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More "Dilemma" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... since the issue of the Bull of excommunication against Elizabeth in 1571. That Bull had reduced them to the necessity of choosing between disobedience to the Church and treason to the queen. The new missionaries helped them out of the dilemma by explaining that the censures of the Church only applied to heretics; Catholics might feign allegiance and ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... me his hand cordially, and I explained my dilemma. "You are unfortunate, but fortunate, too," said Davenant, "as I have a man among my couriers who knows all about horses. I will send yours to him; meanwhile ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... aviators over to the guard, made themselves acquainted with the Hun aeroplane, refilled it with petrol and oil, and departed on a merry adventure. Forgetting that the Hun machine would be subject to attack by our own aviators, Jock and his companion were in a great dilemma when so attacked. Of course, they could not protect themselves by a counter-fire, but when a man is born in Scotland, and is a direct descendant of oatmeal-eating bandits, he naturally has a keener brain than even the Jews can boast of; consequently, by spinning nose dives and ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... was not long before we found out John Allen. We at once recognized his genius for wickedness, and made him an especial study. But, as we have said, he baffles us. We have told him so, and have frequently asked him to help us out of our dilemma, but he always comes ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... have put your finger on the pulse of the dilemma! What was to be done when there was no sun? The sundial at best was none too correct. In different latitudes, too, different markings were needed. Moreover, a sundial, to be of practical value, had to be kept ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... the audience, were fiery appeals to Polish patriotism. The streets of Warsaw, all Poland and Lithuania, were seething with agitation and secret hope. The suspicions of Igelstrom were aroused. He resolved to take over the arsenal in Warsaw and to disarm and demobilize the Polish army. In this dilemma Kosciuszko was compelled to throw his all on one card or to fail. He therefore decided on the war; and in March 1794 he re-entered Poland as the champion of ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... was annihilated, and only his soul entered heaven, as we have to surmise that the theory embodied in the common belief is true. The record is according to mere sensible appearances. The reality is beyond our knowledge. The record gives no explanation. It is wiser in this dilemma to follow the light of reason than to follow the blind spirit of tradition. The point in our reasoning is this. If Christ, on rising from the world of the dead, assumed again his former body, he assumed it by a miracle, and for some special purpose of revealing himself to his disciples and of finishing ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... little difficulty, and she at least would hold her tongue. She was quite sure that Dorothy would never boast of her triumph. And Martha had been strictly cautioned,—as indeed, also, had Brooke Burgess. The man had behaved like an idiot, Miss Stanbury said; but he had been brought into a little dilemma, and nothing should be said about it from the house in the Close. But when the other rumour reached Miss Stanbury's ears, when Mrs. Crumbie condoled with her on her niece's misfortune, when Mrs. MacHugh asked whether Mr. Gibson had not behaved rather badly to the young lady, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... between the horns of any such dilemma," returned Wingfold, who was now more than a little annoyed at his persistency in forcing his way within the precincts of ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... intelligence of the morning; nor could I help reflecting, with a certain uneasiness, upon the reception I was sure to meet with from certain brethren in the Outer House, to whom, in a moment of rash confidence, I had entrusted the tale of my dilemma. I abhor roasting in my own person, and yet I knew I should have enough of it. Mandeville eat on steadily, like one labouring under the conviction that he thereby performed a good and meritorious action, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... to return to Fort Caroline, whence he had been forcibly taken, succeeded during the night in bringing the vessel to the coast of Florida. Great were the wrath and consternation of the pirates when they saw their dilemma; for, having no provisions, they must either starve or seek succor at the fort. They chose the latter course, and bore away for the St. John's. A few casks of Spanish wine yet remained, and nobles and soldiers, fraternizing in the ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... laughed until the tears trickled down his cheeks. Fernando could not see how he could help fighting the lieutenant again if he demanded satisfaction; but the Irishman was quite sure the lieutenant would have enough to do to keep his captain out of his dilemma. Sukey, who had entered during ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... wasps, and finally by shooting an arrow into a moor, sending him to seek it and then setting fire to the grass. He is saved from the first two perils through the agency of miraculous scarves given to him by Princess Forward, Susanoo's daughter, who has fallen in love with him; and from the last dilemma a mouse ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... maintaining his good manners and yet guarding his interests whatever turn the dispute between the two emperors might take. John Cantacuzene, a kindred spirit, extols the behaviour of Maroules in this dilemma ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... a lighthouse, and the author tells with exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cutoff inhabitants and introduces the charming comedy of a man ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... that the story grew out of exercises in argumentation in the rhetorical schools.[83] The elder Seneca has preserved for us in his Controversiae specimens of the themes which were set for students in these schools. The student was asked to imagine himself in a supposed dilemma and then to discuss the considerations which would lead him to adopt the one or the other line of conduct. Some of these situations suggest excellent dramatic possibilities, conditions of life, for instance, where suicide seemed justifiable, ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... popular demand for Reform, may be regarded as certain; and equally certain that such a line of conduct would have led to a renewal of disgraceful and dangerous tumults. The minister, therefore, as has been said before, had to choose between two evils. It was a grievous dilemma; but those who had to deal with it (even while it may be admitted that they cannot be held wholly free from blame, as having themselves contributed by their own language to the popular excitement and irritation)[220] may be excused for thinking the wound inflicted on the constitution, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... to compare ourselves with others; for such comparisons are never made without arousing some measure of hatred against those who dispute our claim to the first place, were it only in our own estimation. Then we must be either blind or angry, a bad man or a fool; let us try to avoid this dilemma. Sooner or later these dangerous passions will appear, so you tell me, in spite of us. I do not deny it. There is a time and place for everything; I am only saying that we should not help to ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... celebrity. I know the man's character perfectly well; but as it would be necessary to describe his personal appearance also, I ought to have seen him, which (fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be) I have never done. In this dilemma it occurred to me that perhaps I might under your auspices be smuggled into the Hatton-garden office for a few moments some morning. If you can further my object I shall be really very greatly obliged to you." The ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... course, indignant and greatly upset, and Aunt Pike was in a great dilemma. She scarcely liked to keep Anna at the school after her cousins were withdrawn from it, yet she was very loth to deprive her of the companionship of such desirable friends as she considered she was thrown amongst there. Also, in her heart of hearts, ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... deemed the very essence of statesmanship, a compromise. His Republican allies promptly evinced their distrust. They fully expected him to join his former associates. From them he could expect no sympathy in such a dilemma.[662] His political ambitions, no doubt, added to his perplexity. They were bound up in the fate of the party, the integrity of which was now menaced by his revolt. On the other hand, he was fully conscious that his Illinois constituency approved ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... other occasions, the Professor was very quick in rescuing himself from any dilemma into which he might be thrown. He saw an opportunity to divert attention from ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... this view of the Catholic miracles in his answer to Martiall's "Treatise of the Cross," points out that the majority of supernatural events that have taken place in this world have been, most undoubtedly, the work of the devil; and puts his opponents into a rather embarrassing dilemma by citing the miracles of paganism, which both Catholic and Protestant concurred in attributing to the evil one. He then clinches his argument by asserting that "it is the devil's cunning that persuades those that will walk in a popish blindness" that they are worshipping God when ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... have adopted the same creed, have endeavoured to extricate themselves from the dilemma in which Foster found himself, not by denying the eternity of future punishments, but by inventing a very nice distinction between the natural and moral inability of man. "He can obey the law," say they, "if he will;" all that "he wants is the will." All his natural ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... irrelevant pains we take to impress ourselves and the world with the importance of anything more than the brilliant excitation of the moment. It is thrilling, therefore, to realize there is a healthy way out of all this dilemma of habit for the artist. One of these ways is to reduce the size of the "A" in art, to meet the size of the rest of the letters in one's speech. Another way is to deliver art from the clutches of its worshippers, and by worshippers I mean the idolaters ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... about to relate in his own words took place when he was entering the gates. "Along with my furniture," says he, "I had a trunk containing wearing-apparel and two pocket-pistols. The latter, I knew, were prohibited, and made the agent employed to pass the articles acquainted with the dilemma, which he heartily laughed at,—by way, I suppose, of having a bone to pick. 'Leave the matter to me,' said he, adding, 'the officials must be recompensed, you know.' That of course; and, to be reasonable, he inquired if I would give three dollars, ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... past, nor future; He sees them all at the same moment in light uncreate. For Him distance has no figure, and space is nought. It is consequently impossible to doubt that the Serpent will conquer. This amputated dilemma is then ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... also unthinkable that a single ship of the Fleet should surrender under any circumstances, at any time; therefore I am faced with a dilemma in ...
— Tulan • Carroll Mather Capps
... Victor and King Charles' which I think more than rivals the famous utterance of Valence, revealing as it does the same grasp of non-conventional truth, while its occasion lends itself to a far deeper recognition of the mystery, the frequent hopeless dilemma of our moral life. It is that in which Polixena, the wife of Charles, entreats him for duty's sake to retain the crown, though he will earn, by so doing, neither the credit of a virtuous deed nor the sure, persistent ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... boat for the luckless voyagers, while to leave it and cling to the rigging is but a forlorn hope, owing to the mass of netting which surrounds the silk, and which would prove a death-trap in the water. There are many instances of lives having been lost in such a dilemma, even when help was near ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... it is true, plenty of more refined and intellectual preachers, whose sentiments deserve at least the respect due to tender and humane feeling. They have found a solution, satisfactory to themselves, of the great dilemma which presses on so many minds. A religion really to affect the vulgar must be a superstition; to satisfy the thoughtful, it must be a philosophy. Is it possible to contrive so to fuse the crude with the ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... great sensation in the business world. Madame Desvarennes's son-in-law was on the board. It was a good speculation, then? People consulted the mistress, who found herself somewhat in a dilemma; either she must disown her son-in-law, or speak well of the affair. Still she did not hesitate, for she was loyal and honest above all things. She declared the speculation was a poor one, and did all she could to prevent any of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a dilemma. The two gazed at each other, their faces momently growing more ghastly with helplessness. Then suddenly Mrs. De Peyster leaned forward, ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... English boys, well known as desperate characters. I was stunned, perplexed. The Sheriff asked me to place him under arrest. But how could I do so, after all he had done for me? It appeared in my eyes the depth of ingratitude. In my dilemma I laid the matter before Judge Frank Nichols of Prineville. I related all the boy had done for me, and asked him what, under like circumstances, he would do. "By George, Colonel, I would not give him up. It may be wrong, but I would not ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... that it would be unwise to arrest the journalist, though such a course might be justified. Apart from the bad feeling such procedure might create, there was the difficulty of establishing a case without disclosing the object of their journey. It was a dilemma where diplomacy might with advantage be employed. He smiled ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... see Pilate resorting to a series of devices in order to escape from his vexatious dilemma. From this point his conduct opens out to us a curious study in psychological phenomena. The ingenuity of Pilate in resorting to one expedient after another, is very striking. Evidently he has keen wits, and he uses them with some agility. But ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... unnatural that her tranquil regard should prove unsatisfying to Burt in contrast with the passion of which Miss Hargrove was capable. She had seen his vain efforts to remain loyal, and had smiled at them, proposing to let matters take their course, and to give little aid in extricating him from his dilemma. But, if she had interpreted her friend's face aright, she could no longer stand aloof, an amused and slightly satirical spectator. If Burt deserved some punishment, Gertrude did not, and she was inclined to guess the cause of the latter's haste ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... bated breath, he waited for what was to come. In a very little while, he told himself, the truth must come out. His only chance was to try and bluff his way out of this appalling dilemma and above all, at all costs—this was the essential fact which, he told himself, he must keep steadfastly before his eyes—not to lose sight of ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... the pastor had opened his lips to speak consolation, When his companion broke in, and said in his voluble fashion: "Years ago, forsooth, unknown had been such a dilemma. All such affairs were then conducted in regular fashion. Soon as a bride for their son had been by the parents selected, First some family friend they into their councils would summon, Whom they afterwards sent as a suitor to visit the parents Of the elected bride. Arrayed in his finest ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the extrication from their dilemma the boys chatted and joked as they repacked the saddle bags, unhobbled their ponies and prepared ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... groaning and hooting. Mr. Alexander sought out Mr. Craggie, and urged him, as a man of local weight and one accustomed to addressing the populace, to speak a few words to the mob. That was setting Mr. Craggie on the horns of a cruel dilemma. He was afraid to disoblige the representative of so powerful a corporation as the Miantowona Iron Works, but he equally dreaded to risk his popularity with seven or eight hundred voters; so, like the crafty chancellor in Tennyson's poem, he dallied with his ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... adverse to all intolerance. Yet, within a few months, he had persecuted men, women, young girls, to the death for their religion. Had he been acting against light and against the convictions of his conscience then? Or was he uttering a deliberate falsehood now? From this dilemma there was no escape; and either of the two suppositions was fatal to the King's character for honesty. It was notorious also that he had been completely subjugated by the Jesuits. Only a few days before the publication of the Indulgence, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... truth until you innocently carted me home with you for a holiday visit. When your father found out the fact he was too polite to turn me out-of-doors; he just acted the gentleman and made the best of a bad dilemma," explained Van with appalling convincingness. "He even had the goodness to save my life the day we got lost on one of your New Hampshire mountains. He didn't tell you any of this because he didn't want to spoil your pleasure; but I am certain that if he had known who I was ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... some unlucky hint dropped from her father, received intimation of the design, and putting her veto on his bearing any part in it in the most peremptory manner. What was to be done? The unfortunate youth was fairly on the horns of the dilemma, and he obviously saw no ray of extrication but the usual ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... against such a supposition. Halley's comet, the only great comet of which the returns have been securely authenticated and carefully observed, has preserved its "type" unchanged through many successive revolutions. The dilemma presented to astronomers by the Great Southern Comet of 1880 was unexpectedly renewed in the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... night the old man ruminated over this dilemma—"If I pay David's debts, he will be set at liberty, and once set at liberty, he need not share his fortune with me unless he chooses. He knows very well that I cheated him over the first partnership, and he will not care to try a second; so it is to my interest to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... honorable gentleman would be in a dilemma, like that of another great general. He would have a knot before him which he could not untie. He must cut it with his sword. He must say to his followers, "Defend yourselves with your bayonets"; and this ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the by, happened every fourth day. We there met General Lafayette, whom my husband invited to dinner, as otherwise he would have been unable to find anything to eat. This placed me in rather an awkward dilemma as I knew that he loved a good dinner. Finally, however, I managed to glean from what provisions I had on hand enough to make him a very respectable meal. He was so polite and agreeable that he pleased us all very much. He had many Americans in his train, ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... weeks, and the black brothers - well, I won't put a date on that; it will be a dark and stormy morning! Your secret, in other words, is poor Poll's. And I want to ask of you as a friend whether you like the prospect? There are two horns to your dilemma, and I must say for myself I should look mighty ruefully on either. Do you see yourself explaining to the four Black Brothers? or do you see yourself presenting the milkmaid to papa as the future lady of Hermiston? Do you? I tell ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I knew it not! O help me Now, kind heaven! for who could be So prudential, so collected, As to know how best to act In so painful a dilemma? Is there in the world a being, Is there one a more inclement Heaven has marked with more misfortunes, Has 'mid more of sorrow centred?— What, bewildered, shall I do, When 'tis vain to be expected That my reason can console me, Or ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... requisite that a barrister should be appointed as a counsellor to the governor, at all times when his excellency is referred to in matter of doubtful disputation, which must oftentimes occur in the colony, and which frequently reduces him to an unpleasant dilemma. Aided by a legal adviser, however, his judgment must be strengthened, and his decision would be more weighty, without creating in his breast those uneasy sensations which must arise under different circumstances. In the present conformation of the government, the governor ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... insincere in her parting from Weldon, why should she be sincere in her present absorption in his own interests? And, if her regrets for Weldon were as great as they had seemed to be, then what was the use of his remaining by her side any longer? The horns of the dilemma extended themselves to infinity and branched again and again as they extended. Meanwhile, his eyes were full of trouble, and his answers to her questions were vague and faltering. Until her sudden trip to Johannesburg, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... been ransacked for traces of her, wholly without success, and yet I felt that the search must have been misconducted, else some trace of her would surely have been discovered. Miss Holladay, of course, rigidly refused herself to all inquirers, and here, again, I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. Doubtless, she was very far from wishing the discovery of the guilty woman, and yet I felt that she must be discovered, if only for Miss Holladay's sake, in order to clear away the last vestige of ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... bringing her wrath down on himself, or attempt to persuade her without rousing her suspicion that he was leagued with her destructive neighbors. On the other hand, the fence-cutting girl would believe that he had wittingly joined in an unequal and unmanly pursuit. A man's dilemma between the devil and the deep water would be simple ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... Wildwood," said Marco kindly, arising after a reflective pause, "you think this thing over. You're a pretty smart young fellow, and you'll disappoint me a good deal if you don't find some way out of this dilemma." ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... Gregory, "my ward is very dear to me; she is dearer to me than any woman I know. I am here in a most dreadful dilemma. On the one hand there is this horrible underhand business, with all its publicity; and on the other there is her position—a beautiful woman, fond of gaiety, living alone in this London, where every man's instincts and every woman's tongue look upon her as fair game. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... certainly, but not forever. The hand which has retreated for a while will be again stretched forth to save me at the very moment when I shall think myself sinking into the abyss. Why should I risk an imprudent step? It might alienate my protector. He has two means of extricating me from this dilemma,—the one by a mysterious escape, managed through bribery; the other by buying off my judges with gold. I will say and do nothing until I am convinced that he has quite abandoned me, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... those tattered and contemptible regiments that will die at the command of a sergeant. For a pagan there may be some motives to be in love with life; but for a Christian to be amazed at death, I see not how he can escape this dilemma—that he is too sensible of this life, or hopeless of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... certainly bewitched, or he never would behave in this way to his best friend. My excellent sir," he added to Nowell, "I beseech you to calm yourself, and listen to me. My motive for wishing you to comply with Mistress Nutter's request was this: We were in a dilemma from which there was no escape, my wounded condition preventing me from flight, and all your followers being dispersed. Knowing your discretion, I apprehended that, finding the tables turned against you, you would not desire to play a losing game, and I therefore counselled apparent ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... application, her formal appeal to his common courtesy as host and kinsman, perplexed greatly a man ever accustomed to a certain chivalry towards the sex; the usual frankness of his disposition suggested, however, plain dealing as the best escape from his dilemma, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Shame said. And Faithful felt the truth of it all, and felt it most keenly, as he confessed to Christian. The blood came into my face as the fellow spake, and what he said for a time almost beat me out of the upward way altogether. But in this dilemma also all true Christians can fall back, as Faithful fell back, upon the example of their Master. In this as in every other experience of temptation and endurance, our Lord is the forerunner and the example of His people. Our Lord was in all points tempted like ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... in Pall Mall. With characteristic impetuosity the young author implored assistance in a difficulty. He had commissioned a printer in Horsham to strike off the astounding number of 1480 copies of a volume of poems; and he had no money to pay the printer's bill. Would Stockdale help him out of this dilemma, by taking up the quires and duly ushering the book into the world? Throughout his life Shelley exercised a wonderful fascination over the people with whom he came in contact, and almost always won his way with them as much by personal charm as by determined and impassioned ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... that his chum's dilemma was by no means so serious as he imagined, had not watchman Willie thrust his head through the open window at ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... brothers, and a bevy of aides-de-camp dressed out like so many mountebanks from Astley's, with dukes' coronets, and grand blue velvet marshals' batons? We have repeatedly his words for it. He wanted to create an aristocracy—another acknowledgment on his part of the Republican dilemma—another apology for the revolutionary blunder. To keep the republic within bounds, a despotism is necessary; to rally round the despotism, an aristocracy must be created; and for what have we been laboring all ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of liberty. It is a device by which the scattered many can make their will prevail over the few at the centre. Under any non-representative system, whether in a State or a Church or a Trade Union or any other association, men always find themselves set before the inexorable dilemma between freedom and weakness on the one hand and strength and tyranny on the other. Either the State or the association has to be kept small, so that the members themselves can meet and keep in touch with all that goes on. Or it is allowed to expand and grow strong, in which ...
— Progress and History • Various
... him). To think you could do such a preposterous thing! Risking Katherine's money in this way, and putting me in such a horribly painful dilemma! When I look at you, I think ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... seems to abolish that distinction between the worshipper and the worshipped which is essential to the existence of worship. But, as I also indicated, what seems a loophole or mode of escape from the dilemma may be furnished by the belief of these savages, that though they themselves are nothing but their ancestors come to life again, nevertheless in their earliest incarnations of the alcheringa or dream times their ancestors ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... or retard the progress of the vessels, that you may be taken by the English? I consider it impossible, therefore, that your Majesty should escape them; or, if you should escape, but that you must ultimately fall into their hands, sooner or later. In this dilemma, it is right, at least, to endeavour to fall as nobly as possible."—"What are you driving at?" said Napoleon peevishly, thinking I meant to propose suicide to him: "I know, I might say, like Hannibal, 'Let us deliver them from the terror my name inspires:' ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... automobiles at Mauleon, and one can only buy oil and gasoline by going to a man named Etcheberrigary for it. His address is not given, but any one will tell you where he lives. They may not recognize your pronunciation, but they will recognize your dilemma at once and ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... the myriad men of a busy city. He argued to himself that this was absurd, and yet he knew that he was longing for human companionship. When he looked about him for fellowship he found himself in a strange dilemma: those black folk in whom he recognized the old sweet-tempered Negro traits, had also looser, uglier manners than he was accustomed to, from which he shrank. The upper classes of Negroes, on the other hand, he still observed from ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... all seriousness and shadow. There was no room in his happy composition for aught of sorrow or sadness, and a quick and merry wit always extricated him from every embarrassing position or perplexing dilemma." ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... themselves," returned Sir Patrick, dryly, "for all that. Now listen. It may have occurred to your mind that the plain way out of our present dilemma is for you and Miss Silvester, respectively, to affirm what we know to be the truth—namely, that you never had the slightest intention of marrying each other. Beware of founding any hopes on any such remedy as that! If you reckon on it, you ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... commandant to Dr. Battius, who, however, peremptorily and somewhat haughtily declined the doubtful honour; exchanging looks of intelligence with Ellen, as he did so. In this dilemma the squatter was obliged to constitute the girl herself castellan; taking care, however, in deputing this important trust, to omit no words of caution and instruction. When this preliminary point was settled, the young men proceeded to arrange certain ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... way is extremely disagreeable to me, Gringoire. If I had only another one myself! I beg to say that a luminous inspiration has just occurred to me. If I possessed an expedient for extricating her from a dilemma, without compromising my own neck to the extent of a single running knot, what would you say to it? Will not that suffice you? Is it absolutely necessary that I should be hanged, in order that ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... very queer condition, and it would be as much as her place was worth to take her to Waterloo; but to drive with her to the chambers of that nice gentleman who was, she knew, one of her master's greatest friends, seemed a shifting of responsibility which was quite a way out of the dilemma, for not for worlds would Susan do anything really to hurt ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... overlooked. Another story is: The Duchess was so vehement in her attempt to have the embargo removed from Gay's play, that she offered to read it to His Majesty in his closet, that he might be satisfied there was no offence in it. George II escaped from this dilemma by saying, he should be delighted to receive her Grace in his closet, but he hoped to amuse her better than by ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... "And," he added, "my benefactor is an exceedingly intelligent man, for he seemed to guess my thoughts intuitively. I have now only one wish, that of learning the name of the gentleman who so cleverly assisted his king out of his dilemma, and extricated him ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... condescend to distinguish him. Thus, at all events, I should be freed from responsibility or suspicion of voluntary participation in the sentiments of Zee; and the superior wisdom of my host might probably suggest some sage extrication from my perilous dilemma. In this resolve I obeyed the ordinary instinct of civilised and moral man, who, erring though he be, still generally prefers the right course in those cases where it is obviously against his inclinations, his interests, and his safety ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... placed. The fools of his party (and on both sides they predominate in noise and numbers) vociferously cheered this ill-judged sally, and lauded it as a fine spirited retort. Not so, however, the more prudent of his friends, who perceived the dilemma in which he had placed himself. Nobody in the meantime had any clear notion of what would be done, what motions would be made or withdrawn, and how the whole thing was to end. But as the debate promised a great deal of personality, it was exceedingly attractive, and 517 members[10] went down ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... head down close to the Wise Woman's ear, and sang all about the Christmas Masquerade, and the dreadful dilemma everybody was in, in G-sharp—she even went higher, sometimes—and the Wise Woman heard every word. She nodded three times, and every time ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... and, besides the relief to my spirits, I no longer suffered under the burden—so heavy to one who aims at being a reformer in opinions—of thinking one doctrine true and the contrary doctrine morally beneficial. The train of thought which had extricated me from this dilemma seemed to me, in after years, fitted to render a similar service to others; and it now forms the chapter on Liberty and Necessity in the concluding Book of my ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... lips, witness to pleasure that underlies poetic pains. The Collector of Customs was in humour this morning, and had written thirty lines of Act IV. of Love's Dilemma: a Comedy, before breakfast, for it was his custom to rise early and drink regularly of the waters of Helicon before seeking his office. It is curious that the Civil Service should so often divide its claims with the Service of the Muse. I ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had extricated herself from her dilemma with considerable tact and ingenuity. Not only had she delivered her godson from the slight of being summarily rejected by this upstart girl, but she had saved herself from all necessity to make ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... acknowledged to himself—always successful in his manipulation of women. If Selina had found Nan in the way, or if Nan had been jealous of Selina and Selina's babies, Sir John felt that he would have been placed on the horns of a dilemma. But this had not been the case. Nan was in the schoolroom when Lady Pynsent first arrived at Culverley, and the child had been treated with kindness and discretion. Nan repaid the kindness by an extravagant ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... a duel; my father cautioned me on the subject, desiring me, if possible, to avoid it, as it was flying in the face of my Creator; but aware that I must uphold my character as an officer, he left me to my own discretion, should I ever be so unfortunate as to be in such a dilemma." ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... In this dilemma, some person suggested to the magistrates that perhaps Argia really knew which was the eldest child, and that if so, by watching her, to see whether she washed and fed one, uniformly, before the other, or gave it precedence ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and a full pantry would also be a better house in which to refuse to make a chair or mend a clock—a much better house to do nothing in—and doing nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man. All but the hard-hearted must be torn with pity for this pathetic dilemma of the rich man, who has to keep the poor man just stout enough to do the work and just thin enough to have to do it. As he stood gazing at the leaky roof and the rickety cradle in a pensive manner, there one day came into his mind a new and curious idea—one of the most strange, ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... have withstood his request; but I had seen the good he diffused; I felt that his resolves were not to be shaken, so, with an heavy heart, I consented to do as he asked. He grasped my hand affectionately:—"Thank you," he said, "you have relieved me from a painful dilemma, and are, as you ever were, the best of my friends. Farewell—I must now leave you for a few hours. Go you and converse with Ryland. Although he deserts his post in London, he may be of the greatest service in ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... that these were indeed, as Jefferson Davis had said, "quack nostrums," and that the choice lay between permitting a secession accompanied with insulting menaces and some degree of actual violence, and maintaining the Union by coercion. In this dilemma great multitudes of Northern Democrats, whose consciences had never been in the least disturbed by the existence of slavery in the country or even by efforts to extend it, became "Union men" in the Northern ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... should honour Seuthes in the most magnificent style. Be sure, I give this advice out of pure friendliness, for I know that the greater the gift that you are ready to bestow on him, the better the treatment you will receive at his hands." Xenophon, on hearing this, was in a sad dilemma, for he had brought with him, when he crossed from Parium, nothing but one boy and just enough to ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... the classic works of Corneille and Racine. I and my companions had hoped to have seen one such representation, but unfortunately I was informed that they took place for the sovereigns and their suites alone, and that everybody else was excluded from them." In this dilemma Spohr had recourse to stratagem. He persuaded four musicians of the orchestra to vacate their places for a handsome consideration, and he and his pupils engaged to fill the duties. But one of the substitutes must needs be a horn-player, and ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... caraks. The same evening he descried two or three of the earl of Cumberlands ships, whereof one Mr Norton was captain, which had descried the carak and pursued in the track she was following for the islands, but no way could be made by either party, as it was almost a dead calm. In this dilemma, on purpose to discover her force, burden, and countenance, Sir John took his boat and rowed three miles towards her, to make her out exactly; and on his return, having consulted with his officers, it was resolved to board her in the morning. A heavy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... recalled by a motion of yours which indicated I knew not what. I fostered the persuasion that you would now retire to bed; but presently you approached the closet, and detection seemed to be inevitable. You put your hand upon the lock. I had formed no plan to extricate myself from the dilemma in which the opening of the door would involve me. I felt an irreconcilable aversion to detection. Thus situated, I involuntarily seized the door with a resolution to resist your ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... placed Mr. Hastings in an extremely awkward dilemma. Dr. Armitage was not only his family physician, but the two had had all sorts of business dealings together of which only they two knew the nature; but then, on the other hand, Mr. Hastings believed that Dr. Arnold had saved the life of his son. He knew ...
— Three People • Pansy
... asked protection from Yankees against our own men, are consequently traitors, and our property will be confiscated by our own Government. To decline General Williams's kind offer exposes the house to being plundered. In our dilemma, we made up our minds to stay, so we could say the sentinel ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... is a sad dilemma to which you have reduced yourself. Certain it is, if our eyes can give us certainty that your wife has been sitting in that spot during every moment of your absence. You have heard her voice, ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... paintings. He received me in a very handsome manner, in a beautiful little cabinet, adorned with some excellent, and costly paintings. After many polite expressions from him, I laughingly informed him of the dilemma in which I was placed by the unexpected absence of Mons. O——; upon which Mons. P—— in the most friendly manner told me that the letters which I had brought were from persons whom he highly esteemed; and that Mr. O—— was also his friend; that as it might ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... the right track at once. He could tell his story if once he started at the beginning, though he found it impossible to make these strangers comprehend his present dilemma; so beginning from the time he left his own dooryard with the last cartload of potatoes, he gave them a detailed account of his wanderings up to the time when he met the fine young gentlemen in Halifax. But he had no idea how he got to Truro; that was all ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... them, and evidently in a state of great excitement were trying to comprehend their words; but as soon as they saw their indecision, and their bold start off in the direction they imagined to be correct, then the slave girls understood their dilemma and stopped them, gesticulating and shaking their heads as they pointed in a ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... returns; he had not expected that they would, but based his hopes on increased patronage after his return. He was entirely dependent on his brush for the support of himself and his three motherless children, and now this new inspiration had come as a disturbing element. He was on the horns of a dilemma. If he devoted himself to his art, as he must in order to keep the wolf from the door, he would not have the leisure to perfect his invention, and others might grasp the prize before him. If he allowed thoughts of electric currents, and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... startling social theories announced by the new "government" which form the chief strength of its enemies. Either slavery is essential to a community, or it must be fatal to it,—there is no middle ground; and the Secessionists have taken one horn of the dilemma with so delightful a frankness as to leave us no possible escape from taking the other. Never, in modern days, has there been a conflict in which the contending principles were so clearly antagonistic. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... republished in a separate volume, under the title Kniga Kahala, "The Book of the Kahal." [2] The data collected by Brafman were embellished with the customary anti-Semitic quotations from talmudic and rabbinic literature, and put in such a light that the Government was placed on the horns of a dilemma: either to destroy with one stroke the entire Jewish communal organization and all the cultural agencies attached to it, or to run the risk of seeing Russia captured by the "Universal Kahal." It may be added that ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... could summon courage to make known to his companions the dilemma into which he had conducted them, the galatea had drifted among the tree-tops of the flooded forest, where she was ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... genial helpfulness about George that it sometimes vexes me to notice. You would have thought he would have welcomed the chance of assisting two old friends out of a dilemma; instead, ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the three looked happy. Johanna was unspeakably bored and did not conceal it; she gazed with contempt on the noisy, excited crowd. Dove was not only burning to devote himself to Ephie; he had also got himself into a dilemma, and was at this moment doing his best to explain the first act of the opera to Johanna, without touching on the relationship of the lovers. His face was red with the effort, and he hailed Maurice's appearance as a welcome diversion. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... higher he imagined her at the bank with the sheaf of bills hidden in her bosom, and Blount's surprise and palavering when he found he was caught and that his deep-laid plans had failed. He had schemed to catch Wiley between the horns of a dilemma, and either jump his mine when he went in to make the payment or force him to lose it by default. But, almost by a miracle, Virginia had appeared at the very moment when he was seeking a messenger; and by an ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... The dilemma to Fred before starting seemed terrible, but just as he felt that there was nothing left for him to do but confess all he had done to ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... row. The very excess of the baron's internal rage on the preceding day had smothered its external manifestation: he was so equally angry with both parties, that he knew not on which to vent his wrath. He was enraged with the earl for having brought himself into such a dilemma without his privily; and he was no less enraged with the king's men for their very unseasonable intrusion. He could willingly have fallen upon both parties, but, he must necessarily have begun with one; and he felt that on whichever ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... this irresolute dilemma, we thought we saw a light; that glimmered for a moment, and as suddenly disappeared. We watched, I know not how long, and again saw it twinkle, though, as we thought, in something of a different direction. Clarke said it was a Will o'the whisp. I replied, it might be one, but, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... advocate these things forget that such a solution flings them squarely on the other horn of the dilemma: such a subject child-race could never be held accountable for its own misdeeds and shortcomings; its ignorance would be part of the nation's design, its poverty would arise partly from the direct oppression of the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... it. But would it be more prudent now to ignore the fact that we are no longer—however much we may regret it—in a position of insignificance or isolation, political or geographical, in any way resembling the times of Jefferson, and that from the changed conditions may result to us a dilemma similar to that which confronted him and his supporters? Not only have we grown,—that is a detail,—but the face of the world is changed, economically and politically. The sea, now as always the great means of communication ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... say. Yet one may readily admit, that a compilation, "from the nature and design of it, must consist chiefly"—nay, wholly—"of materials selected from the writings of others." But what able grammarian would ever willingly throw himself upon the horns of such a dilemma! The nature and design of a book, whatever they may be, are matters for which the author alone is answerable; but the nature and design of grammar, are no less repugnant to the strain of this apology, than to the vast number of errors and defects which were ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... In the dilemma in which he found himself there was nothing to be done but to be guided by circumstances. He was not willing to leave Kafka alone with the woman who hated him, and he saw no means of escaping her society so long as she chose to impose ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... his impatient comrades on the island. They crowded about him and he briefly delivered the message, that they were desired to cruise under Ned Rackham's flag. This delighted them, as the only way out of a fatal dilemma. Then Tobey went over to sit down upon the palmetto log behind which Joe Hawkridge still sprawled like a turtle. The anxious boy poked up his head ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Grey found herself again in a dilemma between her two proposed victims—the gray-haired clergyman and the ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... sexes. They also smoke a great deal. On one occasion Vaughan gave a guide some tobacco. He took it, filled his pipe, and put it back in his pocket, shaking his head as much as to say he could not light his pipe in the wind. This dilemma was overcome by Vaughan offering a fusee. The man took it, looked at it, and grinned. So Vaughan showed him how to use it, and struck a light. His astonishment and amusement were so overwhelming that he got ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... unprepared-for dilemma. Mr. V. looked at the face of the "Lincoln vandal," but saw there no sign of relenting; then into the distance whither he was anxiously desirous to tend; glanced reflectively at the bayonet in the centre and the narrow space on either side the road; and finally called to ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... to his arrears of disembodied allowance at the present moment, he will be entitled to them at no future period, and I was to the last degree surprised at the receipt of an answer which tends to involve the office in an inextricable dilemma, for it is in fact a full acknowledgment of the justice of Lieutenant Borrow's claims, and a refusal to satisfy them until a certain time, which instantly brings on the question, 'By what authority does the War Office seek to detain the disembodied allowance ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... Armstrong gave his new ally a faithful account of the family difficulty: of Captain Oliphant's embarrassing relations to the claimant, of Miss Rosalind's dilemma, of Roger's quixotic determination to find his lost brother, and of his own—the tutor's—conviction of the hopelessness ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... or the contrary; nor can they prove, or have they the least Assurance, he will not thus deal with them, without recurring to other Principles, which will hold equally strong against the Doctrines themselves—To this Dilemma are these Gentlemen inevitably reduced; they must either give up the Doctrines, or part with any Security of Dependance on God himself, as to their own Happiness. It will be in vain, here, to refer to the Goodness of God, though, on my Principles, ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... upper boxes Lady Erskin had a small unescorted party. Lady Erskin herself was a plump little miniature who was rather exercised over the dilemma of whether to display a huge feathery fan and obliterate herself, or to sacrifice the fan to the glory of being stared at by common people. With her was her sister, the wife of a country rector, who assumed such an elaborate air of ennui that any one could have told it was ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the budding journalists. There was not sufficient local news to keep them going, but fortunately the New York news service supplied more general news than they could possibly use, and, besides, Mr. Marvin, foreseeing this dilemma, had sent on several long, stout boxes filled with "plate matter," which meant that a variety of stories, poems, special articles and paragraphs of every sort had been made into stereotyped plates of column width which could be placed anywhere in the paper where a space needed to be filled. This ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... who takes either horn of this dilemma must be sure of his ground and must figure the chances ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... ourselves, who were within reach of a single spring! We knew not the moment he might leap down upon us. Below, again, was an enemy, equally terrible, in the peccaries. They would have torn us to pieces in an instant, had we attempted to descend to the ground. No wonder, then, we were terrified at the dilemma in which we were so suddenly placed. No wonder it was some moments before I could gather ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... taken revenge by giving thee such a delectable bride." I now fell at her feet, entreated her forgiveness, and expressed my repentance; upon which, smiling upon me, she said, "Be not uneasy, for as I have plunged thee into a dilemma, I will also relieve thee from it. Go to the aga of the leather-dressers, give him a sum of money, and desire him to call thee his son; then repair with him, attended by his followers and musicians, to the house of the chief ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... in the garret. But no way out of the dilemma could I see. I had eaten up all the apples I had brought with me and I felt flabby and disconsolate. The sight of Uncle Abimelech stalking up the lane, as erect and lordly as usual, served to ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... lay before him. Inside it must lie the secret of the whole tragedy. Should he risk everything and break the seal, or should he risk perhaps as much and tell the whole truth to Mademoiselle Idiale? It was a strange dilemma for a man ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... joy glistening in her eye, but with the deepened flush of uncontrollable emotion overspreading her features. And yet that flush seemed scarcely the token of a heart overpowered with sudden joy, but rather of a mind conscious of being involved in an unexpected dilemma, and puzzled with its inability ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Leopold was deeply indoctrinated with the "little hatchet" principle. In a word, he could not tell a deliberate lie. He could not place himself in a situation where a falsehood would be necessary to extricate himself from a dilemma. Unhappily, like thousands of other scrupulous people, he could "strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel;" for it was just as much a lie to deceive his father by his silence as ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... desired to plead for honest declaration and fulfilment of his belief in life,—with the so-called Infidel, I desired to plead for an honest declaration and fulfilment of his belief in death. The dilemma is inevitable. Men must either hereafter live, or hereafter die; fate may be bravely met, and conduct wisely ordered, on either expectation; but never in hesitation between ungrasped hope, and unconfronted fear. We usually believe in immortality, so far as to avoid preparation ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... then too intent upon my dilemma carefully to study a man who had already lulled me into absolute confidence in him. I left him as soon as he would let me go. His last words were, "No gambling, Matthew! No abuse of the opportunity God is giving us. Be content with the just profits ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... consented to call at the other house through compassion for the ladies, who were suffering from extreme fatigue, and they were rejoiced at the prospect of getting among birds of the same feather. There, however, we were informed that it was equally impossible to procure accommodations. In this dilemma we could do nothing but accept Mrs. ——'s kind invitation and accompany her to the rancho of her friend, although she herself had intended, as it was so late, to stop at one of the hotels for the night. We were so lucky as to procure a guide at this place, and ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... make directly or indirectly one or other of these admissions; for, as between truth and falsehood, there is no middle passage; so between something and nothing, there is no intermediate existence. Hence the serious dilemma of Spiritualists, who gravely tell us their God is a spirit, and that a spirit is not any thing, which not any thing or nothing (for the life of us we cannot distinguish between them) 'framed the worlds' nay, created ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... whistle, told that the old trapper was not disposed to make light of this new piece of ordnance. Neither was Garey. His look testified to what all three of us were thinking—which was, that this mode of attack was likely to put us in a more awkward dilemma than we had yet been placed in. El Zorro might shoot us down at his leisure. With our rifles, we could neither answer his fire, nor silence it. Our peril ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... they are not; if they are to be saved by the decree of God, then there is no use of you and your machinery; if they can lose their 'election,' and become reprobate, then your theory is contradictory, absurd, and grossly perversive of the gospel. Take your choice of the horns of the dilemma." ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... him still worrying over this dilemma. He reached Mrs. Charman's house without having come to any decision. In the drawing-room three persons awaited him: the hostess, with her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Weare. The cordiality of his reception moved him all but to tears; overcome ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... was a dilemma. If in face of this curt response I proceeded to follow him, my hand was revealed at once; yet the circumstances would admit of no other course. I determined to compromise matters by pretending to ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... in circulation, was one that the Provost-Marshals were to be directed to arrest every man in officer's uniform found in the streets, and if he could exhibit no commission, force him to immediate service in the ranks! Here was a dilemma—a dilemma none the less for having two well-defined horns. His uniform was becoming dangerous, but how give it up? He was determined to win Emily Owen, and he had discovered that one of his strongest claims to the favor of her pig-headed father lay in the wearing of that very uniform ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... was counting her chances when a man, whose coming into the room her dilemma had caused her to miss, ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... But their dilemma was solved by Bessy Corney, who opened the door to see if the hungry ones outside might not come in for their share of the entertainment; and in they rushed, bright and riotous, scarcely giving the first party time to rise from their seats ere they took their places. One or two young ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... horned dilemma upon one point or other of which we ran the risk of being impaled. For a full minute or more I considered the matter with an earnestness almost amounting to mental agony, and at last all but came to the conclusion that the danger was too enormous. It would be better, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... continuing to visit her and receive her at their houses, they would be countenancing an offence against morality which the world ranks with the unpardonable sins. They might temporize with their own consciences, but not with public opinion. They were therefore in a dilemma, from which there was no middle course of extrication. Thus forced to decisive measures, a number of her friends felt obliged to forego all acquaintance with her. Two whom she then lost, and whom she most deeply regretted, were Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Inchbald. In speaking of their secession, Godwin ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... it from the General were, that nothing but an arrest, on his part, could have prevented the execution of this plan of desertion, and the bad consequences ensuing from it, the betraying of secrets; and such arrest would have wrought the other ill consequences I have spoken of. In this dilemma, I used a discretion which I considered most advantageous to my country; and trusted to my hopes, that so important an event, as your defection, would not happen, and thus avoid the immediate and certain EVIL. And besides, I have, in every stage of the war, shown a disposition to overlook ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... to get a match and moved about the room uneasily as Henry Grey went on talking lightly of the situation which involved for him possibilities of death as a spy, and for Penhallow a dilemma in which ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... with Tempest, among others, who looked very serious, and was evidently chagrined that after all his kind trouble on my behalf I should now land myself in this dilemma. Good old Tempest! It wasn't ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... Victory over Galileo. Rejoicings of churchmen over the victory The silencing of Descartes Persecution of Campanella and of Kepler Persistence and victory of science Dilemma of the theologians Vain attempts to ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... conditions of human life. Any group falls into subdivisions, the members of each of which are approximately equal, when measured by any standard, because the classification is imperfect. If we make it more refined, the subdivisions must be subdivided again. We are in a dilemma: we cannot describe mankind at all without categories, and if we go on to make our categories more and more exact, each one of them would at last contain only one person. Two things result which are practically important, and which furnish us with ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... society is just now in an extremely critical pass, and that if something mysterious is not forthwith done the structure of it will crumble to atoms—he will see mankind grouped under the different reforms which, according to him, the human dilemma demands. And so on! These tendencies, while they should not be resisted too much, since they give character to observation and redeem it from the frigidity of mechanics, should be resisted to a certain extent. For, whatever they may be, they favour the growth of sentimentality, ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... of exasperation swept through him at the thought of his own white-livered irresolution. He was about to step forward to face the end of his dilemma when an unlooked-for movement occurred between him and ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... and daughter. The latter was naturally surprised at his unexpected invitation, but surprise was soon obliterated by another and quite different feeling, which she kept rigorously to herself. Mrs. Levice was in a dilemma about it, and consulted her husband in ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... mishap, walking more rapidly than was his habit up and down the entire length of the hall that divided the house into two distinct sides, and his head had hung low upon his bosom. He had been pondering. Or perhaps he had been praying. His dilemma was by no means a ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... creatures of the imagination his own sufferings and fears. I think he was afraid of mental as well as physical decay, for he has studied insanity with the same assiduity as that displayed by Andreev in his nerve-wrecking story "A Dilemma." ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... Further, it sometimes happens that, before the consecration, the priest remembers that he has eaten or drunk something, or that he is in mortal sin, or under excommunication, which he did not remember previously. Therefore, in such a dilemma a man must necessarily commit mortal sin by acting against the Church's statute, whether ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... contrast with the passion of which Miss Hargrove was capable. She had seen his vain efforts to remain loyal, and had smiled at them, proposing to let matters take their course, and to give little aid in extricating him from his dilemma. But, if she had interpreted her friend's face aright, she could no longer stand aloof, an amused and slightly satirical spectator. If Burt deserved some punishment, Gertrude did not, and she was inclined to guess the cause of the latter's haste to ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... been seen by him. As, however, there is no such sea in reality, Verrazzano could never have seen it; and therefore, he could not have so represented; or if he did, then the whole story must for that reason alone be discredited. There is no escape from this dilemma. Verrazzano could not have been deceived and have mistaken some other sheet of water for this great sea, and so represented it on any chart, or communicated it in any other way to the maker of this map; for he makes no mention of the circumstance in his letter to the king to whom he would have ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... physiologists that tea contributes nothing towards support of the human system; that it only rouses it into action, an effect which should, consistently, be followed by corresponding reaction and depression, which plainly is not the case. This hypothesis leaves the enquiring layman in a dilemma. Tea must either enable the system to draw more heavily or more economically upon the resources afforded by recognized food, or it is itself nutriment. Otherwise, an established principle of physics—that there can be no expenditure of energy without correlative cost—would be subverted. As ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... into the sitting-room, waited a full minute, taking deep breaths to still the beating of his heart. At this moment, so fraught with the future, to take out that morocco case seemed crude. Yet, not to take it out left him there before her with no preliminary excuse for coming. And in this dilemma he was seized with impatience at all this paraphernalia of excuse and justification. This was a scene—it could be nothing else, and he must face it. He heard her voice, uncomfortably, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... two evils you would choose the least," Gerald replied. "That is the common way of getting out of the difficulty. But it seems to me like compromising with evil. There ought to be always some third, wholly right, way out of every dilemma, if only one sought earnestly enough." She spoke more as if ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... correctness of the cause and mode of propagation assigned, yet the whole velocity could not be shown to arise from this theory. There was still a residual velocity to be accounted for, which placed dynamical philosophers for a long time in great dilemma. At length Laplace struck on the happy idea, that this might arise from the heat developed in the act of that condensation which necessarily takes place at every vibration by which sound is conveyed. The matter was subjected to exact ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... impossible to understand Irish history from the reign of Henry VIII. till the fall of James II.—nearly two hundred years—without constantly keeping in mind the dilemma of the chiefs and lords between the requirements of the English Court on the one hand and of the native clans on the other. Expected to obey and to administer conflicting laws, to personate two characters, to speak two languages, to uphold the old, yet to patronize the new order of things; distrusted ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... a skilful plot. Whilst advising James to resist the dictation of his uncle, he privately accused those of the Scottish nobles who had joined the Reformers of meditated treason against His Majesty. This placed the king in a serious dilemma, for he could not proceed against Henry without the assistance of those very nobles accused as traitors. The wily Cardinal had hoped that James would, in self-defence, seek an alliance with France and Spain; but he was ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... all this hairsplitting? Why not leave untainted the conviction that our first and foremost business is to crush the enemy's battle-fleet, and that to this end our whole effort should be concentrated? The answer is to point to Nelson's dilemma. It was a dilemma which, in the golden age of naval warfare, every admiral at sea had had to solve for himself, and it was always one of the most difficult details of every naval war plan. If we seek to ensure the effective action ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... back to the Mistress and laid gently at her feet the baby robin he had found. His keen teeth had not so much as ruffled its pinfeather plumage. Having done his share toward settling the bird's dilemma, Laddie stood back and watched in grave interest while the Mistress lifted the fluttering infant and put it back in the nest ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... the same sort. I had plenty of time to see my dilemma. Either I would have to abandon my attempt to keep the men busy, or I would have to invoke the authority of Captain Selover. To do the latter would be to destroy it. The master had become a stuffed ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... fervour, saying, "You have saved my life. Personally, I should be delighted to have Susil as a son-in-law, but you must let me consult my son and wife." He ran to the inner apartments, and communicated Sham Babu's offer to his near relatives. This unexpected solution of the dilemma filled them with surprise; and a loud clamour of voices echoed through the house. Finally all, without exception, agreed that the match would be an excellent one. Kumodini Babu brought news of its acceptance to Sham Babu, and it spread among the wedding guests, who ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... who played first violin in the quartet, had been so convivial that he was unable to continue. In this unfortunate dilemma Uncle Jens called upon Ole, saying, "Come, my boy, do your best, and you shall have a stick of candy." Ole quickly accepted the challenge, and as the quartet was one which he had several times heard, he played each movement correctly, much to the ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... been issued, to delay your departure, or retard the progress of the vessels, that you may be taken by the English? I consider it impossible, therefore, that your Majesty should escape them; or, if you should escape, but that you must ultimately fall into their hands, sooner or later. In this dilemma, it is right, at least, to endeavour to fall as nobly as possible."—"What are you driving at?" said Napoleon peevishly, thinking I meant to propose suicide to him: "I know, I might say, like Hannibal, 'Let us deliver them from ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... dilemma. The trio who had ridden in state now felt very small, indeed, and glanced at one another in dismay. Then Leslie surveyed the name over the ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... while to inquire what may have been the precise dilemma contemplated by the writer of this note, since most certainly it is not a reflex of Varro's meaning. The word dimidiatus is completely cushioned, although Gellius himself has a chapter upon it a little farther on in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... what it has its advantages too," he added thoughtfully, "and this very power of being able to disappear suddenly has just got me out of a most serious dilemma." ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... discomfiture and were delighted with the thought of an old-time talk from Toombs. For half an hour he made one of his eloquent and electric speeches, and when he sat down the audience screamed for more. No one but Toombs could have emerged so brilliantly from this awkward dilemma. ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... Now here was a dilemma. If in face of this curt response I proceeded to follow him, my hand was revealed at once; yet the circumstances would admit of no other course. I determined to compromise matters by pretending to take the right hand road till he was out of sight, when I would return and follow ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... except the interval from January 1 to March 24 inclusively. And hence arises a practical inference, viz, that the very same reason, and no other, which formerly enjoined the use of the compound or fractional date, viz, the prevention of a capital ambiguity or dilemma, now enjoins its omission. For in our day, when the double opening of the year is abolished, what sense is there in perplexing a reader by using a fraction which offers him a choice without directing him how to choose? In fact, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... say. "Aren't you ashamed of it?" And after inscrutable meditations the fond parent usually answers us by sending out the child to beg or sell matches or by some equally effective retort. Now a great number of excellent people pretend that this is a dilemma. "Take the child away," it is argued, "and you remove one of the chief obstacles to the reckless reproduction of the unfit. Leave it in the parents' hands and you must have the cruelty." But really this is not a dilemma at all. ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... own situation was one of extreme peril. The Comanches must be aware of his singular dilemma, and were not likely to leave him undisputed master of the situation, at least as long as he remained ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... present House of Commons, and, as a qualifying measure would not be accepted, it remains for you to decide whether you will, at any hazard, support a set of men who have reduced you to this unhappy dilemma, or whether you will gratify the united wishes of the whole people of England by dissolving ...
— English Satires • Various
... of men as an inspector. When he visited the reservation he asked for the witnesses at once. They asked for a reasonable time to get them together. This was refused and they asked for two days, and when this was denied they asked for one. In their dilemma and haste they got one Indian near-by to testify. The Agent himself broke down this man's testimony, because he had been at fault two or three years before, in a way which did not affect, in the slightest degree, his statement now, and the ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... creeds and philosophies—to be possessed of unconditional truth—can be scientifically tested? The sceptic's sneer, that the shifting systems of philosophy illustrate only the changing fashions of a great illusion about man's capacity for truth, plunges dogmatism into a 'Dilemma,' from which it can emerge only by finding a way of discriminating a 'truth' from an 'error,' and so solving the 'problem of Truth and Error.' The weird verbalism of the traditional Logic suggests a problem which strikes deeper even than the question, 'What do you mean by truth?' ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... did not see his indecision as she swept from the room, and "Marse Eddie" quickly relieved him of the embarrassing dilemma by picking up the carpet-bag and passing out of the door, closing it ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... throughout the South, no book could be distributed among the servile population more incendiary than the Bible, if they could only read it. Will not our Southern brethren take alarm? The Society is reduced to the dilemma of either denying that the African has a soul to be saved, or of consenting to the terrible mockery of assuring him that the way of life is to be found only by searching a book which he is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... call out for him. Night coming on, water began to rise about the base of the tree, and the Giant Beaver came and began to gnaw at its base. The friendly ants[16] tried to keep the tree upright, but the water continued to rise and the Beaver kept on gnawing. Then the Black Cat in his sore dilemma called out, "Grandpa, come!" The grandfather responded, "I am coming; wait till I get my moccasins." The water rose higher. Again Black Cat called out, "Come, grandpa, come!" "I am coming," his grandfather said; "wait till I get my cap." Again Black Cat called, "Hurry, grandpa!" ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... time arrived when the family not unreasonably suggested that the blinds of the house should be pulled down. Here was a dilemma. How was it possible to warn the household of the Pleasant-Faced Lion's approach if the blinds were pulled down? When Ridgwell found, in spite of much lingering, that the last crumb of cake had been consumed, to say nothing of ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... Unlucky!" For it was the very diamond which Mary of Burgundy had sent to assure him of her faith, and summon him to her aid after her father's death. Sir Kasimir had not retained the pledge of his own ill-omened wedlock; but, in the midst of the dilemma, the Emperor, producing his dagger, began to detach some of the massive gold links of the chain that supported his hunting-horn. "There," said he, "the little elf of a bride can get her finger into this lesser one and you—verily this largest will fit, and the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... started, and as we approached the north end of the meadow we found the ground swampy and wet and were soon obliged to leap from bog to bog on our route. A mis-step brought me up to my middle in water, and to add to the dilemma a swarm of hornets attacked me. Attaining the altitude of another bog I was cheered by the assurance that there was only a quarter of a mile of this kind of travel to the edge of my property. I waded on. In about fifteen ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... counsels of misguided friends and insidious enemies that she does not know what course to pursue in order to extricate herself from the web of difficulties in which she seems almost hopelessly involved. In this dilemma she turns to me for help, and supplicates for my guidance and instruction with a moving eloquence that would touch the heart of a statue. Hear her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... how do you know?" he heard as he came up under the willows. This new voice, sweet and limpid, belonged to a girl of such striking appearance that the young man was on the point of forgetting his dilemma—until that infernal mosquito settled down back of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... poverty, while their fortunes, even in his hands, must bear all the jeopardy of the scheme. That was all. Retain Fausse Riviere and its wealth, and save the Grandissimes; surrender Fausse Riviere, let the Grandissime estates go, and save the Nancanous. That was the whole dilemma. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... camp determined to make the best of the situation, which owing to my failure to catch all of the gray devils, remained practically unchanged. Jim had been acquainted with my dilemma, as was manifest in his wet eyes and broad grin with ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... pocket-money remaining; so one proposed offering him a penknife, and another a pocket-comb, and a third an inkstand; indeed, there was no end of the number of small gifts which Monsieur Malin had pressed upon him. He was in a dilemma ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... seeing dependent upon the eyes and nerves and brain does not even tend to show that there is not another chain of antecedents in which the eyes and nerves and brain as physical things are ignored. If we are to escape from the dilemma which seemed to arise out of the physiological causation of what we see when we say we see the sun, we must find, at least in theory, a way of stating causal laws for the physical world, in which the units are not material things, such as the eyes and nerves ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... for all that, the elements of a very pretty dilemma in the psychology of morals in the case of Miriam Gale and John Arniston. True, the calf-skin Bible said when it was consulted, "The letter killeth, but the ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... produce his own, than to call for a display of your acquisitions. But in a tete-a-tete there is no shuffling. The truth will out. There is nothing which I dread so much, as the being left alone for a quarter of an hour with a sensible, well-informed man, that does not know me. I lately got into a dilemma of this sort.— ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... state briefly the objections which seem to me to be so fatal to either of the first two proposals, as to leave us no alternative but to accept the third horn of the Educational dilemma:— ...
— University Education in Ireland • Samuel Haughton
... found himself thus unexpectedly between two horns of a dilemma, the result in either case being the same—that is, the spoliation of the little pecadillo he had put away against old age. He shook his head, and with a sublime resignation accepted the voice of iniquity for that ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... influential position, which, from whatever fortunate cause, he held on Miss Aldclyffe's manor, would never again fall to his lot on any other, and he tacitly assented to this dilemma, hoping that some consolation or other would soon suggest itself to him; married as he ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... him by the hand, and, like a second Hagar, goes forth, whither she knows not. It is an instinct, an impulse, an inspiration. It is the mother's heart within her that bids her fly from the horrible dilemma, and save her child from the tyrant who seeks more than his life,—who would ruin his soul. Through out-of-the-way streets, into the deserted corners of the city she goes, clasping the boy's hand with an agonising grasp, with ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... mischievous consequences, fills us with the highest indignation, and belongs to Tragedy. Why then are cunning and deceit admitted to be excellent as comic motives, so long as they are used with no malicious purpose, but merely to promote our self-love, to extricate one's-self from a dilemma, or to gain some particular object, and from which no dangerous consequences are to be dreaded? It is because the deceiver having already withdrawn from the sphere of morality, truth and untruth are in themselves ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... Verkan Vall. "What does he think a religion is, on this sector, anyhow? You think these savages dreamed up that six-armed monstrosity, up there, to express their yearning for higher things, or to symbolize their moral ethos, or as a philosophical escape-hatch from the dilemma of causation? They never even heard of such matters. On this sector, gods are strictly utilitarian. As long as they take care of their worshipers, they get their sacrifices: when they can't put out, they have to get out. ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... the same case as if being cited he did not appear, or appearing did nothing but wrangle; so that, whether he has proved or not proved his cause, the second is not to be heard." And yet he who made this dilemma has written against Plato's Commonweal, dissolved sophisms, and exhorted his scholars to learn logic, as enabling them to do the same. Now Plato has either proved or not proved those things which he writ in his Commonweal; but in neither case was it necessary to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... who is planning a Thanksgiving dinner for "just us two" frequently finds herself in a dilemma. Turkey is much too large for her and chicken hardly appeals to her for this day. However, below are some suggestive menus for ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... he said, "what the deuce am I to do! To send for Curtis and Kelson will be fatal, and it will be equally fatal to leave them in ignorance of what has happened to me. I am, indeed, in the horns of a dilemma. I must get at ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... enough in the bare possibility of such a prospect to justify more than all the interest which has ever been expended upon it even by the most "anxious inquirer." But, haunted by these solemn thoughts, Mr. Holyoake takes refuge in the other alternative of his dilemma: "If there are other worlds, those will best be fitted for the enjoyment of them who have made the welfare of humanity their business in this." Secular philanthropy is the best, and only needful, preparation. With this any belief in regard to the future is unnecessary, without ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... This brazen statue, which had been brought from Antioch, and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to represent either Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413, 414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P. p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri, Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived about the year 1100. They witness the belief of the prophecy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... sad dilemma, there came a Spaniard on board by composition to see our ship. He came on board again the next day, and we allowed him quietly to depart. The following day two Spaniards came, on board, without pawn or surety, to see ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... time Werper entertained the idea of bribing Abdul Mourak with a portion of the contents of the pouch; but fearing that the man would demand all the gems as the price of liberty, the Belgian, influenced by avarice, sought another avenue from his dilemma. ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... shoulders. The dilemma had been presented to him a hundred times. Time was pressing and there were ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... should there be none, to get for me a passage by some American trader. The China war, he assured me, had taken up all the Government vessels, and there appeared no hope left for me that season, as the last American trader was just then leaving for Zanzibar. In this dilemma it appeared that I must inevitably lose the travelling season, and come in for the droughts and famines. The tide, however, turned in my favour a little; for I obtained, by permission of the Admiralty, a passage ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... is arguing in a circle. The universal must be given up for the detail, the detail for the universal; we leave off where we began. Yes, that is the dilemma. Still, the gain to science through a devotion of a whole life to a mere group of facts, in a single branch of a single science, may be an incalculable acquisition to human knowledge, to the intellectual capital of the race - a gain that sometimes far outweighs ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... way of lifting his purblind stupidity to the light. She appealed to his experience of himself, on many a former occasion: "You fool, you have been drinking again—and there's a patient waiting for you." To that dilemma he was accustomed; the statement of it partially roused him. Mrs. Vimpany tore off the paper wrapping, and opened the medicine-bottle which she had ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... could have his pistols too! Ever since the Federals had cut him off from his furloughs home, those black ugly navies were next to the nearest in his affections. The nearest was the buckskin charger. And now, only the buckskin was left, which simply made the dilemma more poignant. The condemned man gazed critically at the walls, the rafters, the ground, and shook his head. Supposing a chance for escape, could he bring himself to leave Demijohn behind? He got his pipe to going, sat down, and ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the front room, Mr. Blaisdell was receiving his guests in the most effusive manner, reminding Houston, even in his dilemma, ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... Blondel's lips before he could stay it. He saw what was coming, and the dilemma in which ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... you had a little good-will—if you entered a little into my dilemma." The note of reproach was so distinct in these words that Bernard stood staring. "You never take anything seriously," ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... tumultuous commonwealths, the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord, and the miserable objects of universal pity or contempt. Some of the writers who have come forward on the other side of the question seem to have been aware of the dilemma; and have even been bold enough to hint at the division of the larger States as a desirable thing. Such an infatuated policy, such a desperate expedient, might, by the multiplication of petty offices, answer the views ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... spark of curiosity had died out for lack of fuel. But to the man of five-and-thirty, racked with reawakened passion, and with a restless irritability, whose significance could no longer be ignored, the memory of his brother's whispered revelation flashed like a lightning-streak across his present dilemma; leaving him in the grasp of those invisible forces that are the true masters of destiny; that must either break or be broken by man's individual spirit and will. For some of us the struggle is conscious; for some unconscious; ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... long since solved Napoleon's dilemma: "Dans cinquante ans l'Europe sera republicaine ou cosaque." [1 Within fifty years Europe will be either republican or Cossack.] It found the solution in the "republique cosaque." [2 Cossack republic.] No ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... gentlemen, if not indeed in those of friends. It was some time before any one answered. The boys, by their looks and the expression of their countenances, seemed to appeal to me for a reply to get them out of their present dilemma, if possible. Before I had time to collect my thoughts, we were startled by these words, coming from the same man that had ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... in question represented the unhappy dilemma of the handsome youth. Before him sat the grim baron, with a face worthy of the father of such a daughter, and looking daggers and ratsbane. On one side of him was Muckle-mouthed Mag, with an amorous smile across the whole breadth ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... laughs in his sleeve as he hears the affrighted partridge call, and the timid hare rushing through the vines towards him; they approach, are within range of his gun, and ere long the shot-bag is emptied, and the sportsman is in that rare but agreeable dilemma of not knowing what to do with his game or ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... from some sort of emotional block that left him continually on the horns of one dilemma or another. He was psychologically incapable of making a decision if he were faced with two or more possible alternatives ...
— In Case of Fire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... recognized the dilemma. The stout woman could not wear one of her night robes; and, if not one of hers, certainly not one of Miss Meeke's, or of either the young girls'—all of which were smaller than her own. What was to ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... opposing the Place Bill that they could not, without gross inconsistency, oppose the Triennial Bill. The whole House too bore a grudge to the other House, and had a pleasure in putting the other House in a most disagreeable dilemma. Burnet, Pembroke, nay, even Caermarthen, who was very little in the habit of siding with the people against the throne, supported Shrewsbury. "My Lord," said the King to Caermarthen, with bitter displeasure, "you ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the mimic perils of the Pond. The vessels lay becalmed in the middle of the ocean, displaying a tantalizing lack of sympathy with the frantic helplessness of the owners on shore. As the gentleman observed their dilemma, a light came into his faded eyes, then died out, leaving them drearier than before. I wondered if he, too, in his time, had sent out ships that drifted and drifted and never came to port; and if these poor toys were to him types ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... position of the Ministry, to vindicate the honor and dignity of the Commons, to avert a collision with the House of Lords, and, in general, to extricate the councils of the nation from an embarrassing and dangerous dilemma. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... hand, but he could not reach the little leather bag with its silver clasp. If he could have jumped out of the window, he would have done so without hesitation, but the aperture was not large enough. He could not help being amused by the dilemma in which he was placed by this young lady's inflexibility. He did not know a girl, his sister not excepted, whom, under the circumstances, he would not have left to the consequences of what he would have called ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... ruined, so many people transported, so many citizens proscribed, so many coffins filled, so many graves dug, so much blood spilt" "Aha!" replies a coarse voice with a Dutch accent; "so you mistrust parliamentarism, do you?" Get out of the dilemma if you can. Parliamentarism is a great find. I give my vote to M. Louis Bonaparte for the next vacant seat at the Institute. What's that? why, we must encourage neology! This man comes from the dung-heap, this man comes ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... Riccabocca, taking off his hat, with great formality, "if ever again I find myself in a dilemma, I will come to you instead of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... thee such a delectable bride." I now fell at her feet, entreated her forgiveness, and expressed my repentance; upon which, smiling upon me, she said, "Be not uneasy, for as I have plunged thee into a dilemma, I will also relieve thee from it. Go to the aga of the leather-dressers, give him a sum of money, and desire him to call thee his son; then repair with him, attended by his followers and musicians, to the house of the chief magistrate. When he inquires the cause of their ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... hunting party. But you see to-day is Wednesday, and we must leave Friday, and Frank and I have sworn by every fish in the creek to take to-morrow off for a fishing trip. Chicken Little, there is only one way out of the dilemma. Painful as it will be for you, you'll have to invite ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... one after another, not having the courage to continue the absurdity to the end. Add to all this the arrests made in its very bosom by the Assembly of the Hotel de Ville itself, and you will then have an idea of the extent of the dilemma. A few days more and the Commune will come to an end for want of Communists, and then we shall cry, "Haste to the poll, citizens of Paris!" And the white official handbills will announce supplementary elections ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... turned his attention to the Senorita. It was evident that the dilemma proposed by de Moche was not without weight. She had now coloured a flaming red. The woman had struck her ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... of our dilemma on which we have not before reflected. Should the Indians stay to "jerk" their meat, we will be in extreme danger from thirst, as well as of being discovered ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... officers upon the propriety of at once attacking an earthwork, thrown up to guard the ford. From all the information he could gather, this work was manned with about three hundred infantry—regular troops—and two heavy guns were mounted in it. Our arrival at this place after dark had involved us in a dilemma. If we did not cross the river that night, there was every chance of our being attacked on the next day by heavy odds. The troops we had seen at Pomeroy were, we at once and correctly conjectured, a portion of the infantry which had been sent after us from Kentucky, and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... I felt my blood run cold. I may have lost my presence of mind; but I don't know how I could have got out of the dilemma even if I had ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... nothing of the conspiracy, and knew nothing of the young lord's story, except that he had involved himself in some tiresome dilemma from which his parents had rescued him—the Duke of Lester, who heard Lord Chandos spoken of as one likely to marry his niece, took a great fancy to him; he had no children of his own; he was warmly attached to his beautiful niece; it seemed very probable that ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... scarcely rising breasts; her arms singularly strong, at perfect rest; her hands, exquisitely delicate. In her right, she holds a branching and leaf-bearing rod, (the syllogism); in her left, a scorpion with double sting, (the dilemma)—more generally, the powers of rational construction ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... capacities. It is pathetic to think of the mediaeval students poring over a single ill-translated sentence of Porphyry, endeavoring to extract from its clauses whole systems of logical science, and torturing their brains about puzzles more idle than the dilemma of Buridan's donkey, while all the time, at Constantinople and at Seville, in Greek and Arabic, Plato and Aristotle were alive, but sleeping, awaiting only the call of the Renaissance to bid them speak with voice intelligible to the modern mind. It is no less pathetic to watch tide ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Madam, in this dilemma I am happy to behold again your heavenly beauty. But with what eye can you look upon ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... now repaired to his wife, on whose prudent counsel he depended to extricate him out of this dilemma; but when he came thither he found his house in some confusion. So great envy had this sack occasioned, that when Mr Allworthy and the other gentry were gone from church, the rage, which had hitherto been confined, burst into an uproar; ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... her tongue. She was quite sure that Dorothy would never boast of her triumph. And Martha had been strictly cautioned,—as indeed, also, had Brooke Burgess. The man had behaved like an idiot, Miss Stanbury said; but he had been brought into a little dilemma, and nothing should be said about it from the house in the Close. But when the other rumour reached Miss Stanbury's ears, when Mrs. Crumbie condoled with her on her niece's misfortune, when Mrs. MacHugh asked whether ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... town two days afterwards, and the Marquis was left with the dilemma on his mind. Lord Saint George, though he would frequently interfere in matters connected with the property in the manner described, would never dictate and seldom insist. He had said what he had got to say, and the Marquis was left to act for himself. But the old lord had learned to feel that he ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... truth presented a strange and embarrassing dilemma, as we have remarked. In the war itself, moreover, began the stern cleavage between the North and the South. At the moment the rift was not clearly discerned, but afterwards it was to widen into a chasm. Massachusetts bore more than her share of the struggle, and in ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... himself, in a prison-ship, and with these men he now prepared to land; for, as yet, he had made little progress in the business which brought him into his present awkward predicament, and he was not a man to abandon an object so dear to him, lightly. Finding himself in a dilemma, he was resolved to make an effort to reap, if possible, some advantage from his critical situation. Accordingly, after he had taken his coffee and given his orders, the boat's crew was called, and he left the lugger's side. All this was done tranquilly, as if the appearance of the stranger ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... And now came the dilemma of our lives. It was impossible to delay the schooner, as already the crowd on board had lost several days; and it was not safe or right so late in the year to be keeping these other families from their homes. The Water Lily, so the kindly captain informed us, ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... me doubtfully, appealingly, as if for the first time in his life he had been given a glimpse of that dilemma of consequences which his nature never recognises. I thought he was going to give in. Suddenly, to my horror, Dan growled, "Play ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... enemy, but with some of my fleet afloat I shall eventually be successful. I can not lose all. I will attack, regardless of consequences, and never turn back." To a mind thus disciplined and prepared, the unforeseen dilemma presented before the barriers of Mobile Bay caused but a passing perplexity. Like the Puritan soldier who trusted in God and kept his powder dry, Farragut met the overthrow of his carefully arranged plans and the sudden decision ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... way again. But in the twenty-mile run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering freight locomotive, and it was twenty minutes past three o'clock when the county seat came in sight and Kent began to oscillate between two sharp-pointed horns of a cruel dilemma. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... that if a physician has been employed, he must be continued, however unable the patient is to bear the expense, as no apothecary may administer anything to the sick man, if he has been prescribed to first by a physician: so that the patient is reduced to this dilemma, either to die of the disease, or starve his family, if his sickness happens to be of any duration. A physician here scorns to touch any other metal but gold, and the surgeons are still more unreasonable; and this ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... the priest saw nothing of the scene before him; his eyes were fixed on vacancy; his thoughts were endeavoring to grapple with the situation and master it. Yet so complicated was that situation, and so perplexing the dilemma in which he found himself—a dilemma where death perched upon either horn—that the good priest found his faculties becoming gradually more and more unable to deal with the difficulty, and he felt himself once more sinking down deeper and deeper into that abyss of despair from which ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... yielding on the part of Mattie to the wishes of her mother. She only adopted this course as part of a plan by which she hoped to gain time, during which Tite might return, and thus afford her the means of averting a dilemma into which her ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... professor gently interrupted her: "Let us not judge a kind action harshly. Mr. Symington meant only to relieve you from an annoying dilemma, and he naturally concluded that this would be impossible should he disclose his real name and position. It seems that he merely allowed your inferences to go uncontradicted, and was, practically, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... be construed into a vainglorious desire of pushing myself into notice as a candidate. Now, if I am not grossly deceived in myself, I should unfeignedly rejoice, in case the electors, by giving their votes in favor of some other person, would save me from the dreadful dilemma of being forced to accept or refuse. If that may not be, I am, in the next place, earnestly desirous of searching out the truth, and of knowing whether there does not exist a probability that the government would be just as happily and effectually carried into execution ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... bricklayer to be an alderman of London. Among other of his early habits, the civic dignitary retained that of eating everything with his fingers. One day a choice bit of turbot having repeatedly escaped from his grasp, Wilkes, who witnessed the dilemma, whispered, "My lord, you had better ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... lay before me, trusting to the chapter of accidents to get through, incessant activity keeping anxiety away. I have never flinched from a duty, if I saw it, have never done an injustice to man or woman, intentionally, and at more than one moment of my career have accepted the worse horn of a dilemma rather than permit a wrong to happen to another; and if I have been erratic and unstable it has not been from selfish or perverse motives. I have always been what most people would call visionary, and material objects of endeavor have not ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... letter of the law and the records of history were unquestionably on the aide of the provincial and against the general authority. Yet to nullify the authority of the States-General by force of arms at this supreme moment was to stultify all government whatever. It was an awful dilemma, and it is difficult here fully to sympathize with the Advocate, for he it was who inspired, without dictating, the course ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... pretensions, one who thinks he has produced the best grammar that has ever appeared in our language. To me, however, his work suggests an abundance of questions like these; each of which would palpably involve him in a dilemma: What is here meant by "objects," the words, or the things? if the former, how are they acted upon? if the latter, how are they governed? If "a participle is called an adjective," which is it, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... know it is bad, and I knew then that something of a decisive kind must be done in order to relieve myself from the dilemma into which this little untoward circumstance had placed me. I remembered that on that occasion you were somewhat disguised, so that in your natural state, or in any other disguise you might wish to assume, it would be impossible to identify you as the same individual. Well, ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... alternative, either to become the wife of Don Carlos Alvarez, or else to be confined in a convent, perhaps be constrained or influenced to take the hateful veil? You alone can save her from this dreadful dilemma.' ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... him on the right track at once. He could tell his story if once he started at the beginning, though he found it impossible to make these strangers comprehend his present dilemma; so beginning from the time he left his own dooryard with the last cartload of potatoes, he gave them a detailed account of his wanderings up to the time when he met the fine young gentlemen in Halifax. But he had no idea how he got to Truro; that was all a blank to him. When Mr. Sherwood explained ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... he came with a radiant countenance to show his work to his wife, saying it was the best thing he had ever done. She read it and thought it the worst, and thereupon fell into a state of deep gloom, for she couldn't let it go, and yet it seemed cruel to tell him so, and between the two horns of the dilemma she made herself quite ill. At last, by his request and according to their custom, she put her objections to it, as it then stood, in writing, complaining that he had treated it simply as a story, whereas it was in reality an allegory. After reading her paper and seeing ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... was to be simply the usual reward of virtue, - the consciousness of having attempted the right. The Chateau de Chaumont was inexorably closed; so we learned from a talkative lodge-keeper, who gave what grace she could to her refusal. This good woman's dilemma was almost touching; she wished to reconcile two impossibles. The castle was not to be visited, for the family of its master was staying there; and yet she was loath to turn away a party of which she was good enough to say that it had a grand genre; for, as she also remarked, she ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Here was a dilemma for me. What should I say next? What business had I, meddling with a young girl's heart? I had been almost sure of finding soundings, yet here I was in deep water! And, with all my ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... performed before the more intellectual part of the work can be begun, has deterred, and continues to deter, men of excellent abilities from undertaking historical work. They are, in fact, confronted with a dilemma: either they must work on a supply of documents which is in all probability incomplete, or they must spend themselves in unlimited searches, often fruitless, the results of which seldom appear worth the time they have cost. It goes against the grain to spend a great part of one's ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... one-half of the taxes of the Province, that he might not sadden with the one hand those whom he was gladdening with the other. Herein he compares favourably with Joseph, who sold corn to the Egyptians, but on such terms that they lost their personal freedom. Doubtless that holy man was placed in a dilemma between the necessity of satisfying a covetous King on the one hand, and that of rescuing a starving people on the other. Still I must think that the Egyptian, whose life was preserved, groaned over the loss of his liberty; and if I may say so, with all ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... capacious tumbler he could find. The manner in which he drank this was highly illustrative of the customs which prevail on this subject in Ireland. He remembered, that in making the vow, he used the words, "neither in the house nor out of it;" but in order to get over this dilemma, he usually stood with one foot outside the threshold, and the other in the house, keeping himself in that position which would render it difficult to determine whether he was either out or in. At other times, when he happened to be upstairs, he usually thrust one-half of ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... between England and France was therefore the only rational course; but the American partisans of these rivals did their utmost to render this unachievable. Much of Washington's second term see-sawed between one horn and the other of this dilemma. The sardonic aspect becomes more glaring if we remember that the United States were a new-born nation which ought to have been devoting itself to establishing viable relations among its own population and not ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... Mr. Dexter on the horns of a dilemma. Either it is too late in the day to discuss woman's education, or it is not. If the latter, why did he say it is? And if the former, why did he begin discussing it? That is how ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... once regulate his approach to Mrs. Grove, get himself firmly in hand; the situation, for him particularly, had far-reaching unpredictable possibilities. For all her exactness, Savina Grove had a very exclusive and definite attractiveness; and, faced by such a dilemma, Lee had the best of reasons for doubting the ultimate regularity ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... by the sound of thunder, Albert felt a little conscience-smitten that he had not traveled more diligently toward his destination. And when he drove on a quarter of a mile, he found himself in a most unpleasant dilemma, the two horns being two roads, concerning which those who directed him had neglected to give him any advice. Katy had been here before, and she was very sure that to the right hand was the road. There was now no time to turn back, for the storm was already upon them—one of those fearful thunderstorms ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... Tuckham on Beauchamp's behalf caused Cecilia to praise him, in the tone of compliments. The difficulty of seriously admiring two gentlemen at once is a feminine dilemma, with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Upon learning our dilemma, the good-natured fellows set at once to work to help us. We cut two pine poles, and placing one boat across them, each man grasped an end of a pole, and thus, upon a species of litter, we lifted the ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... try to show his father a way out of his dilemma, so he said: "Father, don't you think your explanation about that mist that is spoken of in Genesis, 2. 6, ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... with a handkerchief. His thoughts were still in a whirl, and even then he could not shake from his mind the more than half belief that in some unconscious way he had indeed, unwittingly and unwillingly—for he was as good a patriot as anyone—aided the runaways. In such a dilemma, feeling vexed and sore at his own loss, and indignant at the cross-examination he had just suffered, it was but natural that he should work himself up into a terrible passion, and should turn the vials of his wrath upon the ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... slight remark. The beefsteak smothered in onions was merely prohibited in future. But when, on the second day, the potatoes were served with mashed lemon-peel, the general discontent burst forth; and we scolded till we laughed again at the dilemma in which we found ourselves. Next to being without food, is the calamity of being subjected, in the middle of the Atlantic, to the diabolical arts of the French Admiral's cook. At sea, the arrangements of the table are of ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... known, Descartes boldly faced this dilemma, and maintained that all animals were mere machines and entirely devoid of consciousness. But he did not deny, nor can anyone deny, that in this case they are reasoning machines, capable of performing all those operations ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... lather, and is apt to hurt a little unless used by the most skilful hands. And finally, Japanese parents are not tyrannical with their children: they pet and coax, very rarely compel or terrify. So that it is quite a dilemma for them when the baby revolts against the bath ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... and no exertion on the part of his companion could avail to rouse him. In this dilemma, Edith once more wrapped him in her warm cloak, and causing Chimo to lie at his feet, hastened over the ice towards the igloo. On arriving she lighted the lamp and heated the tea which she had made in the morning. This took at least a quarter of an hour to do, and during the interval she endeavoured ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... this moment, and never had he felt his fondness for her so genuine. Yet, when she seemed almost to offer him herself and her life—if only he would stretch out his arm and lift her across the stream of dilemma—he could not urge, but sat tongue-tied. He could think only of the difficulties; and the thought of them staggered and blinded him. This was not the indecision of a man weighing the responsibilities of a step which might ruin the life of another man; it was ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... sight of the fourth boar. Geraldine and Duane saw his dilemma, saw him silently give Rosalie the signal to fire at the nearest boar in the open, then saw him turn like a flash and almost drag Delancy ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... hear or to read the dilemma put before the doubter, that he must accept everything or nothing in Christianity and the Bible.(1049) Such an alternative, though dictated by a commendable motive, is likely to prove ineffectual. The Dilemma is a form of reasoning which rarely persuades. Its object is rather to silence than ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... lieutenant flatly said he would never allow it. In fact he had hitherto concealed the non-presentable portion of his folly very satisfactorily from all save the mess-room, and Mr. Andrew's passion was a severe dilemma to him. It need scarcely be told that his wife, fortified by the fervid brewer, defeated him utterly. What was more, she induced him to be an accomplice in deception. For though the lieutenant protested that he washed his hands of it, and that it was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... only in Collins, but in others of the 'rising and growing sect.' The argument, e.g., drawn from the variety of readings in the New Testament, is not only demolished but adroitly used to place his adversary on the horns of a dilemma. Nothing again, can be neater than his answer to various objections by showing that those objections had been brought to light by Christians themselves. And yet the general impression, when one has read Collins and Bentley carefully, is that there is a real element of truth in the former to which ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... commissioned him to conduct the Spaniards to her mother's abode. He did not dare to disobey her commands. Either alternative was more to be dreaded by him than death. The ingenuous young man had, therefore, endeavored to escape from the dilemma by self-destruction. ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... who does not speak French correctly, scarcely a shopman who cannot make himself understood in good or bad French, and there is scarcely a boy who is not acquainted with ten or twenty words which suffice to help a stranger out of a dilemma. This diffusion of a language so different from that of the country is the more to be admired when one reflects that it is not the only foreign language generally spoken in Holland. English and German are almost as widely known ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... incident of recent occurrence in a neighboring city. A friend of mine, a minister of the Gospel—you will bear in mind that my friends are not all actors—and this recalls the dilemma of a candidate who, upon inquiry as to the comparative merits of heaven and its antipode, cautiously declined to express an opinion, on the ground that he had friends in both places—this minister, upon being installed in a new pastorate, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Out of this dilemma was gradually excogitated the theory, which had been rejected by nearly all interpreters of the Constitution, that the United States can possess "appurtenant" territory, subject to, but not part of itself, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... opponent. Thus Augusta Goold and her friends were genuinely desirous of striking a blow at England, and really believed that their volunteers might do it; but this did not prevent them from finding infinite relish in the prospect of watching Mr. O'Rourke squirming on the horns of a dilemma. They took counsel together, and the result of their deliberations was peculiar. They proposed to invite Mr. O'Rourke to join his appeal to theirs, to pool the money which came in, and to divide it evenly between the volunteers and the members of Parliament. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... out of reach for mutual support, and neither one in decisively preponderant strength to the enemy to whom it is opposed. This disadvantage is greatest to the offensive, because to the defensive falls the privilege of increasing power by choice of position and by fortifying. It was in this dilemma that the British, in consequence of the abandonment of their original concentrative plan of advance through the Free State, and the adoption of two or more lines of operation, found themselves over their whole front; from Colenso on the east, through Sterkstrom and Naauwport, to the Modder ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
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