. So Dick threw his head back in a characteristic way which people soon learnt to associate with ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... was the most difficult and delicate dilemma of his life—this divided loyalty: to balk Maggie and the two men behind her without revealing the truth about Maggie to Dick, to protect Dick without betraying Maggie. It certainly was ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... scale. In the morning, over the Times, it was extremely difficult to make up one's mind. The Times seemed very mealy-mouthed—that impression, indeed, it took no great cleverness to gather—but the dilemma lay between one's sense of the brutality and cynicism of the usual utterances of the Turkish party and one's perception of the direful ills which Russian conquest was so liberally scattering abroad. The brutality of the Turkish tone, as I sometimes caught an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... in length, had been packed without being placed opposite each other, one being placed several feet too far in one direction, and the other about the same distance in the opposite direction. Here was a dilemma and a difficulty, and an ability in the mind of the young mechanic to meet it, so that, in a very short time, the chords were properly adjusted. He then proceeded with the work, and in three days had nearly completed the first span, when his brother paid a visit ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... a frightful dilemma. He had no trouble whatever in making up his mind to disobey the order, as he was bound to stand by his promise to Miss Grant. But what answer should he send to her father? He was in a reckless mood, but he knew well enough that Grant would order him off ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... in the same dilemma? I suppose, of course, you mean Dr Edward," cried Nettie, with a little flash of mischievous curiosity. "Why? He has nobody but himself. I should like to know why he can't marry—that is, if anybody would have him—when he pleases. Tell me; you know ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... fiction. Fate with him being so largely that impersonal thing, environment; allied with temperament (for which he is not responsible), and with opportunity—another element of luck—it follows logically that man is the sport of the gods. Hardy is unable, like other determinists, to escape the dilemma of free-will versus predestination, and that other crux, the imputation of personality to the workings of so-called natural laws. Indeed curiously, in his gigantic poem-cycle, "the Dynasts," the culmination ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... tea, the nurse at last arose and went away. On her return she recounted to her master and mistress what had taken place, and Sun and his wife found themselves in a difficult dilemma. They could not think of allowing their daughter to ruin her life by entering of her betrothed, if he were going to die, and, if the young man were not seriously ill, they stood the risk of losing all their preparation, and of giving occasion for slander. Suddenly their son Yu-lang, ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... point she found her handkerchief, and, burying her face in it, went on crying. Once more I found myself in the same protracted dilemma. Though vexed, I felt sorry for her, since her tears appeared to be genuine—even though I also had an idea that it was not so much for my mother that she was weeping as for the fact that she was unhappy, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... that the publication of this despatch prevented the House of Assembly from proceeding any farther with Mr. Cartwright's bill, than ordering it to a second reading on the 26th February, 1838. In this dilemma the ruling party were evidently at a loss how to act. It required much tact and skill to break the ranks of the chief forces arrayed against the scheme to revest the reserves in the Crown—a scheme distasteful to ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... went on, "I quite forgive you for landing me in such a dilemma, remembering that you concealed nothing before our ill-advised acquaintance; and that you really did set before me in your grim way the fact of there being a certain risk in intimacy with you, slight as it seemed to be after fifteen or sixteen years of silence on your wife's part. I ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... render this satisfaction; yet he is unable so to do. A sin against God is an infinite offence. It demands an infinite satisfaction. Man can render no satisfaction which is not finite. The way out of this dilemma is the incarnation of the divine Logos. For the god-man, as man, is entitled to bring this satisfaction for men. On the other hand, as God he is able so to do. In his death this satisfaction is embodied. He gave his life ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... seemed to have resolved upon some plan, whereby he hoped to relieve himself from the dilemma that so seriously annoyed him. He was most expert at disguises; indeed, it was often his custom to walk the streets of his capital incog, or to ride out unattended, in a plain citizen's dress, as we have seen, that he might the better ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... Dieuzy? On the left bank, I suppose, in the midst of a hundred natives.... So that, if I escape shipwreck, I shall be picked up on the left by Dieuzy and his natives or else on the right by Ganimard and the Neuilly tribes. A nasty dilemma...." ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... send her away without discovery seemed difficult. To retain her at Beaumanoir in face of the search which he knew would be made by the Governor and the indomitable La Corne St. Luc, was impossible. The quandary oppressed him. He saw no escape from the dilemma; but, to the credit of Bigot be it said, that not for a moment did he entertain a thought of doing injury to the hapless Caroline, or of taking advantage of her lonely condition to add to her distress, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... I insist, the dilemma is upon our hands. Either the sciences constitute a progressive, if imperfect, insight into real truth—and then the cause of the unity of human experience is a real cause that really can be served ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... as usual, Mrs. Hunt came to the rescue. "Now, chickadee," she said, when Marian told her the dilemma she was in, "you just let me have that nice big gray cat of yours. Our house cat got so he wouldn't live anywhere but in the stable, and grew so wild that I scarcely ever saw him; finally he went away altogether. You bring Dippy ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... imputed blemish is a distinct personality, and you reject the insinuated spavin, or the suggested splint, as imputations on your honour as a gentleman. In fact, you are pushed into the pleasant dilemma of either being ignorant as to the defects of your beast, or wilfully bent on an act of palpable dishonesty. When we remember that every confession a man makes of his unacquaintance with matters 'horsy' is, in English acceptance, a count in the indictment ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Varney, "you see the dilemma I am in. Your principals have both challenged me. I am ready to fight any one, or both of them, as the case may be. Distinctly understand that; because it is a notion of theirs that I will not do so, or that I shrink from them; but I ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Constantinople. The second Council of Nicea had authorized image-worship, but the good sense of Charlemagne was superior to such idolatry. He openly expressed his disapproval, and even dictated a work against it—the Carolinian books. The pope was therefore placed in a singular dilemma, for not only had image-worship been restored at Constantinople, and the original cause of the dispute removed, but the new protector, Charlemagne, had himself embraced iconoclasm. However, it was not without reason that the pope at this time avoided the discussion, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... my Lapp guide offered to sleep alongside of me, and added, "We shall be warmer if we sleep together." I was in a dilemma. I did not want to offend him, but I told him that I always slept by myself. Then the owner of the place spread another reindeer skin on the floor, and my ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... really placed Mr. Hastings in an extremely awkward dilemma. Dr. Armitage was not only his family physician, but the two had had all sorts of business dealings together of which only they two knew the nature; but then, on the other hand, Mr. Hastings believed that Dr. Arnold had saved the life of his son. He knew that life ...
— Three People • Pansy
... still and gaze. The strange figure, in the meantime, had become aware of him, and it also came to a standstill, as if in a dilemma. At that, Bearhunter walked over to the farther side of the road and took his station there, trying to look indifferent, for he did not wish to cause any fright. The strange figure then made its way carefully forward again, ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... Mendocino City, or Big River, as it is more commonly called up here on the northern coast, the mail was carried on horse—or, more usually, on mule—back; and the mail-rider was caught, on one stormy and dark night, upon the road, and found himself unable to go farther. In this dilemma he took refuge, with his mule and the United States mails, in a hollow redwood, and man and mule lay down comfortably within its shelter. They had room to spare indeed, as I saw when the stage-driver pointed out the tree to me and kindly ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... scandal connected with the publicity of such a defence would be both distressing and painful. In wishing to silence Silver, and yet avoid the interference of the police, Lambert found himself on the horns of a dilemma. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... in some cable unwritten? God knows—I don't! But one thing at least is true:—to steer a course between an optimism that deprives us of support and a pessimism that may wreck the whole enterprise, there indeed is a Scylla and Charybdis problem, a two-horned dilemma, or whatever words may best convey the notion of ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... treasures and its own capacities. It is pathetic to think of the mediaeval students poring over a single ill-translated sentence of Porphyry, endeavoring to extract from its clauses whole systems of logical science, and torturing their brains about puzzles more idle than the dilemma of Buridan's donkey, while all the time, at Constantinople and at Seville, in Greek and Arabic, Plato and Aristotle were alive, but sleeping, awaiting only the call of the Renaissance to bid them speak with voice intelligible to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... in the dark ages, but scarcely forty years since; no aid, therefore, can be derived from the general tendency of popular superstition. What the clew may be to this apparent absurdity, we cannot imagine; whether the Author be in jest or earnest we do not know, and we are willing to suppose in this dilemma that he does ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Monte Cristo, hearing of the dilemma in which you are placed, has sent to offer you seats in his carriage and two places at his windows in the Palazzo Rospoli." The friends looked at ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of his cigar, contemplated Mr. Ketchmaid for some time in silence, and then, with a serious shake of his head, stumped off to bed. Mr. Ketchmaid remained below, and for at least an hour sat thinking of ways and means out of the dilemma into which ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... never felt so nonplussed as now, how to decline Kilkee's invitation, without discovering my intimacy with the Binghams—and yet I could not, by any possibility, desert them thus abruptly. Such was the dilemma. "I see but one thing for it," said I, gloomily, as I strode through the coffee-room, with my head sunk and my hands behind my back—"I see but one thing left—I must be taken ill to-night, and not be able to leave my bed in the morning—a fever—a contagious ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... quite believed that Vautrin had left the room. He now took up his position cunningly in the sitting-room instead of going when the last boarders went. He had fathomed the young man's thoughts, and felt that a crisis was at hand. Rastignac was, in fact, in a dilemma, which many another ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... available; and should there be none, to get for me a passage by some American trader. The China war, he assured me, had taken up all the Government vessels, and there appeared no hope left for me that season, as the last American trader was just then leaving for Zanzibar. In this dilemma it appeared that I must inevitably lose the travelling season, and come in for the droughts and famines. The tide, however, turned in my favour a little; for I obtained, by permission of the Admiralty, a passage in the British screw steam-frigate Forte, under orders to convey ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... couple of perches from the road. In this same clump stood two horses saddled and one harnessed to a sled. The latter was the chiefs horse, and of course the vehicle was intended for carrying away the prize. While the villains stood together, planning a way out of the dilemma, the jingle of sleigh-hells was heard upon the road leading ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Hugh was in a dilemma. He knew that to win out he must have an infusion of new blood, for those husky players of the local school were too rapid for the Scranton boys. But, according to the rules of the game, substitutes can only be allowed in case of serious injury. So, unless ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... apprehension and suspense. Unable to endure his misery in loneliness, he had made several boys to a greater or less degree participators in the knowledge of his difficult position; and in the sympathy which his danger excited, the general nature of his dilemma with Billy (though not its special circumstances) was soon known through ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... Aix-la-Chapelle, to attend the Lower Rhine Music Festival. Before they started Chopin found he had not the money to go, as it had been spent or given to some needy countryman. Hiller did not like to go alone, and asked if his friend could think of no way out of the dilemma. At last Chopin took the manuscript of the E flat Valse, Op. 18, went with it to Pleyel the publisher, and returned with five hundred francs. They could now go and enjoy the trip they ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... we are between the devil and the deep sea, Tars Tarkas," I replied, nor could I help but smile at our dilemma. ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... public-spirited family, their social and industrial experiments at Bournville and their general social and political activities are broad and constructive in the best sense. But they find themselves in the peculiar dilemma that they must either abandon an important and profitable portion of their great manufacture or continue to buy produce grown under cruel and even horrible conditions. Their retirement from the branch of the cocoa and chocolate trade concerned would, under these circumstances, mean no ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... compassion than Western Europe approved of him. It was a human tragedy which is not often repeated in history and was understood only by Russia. The conflict was more stern than appeared on the surface. The problems in question meant not less than the dilemma: either the Christian world was to continue or it must return to the starting point of human history and begin all anew. A little blade of grass in the field said to its green neighbours: "Why do ...
— The Religious Spirit of the Slavs (1916) - Sermons On Subjects Suggested By The War, Third Series • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... 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 latter said, 'If ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... had paid for it. I was offered sixty dollars for one piece alone, but I coldly refused to sell it, though the tribute to my judgment warmed my heart. I had not the faintest idea what to do with the set, however, and at last I confided my dilemma to my friend, Mrs. Ellen Dietrick, who sagely advised me to build a house for it. The idea intrigued me. The bog-wood furniture needed a ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... pastor had opened his lips to speak consolation, When his companion broke in, and said in his voluble fashion: "Years ago, forsooth, unknown had been such a dilemma. All such affairs were then conducted in regular fashion. Soon as a bride for their son had been by the parents selected, First some family friend they into their councils would summon, Whom they afterwards ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... despot got into a dilemma, and then he did not know how to get out of it. A boy, now and then, would be roused into open and fierce remonstrance. I recollect S., afterward one of the mildest of preachers, starting up in his place, and pouring forth on his astonished hearer a torrent ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... society, have been left to pick up as they may their ideas upon personal conduct, and, coming face to face with puzzling problems, are at a loss, and perhaps are led into wrong ways of thinking and questionable ways of doing because no one has foreseen their dilemma and warned them how ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... companion. The weight of her hand upon his arm, the fugitive contacts of her shoulder, seemed to him, just then, the most vivid and interesting things in life; the consciousness of her personality at his side was like a shaft of golden light penetrating the darkness of his dilemma. But as minutes passed and their flight was unchallenged, his mood grew dark with doubts and quick with distrust. Reviewing it all, he thought to detect something too damnably adventitious in the way she had nailed him, back there in the corridor of Troyon's. It was a bit too coincidental—"a ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... gray eyes were still watching Casey with a steadfastness that was disconcerting to a man in Casey's dilemma. ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... been without his pedal. He was asked one evening at a party in Paris to play. He was quite willing to do so but discovered to his surprise that the piano had no pedals. They had been sent away for repairs. In this dilemma a happy thought occurred to Liszt, who happened to be present. He crawled under the piano, and, while Chopin was playing, worked the mechanism to which the pedals ought to have been attached so cleverly that they ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... its advantages too," he added thoughtfully, "and this very power of being able to disappear suddenly has just got me out of a most serious dilemma." ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... perplexing question that has harassed me ever since I came home, and saw beyond a doubt that we should have war-the question that I must soon decide, whether I shall desert my State in time of peril, or my country. In either course of acting, I shall be branded as a traitor, or a rebel. It's a serious dilemma to be placed in, dear Eliza, and I must act wisely, and like a man. My heart is dreadfully divided: duty calls me to my country, and love calls me to my home. My forebodings, too, whisper that this war ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... fine character, Japhet, but you will be in a dilemma: indeed, it appears to me, that your troubles are now commencing instead of ending, and that you would have been much happier where you were, than you will be by being again brought out into the world. Your prospect is not over cheerful. ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... then, what about that little Gaston? I do not know what has suddenly made you so much less reasonable than you were last night; but I, at least, have not changed. And I see no reason why that little Gaston should be left between two horns of a dilemma. In fact I see excellent reasons not only why you should take me that short distance to the shore, but why you should accompany me to Dizful. There I am at home. I am, more than any one else, emperor. And I need ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he is almost certain to injure some of his patients in the course of his professional life. But if we had no Doctors, such a loss would be a much greater evil to mankind than their occasional mistakes. Here then we seem to be in a dilemma, with evil on both sides of us. And then we are reminded of that other principle of which we spoke before, that we may never do evil at all that good may come of it. What shall we do? The solution is this: we should ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... purpose? Suppose it transpire that he really means mischief, and you lose an important advantage by your delay to strike. You may regret the result; but does it in the least tend to show that you were cowardly or careless? Now was not this our exact dilemma? Although the origin of the war and the circumstances attendant upon its commencement are a thrice-told tale, are we not in danger of overlooking their bearing upon all our subsequent action? And shall we not act wisely, if we recur ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... adventurers who had made the trip from the stalled freight had been a relief party indeed. The engineer was a railroader of long experience, and he had thought out the dilemma of the refugees. He and his companions had broken open a freight car and had brought each a good load. There was coffee, sugar, crackers, canned meats, a ham, and, what was most welcome to anxious mothers and their babes, a whole crate ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... 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
... integrity of their friends, until exposure comes to destroy the illusion, Annina had found it easy to persuade her cousin of the unworthiness of her guests. But here was one who had all her sympathies, who openly denounced Annina herself. In such a dilemma the bewildered girl did what nature and her feelings suggested. She recounted, in a low but rapid voice, the incidents of the evening, and Annina's construction of the conduct of the females whom she had left behind ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... fervour, saying, "You have saved my life. Personally, I should be delighted to have Susil as a son-in-law, but you must let me consult my son and wife." He ran to the inner apartments, and communicated Sham Babu's offer to his near relatives. This unexpected solution of the dilemma filled them with surprise; and a loud clamour of voices echoed through the house. Finally all, without exception, agreed that the match would be an excellent one. Kumodini Babu brought news of its acceptance to Sham Babu, and it spread among the wedding guests, who were loud in ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... to draw the nail out of the wood, no strength was able to start it even a hair's-breadth. I knew not what next to do, for we could not hew down the mast in order to bring him to land; but in this dilemma Muley came to my assistance. He quickly ordered a slave to row to land and bring a pot of earth. When he had arrived with it, the magician pronounced over it some mysterious words, and cast it on the dead man's head. Immediately the latter opened his eyes, ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... Harborough's{20} Ann, and F. Pake's Rosabelle{21} Lord Willoughby's {22} Antelope, Penleaze's {23}Mary, And Gauntlet's{24}Water-sprite sails very well. Come, jolly old Curtis,{25} bear up in your Emma, Eight cheerily laden with turtle and port; And Melville{26} set sail if you'd scape the dilemma Of being too late for our aquatic sport. See Norfolk {27}already is here in the Swallow, And the Don Giovanni a challenge has sent, Which Lyons {28} accepts, and intends to beat hollow, That is if the Londoner should ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... her womanly habit of prying very deep into things, and that she was clearly a chieftainess because all men fell down before her, struck dumb at the sight of her beauty and power. In the same way he would consult 'Inkosi-kaas' if in any dilemma; and when I asked him why he did so, he informed me it was because she must needs be wise, having 'looked into ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... was chaos; and the legislature was about to be overwhelmed with petitions from every quarter for debts due, or for injuries alleged to have been sustained by individuals who had been compelled to receive depreciated money, or whose private property had been taken for public use. In this dilemma the legislature passed an act authorizing the appointment of commissioners to report on the subject. The commissioners were Gerard Bancker, treasurer, Peter T. Curtenius, state auditor, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... inclusively. And hence arises a practical inference, viz, that the very same reason, and no other, which formerly enjoined the use of the compound or fractional date, viz, the prevention of a capital ambiguity or dilemma, now enjoins its omission. For in our day, when the double opening of the year is abolished, what sense is there in perplexing a reader by using a fraction which offers him a choice without directing him how ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... that intersecting stream which you call a kennel, and I a river. Pray, Mr. Aberton, what do you think I did in that dangerous dilemma?" ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... around, And his roar seem'd to come from far under the ground. His anger, disdain, and despair wanted scope, So he wish'd himself back at the Cape of Good Hope. The Tiger extended, in uttering a roar, A mouth that you might have mistook for the door; But in such a dilemma, I warn you, beware How you enter in haste such a dark thoroughfare; For all who have pass'd through the passage they say, Have terribly painted their coats by the way. Poor Bruin declared it was unbearable quite, ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... of uncontrollable emotion overspreading her features. And yet that flush seemed scarcely the token of a heart overpowered with sudden joy, but rather of a mind conscious of being involved in an unexpected dilemma, and puzzled with ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Francis Varney, "you see the dilemma I am in. Your principals have both challenged me. I am ready to fight any one, or both of them, as the case may be. Distinctly understand that; because it is a notion of theirs that I will not do so, or that I shrink from them; ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... solved immediately and upon an emergency basis. Hence resulted the confusion and expense which nearly led to the breakdown of the whole programme in the winter of 1917-18. The War Department faced a dilemma. If it waited until supplies were ready, the period of training would be too short. On the other hand, if it threw the new draft armies immediately into the camps, assuming that the camps could be prepared, the troops would lack the wool uniforms and ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... out of it he might hope to draw some virtue from the far past which it commemorated or from the dust of those wiser men whose graves its roots penetrated. His eyes were darkly clouded with the trouble and perplexity of his dilemma. To refuse still was to stand on a seeming point either of over-stubborn pride or of confessed guilt. To accede was to face the court that wanted him for murder and that would prostitute justice ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... modified rapture. He was grateful for financial independence, but the idea of taking up the bathtub business struck him with dismay. So with prudent forethought he sought out Amory Carruth, a lawyer of his acquaintance; and to him explained his dilemma. It required some measure of specious ingenuity to explain his errand as he wished; but Mr. Carruth, being used to squirming legatees, understood and came to the point with a candor which made Pelgram wince. After first flippantly suggesting that the plumbing ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... appropriation; so that, after having justified property by universal consent, that is, by equality, we are obliged to justify the inequality of conditions by property. Never shall we extricate ourselves from this dilemma. Indeed, if, in the terms of the social compact, property has equality for its condition, at the moment when equality ceases to exist, the compact is broken and all property becomes usurpation. We gain nothing, then, by this pretended consent ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... terrible dilemma," said Tom; and added in a perplexity almost comical, "Drat the girl! Why did'nt she marry poor old Jim Stockbridge, or sleepy Hamlyn, or even your humble servant? Though, in all honour, I must confess that I ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... piece of genial scandal as to a record having been seen in that Inn of a fine imposed upon him for beating a friar in Fleet-street. This story was early placed by Thynne on the horns of a sufficiently decisive dilemma: in the days of Chaucer's youth, lawyers had not yet been admitted into the Temple; and in the days of his maturity he is not very likely to have been found engaged in battery in ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... the Jarl into a dilemma. The faces of the people present showed their approval of what Iwar had said, and at length, fearing that if he resisted their action the crown might be lost both to himself and his son, he gave in ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... Nature, and settle all his fortune on his only child. But then for the Voice of Nature to have fair play, it was clear that there should be no other child to plead for. And if Darrell were to marry again and to have sons, what a dreadful dilemma it would be for the Voice of Nature! Jasper was not long in discovering that Caroline's engagement was not less unwelcome to Mrs. Lyndsay than to himself, and that she was disposed to connive at any ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his new ally a faithful account of the family difficulty: of Captain Oliphant's embarrassing relations to the claimant, of Miss Rosalind's dilemma, of Roger's quixotic determination to find his lost brother, and of his own—the tutor's—conviction of the hopelessness of ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... much sleep for the boy that night, for he was in the horns of a terrible dilemma. What should he do? He turned from side to side of his bed, trying to argue the matter out, till his father's fate, his duty to the King and Prince, the natural desire to help, his love for his mother, Captain Murray and his duty to the King and friendship ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... by an apparently insurmountable dilemma. She saw and agreed with the reasonableness of Graeme's position. But there was the opposition and obstinacy of Wickham, the bitterness and unscrupulousness of Drummond. Here was a tremendous problem. How was ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... intention of coming again with a larger supply of water—now the sooner I retreated the better. These far-off hills were named the Alfred and Marie Range, in honour of their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. Gibson's horse having got so bad had placed us both in a great dilemma; indeed, ours was a most critical position. We turned back upon our tracks, when the cob refused to carry his rider any farther, and tried to lie down. We drove him another mile on foot, and down he fell to die. My mare, the Fair Maid of Perth, was only too willing to return; she had ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... who is planning a Thanksgiving dinner for "just us two" frequently finds herself in a dilemma. Turkey is much too large for her and chicken hardly appeals to her for this day. However, below are some suggestive menus for a Thanksgiving dinner ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... wise: inns, cold, damp, dark, dismal, dirty; landlords equally disobliging and rapacious; servants awkward, sluttish, and slothful; postillions lazy, lounging, greedy, and impertinent. With this last class of delinquents after much experience he was bound to admit the following dilemma:—If you chide them for lingering, they will contrive to delay you the longer. If you chastise them with sword, cane, cudgel, or horsewhip (he defines the correctives, you may perceive, but leaves the expletives to our imagination) they will either disappear entirely, and leave ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Zikali could do nothing of the sort. Still the opinion of the nation, or rather of the army, was so strong in favour of it that he feared lest his refusal might bring about his deposition, if not his death. From this dilemma the supernatural test suggested by the Prime Minister and approved by the Council that represented the various tribes of people, seemed to offer a path of escape. So I read the situation, as I ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... constructed dilemma that Memmius acted when he brought his positive proposal before the people. It was to the effect that the praetor Lucius Cassius Longinus should be sent to Jugurtha and bring him to Rome on the faith of a safe conduct granted by the State; Jugurtha's revelations were to be the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... 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, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... 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 game ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... country—demagogue lawyers, practised in all the sophistries of republican idealogy: "War for Peace, Lasting Peace at the End ..." (Requiescat) ... In these artifices the poor pacifists saw a way to get out of their dilemma; it was not a very brilliant way and they were not proud of it, but it was their only chance. They hoped to reconcile their pacific principles with the fact of violence by means of "big talk" which did not sound to them as outrageous ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... a dilemma. The two gazed at each other, their faces momently growing more ghastly with helplessness. Then suddenly Mrs. De Peyster leaned forward, with ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... things forget that such a solution flings them squarely on the other horn of the dilemma: such a subject child-race could never be held accountable for its own misdeeds and shortcomings; its ignorance would be part of the nation's design, its poverty would arise partly from the direct oppression of the strong and partly from thriftlessness ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... over in the garret. But no way out of the dilemma could I see. I had eaten up all the apples I had brought with me and I felt flabby and disconsolate. The sight of Uncle Abimelech stalking up the lane, as erect and lordly as usual, served to deepen ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the decision which the wife of Ulysses was to give, says, "the beautiful Penelope finding herself in this dilemma, blushed, and without making the least reply, drew her veil over her face," &c. By this I think it is clearly understood that veils were common in Greece when this occurrence took place; or why say "her veil," which readily ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... you have put your finger on the pulse of the dilemma! What was to be done when there was no sun? The sundial at best was none too correct. In different latitudes, too, different markings were needed. Moreover, a sundial, to be of practical value, had to be kept steady. What was to happen on shipboard? ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... heartiness, the laird remembered his wife and felt very uncomfortable. It was ill to round on a man who always imposed on him a hearty and hardy good-fellowship. Gourlay, greeting him so warmly, gave him no excuse for an outburst. In his dilemma he turned to the children, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... There is no dilemma in which Vanity cannot find an expedient to develop its form, no stream of circumstances in which its buoyant and light nature will not rise to float upon the surface. And its ingenuity is as fertile as that of the player ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had been pressing the favourite Christian dilemma—Christianity or nothing. Inside Christianity, light and certainty; outside it, chaos. 'If it were not for the Gospels and the Church I should be a Positivist to-morrow. Your Theism is a mere arbitrary ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... devote—in the year and more of opportunity open to her for a turn in that direction—one horn of her original dilemma had been eliminated, so to say, by atrophy. Being neglected, it had withered: with the practical result that out of her very indecisions had come a decisive choice. But to her new dilemma, of which the horns were the Major and the Notary—in the privacy of her secret thoughts she made ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... reached Chaumont we saw that our reward was to be simply the usual reward of virtue, the consciousness of having attempted the right. The Chateau de Chaumont was inexorably closed; so we learned from a talkative lodge-keeper, who gave what grace she could to her refusal. This good woman's dilemma was almost touching; she wished to reconcile two impossibles. The castle was not to be visited, for the family of its master was staying there; and yet she was loath to turn away a party of which she was good enough to say that it had a grand genre; for, as she also remarked, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... of any other thing than how she might divest herself of a large part of that fortune which the Washington Trust Company had so meritoriously preserved for her! There was a very simple way out of her dilemma, of course, but it had never occurred to her; and if it had occurred to the trust officers, they had thought best not to suggest it to their scatter-brained client. So she knitted her brows and thought, without ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... it was for you. Enos," she added, perceiving the feminine dilemma into which she had been led, "all this is not necessary to ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... that a crisis had come. He read in the face of his companion a set purpose, and he prepared to meet the dilemma squarely. ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... Manning, a director of souls, and a clergyman of the Church of England, to reply that in sober truth there was very little to choose between the state of mind of Sister Emma, or even of Sister Harriet, and his own? The dilemma was a grievous one: when a soldier finds himself fighting for a cause in which he has lost faith, it is treachery to stop, and it is ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... pass, with some constraint, it is true, but without any embarrassing incident, when Mrs. Mayhew was the means of placing poor Ida in a very painful dilemma. Under a general impulse to conciliate her daughter and make amends, and with her usual want of tact, she suddenly and ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... beginning he had thought as much of her mental sufferings as he had of any physical harm that the dread disease might do to him. How could he possibly persuade himself to give her up, when he knew that the separation would break her heart and ruin her whole life? No; obviously, in such a dilemma, it was his duty to use his own best judgment, and get himself cured as quickly as possible. After that he would be true to her, he would take no more chances of ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... large parts of it were, 'word for word and letter for letter.' (names only altered,) copied from a book published some years ago in Europe, under the title of 'The Gates of Hell opened.' We have not seen in your paper any correction of this aspersion, although the assertion of it has placed you in a dilemma; for, if such were the fact, as you asserted, the Montreal affidavits would have little application to the case. Besides, that book, having proceeded from Catholics, and relating, as was intimated, to scenes in European Convents, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... treated by him much as he has himself been treated by those who have come after him—and found that the system of these three writers, if considered rightly, and if the corollary that heredity is only a mode of memory were added, would get us out of our dilemma as regards descent and design, and enable us to keep both. We could do this by making the design manifested in organism more like the only design of which we know anything, and therefore the only design of which we ought to speak—I mean ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Simonides (he added), if to hang one's self outright be ever gainful to pour mortal soul, then, take my word for it, that is the tyrant's remedy: there's none better suited (22) to his case, since he alone of all men is in this dilemma, that neither to keep nor lay aside his ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... smothered in onions was merely prohibited in future. But when, on the second day, the potatoes were served with mashed lemon-peel, the general discontent burst forth; and we scolded till we laughed again at the dilemma in which we found ourselves. Next to being without food, is the calamity of being subjected, in the middle of the Atlantic, to the diabolical arts of the French Admiral's cook. At sea, the arrangements ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... 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 to disrespect. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... satisfactory in the way of a 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 ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... also a member of the local, played the clarinet, so the pair were invaluable on "social evenings". In his gentle, dispassionate voice he explained how it was not easy for people in America to understand the dilemma of the German Socialists in the present crisis. We must remember that the Germans were fighting, not merely England and France, but Russia; and Russia was a huge, half-civilized land, under perhaps the most cruel government in the world. How would Americans ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... Nevertheless, it might appear inhospitable—and contrary to old Catherine's express wishes—if Madame Olenska were allowed to arrive without any of the family being at the station to receive her. It was just like Ellen, Mrs. Welland's tired voice implied, to place the family in such a dilemma. "It's always one thing after another," the poor lady grieved, in one of her rare revolts against fate; "the only thing that makes me think Mamma must be less well than Dr. Bencomb will admit is this morbid desire to have Ellen come at once, however inconvenient ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... with taxes, without having paid the Khan his tribute; and that, now the Tartars had come into Russia to demand restitution, he fled from vindication of his own acts, and left the people to extricate themselves from a dilemma into which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... in a quandary. If he does not pronounce in favour of his own religion, Judaism, he stultifies himself; but if he does not award the precedence to Mohammedanism, he will apparently insult his sovereign. With true Oriental tact he escapes from the dilemma by means of a parable. There was once a man, says Nathan, who possessed a ring of inestimable value. Not only was the stone which it contained incomparably fine, but it possessed the marvellous property of rendering its owner agreeable both to God and to men. The old ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Singer put her head down close to the Wise Woman's ear, and sang all about the Christmas Masquerade, and the dreadful dilemma everybody was in, in G-sharp—she even went higher, sometimes—and the Wise Woman heard every word. She nodded three times, and every time ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... retain her at Beaumanoir in face of the search which he knew would be made by the Governor and the indomitable La Corne St. Luc, was impossible. The quandary oppressed him. He saw no escape from the dilemma; but, to the credit of Bigot be it said, that not for a moment did he entertain a thought of doing injury to the hapless Caroline, or of taking advantage of her lonely condition to add to her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... might possibly be in the hands of gentlemen, if not indeed in those of friends. It was some time before any one answered. The boys, by their looks and the expression of their countenances, seemed to appeal to me for a reply to get them out of their present dilemma, if possible. Before I had time to collect my thoughts, we were startled by these words, coming from the same man that ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... somewhere in the fields or plantations; you want and you call him. Instead of your child, what do you find? Why, a dozen curs at least, who come running up to you, all answering to the name of Bob, and wagging their stumps of tails. You see, Mrs Easy, it is a dilemma not to be got over. You level your only son to the brute creation by giving him a Christian name which, from its peculiar brevity, has been monopolised by all the dogs in the county. Any other name you please, my dear, but in ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... cancelled debt to her father as poor Roger's fortune. To run out of the reach of bill and marriage, he ran on the enemy's pikes; and as these did not kill him he was thrown back upon t'other horn of his dilemma. Our great Duke at the same battle was fighting, not the French, but the Tories in England; and risking his life and the army's, not for his country but for his pay and places; and for fear of his wife at ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the story, had been made the subject of somewhat stringent criticism; Fray Antonio Agapida had been found to belong to a Spanish branch of the family of Diedrich Knickerbocker; and doubts were thus cast over the credibility of the whole veracious chronicle. Mr. Irving extricates himself from the dilemma with his usual graceful ingenuity. In a characteristic note to this edition, he explains the circumstances in which the history had its origin, and shows conclusively that whatever dimness may be thrown over the identity of the worthy Fray Antonio, the work ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... upon the president's bewildered ear the while (as she always said in compositions)—"the while" she was trying to adjust the ethics of this unexpected and difficult dilemma. ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that Gentleman made upon the present Posture of Affairs; but yet I cannot say I assented to his Opinion, however, it wrought so much upon me as to alter my Resolutions of going directly into the North of England; for I govern'd my self by this Dilemma, that in Case Ireland was not reduc'd till I came there, I might have the Opportunity of having a share in the Reduction, but if it was, the Passage between the North of Ireland and England was very short. Upon this Bottom ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... authority he was receiving such honors as the Messiah, or driving the traders from the Temple, or performing his miracles. Their question was framed with subtle skill, "By what authority doest thou these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority?" They placed Jesus in a dilemma; if he should claim that authority had been delegated to him, then he might be accused of disloyalty and of schism, in supplanting the recognized "authorities" of the Jewish state; if he should claim inherent ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... do she could not tell. The step which Swithin had entreated her to take, objectionable and premature as it had seemed in a county aspect, would at all events have saved her from this dilemma. Had she allowed him to tell the Bishop his simple story in its fulness, who could say but that that divine might have generously bridled his own impulses, entered into the case with sympathy, and forwarded with zest their designs for the future, owing to his interest ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... In this country, my friend, few are the private collections, however choice, which contain two third parts of the excellent works before mentioned. Patience, vigilance, and personal activity, are your best friends in such a dilemma. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... could have saved him? we reply disheartened—nothing. There are circumstances which enfold all a man's movements in such a snare, that, whatever direction he may take, he falls into the fatality of his faults or his virtues. This was the dilemma of Louis XVI. All the unpopularity of royalty in France, all the faults of preceding administrations, all the vices of kings, all the shame of courts, all the griefs of the people, were as it were accumulated ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... myself sufficiently understood to carry on a trade by means of signs, as I knew was often done. As, however, my new friends would not make the attempt to talk by signs or in any other way, I had to wait patiently till somebody should arrive to help us out of our dilemma. ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... men. Many times in her life she had regarded with envy this independence, which, with a sigh, she had felt to be impossible. But now that she had it, Phoebe did not like it. What she would have given to have gone to some one, almost any one, and told her dilemma, and put the burden a little off her shoulders! But she durst not say a word to any one. Very anxious and pre-occupied, she went up Grange Lane. Home? She did not know; perhaps she would have thought of something before she reached the gate of No. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... for 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 ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... however, as I have said, a bit of a philosopher, he considered with himself that if, by chance, he should perish in the attempt he would lose the widow all the same, and that he could not think of with any thing like equanimity. To extricate himself from this dilemma he sent a despatch to an enterprising friend of his, then stationed with his regiment at ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... tyrannical, overbearing manner, the blind, intolerable pride, and the immeasurable contempt for everybody and everything not official, that so strongly characterises the representatives of Government in these territories. Yet, on the other hand, his death places me in a dilemma from which I can see no way of extricating myself; for the Commandant is so ill that it is impossible for me to discuss business with him; I dare not act upon my sole, unsupported authority; and if I ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... shows the dilemma of a middle-aged man with an invalid wife and grown-up children, who falls passionately in love for the first time. As he is a man of iron self-control he represses his passion till it bursts all bounds, with a tragic result. ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... changes of distance from the sun, and consequent variations of heat, which we have already discussed. In order to bring the situation home to our experience, let us, for a moment, imagine the earth fallen into Mercury's dilemma. There would then be no succession of day and night, such as we at present enjoy, and upon which not alone our comfort but perhaps our very existence depends, but, instead, one side of our globe—it might be the Asiatic or the American half—would be continually in ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... on perceiving Pouchskin's dilemma, had rushed instantaneously to the rescue; and with loud cries and cracking of their whips—as muleteers alone can crack them—were endeavouring to beat off the assailants. But, with all their ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... visible, but there was no chance of seeing the white) will tell me where I can catch a glimpse of the Bishop of Lincoln. I whisper the question. But a "Hush!" goes up from the H'Usher, and the artists, sympathising with me in my dilemma, obtain a candle and point out the Bishop to me in their picture. I slip away in search of that face. Its owner ought to be near his Counsel. The severe Sir Horace Davey sits writing letters; next him is the affable Dr. Tristram, then the rubicund Mr. Danckwerts, but no ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... brazen statue, which had been brought from Antioch, and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to represent either Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413, 414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P. p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri, Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived about the year 1100. They witness the belief of the prophecy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... disown the Al- mighty, for such theories lead to one of two things. They 119:6 either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government of matter, or else they assume that matter is the product of Spirit. To seize the first horn of this dilemma and con- 119:9 sider matter as a power in and of itself, is to leave the cre- ator out of His own universe; while to grasp the other horn of the dilemma and regard God as the creator of 119:12 matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disas- ters, physical and ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... theory of Free-will. Hamilton erroneously identified this theory with the fact that we possess a moral sense. His resulting dilemma. ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... but to forgive his Enemies, and to Love them that hated him; it is reasonable to think, that this Clashing between Nature and Principle would perplex him, and himself stand in Need of good Advice, what to do in this Dilemma. If in this Case, the Clergyman, who first preached to him the Purity of the Christian Religion, and the Severity of its Morals, and whom he often went to hear, should persist in the same Sentiments; and, continuing to recommend to him the Doctrine of ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... as you have expressed contrition for an act which you have immediately repeated, you are placed in this dilemma: To reiterate such words of [5] apology as characterize ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... acceptance is upon a carved, geometric thing that, if found in a very old deposit, antedates human life, except, perhaps, very primitive human life, as an indigenous product of this earth: but we're quite as much interested in the dilemma it ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... (which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song) What drop or nostrum can this plague remove? Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love? 30 A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped, If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead. Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I! Who can't be silent, and who will not lie: To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace, And to be ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... strength to be true to his first beliefs in Wagner's art crusade, and to continue his friendship with the man, though delicacy forbade his entering the home, to which he had regretfully but gracefully resigned his wife, like Ruskin, though not for the same reasons. Once he broke forth in his dilemma: "If he were only some one that I could kill, he would have been dead before this." But he could not interfere with "the great cause," and even Liszt, after some ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... slowly, "that is a good way out of our dilemma. The villains will be carried far away from this vicinity and will without doubt get all that's coming to them. What more can we ask? We've won the game—taken every trick and made a clean sweep of the whole business. Now that I've got Lola home I don't much care about the rest of it. What do ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... Unfortunately for him his editor had indulged in his book, in a pictorial and fulsome description of the Rainy River, as an agricultural region. Mr. Roebuck quoted this passage and Sir George was in a serious dilemma. If he admitted it his evidence would seem untrue, if he denied it then he must deny his authorship. He admitted that the book was somewhat too flattering in ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... fight, why don't you forgive?" says Harry. "If you won't forgive, why don't you fight? That's what I call the horns of a dilemma." And ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... set 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 ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... what I don't know," he returned, disconsolately, looking down the lane, while the two dogs gazed wistfully into his face, as though they were quite aware of the dilemma, and felt very sorry for their little mistress. "I suppose you could not ride on Pierre's back, you are hardly small enough for that; and with all my good will I am afraid I should not succeed ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... himself put an end to Hector's dilemma. He had recognised St. Genis' voice. Unlike his majordomo, he knew at once that something terribly grave must have happened, else the young man would never have committed such a serious breach of good manners. And M. le Comte himself was never at a loss ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... El dilema (the dilemma) El diploma (the diploma) El epigrama (the epigram) El problema (the problem) El sintoma (the symptom) El ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... hung on the horns of this dilemma for several months while he and his wife spent most of their waking hours arguing it pro and con. They had selected the vicinity in which they wanted to live, had the requisite cash in the bank to finance either undertaking, and ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... can't do much this morning, anyway," said Ben, philosophically making the best of a bad job. "Let's go, Larry." And much against his will, but seeing no way out of the dilemma, Larry agreed. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... months passed and the physician did not return. Gilles grew uneasy. It was imperative that gold should be forthcoming immediately, for not only was he being pressed on every side, but he was unable to support his usual magnificence. In this dilemma he turned to Prelati, his remaining alchemical assistant. This man appears to have believed in his art or he would not have made the terrible suggestion he did, which was that the Lord of Retz should ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... exclaimed, at a meeting two weeks before. The suggestion had seemed to pass unheeded; but this was a crisis when every proposition must be considered. Josiah Quincy and other speakers set clearly before the multitude the dilemma in which they stood. Rotch had been dispatched to Milton, where the governor had taken refuge, to ask for a pass out of the harbor, this being the last resort after the refusal of clearance papers. The short winter day drew to a close; darkness fell, and the church, filled ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... her best to lighten the atmosphere, being indeed most truly sorry for her poor friends and their dilemma. But her pleasant girlish talk seemed to float above an abyss of trouble and discomfort, which threatened constantly to swallow ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "little brothers" of Man. John Dalton's crude Descriptive Poem apostrophized what was regarded as the "savage grandeur" of the Lake country; it is interesting only because it mentions Keswick, Borrowdale, Lodore, and Skiddaw, half a century later to become sacred ground. The practical dilemma of the sentimentalist,—drawn toward solitude by his worship of Nature, and toward society by his love for Man,—was described by Whitehead in The Enthusiast, the humanitarian impulse being finally given the preference. Though the last of these pieces is not contemptible ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... re-enforcement of energy. If he be a lover, especially, the almost certain embarrassment of the lady inspires him with hope and renewed courage. A woman who has a bashful lover, even if she is afflicted with shyness, has been known to find a way to help the poor fellow out of his dilemma more than once. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... to place myself between the horns of any such dilemma," returned Wingfold, who was now more than a little annoyed at his persistency in forcing his way within ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... fine old house: an Inn where they give you Bride-cake every day after dinner,' said Thomas Idle. 'Let us eat Bride-cake without the trouble of being married, or of knowing anybody in that ridiculous dilemma.' ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... stones, her face turned from the Captain; and the Captain, evidently meditating a sortie, stood ruefully gazing at the obstacle before him and hemming aloud. Alas, the maidservant was deaf! I stopped, curious to see how Uncle Roland would extricate himself from the dilemma. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stood between the two opposing forces very composedly, with the same quiet smile upon his face, and he held up his hands toward either party as a man might do that wished to sunder and pacify quarrelling children. "Gently, friends, gently," he said; "there is a pleasant way to end this dilemma." Then he turned to me, and I never saw his face serener. "Friend Lappo," he said, "will you lend me your ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... "Here was a dilemma. Should I leave her and thus give her an opportunity to escape, or should I trust to her integrity and the honesty of her look, which was no common one, sir, and obey her as every one about her was evidently accustomed ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... was not a voluntary yielding on the part of Mattie to the wishes of her mother. She only adopted this course as part of a plan by which she hoped to gain time, during which Tite might return, and thus afford her the means of averting a dilemma into which her mother was ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... tell them. I said you'd tell them yourself, but they won't trust you when they know who you are. Let's tell the judge—he may think of a plan. Suppose you go away until——" Puzzled herself to find a way out of the dilemma, Annie paced the floor nervously. "Oh, this is awful!" she exclaimed. "What are we ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... her chances when a man, whose coming into the room her dilemma had caused her to miss, marched unhesitatingly ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... not wake up from their drunken slumbers till dark, when they found themselves stuck in a rice bed, and unable to extricate themselves from the dilemma in which they were placed; whereupon they again had recourse to the bottle, which this time proved fatal to Daly who, being very drunk, fell overboard. His companion, however, managed to catch hold of him and succeeded in getting him into the boat only to suffer a ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... commandant to Dr. Battius, who, however, peremptorily and somewhat haughtily declined the doubtful honour; exchanging looks of intelligence with Ellen, as he did so. In this dilemma the squatter was obliged to constitute the girl herself castellan; taking care, however, in deputing this important trust, to omit no words of caution and instruction. When this preliminary point was settled, the young men proceeded to arrange certain means of defence, and signals of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the United States was riding in a carriage with his family when a shaft broke. It was not broken short off, but shivered by contact with a post. The Chief Justice had no strings and was in a dilemma. A negro boy passed by, dressed in rags, whistling a merry tune. The great jurist hailed the boy, saying, "Boy, ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... into a deserted corner of a drawing-room at his club, and there Seated himself for half an hour's meditation. How should he extricate himself from this dilemma? In what language should he address a young and beautiful woman devoted to him, but whose devotion he was bound to repudiate? He was not voluble in conversation, and he was himself aware of his own slowness. It was essential to him that he should prepare beforehand almost ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... mankind has not yet been long enough in existence to have fully matured its fruit, and that, on the other hand, the moral instinct of mankind felt a presentiment of the right way out of the economic dilemma long before that right way had become practicable. It is only a few generations since the disproportion between productivity and consumption became unmistakably evident: and what are a few generations in the life of mankind? The ethics of exploitation needed many centuries ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... as we have observed, reiterates the assertion that the errors of Gil Blas are such as no Spaniard could commit, leaving altogether unguarded against the goring horn of the dilemma which can only be parried by an answer to the question—how came it to pass that Le Sage could enumerate the names of upwards of twenty inconsiderable towns and villages, upwards of twenty families not of the first class; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... in all cases be satisfactory to all, but were meant to be just and impartial to all. Mr. Genet had been then but a little time with us; and but a little more was necessary to develope in him a character and conduct so unexpected and so extraordinary, as to place us in the most distressing dilemma, between our regard for his nation, which is constant and sincere, and a regard for our laws, the authority of which must be maintained; for the peace of our country, which the executive magistrate is charged to ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... hesitated. He was greatly awed by the presence and beauty of the speakers, but a still voice reminded him of his duty. A lucky thought, however, interposed to relieve him from his dilemma, and at the same time to comply with the request, or rather order, of the lady. As he handed her the keys, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... she said. "You dear faithful old serjeant! See what comes of wearing another man's coat. And my dilemma comes from taking another woman's name. So you knew me all the time, from the first moment I ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... 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
... others; for such comparisons are never made without arousing some measure of hatred against those who dispute our claim to the first place, were it only in our own estimation. Then we must be either blind or angry, a bad man or a fool; let us try to avoid this dilemma. Sooner or later these dangerous passions will appear, so you tell me, in spite of us. I do not deny it. There is a time and place for everything; I am only saying that we should not ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... knew 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 ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... counsels of misguided friends and insidious enemies that she does not know what course to pursue in order to extricate herself from the web of difficulties in which she seems almost hopelessly involved. In this dilemma she turns to me for help, and supplicates for my guidance and instruction with a moving eloquence that would touch the heart of a statue. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... any food for nearly two days, I was faint with hunger, and was in a dilemma what to do, as the little cash supplied me by my adopted father, and which had contributed to my comfort, was now all gone. I however concluded to go to a farm-house, and ask for something to eat. ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... was followed by an exchange of notes. Monroe's of September 7, 1807, developed the American case and demand as already given. That of Canning, September 23, stated as follows the dilemma raised by the President's proclamation: Either it was an act of partiality between England and France, the warships of the latter being still admitted, or it was an act of retaliation for the "Chesapeake" outrage, and so of the nature ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... mend matters, except in the latter instance, by getting a new housekeeper; and as Mrs. Renney, the good woman who held that station, was in everybody's opinion another treasure, Mrs. Rossitur's mind was uncrossed by the shadow of such a dilemma. With Mrs. Renney, as with every one else, Fleda was held in highest regard always welcome to her premises, and to those mysteries of her trade which were sacred from other intrusion. Fleda's natural inquisitiveness carried her often to the housekeeper's room, and ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and eastern princes saw the light and quietly went over to the camp of Octavius. Several days of inaction followed, during which the desertions continued and the rumor of Antony's flight found increasing belief. On the seventh day, Canidius, who found himself in a hopeless dilemma, also went over to Octavius. This desertion by the commander settled the rest of the force. A few scattered into Macedonia, but the great bulk of the army and all that was left of the fleet surrendered. Nineteen legions and more than ten thousand cavalry thus came over to Octavius and took service ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... Easter Sunday Mary Grey found herself again in a dilemma between her two proposed victims—the gray-haired clergyman ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... "Dilemma, yes, your honor. And Biasi, the notary, who comes to me to be shaved, uses another word that just fits the case, begging ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... or land, and then to see it turn into darkness for him. I fear he is sadder and lonelier now than when I brought him from the woods: but I would stake my soul on his honor, as I would on yours. You cannot force me into such a dilemma." ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... that their courses were the same but that they were in different sections. Hugh was in a dilemma; he could make nothing ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... mountebanks from Astley's, with dukes' coronets, and grand blue velvet marshals' batons? We have repeatedly his words for it. He wanted to create an aristocracy—another acknowledgment on his part of the Republican dilemma—another apology for the revolutionary blunder. To keep the republic within bounds, a despotism is necessary; to rally round the despotism, an aristocracy must be created; and for what have we ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at the same time so convincingly that both Arthur and Uncle John accepted his explanation unquestioningly. Nevertheless, in the embarrassing dilemma in which Jones would presently be involved, the story would be sure to bear the stamp of unreality ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... at the battle of Culloden. Mr. M'Donald communicated to young Rasay the plan of conveying the Wanderer to where old Rasay was; but was told that old Rasay had fled to Knoidart, a part of Glengary's estate. There was then a dilemma what should be done. Donald Roy proposed that he should conduct the Wanderer to the main land; but young Rasay thought it too dangerous at that time, and said it would be better to conceal him in the island of Rasay, till old Rasay could be informed ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... hardly knew where to turn. He had saved no money, and was earning nothing. In his dilemma he turned to ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... himself now, but she did not offer to help him in his dilemma. She stood silent and still, as if waiting for him ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... this oddity or dilemma which may be said to culminate in the crowning work of his later and more constructive period, the work in which he certainly attempted, whether with success or not, to state his ultimate and cosmic vision; I mean the play called Man and ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... dishonour from 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; ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... another of her comfortable, sensible smiles—a smile that took all embarrassment out of the dilemma, as balm will take irritation from a wound. And gently she removed her hat and gown, and her gestures and speech, and her comfortableness, from those august precincts. And they descended to the grill-room, which was relatively noisy, and where her roses were less conspicuous ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... you try to squirm out of the dilemma by saying that even if the papacy has been under Satan now and then, yet there have always been pious Christians under it. I reply: Under the rule of the Turk there are Christians, and likewise ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... a chair 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
... we can't seem to care for the loss of it. That would be still worse. Either horn of the dilemma gores us. Well, we still have the comfort we had in the beginning; we can't help ourselves; and we should only make bad worse by trying. Unless we can look to Tom's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... resolute 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 territory and the curate's ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... kill him was no remedy; for if I could not marry an undivorced woman, as little could she have married her husband's murderer." He hunched his shoulders and concluded, "The dilemma is ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... questions. But he assailed me with puzzlers. He wanted to know, among other things, if Christ's atonement availed for other worlds; to which I replied that I did not know, as I had never studied theology in any world but this. He hooked me with the horns of a dilemma. A Turkish bath, with the thermometer up to 113, is cool compared to the perspiration into which he threw me. At this point Rev. James W. Scott, D.D. (that was his real name, and not fictitious) arose. Dr. Scott was a Scotchman of about 65 years of age. He had been ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... her with a great shame. She felt herself a dilemma. It had been no part of her purpose to allude his debts. Viewed in the light of what was to follow, it would seem to him that she was trying to foreclose his affection. That could not be allowed to pass; the error must be rectified. And yet! . . . And ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... he went, and told his dilemma to his father's steward, John o' the Scales, who, as I have said, was a hard man, and a rogue into the bargain. He knew far more about money matters than his master's son, and when he heard the story which he had to tell ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... red as a beet, looked over the heads of those that sat between him and his tantalizing captor. But putting the best face he could on the dilemma and eying Scott nervously he walked over and, with evident reluctance, made ready to sit down ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... my motive before you judge. More than that, you must bear in mind my environment, my character and its background, and the dilemma which faced me. I intended to become an assassin—but not for hate, or greed, or, indeed, any personal ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... authoritatively, and Theresa looked depressed by the dilemma in which it seemed to place ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... are in a very considerable dilemma here, so I write asking you to see me in London without delay, going back to the Tyrol later on if the investigation of the diamond mystery renders your return necessary. The Duchess of Chiselhurst is giving a great ball on the 29th. It is to be a very ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... pup Crusoe!" he exclaimed aloud in this dilemma; but the faithful ear was shut now, and the deep silence that followed his cry was so oppressive that the young hunter sprang forward at a run over the plain, as if to fly from solitude. He soon became so absorbed, however, in his efforts to ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... remembering you than I am. A word of advice, my dear. When you are well enough to get up and see Mr. Kirke, try how that sharp question of yours sounds in his ears, and insist on his answering it himself." Slipping out of the dilemma in that characteristically adroit manner, Captain Wragge got briskly on his legs again and ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... speak my name. Had I considered but a moment, I should have been sensible of the inutility of such a caution, since not one of the party call me by any other appellation than that of Cousin or of Miss; but I am perpetually involved in some distress or dilemma from my ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... hotel-parlor the very day of your accident. I had been a school-friend of your dead sister, and for her sake, on the rare occasions of your seeing me, you have always been polite and kindly patronized me. Now, lying helpless and unable to extricate yourself from your dilemma, you recalled the evident pleasure upon my foolish, tell-tale face at seeing you, the delight I had betrayed in the attention you had shown me, such as finding a seat at dinner for myself and my old lady friend, although some elegant and fashionable girls ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... purpose illuminating his face, remarked: "I'll try to put the squire into a dilemma. If I can catch one of his boys shooting robins out of season, I will lodge a complaint with him, and insist on the fine;" and his design was ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... childishly yesterday, and that I deserved to be ill to-day for what I did yesterday. And I admit you're a saint for not saying so. But I wasn't really childish, and I haven't really been ill to-day. I've only been in a devil of a dilemma. I wanted to tell you something. I telegraphed for you so that I could tell you. But as soon as I saw you I was afraid to tell you. Not afraid, but I couldn't make up my mind whether I ought to tell you or not. I've lain in bed all day trying to decide the ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... felt hopeless under our desperate emergency. To get the boy punished by giving my word of honor to support a direct falsehood was not to be thought of even for a moment. What other means of extrication from this miserable dilemma remained? None that I could think of. I thanked the captain for his attention to our interests, told him I would take time to consider what course I should pursue, and begged that he would say nothing to my friend about the discovery he had made. He promised to be ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... This, also, is the general morality of the English stage in the seventeenth century. Can we wonder that thinking men should have seen a connection between Italy and the stage? Certainly the playwrights put themselves between the horns of an ugly dilemma. Either the vices which they depicted were those of general English society, and of themselves also (for they lived in the very heart of town and court foppery); or else they were the vices of a foreign country, with which the English were comparatively unacquainted. ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... a most awkward dilemma for all of us. I was sent on board to apologise. The French captain, with the courtesy of his nation, took the mishap most good-humouredly, begging me to return the tompions to my captain, as they had no occasion for them. So no bad feeling was created, ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... still considerate valet bowed himself out of a dilemma, that he found, as he muttered to himself, while retiring, 'tant soit ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... is concerned with two fathers, who boast about their sons, and cause the two lads to fight. Christy Graham is faced with the dilemma of fighting either his father or his brother-in-arms, and decides to meet the latter; but, should he kill his friend, he determines not to return alive. Young Bewick takes a similar vow. They fight two ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... consternation my Lapp guide offered to sleep alongside of me, and added, "We shall be warmer if we sleep together." I was in a dilemma. I did not want to offend him, but I told him that I always slept by myself. Then the owner of the place spread another reindeer skin on the floor, and my guide ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... could summon courage to make known to his companions the dilemma into which he had conducted them, the galatea had drifted among the tree-tops of the flooded forest, where she was instantly ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... Warmbrunn. Objects around. Dilemma. Hirschberg. How Travellers may manage when their Purses grow light. Pass for Russians, and derive great benefit from the arrangement. Lang-Wasser. Greiffenberg. The Prussian Landwehr. Golden Traum. Scene in the Village Inn. Bernstadt. Hernhut. ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... connected with the publicity of such a defence would be both distressing and painful. In wishing to silence Silver, and yet avoid the interference of the police, Lambert found himself on the horns of a dilemma. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... and was it not an accepted theory that the Vienna Congress had settled all the vexed questions of ancient Europe? Any further movement, therefore, might seem merely a disturbance. This, for conservative statesmen above all, was a dilemma. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... hearing. He never doubted Babette's reality, though I think a more up-to-date youth would certainly have done so, and have thought that his imagination was playing tricks with him. He felt much distressed and perplexed, but could think of no way out of this strange dilemma. ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
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