"Expedient" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brig's having been thus moored, the strain, which necessarily led forward, came nearly in a line with the masts, and the latter were much better able to support it. Notwithstanding this advantage, however, it was found expedient to get up preventer-stays, and to give the spars all the additional support could be conveniently bestowed. Hours were passed in making these preliminary, or it might be better ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... her mind about this, feeling it necessary to account in some elaborate way for what was so entirely out of nature. "I know what it must be—she must have lost her own," she said to her husband. Sir Tom's countenance was almost convulsed by one of those laughs, which he now found it expedient to suppress, but he only replied that he had never heard of such an event. "Ah! it must have been before you knew her; but she has never got it out of her mind," Lucy cried. That hypothesis explained everything. At this time it ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... by a certain generation among them, and it is not right and just nor expedient to abolish it, may we not safely ask, How did the Most High legislate concerning slavery among the people to whom he gave a code of ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... accurately tested, and whether some points which had been corrected by really efficient officers have been omitted, if not suppressed, in order to cover certain discrepancies. And if so whether it was an expedient to avoid showing the weakness of the maps (on which certain names figure prominently) which were taken as ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... his desire, was somehow due to him a thing only momentarily out of his hands, like one's brief loan to a friend. Presently it would come his way and be his; and it belongs to his sense of security in his right that not once, not even when he remembered it most avidly, did he think of the expedient of buying it from the sick peddler by paying him the value ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... 1825, Dr. King wrote as follows: "I spent about a month in Tyre, and made some efforts to establish a school for Tyrian females, and was very near succeeding, when one of the principal priests rose up and said, 'It is by no means expedient to teach women to read the word of God. It is better for them to remain in ignorance than to know how to read and write. They are quite bad enough with what little they now know. Teach them to read and write, and there would be no living with them!'" That Tyrian priest of fifty ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... as inferior to them in social position, with your remaining the minister of a Church in which such enormities as you employed your private influence to counteract in my case, are not only possible, but certainly lawful, and recognized by most of its members as likewise expedient." ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... "but the man himself can find many. The chief is that he be conscious of his danger, and on the watch against it. As a last expedient I should recommend a ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... if there is a rational social order at all it must be one which never rests the essential indispensable condition of the happiness of one man on the unavoidable misery of another, nor the happiness of forty millions of men on the misery of one. It may be temporarily expedient, but it is eternally unjust, that one man should die for ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... INDULGENCES.—Leo X., upon his election to the papal dignity, in 1513, found the coffers of the Church almost empty; and, being in pressing need of money to carry on his various undertakings, among which was work upon St. Peter's, he had recourse to the then common expedient of a grant of indulgences. He delegated the power of dispensing these in Germany to the archbishop of Magdeburg, who employed a Dominican friar by the name of Tetzel as ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... the foreigners were remaining unmoved, they would break forth into loud horse-laughs throwing themselves back in their seats. And when the German audience was growing cold, the story-teller would resort to an infallible expedient to remedy his ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... personnel would cause something like consternation among the larger fauna, whose limited intelligence might reasonably fail to distinguish the procession from a travelling menagerie. In these days of unrest is it right, is it expedient, thus to stir up species hatred? It would be indeed deplorable if the present quest were to be followed by a search party got up to trace the missing Missing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... Zwinglians, was most embarrassing to him as well as to his friend Calvin. The latter, therefore, now urged him to break his silence and come out openly against his public assailants. But Melanchthon did not consider it expedient to comply with this request. Privately, however, he answered, October 14, 1554: "As regards your admonition in your last letter that I repress the ignorant clamors of those who renew the strife concerning the bread-worship, know that some of them carry on this disputation out ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... closely watched by the ostrich during the laying season. When the fox has surmounted all obstacles in procuring eggs, he has to encounter the difficulty of getting at their contents; but even for this task his cunning finds an expedient, and it is that of pushing them forcibly along the ground until they come in contact with some substance hard enough to break them, when the ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... six hundred warriors. [Footnote: It is most difficult to get at the number of the Indian parties; they were sometimes grossly exaggerated and sometimes hopelessly underestimated.] The Continental troops stationed at Fort Pitt were reduced to try every expedient to procure supplies. Though it was evident that the numbers of the hostile Indians had largely increased and that even such tribes as the Delawares, who had been divided, were now united against the Americans, nevertheless, because of the scarcity ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... horror flashed through every soul upon the plantation, excepting Mr. Gore. He alone seemed cool and collected. He was asked by Colonel Lloyd and my old master, why he resorted to this extraordinary expedient. His reply was, (as well as I can remember,) that Demby had become unmanageable. He was setting a dangerous example to the other slaves,—one which, if suffered to pass without some such demonstration on his part, would finally lead to the total subversion of all rule ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... there, and he talked and she listened. The man had an endless fund of gossip about amusing and noted people; most of them, it would seem, were his intimates. Telling one or two incidents in which these distinguished friends had figured, he felt it expedient to sink his voice to a discreet undertone. There was plainly apparent a delicacy of feeling in this; one did not shout out the names of such persons for any curious passer-by to hear. It developed that there was one specially close bond between ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... at Old Liberty Church where seats in the rear were provided for all adult slaves. The small children were not allowed to attend these services, but they frequently sneaked away from home and attended in spite of the restriction. It was expedient that they also leave before the close of the service, but often lingered on the roadside and waited for Mr. Huff to pass. He'd stop and ask them where they's been, and as they danced up and down they replied in chorus: "We've ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... honestly happy to be our father as we are now than as we were? I know quite well you are, in spite of the loneliness and heartache. We've all been forced into a heroism of which we did not think ourselves capable. We've been carried up to the Calvary of the world where it is expedient that a few men should suffer that all the generations to come may ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... sent out a fleet which blockaded Mytilene both by sea and land, The Peloponnesians promised their assistance; but from various causes their fleet was unable to reach the place. Meanwhile the provisions of the town were exhausted, and it was therefore resolved, as a last desperate expedient, to make a sally, and endeavour to raise the blockade. With this view even the men of the lower classes were armed with the full armour of the hoplites. But this step produced a very different result from what had been ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... conclude that the inadequacy of the remedies proposed imposes a new duty upon you,—precisely that of seeking the most expedient means of preventing ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... returning. "Then you must pluck him out, and set him on the floor," repeated little Roger earnestly. "'Twill be all I can do to let him to [hinder him from] get in again then—without you clap his chaucers [slippers] about his ears," he added meditatively, as if this expedient might possibly answer. ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... property of the rebels, they should share the common fate of war.... It is as clearly a right of the government to arm slaves, when it becomes necessary, as it is to use gunpowder taken from the enemy. Whether it is expedient to do so is purely a military question." He added more to the same purport. He then had his report printed, and sent copies, by mail, to many newspapers throughout the country, with permission to publish it so soon ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... mothers afterwards confessed they sent to wean. These not only cried themselves, but set all the others crying also, and we regretted having begun the experiment. At length, driven almost to despair, it became evident that something new must be done to still the tumult. As an expedient, I elevated a cap on a pole, which immediately attracted their attention and occasioned silence. Thus I obtained a clue to guide me, and my mind instantly perceived one of the most fundamental principles in infant teaching, in fact of most teaching, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... to acknowledge your communication of this date, and in answer have to state that I do not deem it expedient to suspend operations on this line, from the reverse we have experienced in endeavoring to extricate the army from its present position. If in the first effort we failed, it was not for want of strength or conduct of the small ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... reasoning half was only remotely responsible. For while Simon's person was thus, on its own account "making game" of old Jed'diah, his wits, in view of the anticipated flogging, were dashing, springing, bounding, darting about, in hot chase of some expedient suitable to the necessities of the case; much after the manner in which puss—when Betty, armed with the broom, and hotly seeking vengeance for pantry robbed or bed defiled, has closed upon her the garret doors and windows—attempts ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... vicinity of Isabella, and came under the notice of James Columbus and his council. Grave, bookish, wool-weaving young James, not used to military affairs, and not at all comfortable in his command, can think of no other expedient than—to write a letter to Margarite remonstrating with him for his licentious excesses and reminding him of the Admiral's instructions, which ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... you not think it would be a more expedient system if hosiery goods were paid in cash, according to prices regulated by the demand, and that the merchants should make a fair profit upon the hosiery itself?-That is my opinion. I believe that everything ought to ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Plantations made a report, in 1731, to the British Parliament concerning the "trades carried on, and manufactures set up, in the Colonies," in which it is recommended that "some expedient be fallen upon to direct the thoughts of the Colonists from undertakings of this kind; so much the rather, because these manufactures in process of time may be carried on in a greater degree, unless an early stop ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... take up this positive position amid one's daily surroundings. And it is not only hard to do the thing itself; it may be even harder to do it wisely. It is not pleasant to have your conscientious attitudes to things which to you are neither expedient nor permissible interpreted by the old words used as a sneer: "Stand aside, for I am holier than thou." Young people like to be what is called "popular" with those who touch their lives; and within well-defined limits they owe it to themselves and others to cultivate the qualities ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... so well acquainted with Indian customs, that he had resolved upon another expedient, when his negotiations ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... passed the 13th of July, 1787, organizing the "North-Western Territory," in which the boundaries of three States were laid off, "Provided, that the boundaries of these three States shall be subject so far to be altered, that, if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two States in that part of the said territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of lake Michigan;"—Ohio claims it by possession, and because, by being received into the Union with this portion in ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... of those by whose act of parliament I am thus refused to be paid except in bank-notes, insisting up on my paying him his rent in gold, which I cannot procure; and because I cannot procure it, my goods are to be distrained?' Would not this be a grievous oppression? Surely, so long as it should be expedient to continue the cash-suspension act of 1797, this present bill must become a part of it; for otherwise there would be no equality in the situation of different contracting parties, nor would equal justice be dealt out to those ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... sheep, to supply the necessary demands of the numerous woollen factories springing up in every quarter, renders the services of this faithful creature absolutely indispensable, not only as a guardian of the flocks, but as a mere expedient ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... employment" was mentioned; and my husband was despatched thither regularly every day for a week, while I, in the mean time, was very nearly despatched by the abundance of work at home. At length, one evening, as I was sitting completely exhausted, thinking of resorting to the last feminine expedient for supporting life, viz., a good fit of crying, my husband made his appearance, with a most triumphant air, at the door. "There, Margaret, I have got you a couple at last—cook and chambermaid." So saying, he flourished open the door, and gave to my view the picture of a little, dry, snuffy-looking ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... following first of January, 1831, all the children born of slave parents in our colonies were from that date to be declared free. That was thought a great and most important movement by the promoters of the cause. There were, however, parties at that crowded meeting who thought that even this was a mere expedient—that it was a mere pruning of the branches, leaving the whole system intact. One of these was the late Dr. Andrew Thomson—[cheers]—who had the courage to propose that the meeting should at once declare for total and immediate abolition, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... was, felt it would be useless to contend with twenty angry men, and he knew the passengers would not befriend him: he therefore deemed it expedient to endeavor to conciliate them by promises he never intended to perform, and, after a few hours' confusion, all was ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... revelation from him would have been direful in the extreme, as, in addition, he had in his possession the constitution and by-laws of the fraternity, which were always lodged with the ruling Grand Master. Under these circumstances we need not wonder that there was excitement, that every expedient was employed to rescue the documents or make away with their possessor. He was now in confinement. It was vital to their designs to keep him there till they could secure the letters and constitution above referred ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... lasting mischief wrought in New Zealand by Grey's unguarded scheme of cheap land for everybody, and they weigh light in the balance. Later on I shall return to Wakefield's system and its defects. Here I have but to say that, as a temporary expedient for overcoming at that time the initial difficulties of a colony, it ought not to be hastily condemned. It has long ago been abandoned after working both good and evil, and in the same way the schemes of Church ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... separate divisions. Fuller's "Church History" is disgraced by the introduction of twelve title-pages, besides the general one; with as many particular dedications, and no less than fifty or sixty inscriptions, addressed to benefactors; for which he is severely censured by Heylin. It was an expedient to procure dedication fees; for publishing books by subscription was ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... as Ingiald Illrode had done long before in Sweden. Such independent spirits as found themselves dissatisfied with this new order of affairs, found a sure asylum in Iceland; and the emigrations to this new country became so numerous, that Harold at length deemed it expedient to impose a tax of half a mark of silver, equal to five pounds of our modern money, on every one of his subjects who were desirous of going to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... assembled, to partake of the sheep that was slaughtered in honour of my arrival; still no one had asked me who I was, or whither I was going. After some conversation with the priest, I thought it expedient to pay a visit of ceremony to the Sheikh, in order to deliver my letter; I soon however had reason to repent: he received me very politely; but when he heard of my intention of proceeding southward, he told me that he could ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... Theodoric was in one of his most turbulent and destructive moods, when he had penetrated within fourteen miles of Constantinople and had fired the towns and villages of Thrace, perhaps even within sight of the capital. It was a natural thought and not altogether an unstatesmanlike expedient to play off one disturber of his peace against the other, to commission Theodoric to dethrone the "tyrant" Odovacar, and thus at least earn repose for the provincials of Thrace, perhaps secure an ally at Ravenna. Theodoric, we may be sure, with ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... theology and metaphysic are separate studies. That is to be ascertained only by seeing some one separate them. And when I see them separated, I shall believe them separable. Only the separation must not be produced by the simple expedient of denying the existence of either one of them, or at least of ignoring the existence of one steadily during the study of the other. If they can be parted without injury to each other, let them be parted; and till then let us suspend hard judgments ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... to save our national interests in the case of an adjustment of the difficulties between the belligerents. I have heretofore submitted to the Senate a request for its advice upon the question pending by treaty for making a loan to Mexico, which Mr. Corwin thinks will in any case be expedient. It seems to be my duty now to solicit an early action of the Senate upon the subject, to the end that I may cause such instructions to be given to Mr. Corwin as will enable him to act in the manner which, while it will most carefully guard the interests of our country, will at the same ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... in England in 1644, when an Act was passed asserting "marriage to be no sacrament, nor peculiar to the Church of God, but common to mankind and of public interest to every Commonwealth." The Act added, notwithstanding, that it was expedient marriage should be solemnized by "a lawful minister of the Word." The more radical Act of 1653 swept away this provision, and made marriage purely secular. The banns were to be published (by registrars specially appointed) in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... too heroic to be easily broken. And a little reflection will convince you that, under the peculiar circumstances of this accusation, it is expedient that I should absent myself from her and from her dwelling until I shall be cleared. Now if the charge against me were that of murder, or anything else but what it is, my wife might be by my side. But being what it is, you must see that I best consult her dignity and ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... polishing the outer coats of varnish, which are equally necessary whether the plain japan ground be painted on or not. This is best done in a general way with common seed-lac varnish, except on those occasions where other methods have been shown to be more expedient, and the same reasons, which decide as to the propriety of using the different varnishes as regards the colours of the ground, hold equally with those of the painting, for where brightness is a material point and a tinge of yellow would injure ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... presence of a tube. Such a case is recorded by Sir J. Fayrer of Calcutta.[132] Not much better is the proposal to insert a silk ligature in each side of the wound, and by pulling these apart thus mechanically to open the wound. This also is evidently a merely temporary expedient. ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... manoeuvre. But this was not the worst feature of the case. As desperate diseases are sometimes combated with desperate remedies, so in her desperate condition the hazardous and almost hopeless expedient of berthing her alongside one of the edges of the floe might have been attempted. But this last resource was denied to the despairing seamen, from the fact that two enormous bergs, the vanguard of the fleet, had already reached the edge of the floe, on opposite ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... he spoke in his farewell words, would come through his dying. He must be lifted up in order to draw all men to him. He must shed his blood in order that remission of sins might be offered. It was expedient for him to go away in order that the Comforter might come. His peace and his joy were bequests which could be given only when he had died as the world's Redeemer. His name would have power to open heaven's treasures only when the atonement had ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... loose upon Society. The Monster-without-Manners was kept in his place all through the night by a simple but admirable expedient which Maudie did not profess to understand. As the sun peeped over the wall, Two-legs appeared at the top of the ladder, and peace departed from the earth till the sun went down again, when the Monster-without-Manners resumed his proper place upon the chain. He did not know how to treat a lady, and ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... departure for England on the morrow had already changed into a supposed necessity of thinking of returning to Cambridge. In fact, Coningsby felt that to quit Paris and Edith was an impossibility. He silenced the remonstrance of his conscience by the expedient of keeping a half-term, and had no difficulty in persuading himself that a short delay in taking his degree could not really ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... the center of the plant first, then the outer ones on the lower branches, and finally the top crop. If subjected unduly to wind and rain the cotton, drooping in the bolls, would be blown to the ground or tangled with dead leaves or stained with mildew. It was expedient accordingly to send the pickers through the fields as early and as often as there was crop enough ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... of an equality with the king, called Peerage, was, in barbarous epochs, a useful fiction. This rudimentary political expedient produced in France and England different results. In France, the peer was a mock king; in England, a real prince—less grand than in France, but more genuine: we might say ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... forgive you any Trifle that offended me in our Dialogue, and I thank you from my Soul for this happy Expedient to serve our Country so evidently and effectually. If once our Representatives will let us feel and know, that Industry in Ireland, shall never be unrewarded, nor Arts neglected, we shall soon learn that in so fertile a Country, no Man who has Hands and will use them, can ever want ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... and intellectuality—sadly lacking in the place referred to) could not in addition be annexed and trained to the hereditary art of commanding and obeying—for both of which the country in question has now a classic reputation But here it is expedient to break off my festal discourse and my sprightly Teutonomania for I have already reached my SERIOUS TOPIC, the "European problem," as I understand it, the rearing of a ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... bundles "manipuli," and from hence it is that in their armies still they call their captains "manipulares." Remus rousing the citizens within to revolt, and Romulus making attacks from without, the tyrant, not knowing either what to do, or what expedient to think of for his security, in this perplexity and confusion was taken and put to death. This narrative, for the most part given by Fabius and Diocles of Peparethos, who seem to be the earliest historians of the foundation of Rome, is suspected by some because of its dramatic and ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... even a trace of relief in her manner as she nodded to the young man and turned away. His face reflected his disappointment; he plainly wished to detain her, but could think of no expedient. The spotted calf came to his rescue. The calf had been watching them from the first, very much interested in the visitor; and now, as she approached his tree, he stretched out his neck as far as the tether permitted and sniffed insistently. She paused and ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... be the order of the day. The one expedient not attempted was a government supported by obviously efficient physical force, but aiming at the prosperity of the people, and not running violently counter to the customs and the prejudices of centuries. Another inefficient colony was started ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... into the stove; he added some oakum, impregnated with frozen oil, and soon obtained enough heat. The smell of the grease was abominable, but how could they get rid of it? They were obliged to get used to it. Johnson agreed that his expedient left much to wish for, and would have no success in ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... advisable, under all the circumstances of the case, to circulate the Holy Scriptures, without note of comment, among the slave population of these islands? Your Committee can feel no hesitation in affirming that such a measure is not merely expedient, but one of almost indispensable necessity. The Sacred Volume is in many respects peculiarly adapted to the slave. It enjoins upon him precepts so plain, that the most ignorant cannot fail to understand ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... subject," as intimated by Mr. Elmendorf, but he was adroit in the manipulation of language. He noted unerringly the cloud of dissent in her face, and knew it would find verbal expression provided opportunity were afforded. To head off disclaimer, therefore, he resorted to the time-honored feminine expedient of talking down the other side and giving it no chance to be heard,—an easy matter with him, for when Elmendorf got to talking there was no telling when he would stop or what he might say. He was a man who loved talk for talk's sake, who had an almost maternal fondness for the sound ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... President. This committee has been instructed to "inquire from time to time into all our institutional influences which are likely to affect the health of the student and instructor, and to make such reports with recommendations to the President as may seem wise and expedient." ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... of colour in her delicate face. From his wealth she would accept nothing. Would she accept him—all that he dared offer? It was no new idea, the thought had been in his mind often but always he resolutely put it from him with a feeling of abhorrence. It was an insult to her womanhood, an expedient that nothing could justify. And yet step by step he was forced back upon it—there seemed no other way to save her from herself. Days of harrassing indecision, his only thought she, brought him no nearer to a conclusion. And time was passing. ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... a slight consideration, rather extraordinary, that vessels bound to the Cape of Good Hope should find it expedient to touch at a harbour of South America. To run across the Atlantic, and take as a part of their course, that coast, the very existence of which was unknown to the first navigators of these seas, seems a very circuitous method of performing the voyage. A little examination will remove this apparent ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... granting "power to invade the said inhabitants of Liddesdale, to their slaughters, burning, heirships, robbing, reifing, despoiling and destruction, and so to continue the same at his grace's pleasure," till the attempts of the inhabitants were fully atoned for. This impolitic expedient, by which the Scottish prince, unable to execute justice on his turbulent subjects, committed to a rival sovereign the power of unlimited chastisement, was a principal cause of the savage state of the borders. For the inhabitants, finding that ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... the only indication the Constitution contains that he was to be such a leader is the statement that he "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient" (Art. II, sec.3). He does submit recommendations to Congress at the opening of each of its terms and often at other times. If the President and the majority in Congress are of the same political party, Congress is pretty likely ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... independent of circumstances, and in the depths of our own hearts being calm, than by being deprived of visible stay and support, and thus drawing closer and closer to our unseen Companion, and leaning harder and heavier upon Him. 'It is expedient for you that I go away.' For solitude and self-reliance, which is bottomed upon self-distrust and reliance upon Him, are the things that make men and women strong. So, if ever He carries us into the desert, if ever He leaves us forsaken and alone, as we think, if ever He seems—and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... have been doing what little you could to mend matters. It is very laudable zeal in so young a man. But, of course, as you were without authority, and had so little in your power, it could only be a very temporary expedient. I am very much obliged to you ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... believed to be demented.) As a matter of fact he had been incommoded previously by loss of mind to the extent of having a guardian placed over his domain by Augustus; but at that time he was no longer weak-witted and was merely feigning, in the hope of saving himself by this expedient if by no other. He would now have been executed, had not some one in testifying against him stated that he had once said: "When I get back home, I will show him what sort of sinews I possess." A shout of laughter went up at this, for the man was not only unable to stand, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... effective force of our armies, after the example of General Jackson in the defence of New Orleans, and other Southern generals on various occasions in the South. A step like this will be met by a nearly or precisely similar expedient of desperate necessity by the military chieftains of the South. Either with or without the offer of emancipation, they will muster the blacks in great numbers into their army, arming, equipping, and drilling them ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... experience had shown that a progress of troops through the surrounding country districts generally conduced to the appearance before the recruiting officer of sundry long-limbed, loose-jointed Pats, Micks, and Joes; and a recent scarcity of this raw material made it seem expedient to bring such an influence to bear upon the new ground of remote Kilmacrone. Certain brigades and squadrons were accordingly directed to move thitherward, under the general idea that an invading force from the southeast had occupied Ballybeg Allan, while in pursuance of another general idea, really ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... by equity. For instance, when the Athenians were debating a proposal of the Samians, that the treasure of the league should be removed from Delos to Athens, a thing distinctly contrary to the articles of the alliance, Aristeides said that it was not just, but that it was expedient to do so. He himself, at the end of his life, after raising his city to be the ruler of so many people, remained in his original poverty, and took no less pride in his poverty than in the victories which he had won. This is proved by the following ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... true, especially the copper; but Marble wisely determined that it was inexpedient to put the vessel deeper than good ballast-trim, lest it should hurt her sailing. We had got her fairly to her bearings, and this was believed to be as low as was expedient. It is true, a great deal remained to be stowed; the deck being littered, and the hold, the ground-tier excepted, in great confusion. But our bread, water, beef, pork, and other eatables, were all there, and in abundance; ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... in readiness for the order from a civil magistrate without which interference would cost him his commission. But the babu was beside himself, what with breathlessness and disappointment. He decided it was expedient to strengthen his appeal, and his ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... it is, that without this power, which is so dangerous, and subject to introduce monarchy, a commonwealth cannot be safe from falling into the like dissolution; unless you have an expedient in this case of your own, and bound up by your providence from recoiling. Expedients in some cases you must not only have, but be beholden for them to such whom you must trust at a pinch, when you have not leisure to stand with them for security; which will be a thousand ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... friends and the world, I naturally could not divine; but I knew that such things had happened before, and also I gathered that he was a man who would hesitate at no caprice, however extravagant, once it had suggested itself to him as expedient for the satisfaction ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... population at large, but of women whose position in the world does not subject them to the necessity of earning their bread by the labour of their hands. There is, I know, a feeling abroad among women that this desire is one of which it is expedient that they should become ashamed; that it will be well for them to alter their natures in this respect, and learn to take delight in the single state. Many of the most worthy women of the day are now teaching this doctrine, and are intent on showing by precept and practice ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... cornfield, returned to their companions, and escorted them to Wheeling. It then remained to ascertain whether the Indians had really withdrawn, or were only lying in ambush. A council, consisting of Col. Zane, Col. Shepherd, Doctor McMahon and Col. Swearingen, being requested to devise some expedient by which to be assured of the fact, recommended that two of their most active and vigilant men, should go out openly from the fort, and carelessly, but surely, examine the cornfield near to the palisade. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... respect Irenaeus was still very much more successful than Tertullian.[506] Besides, in adv. Marc. II. 27, the latter betrayed what interest he took in the preexistent Christ as distinguished from God the Father. It is not expedient to separate the arguments advanced by the Fathers against the Gnostics from their own positive teachings, for these are throughout dependent on their peculiar attitude within the sphere of ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... contemplation of Odette found a justification in his own system of aesthetic. He told himself that, in choosing the thought of Odette as the inspiration of his dreams of ideal happiness, he was not, as he had until then supposed, falling back, merely, upon an expedient of doubtful and certainly inadequate value, since she contained in herself what satisfied the utmost refinement of his taste in art. He failed to observe that this quality would not naturally avail to bring Odette into ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme might easily have been formed to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Place, that his Disciple may ask such Things as are expedient for him, he shews him, that it is absolutely necessary to apply himself to the Study of true Wisdom, and to the Knowledge of that which is his chief Good, and the most suitable to the Excellency ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... excepting Lyde and one boy, who, under a prize-master and six men, were to help in sailing her to St Malo. The idea of returning to the identical prison where he had endured such misery made Lyde desperate, and, finding no easier expedient, he determined to pit himself against the seven as soon as he could persuade the boy to join him. The boy, not unnaturally, hung back from such a venture, and before he could screw his courage to the sticking-place they had ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... producing enormous friction. This objection obtains equally with all pickets having expanding butts, and is a sufficient reason for their inferior accuracy to that of solid pickets fitted to the grooves at the muzzle with a patch. General Jacob says,—"I have tried every expedient I could think of as a substitute for the greased patch for rifle-balls, but had always to return to this"; and every experienced rifleman will agree with him. Yet both English and American (governmental) experiments ignore the fact, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... prisons, churches, civilization—and to wreck souls and bodies under pretense of curing souls, not by knowledge, wisdom, patience, Christian love, or any great moral effort, but by the easy and physical expedient of turning one key on each prisoner instead ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... memorial from the Kentucky Abolition Society praying that the free people of color be colonized on the public lands. The committee to whom the memorial was referred for consideration reported that it was expedient to refuse the request on the ground that, as such lands were not granted to free white men, they saw no reason for granting them ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... money expended therein will be lost. Accordingly, assuming a desire and continued intention on the part of the Government to preserve this noteworthy relic, no hesitation is felt in recommending that a suitable roof be placed over Casa Grande ruin, at such time as may be expedient; and, in view of the rapidity with which destruction is now in progress, there is no hesitation in saying that the work should be undertaken at the earliest ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... make them believe that he had obtained entrance into their dungeon upon some other pretence, but that he had in reality come to treat with them for the purchase of the stolen goods. This shallow expedient of course failed. ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... by the extent of its generalization, has learned to indemnify the student of man for the defects of individuals, by tracing growth and ascent in races; and, by the simple expedient of lighting up the vast background, generates a feeling of complacency and hope. The human being has the saurian and the plant in his rear. His arts and sciences, the easy issue of his brain, look glorious when prospectively ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Stone had privately resolved to thrash Craven Le Noir; but he did not deem it expedient to take Cap into his confidence. As Capitola reached the horse block, her own groom came to ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... arisen between some of the settlers residing upon Government Lands, and whereas many individuals have much larger claims than are necessary for common farming purposes, Therefore, we, the subscribers, to preserve order, peace and harmony, deem it expedient to form an association, and adopt some certain rules, by which those difficulties may be settled, and others prevented. Therefore, we do covenant, and agree to adopt and support ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... of a child charged with any offence the Court may, in addition to or without entering a conviction against the child, order that the parent or guardian give security for the good behaviour of such child in the future for such period as to the Court may appear just and expedient. ...
— Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents - The Mazengarb Report (1954) • Oswald Chettle Mazengarb et al.
... law such an effort, if guided by sight independent of calculation, must fail. Habit and experience, tested in atmospheric light, will control the muscles, and direct the blow at the very point where the nail-head is not. For this reason the ingenious expedient of a voltaic lantern under water has proved to be impracticable. It is not the light alone which is wanted, but that sweet familiar atmosphere through which we are habituated to look. The submarine diver learns to rely wholly on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... Mumbles, with an arch look, 'I know the reason of that; you fancy but for this expedient that in the crowd the old ladies would not otherwise know one leg ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... worked the blast furnace was the largest I had ever seen. A singular expedient was employed at these works, of using a vast vault hewn in the solid rock of the hillside for the purpose of storing up the blast produced by the engines, and so equalising the pressure; thus turning a mountain side into a reservoir for the use of a blast-furnace. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... bad economy, dishonest servants, and ill-luck, all uniting together to disconcert their housekeeping, their table was going to be gradually laid aside, when the Chevalier's genius, fertile in resources, undertook to support his former credit by the following expedient. ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... should make bread when I came to have corn: for, first, I had no yeast: as to that part there was no supplying the want, so I did not concern myself much about it; but for an oven I was indeed puzzled. At length I found out an expedient for that also, which was this; I made some earthen vessels, very broad, but not deep, that is to say, about two feet diameter, and not above nine inches deep: these I burned in the fire, as I had ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... called revolution or reaction. For my argument it matters not two straws by what name this policy be designated. The scheme sketched out is not a policy which I recommend. My contention is not that it will be expedient—this is a matter depending upon circumstances which no man can foresee—but that it will be ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... he said; "marvellous, and of the highest importance to me. Already I have been asked, by the Council of Bombay, to give my opinion as to whether it is expedient to render any assistance to Nana Furnuwees. It is, to them, almost as important as to Nana that Scindia should not obtain supreme power. I have replied that I could not recommend any such step, for that Nana's cause seemed altogether lost; and that ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... 1-2. inter eum ... societas, the famous First Triumvirate. 'It was at first an expedient to secure, as we should say, aworking majority for a vigorous democratic policy, but the bitterness of its enemies transformed the coalition itself from an honourable union into the semblance of a three-headed tyranny.' ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... A more comprehensive chapter upon the weights, measures and coins of the Romans has been substituted in the place of the former one, and many other improvements made which it is hoped will be found acceptable. As it was not thought expedient to increase the size of the volume, the additions have been made by ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... inwardly weary of religious observances, but when they did get to 'business,' they gave short measure and took a long price, and knew how to turn the scales always in their own favour. It was the expedient of rude beginners in the sacred art of getting the best of a bargain, to put a false bottom in the ephah, and to stick a piece of lead below the shekel weight, which the purchaser had to make go up in the scale with his silver. There are much neater ways of doing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... would be expedient so to define a "protectionist tariff" as to permit (a) the total prohibition of certain imports; (b) the imposition of sumptuary or revenue customs duties on commodities not produced at home; (c) the imposition of customs ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... as mysterious in origin as it is authoritative in expression. We may be willing to defy the universe, and expatriate ourselves from our natural and social environment, for the sake of the holy law of duty. Such men as Count Tolstoi have little to say of the possible, or the expedient, or the actual, and are satisfied to stand almost alone against the brutal facts of usage and economy. We all have a secret sense of chivalry, that prompts, however ineffectually, to a like devotion. But that which in such moral purposes appears to indicate a severance of the ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... one hand, and the states-general on the other, inflexibly maintained their opposing claims. It was in vain that the ambassadors turned and twisted the subject with all the subtleties of diplomacy. Every possible expedient was used to shake the determination of the Dutch. But the influence of the East India Company, the islands of Zealand, and the city of Amsterdam, prevailed over all. Reports of the avowal on the part of the king of Spain, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... urged as a great advantage in point of health as well as brevity; for, it is plain that every word we speak is in some degree a diminution of our lungs by corrosion, and consequently contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore offered, that since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express the particular business they are to discourse on. And this invention would certainly ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... expedient by which a conception of the topography of the country about Praeneste can be obtained. Place the left hand, palm down, flat on a table spreading the fingers slightly, then the palm of the right hand on the back of the left with the fingers pointing at right angles to those of the ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
... Connecticut, on the 14th of June, instructed their delegates "to give the assent of the colony to such Declaration, when they should judge it expedient." On the 15th the New Hampshire Provincial Congress issued similar instructions; and on the 21st the new delegates from New Jersey were directed to act in the matter according to the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... came the appeal to chance and luck—the "odd or even" marbles, the "longest straw," and like devices came into vogue. The arbitration of a bystander, particularly of "a big boy who could whip the others," and the "expedient of laying a wager to secure the postponement of a quarrel," are very common. But the most remarkable institution at McDonogh is undoubtedly the boy-moot, one of whose decisions is reported in detail ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... brains 'nuff to git scart," but this was not true. While not a man renowned for brilliancy of intellect, yet he was a level-headed thinker whose judgment was always good on minor matters. He was frequently selected to conduct scouting expeditions where good "horse sense" and nerve were much more expedient than a superabundance of gray matter abnormally developed with theories ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... keen criticism at home and in the American colonies, whither our attention must soon turn. Emlyn was the first minister to call himself a 'Unitarian,' but under the pressure of the times, and in accordance with the spirit of Clarke and the other Arianizing clergy, he found it expedient to declare himself ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... that stunning woman over there, at the Silver Bungalow, you know. They tell me she's the Queen of Delhi. You old rascal, I'm bound to know her! Can't we have a little breakfast there, under the rose?" A last desperate expedient occurred to Johnstone. His baronetcy was ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... fire, and ceaselessly reproaching herself for having drawn Garth into the sad tangle of her life; while he, tossing on his blankets on the other side of the partition, blamed himself no less bitterly for having allowed her to run into danger; and wrung his exhausted brain for an expedient to save her. ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... would smoulder on for hours. There the two elder ones would teach Rusha her catechism and tell old stories, and croon over old rhymes till both the little ones were asleep, and then would hold counsel on their affairs, settle how to husband their small stock of money, consider how soon it would be expedient to finish their store of salted mutton and pork to keep them from being spoilt by damp, and wonder when their hens ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... immemorial the man who offers his life for his land has been compassed at every turn of his service with elaborate ceremonial and observance, of which music is no small part, all carefully designed to support and uphold him. It is not seemly and it is not expedient that any portion of that ritual should be slurred ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Ireland Bill having been recommitted, Sir WORTHINGTON EVANS explained the Government's expedient for providing the new Irish Parliaments with Second Chambers. Frankly admitting that the Cabinet had been unable to evolve a workable scheme—an elected Senate would fail to protect the minority and a nominated Senate would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various |
