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More "Predicament" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my forlorn and altogether ridiculous situation. With needle and thread it would have been an easy matter to manufacture a pair of buckskin pantaloons such as I had worn in years gone by and would have welcomed in my present predicament. But needles, thread, scissors, razor and combs had followed the cooking utensils to the bottom of the river. There was nothing to do but simply to "grin and bear it," and I did so with the best possible grace. On an exploring expedition one day I found a tall tree on the bank of the ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... his sisters, even to God, to accept these terms,—to withdraw his little force? Why should he be perilling such precious lives and names in the defence of a government official who had been so reckless as to part with his guard and put himself and his funds in such a predicament? From the other room in which the major now lay, feebly moaning, no word of remonstrance came. Even in their extremity, then, the soldiers of the government would not urge that he stay and encounter ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... of their predicament to the nearest fort, and Lieutenant Pershing was sent with a small detachment to their rescue. He rode straight up to the Zuni chief, who was now on the warpath, and told him he must call off his ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... about the breadth and depth of shallow saucers, almost imperceptible dents, with no corresponding bulge on the interior surface. In fact, the thing looked altogether too safe; though it may not prove quite an agreeable predicament to be thus boxed up in impenetrable iron, with the possibility, one would imagine, of being sent to the bottom of the sea, and, even there, not drowned, but stifled. Nothing, however, can exceed the confidence of the officers in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... attitude of President Wilson had so injured what little standing they still had in the neutral world that unless Germany won the war in a decisive way, their world connections would disappear forever and they would be forced to begin all over after the war. Faced by this predicament, they demanded a ruthless submarine warfare against all shipping in order that not only England but every other power should suffer, because the more ships and property of the enemies destroyed the more their chances with the rest of the world would be equalised when the war ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... of would be speedily redressed, now broke out with more violence than ever. The Virginians spurned the mock-remedy which left the real cause of complaint untouched. His lordship also felt deeply wounded by the disingenuousness of ministers which had led him into such a predicament, and wrote home demanding his discharge. Before it arrived, an attack of bilious fever, acting upon a delicate and sensitive frame, enfeebled by anxiety and chagrin, laid him in his grave. He left behind him a name endeared to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... said no more. Meekly she laid her work on the chair by the hammock and accompanied him to the house. It was the most painful predicament she had ever been in. She knew that there was no escape for her, knew, moreover, that she richly deserved her punishment; yet, as he held open the surgery-door for her, she ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... and where there is complete rest, undisturbed by nothing, or what is not nothing."47 Analyze away all particulars until you reach an uncolored boundlessness of pure immateriality, free from every predicament; and that is Nirwana. This is one possible way of conceiving the fate of the soul; and the speculative mind must conceive it in every possible way. However closely the result resembles the vulgar notion of annihilation, the difference ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... that's the shortest, call to Zack or his father," tried Rachel, as the light figure quickly disappeared, leaving her a little annoyed at her predicament. She was not at all alarmed for herself, there was no real danger of drowning, she could at any moment get up the rock herself if she chose to leave the dog to its fate; but that she could not bear to think of, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my doubts—admire the modesty of a sceptic—whether the entire phenomena of religion do not favor the conclusion, that man, in this respect, only the traces of an imperfect, truncated creature; that, he is in the predicament of the half-created lion ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... afterwards the messenger whom she had already despatched rattled up in a hansom. She quickly got into it, and as she rolled away she saw Mr. Booker returning in all haste with another. She gave a passionate moan—this common confusion seemed to add a grotesqueness to her predicament. ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... bodies in this way, the hound whose system has been weakened by "heating" and unsuitable food will seldom recover. I do not wish to pose as an authority on this subject and am simply giving, for the benefit of ladies who find themselves placed in a similar predicament, my experience, or rather, at this stage, inexperience, in walking a couple of Cottesmore pups. I tried very hard to save those pups, nursed them night and day, and had them in my room at night, but both died. One of them was slowly recovering, but was so weak that he could hardly ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... pants, but I made no inquiry as to the reason for his so doing. When we took our first position in advance of where the Irishmen had fought, and began firing, Barney had to use both hands, and his predicament was at once revealed. He had held up his pants by a strap around his waist without suspenders. This strap had given out, and that accounted for his holding up performance. When he began loading and firing he had to "let go" ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... a novel predicament in which they found themselves,—near midnight, in a thunderstorm, with a young girl on the ground unable to walk, and neither of them knowing what to do. Howard said it was a deuced shame, and Jack told her not to cry. Sam was sure to come with ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... door slammed shut. Standing in front of him was a very bedraggled figure whom he recognized as Thougor. He also recognized his three other captors; all were elderly reactionaries of the tribe who had disapproved of him from the beginning. In spite of his predicament Builder felt a warm glow of happiness course through him. If these were the only cronies Thougor could round up, that meant the rest of the villagers were sympathetic with his cause. He suddenly became aware of ...
— Regeneration • Charles Dye
... was proposing to help her out of her predicament when the belated motor came racing down the slope. As a matter of fact, I was wrong when I said that a man brought me here in an automobile. It was she who did it. She gave the order. He merely obeyed,—and not very willingly, ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... find ourselves in another predicament: this ridiculous little Bambou insists upon coming with us! No, he will take no denial, we must take him with us. This is out of all ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... predicament! We were rocking frightfully. The Nautilus defended itself like a human being. Its steel muscles were cracking. Sometimes it stood on end, the three ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... about a bit, had a drink at a bar and looked at the shops, and when I came to turn my steps back to the hotel I suddenly realised that I didn't remember its name or even what street it was in. There's a nice predicament for a fellow who hasn't any friends or connections in London! Of course I can wire to my people for the address, but they won't have got my letter till to-morrow; meantime I'm without any money, came out ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... and I guess I'll just stop here while I'm in London this journey. No, I've no objection to take a hand. But—it seems to me—there's still a lot of difficulty about this young gentleman here— Mr. Lauriston. I read all the papers carefully, and sized up his predicament. Those rings, now?" ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... a predicament trying to the nerves of even the bravest. The Boer shells were well aimed, and came in quick succession. But Captain Haldane and his men did all that could be done. Lieutenant Frankland directed from ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... concluding a peace with the Lacedaemonians, and determine to stone him. He undertakes to speak in defence of the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet to occupy the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... at King Alcinous feast, While sad Ulisses soul and all the rest 50 Are held with his melodious harmonie In willing chains and sweet captivitie. But fie my wandring Muse how thou dost stray! Expectance calls thee now another way, Thou know'st it must be now thy only bent To keep in compass of thy Predicament: Then quick about thy purpos'd business come, That to the next I may resign ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... sat down accordingly, while Abernethy, standing with his back against the table, thus began: "I take it for granted that, in consulting me, you wish to know what I should do for myself, were I in a predicament similar to yourself. Now, I have no reason to suppose that you are in any particular predicament; and the terrible mischief which you apprehend, depends, I take it, altogether upon the stomach. Mind,—at present I have no reason ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... was evidently not a Russian. He was a tall man, lithe and sinewy rather than muscular, but he had a handsome, Patrician face; and despite his condition of insensibility, or perhaps because of it, he seemed strangely out of place in the predicament in ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... another proposition of alliance to offer, and he dared not broach it until he and this stranger could lay aside mutual suspicions and meet on the common ground of conspiracy. If there were any chance at all, however slight, that Parish Thornton could emerge, alive and free, from his predicament in court Rowlett wished to waylay and kill him on the ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... French language is peculiarly intricate; and it is no uncommon thing to meet with educated men in that country who are unable to spell with accuracy. That Napoleon may have been in a similar predicament, would not be surprising; but that it should be said of the most extraordinary man of the age, that his spelling is extraordinairement estropiee, seems inexplicable upon any fair supposition, except that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... mankind he entirely disowned, having proved to his own satisfaction that the idea originated entirely in priestcraft. In short, with the shadowy metaphysical exception aforesaid, Mr. Joshua Bletson of Darlington, member for Littlefaith, came as near the predicament of an atheist, as it is perhaps possible for a man to do. But we say this with the necessary salvo; for we have known many like Bletson, whose curtains have been shrewdly shaken by superstition, though their fears were unsanctioned ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... to the last quotation, which in our examiner's handling, falls under this predicament of being a thought astonishingly out of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... value of his deduction of God seems in his own estimate to rest. All conceptions which do not possess these two attributes—of being vivid in themselves and discriminated from all others—cannot be true. But the larger part of our conceptions are in such a predicament. We think of things not in the abstract elements of the things themselves, but in connexion with, and in language which presupposes, other things. Our idea of body, e.g., involves colour and weight, and yet when we try to think carefully, and without assuming anything, we find that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... it, and quite unconscious of such a calamity anxiously talked over the Knight's predicament with the Scarecrow. They both decided that the best plan was to fly straight to the Emerald City and have Ozma release the Knight from the ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... besides a large number of machine guns and the bulk of their baggage. The remainder, supported by the Forty-first Honved Division, which had been hurried up, managed to squeeze themselves out of their predicament by falling back on Uszachow, and the whole retired to Lagow, beyond which the Russians were not permitted to pursue them, lest they should break the symmetry of their own line." It is admitted by the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... which was laden with an iron-bound chest. After entertaining these forced guests at dinner, Robin had them witness his archers' skill and listen to Allan a Dale's music, ere he set forth the knight's predicament and appealed to the bishop to lend him the necessary money. When the bishop loudly protested he would do so gladly had he funds, Robin ordered his baggage examined and divided into three equal shares, one for the owner, one for his men, and ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... sight there was outside! How were we going to begin to bring order out of this chaos? The sledges were completely snowed up; whips, ski-bindings, and harness largely eaten up. It was a nice predicament. Fortunately we were well supplied with Alpine rope, and that did for the harness; spare straps came in for ski-bindings, but the whips were not so easy to make good. Hanssen, who drove first, was bound to have a fairly serviceable whip; ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... this some weeks away from Cape Town, we sent our wash ashore; a resort of desperation. It came back clean enough, but for ironing—well; and as to starch, much in the predicament of Boatswain Chuck's frilled shirts after the gale, upon which, while flying in the breeze, he looked with a degree of professional philosophy that could express itself only by thrashing the cooper. Crumpled would be a mild expression for our linen. We remonstrated, but ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... in a great state of excitement on account of the rain, and also because the dinner had been waiting for nearly an hour. That scamper in the rain, and the laughing and joking at our predicament, seemed to bring us closer together than anything else could have done. Mr. D'Arcy told Mrs. Titwing to take me to my room to change my dress for dinner, and he seemed quite disappointed when I told him that I could eat no dinner, and would like ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... over, he went on. But the lecture committee told him they would send a check. Having no money to pay a hotel bill, he took the train back. Reaching Philadelphia after midnight he boarded a trolley and told the conductor who he was and his predicament, offering to send the man the money for his fare next day. But the conductor was not to be fooled, said he didn't know Dr. Conwell from Adam, and put him off. And Dr. Conwell walked twenty long blocks to his home, chuckling all the way at the humor ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... love of that praise, having now restored him to his own good graces, he regarded himself with more interest and approbation than ever; and his continued omission of inquiry after Isy, heedless of the predicament in which he might have placed her, was a far worse sin against her, because deliberate, than his primary wrong to her, and it now recoiled upon him in increased hardness of ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... of Helga. Between the two parties the bishop, whose motives and intentions are, however, not brought out with sufficient clearness. Like the proverbial fifth wheel of a wagon he seems out of place and embarrassing, whenever he appears—a predicament, to be sure, which he shares with the Church itself in those times, whenever not guided by a ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... permit, and hung his hat upon his knees where they stuck out into the sunlight. It was very hot, and his position was cramped, but he would not go yet; he was still thinking—and the brain of Happy Jack worked ever slowly. In such an unheard-of predicament he felt dimly that he had need of ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... that no Nation will throw-by its work, and deliberately go out to make a scene, without meaning something thereby. For indeed no scenic individual, with knavish hypocritical views, will take the trouble to soliloquise a scene: and now consider, is not a scenic Nation placed precisely in that predicament of soliloquising; for its own behoof alone; to solace its own sensibilities, maudlin or other?—Yet in this respect, of readiness for scenes, the difference of Nations, as of men, is very great. If our Saxon-Puritanic friends, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... on the sole of his natty boot. "One would suppose he would feel very natural anxiety as to the predicament in which he has placed ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... with the written and urgent request for a personal interview with Napoleon. To this request the court proposed to accede; but Savary, who had posted himself behind Hulin's chair, at once declared this step to be inopportune. The judges had only one chance of escape from their predicament, namely, to induce the duke to invalidate his evidence: this he firmly refused to do, and when Hulin warned him of the danger of his position, he replied that he knew it, and wished to have an ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... same predicament of fools are to be ranked such, as while they are yet living, and in good health, take so great a care how they shall be buried when they die, that they solemnly appoint how many torches, how many escutcheons, how many gloves to be given, and ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... Leipzig;" and there will be events anon. It is said, Hildburghausen, at the first glimpse of Friedrich over the hill-top, whispered to Soubise, "We are lost, Royal Highness!"—"Courage!" Soubise would answer; and both, let us hope, did their utmost in this extremely bad predicament they ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... paused to consider the serious predicament which confronted him. It was Saturday night. He knew Mr. McGuffey to be the possessor of more money than usual and if he could assure himself that this reserve should be dissipated before Monday morning he was aware, from experience, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... erroneous. The Christian dogma has been formed, like everything else, slowly and piecemeal, by a sort of inward vegetation. Theology, by asserting the contrary, raises up a mass of objections, and places itself in the predicament of having to reject all criticism. I would advise any one who wishes to realise this to read in a theological work the treatise on Sacraments, and he will see by what a series of unsupported suppositions, worthy of the Apocrypha, of Marie d'Agreda or Catherine Emmerich, the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... them they hauled Pud back, though all three were on the ground and nearly over the edge before the two could stop the heavy Pud. A yell from the opposite shore told them that Mr. Waterman and Mr. Anderson had seen their predicament. Bob and Bill held on and slowly pulled Pud up to them. When all three at last arose, probably only a minute later, they were bathed in perspiration, as they had all been under ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... was becoming a predicament, and you rescued me very ingeniously. There, will that content you?' said Theodora, with one of the smiles the more winning because so rare. I am perfectly ready to own myself in the wrong when ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... asked Jimmie impatiently. "He understands our predicament and intends to help us! He motioned out that he is going to climb the rigging until he can find the rope. Then he'll slide down it until he lands on our stern. If we'll agree not to start the engines while he's there, he'll cut the rope. But we must be ready at the ballast tanks ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... away disgusted and indignant; but his indignation was neutralized by his astonishment at this incomprehensible brutality. He had no resource but to apply to some private house and state his predicament. As that luckless saddle had excited the derision of the girl, and drawn down on him the contumely of the tavern-keeper, he looked around for some safe spot in which to deposit it before it brought him into ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... that if we did not do something a wholesale surrender was certain. I strongly objected to being mixed up in that. I felt certain that if we could only start a fight the morale would improve and that we would have every chance of extricating the whole force from its predicament. I led out our cars therefore from the Hotel de Ville, and forcing our way through crowds of infantry and civilians we reached a corner where I found about four hundred Infantry. I implored, and swore, and ordered ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... and upright the pain was bearable. But even to think of movement brought tears of pain to her eyes. She detached her mind from her predicament, and sank into a warm tropical sea of thought. She was no real thinker, but she thought much about thinking, and was passionately interested in watching her own mind at work. Thought was like sleep to her, she sank deeply into it without reaching anything profound, nothing resulted but useless ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... so much at this ridiculous scene, that I could scarcely assist my terrified boy out of his awkward predicament. At last, by coaxing the monkey, offering it a bit of biscuit, and gradually disentangling its small sinewy paws from the curls it grasped so tightly, I managed to relieve poor Fritz, who then looked with interest at the baby ape, no bigger than a kitten, as it ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of Northern church-members who have intermarried with slave-holders, and have thus become slave-owners themselves, or enjoy the wealth made by the blood of the slave,—especially if there be any Northern ministers of the gospel in such a predicament. ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... most unfavourably construed. And, finally, assuming the language of a generous and high-spirited man, he made it his particular request that this affair should be passed over without severe notice. He alluded with delicacy to the predicament in which he himself stood with young Ravenswood, as having succeeded in the long train of litigation by which the fortunes of that noble house had been so much reduced, and confessed it would be most peculiarly acceptable to his own feelings, could he find in some sort to counterbalance the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... common treasury of the universal mind, on which treasury, meantime, he had himself conferred these phrases as original donations of his own. Many expressions in the "Paradise Lost," in "Il Penseroso," and in "L'Allegro," are in the same predicament. And thus the almost incredible case is realized which I have described, viz., that simply by having suffered a robbery through two centuries, (for the first attempt at plundering Milton was made upon his juvenile poems,) have Shakspeare and Milton come to be taxed ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... them on and drew near to the window to read, his heavy brows lowering in a frown. But his wife did not need to read the letter, for she, like Marcia, had divined its purport, and already her able faculties were marshalled to face the predicament. ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... mother only known, Roger was already enduring considerable self-inflicted penance for getting into a predicament which made it ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... insuperable horror of being placed in what the vulgar call a predicament. In a predicament I was most certainly placed at the present moment. A man at my feet in a fit—the cause of it having very wisely disappeared, devolving upon me the charge of watching, recovering, and conducting home the afflicted person—made ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... voice replied in Chinese. We drew close abreast, and my companions held a parley with those on board. Our situation explained we were permitted to ascend. The junk was full of men. She had got into her present predicament in escaping, and they were waiting for the morning flood tide to float her off. Two or three junks, we were told, had struck torpedoes in leaving the harbour and been blown in pieces, and many others had fallen into ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... remembering that there was an elopement, with a carriage overturned in a muddy lane, she decided upon looking it through again. Another book related the love of a young lady who found herself in the awkward predicament of not being able to care for anyone but her groom, who was lucky enough to be the possessor of the most wonderful violet eyes. The fourth described the distressing position of a young clergyman who, when he told the lady of his choice that his means for the moment did not ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... Mrs. Mifflin. "Here's Mr. Gilbert. Were you coming to see Roger?" she added, rather enjoying the young man's predicament. ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... now, my friends, how can we drink with least injury to ourselves? I can assure you that I feel severely the effect of yesterday's potations, and must have time to recover; and I suspect that most of you are in the same predicament, for you were of the party yesterday. Consider then: How can ...
— Symposium • Plato
... had been condemned to death for contumacy by the decree of Rouen, gave himself up in 1815. He was immediately set free, and a pension granted him. Seeing which, Joseph Buquet, who was in the same predicament, presented himself, and being acquitted immediately, returned to Donnay, dug up the 43,000 francs remaining over from the sum stolen in 1807, and lived "rich and despised." As to the girl Dupont, who had been Mme. Acquet's confidante, she was kept in prison ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... November, almost every body had removed from the town of Agimere, so that I was left nearly alone, and could neither get carts nor camels for my removal, notwithstanding my warrant. The Persian ambassador was in a similar predicament, but complained, and was soon redressed. I therefore sent to court, and on the 11th I received two warrants, for being supplied with carts and camels at the king's price: but it was not easy to procure either, as the great ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... existed any necessity to disturb the working of the system, it would have gradually slided into absolute freedom if they were permitted to regulate their own affairs, but the government, or rather, the people of England, had forced on the predicament in which they were placed. The ministry could not help themselves—They were driven to violate the national compact, not in express words, it is true, but in fact. It was, however, the force of public opinion that operated in producing the change. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... was entitled to feel the others' cocks. I felt theirs, but again to my mortification, the tightness of my prepuce caused jeering at me; I was glad to hear that there was another boy at the school in the same predicament, though I never saw his. This confirmed me in avoiding my companions, when they were playing at cocks-all-round; being a day scholar only, I was not forced at all times into their intimacy, as I should have been had ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... time in his life Bounding Bull was rendered incapable of action. In all his extensive experience of Indian warfare he had never been placed in such a predicament. If he had been an out-and-out heathen, he would have known what to do, and would have done it at once—he would have gratified revenge. Had Rushing River been an out-and-out heathen, he never would have given him the chance he now possessed of wreaking his vengeance. Then the thought ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... about his body. There are some things than which death is to be preferred; and there came at last to the Englishman the realization that it would be better to die swiftly than to lie in this horrible predicament until his mind broke beneath the strain and he ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... limit, and the best thing to be hoped for now is some vast cataclysmal event, which, by destroying us out-of-hand, may save us the slow misery of extinction by disease, despair, and the enmity of every man against every other. What Columbus can help us out of such a predicament? ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... encountered Bert, who, in company with his lawyer, was on his way to a room in the town hall where the trial was to take place. Bert held his head erect, but his face was flushed with shame at the unpleasant predicament in which he found himself. When he saw Percy approaching he said to himself bitterly: "There is one who will rejoice ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... thought, owing as I do my early training to the kings and queens of England, who are nothing if not stable. They are my acknowledged guardians and to them I turn in all difficulties. Only a year ago they came to my aid in a most awkward predicament. It was my lot to fill up army forms; of what variety I cannot remember save that they were of a jaundicy colour and connected with the men's demobilisation. On these documents I was expected to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... out of this predicament, he scrambled on, handing himself from branch to branch, and once losing his foothold and ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... moment at which she should have spoken, but she did not. She, who had prided herself that she would make a race of it—she, who had always been able to slip out of a predicament in the nick of time—stood mutely by and let Transley and her father interpret her silence as consent. She was not sure that she was sorry; she was not sure but she would have consented anyway; but Transley had taken the matter quite ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... grounds. He ordered the babies put to bed and the curtains taken down in that room and the rugs taken out. Mrs. Martin obeyed his orders in a flutter of distress. She was frightened because her children had the scarlet fever and worried half to death at the predicament her passing guests were in. She had been so grateful to Gladys for taking her along ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... is an awful predicament!" exclaimed the rebuked Noah; "a ra'ally awful situation for a human Christian to have his enemies lying ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... end of my resources. I had always thought I could talk on ordinary topics as well as the average man, but in the presence of this girl, with everything in the world unsaid, I could not think of one word to say. The doctor soon saw my predicament and hastened to assist me, and the remark which he selected shows again his wonderful self-possession in the midst of overwhelming difficulties. He waved his hand gently toward me to attract ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... she, 'you do not at all understand your own predicament, and must just leave your matters in the hands of those who do. I dare say you have never even heard tell of the drove- roads or the drovers; and I am certainly not going to sit up all night to explain it ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in New York, he assisted me in many ways. Afterwards, on learning that I was not to go California, I called him up on the telephone to explain my predicament. He urged me to stay in New York; he guaranteed that there would be no difficulty in securing a splendid position in the East. I had no means of knowing that he was married. I accepted him for what I thought him to be: a genuine American gentleman. They ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... we were first," Lieutenant Mackinson said at last. "We'll take the pack-set with us, and we can probably advise headquarters of our predicament with that, and also inform them of the progress of the ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... apprehension about the cough; but my over-exertions in town have reduced me to a state of much debility; and, until the cough be gone, I cannot be permitted to take any strengthening medicines. This places me in an awkward predicament; but I think I perceive a degree of expectoration this morning, which will soon relieve me, and then I shall mend apace. Under these circumstances I must not expect to see you here at present; when I am a little recovered, it will be a pleasant relaxation to ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... my opinion a man should be either Referee or Umpire. Each position requires a different kind of experience and I do not believe officials can successfully interchange these positions. Those who have officiated can appreciate the predicament I was in, especially just at that time when there was so much talk of football reform, by means of changing the rules, changing the style of the game, stopping mass plays. However, I consented; for appreciating that McClung was sincere in his statement ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... this immense slope the eyes of Costobarus wandered. However he had felt in the preceding days when he looked upon this ruin of the land of milk and honey, he realized now suddenly and in all its fearful actuality the predicament of Judea, its despair and the gigantic travail before those who would save it from the united sentence passed upon it by God and the powers. Immense dejection seized him. He looked from the face of the country, ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... been reared and to enlarge their new horizon. Afterwards they went on to read Tolstoi, and Turgenev's powerful and antipathetic fellow-novelist, Dostoievsky, and many other Russian writers: but as he was the greatest artist of them all, his individual revelation of his country's predicament did not lose its effect. Writing in prose he achieved a style of his own which went as near poetry as narrative prose can do. without using the wrong music: while over his realism or his irony he cast a tinge of that mixed modern and oriental fantasy which belonged to his temperament. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... its inevitable train of dire consequences, up to the point when the discomfort compels one to seek treatment. There are patients, of course, who have good and sufficient excuses for their painful predicament; they have, for example, tried persistently for relief and cure, but have failed to find a physician competent to treat their particular case. How many unskilled prescribers there are, and how glaring their shortcomings! Some hold ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... soft, woman's laughter as if she enjoyed this joke on mere man—and even when Rimrock explained the dangerous side of his predicament she refused to take ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... and compressed lips of her captors as the fitful flashes of the flames threw a bright ray upon them, and, in despite of the many hopes she had entertained, she was horror-stricken to contemplate the reality of her sad predicament. ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... brain or nervous system. You begin at one end of the body, and show that its parts may be removed without prejudice to the perceiving power. What if you begin at the other end, and remove, instead of the leg, the brain? The body, as before, is divided into two parts; but both are now in the same predicament, and neither can be appealed to to prove that the other is foreign matter. Or, instead of going so far as to remove the brain itself, let a certain portion of its bony covering be removed, and let a rhythmic series of pressures and relaxations of pressure ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... patriarch, came to Danville one day and either drank up or gambled away a certain sum of money intrusted to him by his aunt for disposition in an entirely different manner. When the day was all over, however, he was not too drunk to realize that he was in a rather serious predicament, and so, riding out of town, traveled a little way and then tearing his clothes and marking his skin, returned, complaining that he had been set upon by the wayside, beaten, and finally robbed. His clothes were in a fine state of dilapidation after his ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... (in the morning) to go out and witness the whipping which was to be given to the enemy's cavalry. Riding to the front, I readily perceived that the information was correct, and I had to send a brigade of infantry out to help Sturgis, thus relieving him from a rather serious predicament. Indeed, the enemy was present in pretty strong force, both cavalry and infantry, and from his vicious attack on Sturgis it looked very much as though he intended to bring on a ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... confined to striking. A knight, it was announced, might use a mace or battle-axe at pleasure; but the dagger was a prohibited weapon. A knight unhorsed might renew the fight on foot with any other on the opposite side in the same predicament; but mounted horsemen were in that case forbidden to assail him. When any knight could force his antagonist to the extremity of the lists, so as to touch the palisade with his person or arms, such opponent was obliged to yield himself ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... they cross all Paris with this drum? The first patrol which met them would shoot them. A porter of an adjoining house, who noticed their predicament, gave them a packing-cloth. They enveloped the drum in it, and reached Batignolles by the lonely streets which skirt ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... we had mastered a dozen common substantives and no other parts of speech, to satisfy his inquisitiveness, which I always endeavored to do, because it is wrong to repress that indication of dawning reason in a child, and Jack at eleven years old was in the predicament of a mere infant. More especially was I puzzled when his "what?" was accompanied by a motion pointing first at the dog, then to himself, to learn wherein consisted the difference between two creatures, both of whom, as he intimated, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... she laughed. "You see what it is to be so popular. I should have dined and have come here with Captain Baring—that was our plan for to-night. Captain Baring, however, was generous when he saw my predicament. He suffered me to dine with Mr. Selingman, and he fetched me afterwards. Even then we could not quite get rid of the dear man. He came on here with us, and he is now, I believe, greeting acquaintances everywhere in the Promenade. I am perfectly convinced that I shall have to look the ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of words. Let but the art of Pantomime become universal, and this grand desideratum must be obtained. Then we shall find that candidates, instead of being able, as now, to become legislators by simply professing to be patriots, will be placed in the awkward predicament of having first to act as such; and that the clergy, in lieu of taking a tenth part of the produce for the mere preaching of Christianity, will be obliged to sacrifice at least a portion to charitable purposes, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... speedily had become distasteful to Armitage, who inwardly was floundering for a method of escape from the predicament into which his folly had led him. He had no wish to pose as a freak in her eyes. Still, ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... for white flags: South Carolinians never surrender...." By this time Merritt's patience being exhausted, he ordered an attack, and this in short order put an end to General Geary's "last ditch" absurdity, and extricated Allen from his predicament. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... My "predicament" was first "awkward," then "foolish." "It was all along of" a woman. I may even say a "woman in white." "I was a pale young curate" then, but of a dissenting type. Twenty-two years of age. Very white in the face. Dark brown hair, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... inquiries. Although it is the practice to consider that acceptance of office is alone necessary to qualify a man for a statesman, a similar doctrine has not yet prevailed in the world of science. One of these gentlemen, who has established his reputation as a chemist, stands in the same predicament with respect to the other two sciences. It remains then to consider Captain Sabine's claims, which must rest on his skill in "PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY AND NAVIGATION,"—a claim which can only be allowed when the scientific world are set at rest respecting ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... store, in company with Major Brown. When I looked for my gun, I found that I had left it behind me. I got cold consolation from Major Brown when I informed him of my loss. Then I told him that the general had sent for me to shoot a match with him, and that if the old man discovered my predicament ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... Charley was getting along far better than he had dared to hope during the night. He soon would be well enough to take command, and then, thought Walter, they would soon find their friends. He had great confidence in Charley's ability to get them out of their present predicament. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the twenty were dead, a dozen others were wounded, and Lieutenant D'Arnot was missing. Night was falling rapidly, and their predicament was rendered doubly worse when they could not even find the elephant trail which they had ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... making repeated efforts to fly but without getting away, though they could spread their wings. We used to say, 'They are marking time.' Now was this sympathy? Was it a vision of my own future?—Oh! to spread my wings and yet be unable to fly! That has been my predicament since that fine undertaking by which I was disgusted, but which has now made four ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... made my mind up in a moment, and by way of answer told him the whole story of our voyage and the predicament in which we found ourselves. He heard me with the keenest interest, and when I had done he ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... first thought more of London; but Mr Shepherd felt that he could not be trusted in London, and had been skilful enough to dissuade him from it, and make Bath preferred. It was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament: he might there be important at comparatively little expense. Two material advantages of Bath over London had of course been given all their weight: its more convenient distance from Kellynch, only fifty miles, and Lady Russell's spending some part of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... all Paris with this drum? The first patrol which met them would shoot them. A porter of an adjoining house, who noticed their predicament, gave them a packing-cloth. They enveloped the drum in it, and reached Batignolles by the lonely streets ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... the train just in time to secure a section in the sleeping-car. Hoping for no more delay, we started, but ere long found ourselves landed in a snow bank, with five trains ahead of us, in the same predicament. A three-days stand-still of this kind, with its trying tedium, can be imagined only by those who have been similarly situated, and its tedium is equaled by nothing but an Ohio River sand bar imprisonment on ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... short and stout, and made for digging rather than running. The latter operation he performs by short leaps, his belly scarcely clearing the ground. For a short distance he can make very good time, but he seldom trusts himself far from his hole, and, when surprised in that predicament, makes little effort to escape, but, grating his teeth, looks the danger ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... then took off our shirts, and wrapping them in paper, informed "the kid" of our predicament, and of the fact that we would be obliged to remain shirtless in our room while he took the bundle to the washerwoman and left them as security for the laundered, without ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... out from his own dwelling, hallooed to the invisible valet: "I am Monsieur de Balzac." It was useless. The door refused to open. Around Madame de Balzac, now seated on one of the trunks, other passers-by had gathered and listened to the novelist's excited comments on his predicament. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... John will never care more about a knife, now he is going to have a wife," added Mr. Franklin, addressing his remark to Benjamin, in order to help him out of the predicament into which John's remark had placed him. "But did you not like the ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... Indian was suddenly taken sick and his strength gave out completely. The Indian could go no further except on foot, and this mode of travel he was unwilling to adopt, refusing absolutely Carson's request made to him to do so. This was an unpleasant predicament, especially as the rascal, who formed the chase, was a dangerous antagonist even to an experienced fighter and in an honest cause. Goaded on by the fear of punishment for theft, Carson well knew that he would require all of his own address ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... to the little three-legged stool, I was obliged to dispense with a nap. I walked up and down my splendid hall instead, longing desperately for a mouthful of fresh air by way of dessert, or a few minutes' chat with my friends, who I dare say were in exactly the same predicament. ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... soft outer darkness. Presently there flashed into his mind Dr. Hartmann's words at their last meeting: "While I know how to cure mental disorders, I also know how to create them." The thought made him shudder. Was this, then, the explanation of his predicament? Somewhere he had read, not long before, a newspaper account of the investigations of certain Italian scientists, concerning the effect of the violet and ultra-violet light rays upon the cells of the brain. He could not recollect just what the conclusions ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... them, used me shamefully; but my complaint is principally of the editor, for with the proprietor I have had little direct connection. If you think it worth while, you shall, at some future day, see such parts of the correspondence as I have preserved. Mr. Southey is pretty much in the same predicament with them, though he has kept silence for the present.... I am properly served for having had any connection with such things. My only excuse is, that they offered me a very liberal sum, and that I have laboured ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... a story of a man who had but one idea, which was a wrong one. The couple who dote upon their children are in the same predicament: at home or abroad, at all times, and in all places, their thoughts are bound up in this one subject, and have no sphere beyond. They relate the clever things their offspring say or do, and weary every company with their prolixity and absurdity. Mr. Whiffler takes a ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... rabbinical seminaries and the ukase (May 3, 1855) that only such may officiate as rabbis as have completed a prescribed course of study, Russian Jewry was placed in a sore predicament. It was a very difficult task to find men who united secular knowledge with that thorough mastery of Talmudic literature which the Jews of Russia exact from their rabbis. Every community was compelled to appoint two rabbis: an ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... Retraction was out of the question, in that it involved the loss of his reputation among men. He was caught in a trap. He must lie and maintain his place, or he must confess and go out of society. It must not be supposed that he took his predicament lightly, or that he made his choice without pangs of self-pity at the cruel necessity. It was his honor, or hers! and if only the one or the other could be saved, it must be his. So he saved it—according to his lights. He saved it by being very bold in his statements ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... after realizing his predicament, Bryce Cardigan was tempted to jump and take his chance on a few broken bones, before the train could reach a greater speed than twenty miles an hour. His impulse was to run forward and set the handbrake on the leading truck, but a glance showed him that even with ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... think the worst things they can about me; why shouldn't I take pleasure in keeping them worried? Why should I say that, since I don't get my gulden, I shall have to go to church, unless a friend helps me out of my predicament? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... a lesson he would get in the course of the first six hours of his march; and to predict that he would, should any brains be then remaining to him, turn back on the strength of that same sample? It is only a very young, and somewhat foolish person, who would be at all likely to be found in this predicament. The dissuasion of the indigenous is so earnest, and so without exception, that, considering their knowledge of the facts, a prudent stranger must perceive in them the substance of reason. The Asiatics, perhaps, carry a little too far the dread of exposure ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... any way out, Tony?" she said at last. "I—I don't seem to know what to do." She looked round her vaguely, feeling confused and unnerved by the awkwardness of their predicament. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Miller had experienced, is one thing; a continued series of incidents like these happening upon the confines of the Blue Lake Ranch, was quite another. Hampton, knowing nothing of conditions in the mountains, had been quick to imagine the predicament in which he had found Judith and Bud Lee. To Carson that had been a thing not to be thought of. Now, only too plainly he realized that Shorty had had an accomplice at the ranch headquarters who had come to ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... might have seen her when, after a long social call, I subtly introduced the subject of laundry and dilated on my helpless predicament. She weighed and considered and consulted with her spouse, and said at last, "Wall, I don't keer if I do—but I wunt fetch'n kerry fer nobuddy!" Since when I have myself fetched and carried my garments, and they are rapidly taking on the tinge of prevailing Island grayness. ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... required information or to take proper measures to obtain it, they would be removed by the Executive. If they gave the information and took proper measures to obtain it, they would upon the next nomination be rejected by the Senate. It would be unjust in me to place any other citizens in the predicament in which this unlooked-for decision of the Senate has placed the estimable and honorable men who were ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... from her defeat and compelled Mr. Farange perceptibly to lower his crest. He was unable to produce the money or to raise it in any way; so that after a squabble scarcely less public and scarcely more decent than the original shock of battle his only issue from his predicament was a compromise proposed by his legal advisers ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... frightful predicament, into which Ascelin and his party had brought themselves, a woman's pity came to the rescue. Baithnoy's principal wife endeavored to move him to compassion; but, finding him obdurate, she next appealed ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... novice has no partner to teach him manners, or the figures of the dance, or to set his wits astir. By effort, and through numerous failures, he must teach himself. The difficulties of the medium between him and his distant friend, who is generally in a similar predicament, must be surmounted. Gradually stiffness gives place to ease of composition, roughness to elegance, awkwardness to grace and tact, until his letters at length come to represent his mood, and to interest, if not to delight, his correspondent. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Paisley," said the Colonel. "I have seen many children that did not resemble their fathers. Perhaps yours were in the same predicament?" ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... with the thermometer at something like 180 degrees in the sun, and the choking from thirst at every movement of the body, is enough to make any one pause before he foolishly gets himself into such a predicament. Discretion in such a case is by far the better part of valour—for valour wasted upon burning sands to no purpose is like love's ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... border of the cliff and anxiously George waited to discover what means would be used for his rescue. That he would be left in his predicament he was convinced was not to ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... awful predicament, which would last till Eva gave him up; Eva's callous treatment of my former love for her; my own newly-acquired affection for Margaret; my self-respect—these things had ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... in a predicament that he couldn't laugh or fight his way out of; he has never yet found a job that he cared to stick at for more than a year or two, and seldom one that could hold ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... looked as desperate a gang of ruffians as ever took the field. For my part, I felt that nature had never intended me for a warrior, and although I thought that I could keep up appearances as well as most men in my predicament, and indeed I believe did act my part so perfectly, as to make both my master and his companions believe that they had got a very Rustam[13] in me, yet I dreaded the time when I should be put to ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... torture, if by so doing it would have afforded her one moment of pleasure. On the other hand, I had sworn most solemnly to the great Sagewoman that I would devote the remainder of my natural life to the dissemination of the principles in which she had instructed me. I often wondered at my strange predicament. Here I was being censured by the reincarnated soul of the great Sage-woman for carrying out the very work she taught me, and for fulfilling ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... awkwardness of remaining stuck fast in the Desert whilst our servants were amusing themselves. When with this intent I turned round my camel I found that the gallant officer who had passed me by about thirty or forty yards was exactly in the same predicament as myself. I put my now willing camel in motion and rode up towards the stranger, who seeing this followed my example and came forward to meet me. He was the first to speak. He was much too courteous to address me as if he admitted the possibility ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... music-mad; the only chance of keeping sane just now. There's an awful predicament! Can't go into it now, but you shall hear all ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but had not seen her turned adrift without oars, as the fog came on just at that time. The yacht was left with only three seamen on board, and, should it come on bad weather, they were in an awkward predicament. Mr Hautaine had taken the command, and ordered the guns to be fired that the boat might be enabled to find them. The fourth gun was loading, when they perceived the smuggler's cutter close to them ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... me. Her jesting tones, and a little gleeful movement that escaped her, expressed nothing beyond a girlish, blithe goodwill. I told her about my distress and the predicament in which I found myself, and ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... reproducing the same alarming circumstances—a congested National Treasury and a depleted monetary condition in the business of the country. It need hardly be stated that while the present situation demands a remedy, we can only be saved from a like predicament in the future by the removal of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... moments as I sat thus in silence the obvious way out never once occurred to me. Somehow the memory of my own position had become blotted out in contemplation of the serious predicament of my companion. How could I assist her in spite of her pride, and her determination to continue the struggle alone. I could not take her to my boarding house, which was exclusively for men, nor did I have any acquaintance able to furnish her employment. I shoved ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... it. It is fallen. My ambition is not at present higher than to write nonsense for the playhouses, to eke out a something contracted income. Tempus erat. There was a time, my dear Cornwallis, when the muse, etc. But I am now in Mac Flecknoe's predicament,— ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... Newman was determined to arrest his progress at any hazard, and apprehensive that some well-intentioned passenger, attracted by the cry of 'Stop thief,' might lay violent hands upon his person, and place him in a disagreeable predicament from which he might have some difficulty in extricating himself, Nicholas soon slackened his pace, and suffered Newman Noggs to come up with him: which he did, in so breathless a condition, that it seemed impossible he could have held out for ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... is not confined to childless couples. Others may find themselves in quite as unfortunate a predicament. A man may be the father of a large and thriving family and yet be as destitute patriarchally as if he had not a child to his name. His offspring may be of the wrong sex; they may all be girls. In this untoward event the father has something ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... thought of Aruna—her adoration, her exalted passion; Aruna, whom he might have loved, yet was constrained to put aside because of his English heritage; only to find himself put aside by an English girl on account of his Indian blood. A pleasant predicament for a man who must needs marry in common duty to his father ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... motioned with his head and elbow sideways to a figure, visible to me, but not to her, of a brown Franciscan, who was amusing himself in gathering some finocchi, just round the corner of the wall. The woman, who was fishing for the cabbages, immediately understood the predicament, drew up her cord, disappeared from the loggia, and the curtain fell upon the little farce. The gardener, however, evidently had a little soliloquy after she had gone. He ceased working, and gazed at the unconscious Franciscan for some time, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... sentimental, most practical, defiant, apprehensive. At one moment he was crying, "Now, Grizel, now, when it is too late, you will see what you have lost." At the next he quaked and implored the gods to help him out of his predicament. It was apprehension that, on the whole, played most of the tunes, for he was by no means sure that Grizel would not look upon the affair of the glove as an offer of his hand, and accept him. They would show her the glove, and she would, of course, know it to be her own. "Give her this ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... out with more violence than ever. The Virginians spurned the mock-remedy which left the real cause of complaint untouched. His lordship also felt deeply wounded by the disingenuousness of ministers which had led him into such a predicament, and wrote home demanding his discharge. Before it arrived, an attack of bilious fever, acting upon a delicate and sensitive frame, enfeebled by anxiety and chagrin, laid him in his grave. He left behind him a name endeared to the Virginians by his amiable manners, his liberal patronage ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... prison for a month, having been pulled out of a motor on his way to the frontier, and found with letters on him. He got out on Thursday and they are quite proud of themselves. They were having a fine time discussing the predicament of the H—— family. The Countess was arrested last week because she, too, was caught carrying letters. She was released from prison and allowed to return home. Now the Germans have placed sentries before the house and allow no one to enter or leave: The old gentleman is also locked up there. ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... assurance that he thirsted for no man's blood, when I cut the proposed accommodation short, by resenting the Justice's suggestion as an insult, that went directly to suppose me guilty of the very crime which I had come to his house with the express intention of disavowing. We were in this awkward predicament when a servant, opening the door, announced, "A strange gentleman to wait upon his honour;" and the party whom he thus described entered ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... owing to the extreme modesty of our forefathers, who, unlike their descendants, were never prone to vaunt of their achievements; but it is a virtue which places their historian in a most embarrassing predicament; for, having promised my readers a hideous and unparalleled battle, and having worked them up into a warlike and blood-thirsty state of mind, to put them off without any havoc and slaughter would have been as bitter a disappointment as to summon a multitude of good ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... feining to let fall somthing, and other wilie tricks fit for their purporse: heere one lost his purse, there another had his pocket pickt, & to say all in briefe, at one instant, vpon the complaint of one or two that saw their purses were gone, eight more in the same companie, found themselues in like predicament. Some angrie, others sorrowfull, and all greatly discontented, looking about them, knewe not who to suspect or challenge, in that the villaines themselues that had thus beguiled them, made shew ...
— The Third And Last Part Of Conny-Catching. (1592) - With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking • R. G.
... utter by the tongue words to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken, for ye will speak to the air?" And as others did not understand the Corinthians speaking in unknown tongues, so it seems, too, that the Corinthians themselves were in the same unfortunate predicament with the Shakers, in not knowing the meaning of what they themselves said on these occasions. This is clear from this argument of Paul:—"Wherefore, let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue, pray that ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... are acting in the interest of the people of New Jersey and in the interest of nobody else." If the self-constituted committee thought this merely handsome talk without specific meaning, they had only themselves to thank for their subsequent predicament. They found he meant exactly ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... they do venture upon their own dreadful deed—the deed demanded by their particular modern predicament—then we all shriek vigorously." ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... he began to make mistakes in his work; had to stay at the bank until after dark to make his books balance. He was daft about her, and every one knew it. To escape from his predicament he ran away with a widow six years older than himself, who owned a half-section. This remedy worked, apparently. He never looked at Lena again, nor lifted his eyes as he ceremoniously tipped his hat when he happened to ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... and after numerous adventures the Patties and their adherents arrived at the Colorado, where their horses were stampeded by the tribe living at the mouth of the Gila, the "Umeas." They were left without a single animal, a most serious predicament in a wild country. The elder Pattie counselled pursuit on foot to recapture the horses or die in the attempt. But the effort was fruitless. They then made their way back to their camp, devoured their last morsel of meat, placed their guns ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... extraordinary situation. The real Tom, after four years of absence, might suddenly turn up at the farm, or a letter might come from him at any moment. Again, in the character of heir to the farm, the false Tom might be called on to sign documents, which would be an embarrassing predicament. Or a relative might arrive who would not imitate the aunt's attitude of aloofness. All these things would mean ignominious exposure. On the other hand, the alternative was the open sky and the muddy lanes that led down to the sea. The farm offered him, at any rate, a temporary refuge from ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... say): (1) dedicate, vindicate, indication, predicament, predict, addict, verdict, indict, dictionary, dictation, jurisdiction, vindictive, contradiction, benediction, ditto, condition; (2) abdicate, adjudicate, juridical, diction, dictum, dictator, dictaphone, dictograph, edict, interdict, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... existence in a manner which was almost respectable, if not altogether honest; for it is not to be supposed that honesty and respectability are by any means synonymous terms. It was only by the exercise of superhuman address that the Captain had extricated himself from that perplexing predicament at the Belgian watering-place; and it may be that the unpleasant experiences of that particular evening were not without a salutary effect ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... of this lover of labor are still extant, but for readers of the present age, the printed and unpublished are nearly in the same predicament. Moses and Aristotle are the chief objects of his verbose commentaries, one of which is dated as early as May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458-468.) A modern, (John Le Clerc,) who sometimes assumed the same name was equal to old Philoponus in diligence, and far ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... lawyer in the land. I have seen gentlemen sometimes so much the lawyer that they had to abate some of the statesman [laughter]; and I am not certain, I would not say it was so—I will not arrogate to myself to say so—but sometimes a suspicion flashes across my mind that that is precisely the predicament of my ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... word about his own predicament—its horror, danger, loneliness, and risk. No single syllable. Even the Hindus, the driver, and the man who carried the guns, were left unmentioned. Bananas were equally ignored. The tiger itself ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... our predicament and our coming in on you this way, unasked, we can't consent to less," ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... despatches, via the St. Lawrence, to General Amherst; but, during the trip, the vessel was overhauled and taken by a French privateer, the despatches having been previously consigned to the deep. Stobo might have swung at the yard-arm in this new predicament, had his French valet divulged his identity with the spy of Fort du Quesne; but fortune again stepped in to preserve the adventurous Scot. There were already too many prisoners on board of the French privateer. A day's provision ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of human fellowship which we need to recognize before we talk much about Christian fellowship. Human fellowship is both heroic and tragic; it is both renewing and destructive; it is both healing and hurtful, but it is indispensable to life. This is our human predicament. ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... this time getting into the whirr of fleeting platforms, the multiplication of lights. "I think you'll find," I said with a laugh, "that your predicament will disappear in the very fact that ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... that at that period Kentucky family feuds were well to the fore. As Lampton had started as a poet, the editors were bound to keep him pigeon-holed as far as they could, and his ambition to write short stories was not at first much encouraged by them. His predicament was something like that of the chief character of Frank R. Stockton's story, "His Wife's Deceased Sister" (January, 1884, Century), who had written a story so good that whenever he brought the editors another story they invariably answered in substance, "We're afraid it won't ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... of her release from a trying predicament, the woman was scarcely more eager to go home than was the prisoner, for while Anto's trail led to a jail, hers led to Las Palmas, and there was little difference. These last two days in the open had been like a glimpse ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... indeed, that you resigned the powers to which you are unequal), and let a younger man take the reins.' None but a filthy barbarian could carry forward his thoughts so little as not to see that this son in due time would find himself in the same predicament. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the May of this year, 1430, he had been sent to Messire Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of King Charles. He had been taken by the Burgundians at the same time as Jeanne and held to ransom; but out of that predicament he soon escaped and at no ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... interrogation she gracefully looked up to the gentlemen; and after a glance towards Granville Beauclerc, unluckily unnoticed or unanswered, her eyes expected reply from Horace Churchill. He, well feeling the predicament in which he stood, between a fool and a femme d'esprit, answered, with his ambiguous smile, "that no doubt it was a great misfortune to have 'plus d'esprit qu'on ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... one to defend your spring, you will appear ridiculous and humiliated. It will redound greatly to your honour, forsooth, if he who has attacked you shall retire without a fight! Surely you are in a bad predicament if you do not devise some other plan to benefit yourself." The lady replies: "Do thou, who art so wise, tell me what plan I can devise, and I will follow thy advice." "Indeed, lady, if I had any plan, I should gladly ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... young birds have," Mr. Bronson remarked, turning to Joe with a serious smile; "and I dare say you are on the verge of a somewhat similar predicament, my boy," he went on. "I am afraid things have reached a crisis, Joe. I have watched it coming on for a year now—your poor scholarship, your carelessness and inattention, your constant desire to be out of the house and away in search of adventures ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... In this frightful predicament the Bishop, finding that he could obtain no help on land, bethought of taking himself to the water. A tower was hastily erected upon the Rhine. He took ship and shut himself up there. Enclosed within double walls, and surrounded by water, he flattered himself ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... how that's done, and there's no need of my explaining it. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. You see what a predicament that would leave the Deity in if you ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... strait he telegraphed to me, in Chicago, detailing his predicament, and asking instructions. He was much surprised at receiving an answer from Philadelphia, where I then was. I telegraphed him in cipher, congratulating him on his success so far, and told him not to mind the loss of ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... saw that the great man was not going to vouchsafe any contribution to her small attempt to keep the ball rolling; so without giving him the chance to mark her failure by a silence, however brief, she chattered on. 'Though with Vida you're not likely to find yourself in that predicament. Is he, Ronald?' With the instinct of the well-trained female to draw into her circle any odd man hovering about on the periphery, Mrs. Freddy appealed to her brother-in-law. Lord Borrodaile turned in her direction his long sallow face—a face that would ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... immediately to Tarzan's mind similar action on the preceding day when the Tor-o-don had struck one of the creatures across the face with his staff, and instantly there sprung to the cunning and courageous brain a plan of escape from his predicament that might have blanched the cheek ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the afternoon," and then I held up my letter. "See here, this is from Hartford!" I wish you could have seen Aunt Esther's eyes brighten, and mother's pale face all in a smile, and father, as I unfolded the letter and began. Mrs. Parsons's notice of her Thanksgiving predicament caused just a laugh, and then one or two sighs (I told you we were growing sentimental!). We did talk some of keeping it (Thanksgiving), but perhaps we should all have felt something of the text, "How shall we sing the Lord's ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... each succeeding step, buried us deeper. At length a sergeant of grenadiers stuck fast, and declared himself incapable of moving either forward or backward; and just after, Ensign Prentice and I felt ourselves in a similar predicament, close together. 'I find it impossible to move; I am sinking;' resounded on every side. What to do I knew not: every moment brought increase of perplexity, and augmented danger, as those who could not proceed kept gradually subsiding. From our misfortunes, however, those in the rear profited. ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... report that Sheridan's force has crossed the James River. If this be so, the Danville Road is in danger, and the President and his cabinet and Congress are all in a predicament. No wonder there is some commotion! But the report may not be true. It is also said Grant is crossing his army to the north side of the river. This may be a feint, but stirring events are casting their ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... but instead of looking at it he looked up at her. He thought she was enjoying herself and his predicament as he had never ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... help her out of her predicament when the belated motor came racing down the slope. As a matter of fact, I was wrong when I said that a man brought me here in an automobile. It was she who did it. She gave the order. He merely obeyed,—and not very ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... New Testament. Indeed, so great is the demand for Bibles that though we have eight presses constantly at work I fear we shall not have a Bengali New Testament to sell or give away for the next twelve months, the old edition being entirely out of print. We shall be in almost the same predicament with the Hindostani. We are going to set up two more presses, which we can get made in Calcutta, and are going to send another to Rangoon. In short, though the publishing of the Word of God is a political crime, there never was a ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... citizens, is the state of the public interests at the present moment and according to the information now possessed. But such is the situation of the nations of Europe and such, too, the predicament in which we stand with some of them that we can not rely with certainty on the present aspect of our affairs, that may change from moment to moment during the course of your session or ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson • Thomas Jefferson
... circumstances, we made a merrier party than could have been expected. From time to time, it is true, Northmour or I would rise from table and make a round of the defenses; and, on each of these occasions, Mr. Huddlestone was recalled to a sense of his tragic predicament, glanced up with ghastly eyes, and bore for an instant on his countenance the stamp of terror. But he hastened to empty his glass, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and joined ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... able to expend, we knew that we should have little difficulty on that score. Should he bribe high enough, not only would the prison doors be open, but the gates of the city likewise, and not only our friends, but others in a like predicament, might be able to make their escape. Antwerp had become every day less and less fitted for our residence; and I knew that, as nearly all my patron's affairs had been wound up, we should have no difficulty in quitting the place at a very short notice. Following our guide, we passed through ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... He also brought back such persons as Gaius had unjustly exiled,—-among others the latter's sisters Agrippina and Julia,—and restored to them, their property. Of those imprisoned,—and a very great number were in this predicament,—he liberated such as were suffering for maiestas or any similar complaints, but real ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... openly railed at all the motions of the deputies, and then returned to the Queen's antechamber, where he repeated all that he had just heard, or had had the imprudence to say. Unfortunately, at the same time that the Queen sent away M. de Goguelat, she still believed that, in a dangerous predicament, requiring great self-devotion, the man might be employed advantageously. In 1791 he was commissioned to act in concert with the Marquis de Bouille in furtherance ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... character, this Indian leader, of whom example, prompt and sharp, would certainly have been made, unless the general and the ends of justice were defeated. But what stung the major most of all was that he had been fairly victimized, hoodwinked, cajoled, wheedled, flattered into this wretched predicament, all through the wiles and graces of a woman. No one knew it, whatever might be suspected, but Nanette had bewitched him quite as much as missives from the ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... which Vidura of great wisdom foretold after Krishna's supplication for peace had failed. Do not, therefore, grieve, in a matter that was inevitable, especially after its occurrence. Having fallen in battle, they should not be grieved for. I am in the same predicament with thee. (If thou actest in such a way) who then will comfort us? Through my fault, this foremost of races has ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to death by a sailor, Gorelin; seeing which, the others on board the jolly-boat took advantage of the confusion, sprang overboard, and suicided. But there were still a dozen hostages on the ship. These might relate the crime of their companions' murder. It was an old trick out of an ugly predicament—destroy the victim in order to dodge retribution, or torture it so it would destroy itself. Fourteen had been tortured into suicide. The rest Pushkareff seized, bound, and ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the book with which he had read himself to sleep last night; the title, "Un Crime d'Amour," lettered in black on yellow, caught Claude's eye. The doctor put on his coat and pointed his visitor to the jointed chair in which patients were sometimes examined. Claude explained his predicament. ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... was looked upon as the champion boxer in that district, made a dead set on Paul. Jacker had often sought his friendship, and Paul had as often repulsed his advances. Jacker's own parentage lay under a cloud, and he felt angry that Paul, whom he regarded as in a like predicament, should refuse to be friendly with him. One evening, therefore, when Paul seemed less inclined than ever to be sociable, Jacker determined to have it out with him. He was passing through what is called the Church Town, ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... sent forth its shrill sounds, I scurried off and made the best of my way to the midshipmen's berth. I felt that I had allowed my sympathy to get the better of my discretion, and in so doing had plunged myself into a very awkward predicament, out of which I did not at all clearly see how I was to extricate myself; but, whatever might be the result to myself of my imprudence, it had at least been the means of saving several men from an undeserved flogging, and this reflection served somewhat ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... own way, skipper," said Biarne; "it seems to me, nevertheless, that if we were to advance with the whole of the men we have brought on shore with us, we should be in the same predicament, for twenty men could not easily save themselves from a hundred—or, as it might be, a thousand—if surrounded in the ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... scruple as a means to an end. She had made him the instrument for escaping from a predicament which she found unbearably irksome. That she had done so in the heat of passion was small palliation. For the present, at least, she wisely resolved to make the best of things. It could not last forever. The ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... perusal of 'Twixt Love and Duty, by Mr. Tighe Hopkins, we confess ourselves unable to inform anxious inquirers who it is that is thus sandwiched, and how he (or she) got into so unpleasant a predicament. The curious reader with a taste for enigmas may be advised to find out for himself—if he can. Even if he be unsuccessful, his trouble will be repaid by the pleasant writing and clever character drawing of Mr. Hopkins's tale. The plot ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... not exactly have looked each other in the face without sensations regarding their own conduct, which neither of them wished to avow. There is a hypocrisy in villainy sometimes so deep that it cannot bear to repeat its own iniquity, even in the presence of those who are aware of it, and in this predicament stood Valentine M'Clutchy. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... time Ethan and Mickey awoke, and were soon made to understand their predicament. As a matter of course, they were all disposed to blame the author of this; but when they saw how deeply he felt his own shortcoming, all three felt a ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... his head as he spoke to those nearest to him in the circle, it was only when he came to within a few yards of you, that you could distinguish what he was saying; and of course the auditors at the other point were in the same predicament. However, he divided his speech out in portions very equally, and those which came to ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the very success of his last and most pretentious effort that had placed him in the horrifying predicament in which he now found himself—with the corpse of what was apparently a human being in his workshop and no available explanation that could possibly be acceptable to a matter-of-fact and ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... King of home would have given such, prestige as their presence could give at the Tuileries and he Champs-de-Mai. No sooner had the Emperor of Austria discovered this plot, which, had it been successful, would have placed him in a very awkward predicament, than he dismissed all the French people about his daughter, compelled her to lay aside the armorial bearings and liveries of Napoleon, and even to relinquish the title of Empress of the French: No force, no art, no police could conceal these things ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of the enemy's troops were in the same predicament. For several days they wandered about among us free, and some of them even still armed. Our soldiers met these vanquished enemies without animosity, or without thinking of making them prisoners; either because ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... long before a guard appeared with breakfast. This they ate leisurely and then sat down to talk their predicament over calmly. ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... the Pope. Luther makes, indeed, a clean and sweeping denial of every claim which Catholics advance for the God-given supremacy of their Popes. Inasmuch as the papacy stands or falls with Matt. 16, 18.19, he has put the Catholics in the worst predicament imaginable. ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
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