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More "Predicament" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rose. It was a momentous predicament, but he must do the best he could in it. He was a man of nice honour, and he wished with all his heart that the earth would open and engulf him. "Eliza, my love, allow me to deal with this matter," he said, his voice taking a low, tender, considerate tone. "I will ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... looks hideously cold and dangerous," she sighed, shivering in the clear sunlight, despite her long fur coat. "But I have a horror of the motor, since yesterday. I may get over it, but it will take me days. It's a hateful predicament—between two evils, one as bad as the other. I oughtn't to have been subjected ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... question whether organic evolution has been caused by physical agencies or by intelligent design is in precisely the same predicament. There can be no logical doubt that, theoretically at all events, the physical agencies which the present chapter is concerned with, and which are conveniently summed up in the term natural selection, are as competent to produce these ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... Gad! but it's fine to see you. And what fool put you in this idiotic predicament? Wring his damned neck, I would. How are you, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... disturb the working of the system, it would have gradually slided into absolute freedom if they were permitted to regulate their own affairs, but the government, or rather, the people of England, had forced on the predicament in which they were placed. The ministry could not help themselves—They were driven to violate the national compact, not in express words, it is true, but in fact. It was, however, the force of public opinion that operated in producing the change. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... be devised. It was difficult, however, to figure out exactly how the teaching of religion to slaves could be made successful and at the same time square with the prohibitory measures of the South. For this reason many masters made no effort to find a way out of the predicament. Others with a higher sense of duty brought forward a scheme of oral instruction in Christian truth or of religion without letters. The word instruction thereafter signified among the southerners a procedure quite different ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... on one for dinner would of course be an outrageous offense. I dressed as hastily as I was able, but just as I was putting on the finishing touches to my costume my white tie bursted. I was in a predicament from which for a moment I saw no means of rescuing myself. I did not have time to get another tie, and of course I could not wear the black one. As well as I could, however, I put the white tie about my neck, fastened it with a pin, ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... legitimate inhabitants of these muddy waters. Coasting the island on our return home we found a trap, which the last time we examined it was tenanted by a creature called a mink, now occupied by an otter. The poor beast did not seem pleased with his predicament; but the trap had been set by one of the drivers, and, of course, Jack would not have meddled with it except upon my express order, which, in spite of some pangs of pity for the otter, I did not like to ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... down to wait, and addressed to his bewildered judgment a query as to whether or not he ought to keep on carrying the burdensome rifle. It was not only heavy, but when daylight came it might attract attention, and his bulging coat would certainly invite curiosity. He was in a predicament; nevertheless, he decided to hang ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... help her out of her predicament when the belated motor came racing down the slope. As a matter of fact, I was wrong when I said that a man brought me here in an automobile. It was she who did it. She gave the order. He merely obeyed,—and not very ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... advantages in Milton's subject, there were concomitant insuperable difficulties, and Milton has exhibited marvellous skill in keeping most of them out of sight. High poetry is the translation of reality into the ideal under the predicament of succession of time only. The poet is an historian, upon condition of moral power being the only force in the universe. The very grandeur of his subject ministered a difficulty to Milton. The statement of a being of high intellect, warring against the ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... himself upon it in superlative contempt of every thing official, and almost simultaneously fell into a profound sleep. In this manner he received the attention of the poor colored woman whose bed he occupied, and whom he had abused in searching for the boy. In this predicament, Dusenberry continued to search alone, and kept it up until sundown, when he was constrained to report the case to the sheriff, who suspended Mr. Dunn for a few days. The matter rested until the ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... proving that women have no souls. And a like book was written at Nashville, Tennessee, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, by the Reverend Hubert Parsons of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South), showing that negroes were in a like predicament. But a more notable instance of the danger of a specialty is the Reverend Cotton Mather, who investigated the subject of witchcraft and issued a modest brochure incorporating his views on the subject. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... the way in which the new plan works, take the case of James Rawley. James was in a serious predicament. Time after time the court had overlooked his truancy and misdoings, but James had taken the pitcher once too often to the well, and the open doors of the State Reform School stared him grimly ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... on the 13th the French were driven down the slopes in a great rush. This predicament was a terrible one—the onrushing Germans 500 feet in front of them and the swollen river making successful retreat impossible, with the ground between almost impassable with mud and slush. French ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... fierceness and self-seeking of Helga. Between the two parties the bishop, whose motives and intentions are, however, not brought out with sufficient clearness. Like the proverbial fifth wheel of a wagon he seems out of place and embarrassing, whenever he appears—a predicament, to be sure, which he shares with the Church itself in those times, whenever not guided ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... Harley P. accompanied her to the door of the eating-house, but he would go no further. He realized that Donna wanted to talk with him; in a vague way he gathered that she looked to him for some words of comfort in her terrible predicament. Not for worlds, however, would he be seen walking with her in public, thereby laying the foundation for "talk"; and under the circumstances he realized the danger to her, should he even be seen conversing with her from now on. She pleaded with him with ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... a meeting!—in the midst of men and women, elbowing, crowding, embracing, exclaiming, rejoicing, chaffing, weeping! It was an awkward state of things, but as every one else was in the same predicament, and as all were more or less swallowed up in their own affairs, Miles and his mother were fain to make the best of it. They retired under the partial shelter of a bulkhead, where block-tackles ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... whose predicament suddenly flashed upon his mind; "for Heaven's sake let us get home as fast as possible! He says the Indians are about! Do let us go, Mr. Glenn; we can travel now out yonder where the ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... delightfully unexplored. I rushed impetuously out of the cage of my provincialism and looked eagerly about the brilliant universe. My question was, What have we here?—not, What does this mean? That query came much later. When I now become retrospectively introspective, I fall into the predicament of the centipede in the rhyme, who got along very smoothly until he was asked which leg came after which, whereupon he became so rattled that he couldn't take a step. I know I have come on a thousand feet, on wings, winds and American machines,—I have leaped and ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... assistance, and between them they hauled Pud back, though all three were on the ground and nearly over the edge before the two could stop the heavy Pud. A yell from the opposite shore told them that Mr. Waterman and Mr. Anderson had seen their predicament. Bob and Bill held on and slowly pulled Pud up to them. When all three at last arose, probably only a minute later, they were bathed in perspiration, as they had all been under a ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... tumult of conflicting emotions. Never had he seen a woman like this one, who radiated such strength, such confidence, such power. She stood there like a goddess, a splendid creature fashioned of snow and gold; she dominated the assembly. He was embarrassed that she should find him in this predicament, shamed that she should be forced to come to his assistance; nevertheless, he was thrilled at her ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... settled there will be always found some reference to their antient history, and religion. As they were particularly styled Ophitae, or Hivites, many places whither they came, were said to swarm with [1168]serpents. Rhodes was under this predicament, and had the name of Ophiusa: which name was given on account of the Hivites, who there settled, and of the serpent-worship, which they introduced. But the common notion was, that it was so called from real serpents, with which ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... a Russian. He was a tall man, lithe and sinewy rather than muscular, but he had a handsome, Patrician face; and despite his condition of insensibility, or perhaps because of it, he seemed strangely out of place in the predicament in ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... car. I was just telling Bert to get it out when I turned around, and there was Morty sitting in it not four feet away from me. He had his cap on and his leather coat, and I saw at once that I had made a terrible mistake. Before I could even think what to do he saw my predicament and leaped out, insisting that I—should take his place. I murmured something about being sorry and tried to move away, but he caught my arm and wouldn't let go. He was so eager and excited and made such a scene that I allowed myself to be bundled into the car rather than ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... fearing lest she hear him gasp and find him in this awful predicament. He could not see her after she closed the hall-door, but he wondered what she was doing. At this moment, a tickling in his nose began and he knew it portended a sneeze! He must prevent it, or Polly would track him down. If she ever ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... sizing up the situation that he hadn't thought about his own predicament. Now he looked down and suddenly realized that he was floating free in space, a considerable distance above the asteroid, and with only ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... however, aware of the difficulties under which a new Government labours, and am ready to do all in my power under any circumstances. What I have to request of you is, that you will do me the justice to feel that the predicament in which I am now placed, is somewhat analogous to your own, and that if I cannot accomplish all I wish, the deficiency arises from causes beyond my control; but I entreat you to let me have—at least this ship— well manned, and I will answer ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... having blundered into a most unpleasant predicament, through a passing interest in a pretty girl, Serviss retreated to his ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... applied to this and the neighboring colonies, but with what success time only can tell. The reflection of my situation, and that of this army, produces many an unhappy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in, on a thousand accounts; fewer still will believe, if any disaster happens to these lines, from what cause it flows. I have often thought how much happier I should have been, if, instead of accepting the command under ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... Ethan and Mickey awoke, and were soon made to understand their predicament. As a matter of course, they were all disposed to blame the author of this; but when they saw how deeply he felt his own shortcoming, all three felt a natural sympathy ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... forty-seven—nay, forty-six—yes, forty-six," the Ancient Mariner chattered. "It was a similar and worse predicament. It was in the longboat, sixteen of us. We ran on Glister Reef. So named it was after our pretty little craft discovered it one dark night and left her bones upon it. The reef is on the Admiralty charts. Captain Doane will verify ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... "But the matter is puzzling enough to convince me that it would be folly on our part to assume that the casting away of the ship is the beginning and ending of the adventure; therefore we will neglect no precautions, Mr Purchase, lest we find ourselves landed in an even worse predicament than our present one. Our first and most important precaution must be to maintain a strict watch throughout the night. It need not be a very strong watch, but it must be a vigilant one; therefore each watch will be kept under the supervision of an officer who will ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... to remain so. We should think from the shape of thy letter that thou thyself hadst had a good horn from the contents of the cider barrel, a part being written one side up and a part the other way, and it would need some one in nearly the same predicament to keep track of it. We hope thy cranium will get straightened when the answer to this is penned, so that we may follow thy varied thoughts with less trouble. A little advice perhaps would be good on both sides, and they that give should be willing to receive. See to it that ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... have left the harbour to look for us. Judging from the appearance of the country we saw, we are not likely to find any food upon it; so that should we arrive there after she has gone, we should be in a worse predicament than we should be ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... defence is there against the machinations of a wicked, or the errors of a weak Monarch, than the impossibility of finding a minister who will lend himself to vice and folly? Every English Monarch, in such a predicament, would sacrifice his opinions and views to such a clear expression of the public will; and it is one method in which the Constitution aims at bringing about such a sacrifice. You may say, if you please, the ruler of a state is forced to give up his object when the natural love of place and power ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... was decided, so surrendered myself to circumstances. I began to laugh at my predicament and we became exceedingly merry. We again changed horses. The mysterious torch of night lit up a sky of extreme clearness and shed around a delightful twilight. We were approaching the spot where our tete-a-tete must end. She pointed out to me at ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... our laager was a great hindrance to me in my work. Indeed, I opened a correspondence with the Government on the matter, and begged them to forbid it. But here again my efforts were unavailing. Later on, we shall see in what a predicament the Republican laagers were placed through the toleration of ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... to think of something right now," declared Jack, racking his brains for some way out of the predicament. ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... to Herminus the Aristotelian is equally worth recording. He was aware that this man's character was vile and his misdeeds innumerable, and yet his mouth was always full of Aristotle and his ten predicaments. 'Certainly, Herminus,' he said, 'no predicament is too bad ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... of the same opinion, and found myself nearly in the same predicament with the grumbler at my left hand; but I did not betray my ignorance by venturing a remark. This brought forcibly to my mind a story that had recently been told me by a dear primitive old lady, a daughter of one of the first Dutch settlers in the Upper Province, over ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... The apt conclusion of the amour in The Rover with Blunt's parlous mishap is originally derived from Boccaccio, Second Day, Novel 5, where a certain Andreuccio finds himself in the same unsavoury predicament as the Essex squireen. However, even this was by no means new to the English stage. In Blurt Master Constable, Lazarillo de Tormes, at the house of the courtezan Imperia, meets with precisely the same accident, Act iii, Scene 3, Act iv, Scenes 2 and 3, and it is probable that Mrs. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... up to London, and met other men at the club in the same emotional predicament. He realised that it was neither very wonderful nor exceptionally tragic now to have a son ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... chairs. They importuned friends and winners to put them back in the game, and kept at it until fortune again smiled on them. I laughed heartily at this, not thinking the day was coming which would find me in the same ludicrous predicament. ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... faltered; he couldn't walk as of old. The omission made everything false; it was a dire mutilation of their lives. Our friend was frank and monotonous, making no mystery of his remonstrance and no secret of his predicament. Her response, whatever it was, always came to the same thing—an implied invitation to him to judge, if he spoke of predicaments, of how much comfort she had in hers. For him indeed was no comfort even in complaint, since every allusion to what had befallen them but made the ...
— The Altar of the Dead • Henry James
... merrier party than could have been expected. From time to time, it is true, Northmour or I would rise from table and make a round of the defenses; and, on each of these occasions, Mr. Huddlestone was recalled to a sense of his tragic predicament, glanced up with ghastly eyes, and bore for an instant on his countenance the stamp of terror. But he hastened to empty his glass, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... time the device of coincidence is left to its true monopolists, the Society for Psychical Research and the manufacturers of the penny dreadful. Unreasonable demands are, however, made upon it by Dr Bataille; never in an awkward predicament does the coincidence fail to help him; wheresoever he goes it times his arrival rightly to witness some occasional and rare event, and it places him at once in communication with the indispensable person whose presence ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... analysis, will see that Lavradi, sentenced to be transported for ten years to the presides, comes to ask pardon of the king. Every one knows how freely the severest penalties were in the sixteenth century measured out for the lightest offences, and how warmly valets in a predicament such as Quinola's, were welcomed by the ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... boxer in that district, made a dead set on Paul. Jacker had often sought his friendship, and Paul had as often repulsed his advances. Jacker's own parentage lay under a cloud, and he felt angry that Paul, whom he regarded as in a like predicament, should refuse to be friendly with him. One evening, therefore, when Paul seemed less inclined than ever to be sociable, Jacker determined to have it out with him. He was passing through what is called the Church Town, when a number of youths, among whom Jacker was conspicuous, asked him ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... Another might discourse like an angel and it would be useless. I said everything I could think of, to no purpose. And so it is: there are those attractions!—just as, with her, Willoughby is the reverse, he repels. I'm in about the same predicament—or should be if she were plighted to me. That is, for the length of five minutes; about the space of time I should require for the formality of handing her back her freedom. How a sane man can imagine a girl like that . . . ! But if she has changed, she has changed! You can't conciliate a withered ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sign of a ticket, and with but six francs in my purse? Oh, Charlie, why did you send me out with this bag?" and Will paced nervously up and down the waiting-room, trying to think of a way out of his predicament. Suddenly a ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... we had a swim of some ten miles before us, but fortunately our predicament was observed from the land, and a crowd of blacks put out in their catamarans to help us. Some of the blacks, as I hinted before, always accompanied me down to the shore on these trips. They never tired, I think, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... Lacedaemonians, and determine to stone him. He undertakes to speak in defence of the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet to occupy the middle of the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... patient its worthy setting. Surely it is a moral crime, an inexcusable folly to tolerate a disease with its inevitable train of dire consequences, up to the point when the discomfort compels one to seek treatment. There are patients, of course, who have good and sufficient excuses for their painful predicament; they have, for example, tried persistently for relief and cure, but have failed to find a physician competent to treat their particular case. How many unskilled prescribers there are, and how glaring their shortcomings! Some hold out taking inducements to ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... Mahbracca, who was just beginning to find her tongue. Startled by this sudden action, she stepped back quickly, and stumbled right over into the "prince-trap." For an instant she lay on her back, astounded, but quickly perceiving her predicament, she sprang to her feet, and with loud yells tried her best to get out. But it was of no use. The trap was made by the best rules of magic, and there was no such a thing as getting out, even if one was as small as a mouse. As for the little black fellow who had been in pickle, he ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... hesitated, arguing with himself impatiently. But even as he did so, he kept stroking that firm, warm, living neck; and through the contact there in the savage darkness, a sympathy passed between the man and the beast. He could not help it. The poor beasts and he were in the same predicament, together holding the battlements of life against the blind and brutal madness of storm. Moreover, the herd had saved him. The debt was on his side. The caress which had been so traitorous grew honest and kind. With a shamefaced grin ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... In this frightful predicament the Bishop, finding that he could obtain no help on land, bethought of taking himself to the water. A tower was hastily erected upon the Rhine. He took ship and shut himself up there. Enclosed within double walls, and surrounded by water, he flattered himself that the rushing stream would effectually ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... the very success of his last and most pretentious effort that had placed him in the horrifying predicament in which he now found himself—with the corpse of what was apparently a human being in his workshop and no available explanation that could possibly be acceptable to a ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat, that God designed that that particular swallow should snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man and the gnat are in the same predicament. If the death of neither man nor gnat is designed, I see no good reason to believe that their first birth or production ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... be able to appear in the world again? Whom shall I ask to come to my help? No," thought he, with his mingled acuteness and simplicity, "I will not send in the first instance to any of my relations or my noble friends at White's. I will have Sampson's counsel. He has often been in a similar predicament, and will know how to advise me." Accordingly, as soon as the light of dawn appeared, after an almost intolerable delay—for it seemed to Harry as if the sun had forgotten to visit Cursitor Street in his rounds that morning—and as soon as the inmates ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... acts in lieu of words. Let but the art of Pantomime become universal, and this grand desideratum must be obtained. Then we shall find that candidates, instead of being able, as now, to become legislators by simply professing to be patriots, will be placed in the awkward predicament of having first to act as such; and that the clergy, in lieu of taking a tenth part of the produce for the mere preaching of Christianity, will be obliged to sacrifice at least a portion to charitable purposes, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... be conveyed to the consul Claudius. At the same time two troops of Samnites were sent with them as an escort. Having made their way to the consul, the letter was read by means of an interpreter, and the captives were interrogated; when Claudius, coming to the conclusion that the predicament of the state was not such as that her generals should carry on the war, each within the limits of his own province, and with his own troops, according to the customary plans of warfare, and with an enemy marked out for him by the senate, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... shortest, call to Zack or his father," tried Rachel, as the light figure quickly disappeared, leaving her a little annoyed at her predicament. She was not at all alarmed for herself, there was no real danger of drowning, she could at any moment get up the rock herself if she chose to leave the dog to its fate; but that she could not bear to think of, and she even thought the stimulus of necessity might prove the mother ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was my predicament, at best, I saw much reason to congratulate myself that I was on the losing side rather than the triumphant one. If, heretofore, I had been none of the warmest of partisans I began now, at this season of peril and adversity, to be pretty ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... away from Cape Town, we sent our wash ashore; a resort of desperation. It came back clean enough, but for ironing—well; and as to starch, much in the predicament of Boatswain Chuck's frilled shirts after the gale, upon which, while flying in the breeze, he looked with a degree of professional philosophy that could express itself only by thrashing the cooper. Crumpled ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... heads—"Poor Abe!—he's a hopeless case," and left Lincoln to do the work of a Good Samaritan alone. He had no beast on which to carry the dead weight of the drunken man, whom he vainly tried, again and again, to arouse to a sense of the predicament he was in. At last the young man took up the apparently lifeless body of the mud-covered man in his strong arms, and carried him a quarter of a mile to a deserted cabin, where he made up a fire and warmed and nursed the old drunkard the rest of ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... shall be demanded and obtained previously of the inhabitants thereof; a recommendation of Congress to the States in favor of the British who have not borne arms, possessing property in America; of the non-residents and loyal inhabitants in the same predicament, &c. &c. &c. But this article depends entirely on the recommendations of Congress, the States being the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... lives are sometimes saved by it. And if you'll put away metaphysics, come out of the cloud in which you have hid yourself in your dreamy speculations, I will furnish you with a case in point, showing that a man may get into a very unpleasant predicament, where he runs a great risk and gets some hard knocks, and yet be able to thank God for it, in perfect earnestness of spirit. A case of the kind came under my own observation, and while there was not much philosophy, or abstract speculation about ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... but it was not the one on which I had secured passage, and as it took almost my last dollar to pay for deck passage thereon, I lived on some small cakes of my own baking, which I carried in a bag. I was now in a sad predicament unless I should connect at Lake Bennett with some one who would carry my outfit back to Skagway on credit. I ate my stale cakes and drank lake water, and thus fooled the little Jap steward out of two dollars. It was a sad ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... a—a pantry maid," with a sly look from the corner of his eyes. Evidently she had not heard. She was still laughing. "I have heard of hermits falling in love with stars, and have laughed. Now I am in the same predicament. I love a star—" ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... room, he is trying to keep cool and clear-headed; to fathom the mystery of his predicament before going to his father and telling him that between Genevieve Winthrop and himself there has arisen a cloud which at any moment may burst ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... Jew would have accepted without hope the unfortunate predicament; the modern Jew, nerved with a distillation of the Revolutionary "rights of men" and confident that he was not combating the implacability of a religious hatred, adopted expedient and remedial ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... sooner we begin calling for help the better. I never expected to be in such a predicament as this, but it is wonderful how that young fellow worked out his plan of rescue. ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... theirs, they were wholly ignorant of what fate awaited them. The Indians next day marched them off rapidly towards the north, compelling them to travel at a rate which was excessively annoying to captives in their predicament-manacled, in momentary apprehension of death, and plunging deeper into the wilderness in advancing towards the permanent abode of their savage masters. It was well for them that they were more athletic ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... I was provoked at my own stubbornness which had gotten us into this predicament and more angry than ever at the person who was the cause of that stubbornness. But I was not frightened. There were other shoals further out and I left the anchor as it was, hoping that it might catch and ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a ridiculous position, and tired, sore from the spear-grass, and annoyed as I was, I could not refrain from a hearty laugh at our predicament before attempting to extricate my unhappy quadruped; this I succeeded in doing with some difficulty, and found him, with the exception of ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... consequently stretch it to a certain extent. The power that was before expended in causing the drop to move, would be now employed in striving to tear asunder the substance of the string. A heavy body hanging by a cord from a fixed point is then in this predicament. It is drawn towards the earth, but is prevented from moving to it. It consequently finds a position of rest in which it is placed as near to the source of attraction as the suspending string allows; that is, it hangs perpendicularly and immovably beneath it, stretching the string by ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... a situation like this could not last long. Other officers and soldiers, aroused by the explosion appeared on the scene. Hal realized that their predicament was desperate. With a cry to McKenzie, Hal darted back along the hall, turned into the first room he saw, flung open the window and ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... entitled to feel the others' cocks. I felt theirs, but again to my mortification, the tightness of my prepuce caused jeering at me; I was glad to hear that there was another boy at the school in the same predicament, though I never saw his. This confirmed me in avoiding my companions, when they were playing at cocks-all-round; being a day scholar only, I was not forced at all times into their intimacy, as I should have been had ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... the discontent which would result if our people tore down the old structure, to find no structure whatever into which to move. They would be in the same predicament as the people of San Francisco in the days after the earthquake and fire, when they had to camp out in the open with an insufficient food supply, exposed to the inclemency of the weather. In fact, they would be ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... house, he's in a predicament," he said cheerfully. "I went to police headquarters, and the first officer I spoke to told me to go to hell. So I went into the next office, where all the big panjandrums hide—and some of the little ones—and they told me what you know, sir, ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... of Marlborough was now, therefore, at open variance with her cousin. Towards her Majesty she stood in a predicament the most curious and unprecedented that perhaps ever existed between sovereign and subject. The amused and astonished court beheld Anne cautiously creeping out of that subjection in which the Duchess had, according to her enemies, long held ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... which would arise to literature from the LOGOGRAPHIC PRESS. Nevertheless Mr. Walter was left to struggle with the interest of some, and the prejudice of others, and, though he was honoured by the protection of several persons of high rank, it happened in his predicament, as it generally happens in predicaments of a similar nature, that his foes were more active than his friends, and he still continued to struggle with every difficulty that could arise from a very determined opposition to, and the most illiberal misrepresentations ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... were in a fearful predicament. Ere they had time to rally, they were fiercely attacked. From the roofs and windows of the houses around, the Saracens hurled stones, and poured heated sand and boiling water. Before them were the ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... careful how we tamper with our ploughmen. Where a man in not the best of circumstances preserves composure of mind, and relishes ale and tobacco, and his wife and children, in the intervals of dull and unremunerative labour; where a man in this predicament can afford a lesson by the way to what are called his intellectual superiors, there is plainly something to be lost, as well as something to be gained, by teaching him to think differently. It is ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be given to the enemy's cavalry. Riding to the front, I readily perceived that the information was correct, and I had to send a brigade of infantry out to help Sturgis, thus relieving him from a rather serious predicament. Indeed, the enemy was present in pretty strong force, both cavalry and infantry, and from his vicious attack on Sturgis it looked very much as though he intended to ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... very disturbing for a writer to find himself in the predicament of a man with an absolutely clear conscience yet perilously near the meshes of the criminal law. He had often analyzed such a situation in his books, but fiction diverged so radically from hard fact that the sensation was profoundly disconcerting, to say the least. He did not go to the post ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... been ideally happy, for they had forgotten their mess-box, and had only a light lunch. They had only their lap-robe for bedding. They were in a predicament; but the girl's chief concern was lest "Honey-bug" should let the wolves get her. Though it is scorching hot on the desert by day, the nights are keenly cool, and I was wondering how they would manage with only their lap-robe, when Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, who cannot ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... of us. He has a small but regular income, and he has expectations which it is not possible to mortgage fully. At the same time, it will be many years before they can—er—fructify. He is, therefore, with us in this somewhat unpleasant predicament in which ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... great aggravation to the misery of their predicament. They had no resource but to fly on to Montreuil, which was still above two leagues distant from them; and should the republican troops persevere in the pursuit, their loss upon the road would be terrific. The darkness was their only friend, and on ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... grapple with a problem, and solve it in short order. As it was a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, one boy suggested a certain plan, only to have a second advanced as a better method of getting Noodles out of his unpleasant predicament. ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... hurried to the drug store as the most likely place to find Carl Linstrum. There he was, turning over a portfolio of chromo "studies" which the druggist sold to the Hanover women who did china-painting. Alexandra explained her predicament, and the boy followed her to the corner, where Emil still sat by ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... the ground that the attack had been so sudden and treacherous, and the precautions taken so complete. He had proved himself an ass, and the whole country would ring with mockery of him! He had sense enough, too, to know that he was in a serious as well as ludicrous predicament: he had scarcely courage enough to contemplate the possible result. If he could but get his hands free, it would be easy to kill Oscar and disable Janet. For the idiot, he counted him nothing. He had ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... thirsted for no man's blood, when I cut the proposed accommodation short, by resenting the Justice's suggestion as an insult, that went directly to suppose me guilty of the very crime which I had come to his house with the express intention of disavowing. We were in this awkward predicament when a servant, opening the door, announced, "A strange gentleman to wait upon his honour;" and the party whom he thus described entered the room without ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... lost past recourse, and the cause of my destruction is nought but excess of passion and love-longing and desire and separation from my beloved, after union with her; but I beseech God to deliver us from this predicament.' Then they continued to look on, till the banquet was spread before the Khalif, when he turned to one of the damsels and said to her, 'O Gheram, let us hear some of thine enchanting songs.' So she tool: the lute and tuning it, sang ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... just above the flood level, gave the ready aid that no louts could offer. Here Dale contrived to hang until people came from the mill and fished him and his now unconscious burden out of their hazardous predicament. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... yielding to it were not unrewarded. The battle was delivered at Ceresole on the 14th of April, 1544; it was bravely disputed and for some time indecisive, even in the opinion of the anxious Count d'Enghien, who was for a while in an awkward predicament; but the ardor of the Gascons and the firmness of the Swiss prevailed, and the French army was victorious. Montluc was eagerly desirous of being commissioned to go and carry to the king the news of the victory which he had predicted and to which he had contributed; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of this lover of labor are still extant, but for readers of the present age, the printed and unpublished are nearly in the same predicament. Moses and Aristotle are the chief objects of his verbose commentaries, one of which is dated as early as May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458-468.) A modern, (John Le Clerc,) who sometimes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... lion rushed forth ready to face the devil himself were he edible. When Numa saw Tarzan, fat and sleek, perched in the tree he became suddenly the embodiment of frightful rage. His eyes and his nose told him that this was the creature responsible for his predicament and also that this creature was good to eat. Frantically the lion sought to scramble up the bole of the tree. Twice he leaped high enough to catch the lowest branches with his paws, but both times he fell backward to the earth. Each time he became more furious. ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... little incident of the strike impressed me with the fact that there were communists among these fervent Catholics. In order to pictorialize the predicament of the Limerick workers to the world through the journalists who were gathered in Limerick waiting the hoped-for arrival of the first transatlantic plane, the national executive council devised this plan. One bright spring afternoon, the amusement committee placed poster announcements ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... retention of political office. It was a situation all the more embarrassing, because he had so often asserted the direct responsibility of a representative to his constituents. He extricated himself from the predicament in characteristic fashion. He reaffirmed his convictions; sought to ward off the question; but followed instructions when he had to give his vote. He obeyed the letter, but violated the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... obstinate. All these traits "Old Weitbreck," as he was called all through the country, possessed to a degree much out of the ordinary; and it was a combination of two of them—the obstinacy and the savingness—which had brought him into his present predicament. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... boy, one night shortly after Daddy Jack's story of the lion's sad predicament, "mamma says there are no lions in Georgia, nor anywhere in ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... materially—in the light of an unshaded lamp. Our mental conclusions depend so much on momentary physical sensations—don't they? If the lamp had been shaded I should perhaps have gone home after expressing politely my concern at the Fynes' unpleasant predicament. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... instructions. Reporting his predicament to the sheriff would mean sowing news of the Sunkhaze situation broadcast in ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... a flash of lightning. For a brief second they saw Blythe hanging from the collapsing structure. Then they saw him let go. Perhaps they did not know the full significance of Roy's predicament. ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... will) not go near those strawberries! He (shall, will) not leave us in this predicament. I repeat it, he (shall, will) not! We (shall, will) never ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... would put him in the embarrassing predicament of having either to accept against his will, or to decline and appear ungracious," submitted Beatrice. "No, it is evident that Ventirose does not ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... laughed—it was soft, woman's laughter as if she enjoyed this joke on mere man—and even when Rimrock explained the dangerous side of his predicament she refused ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... the titular King of home would have given such, prestige as their presence could give at the Tuileries and he Champs-de-Mai. No sooner had the Emperor of Austria discovered this plot, which, had it been successful, would have placed him in a very awkward predicament, than he dismissed all the French people about his daughter, compelled her to lay aside the armorial bearings and liveries of Napoleon, and even to relinquish the title of Empress of the French: No force, no art, no ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... letters from the top and opened them. He never opened the third! That evening he took the bundle home, and told his mother of his predicament. She read the letters and looked at her son. "You have no right to read these," she ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... Old Neeld hesitated a little. "These concealments lead to such complications," he complained. He was thinking, no doubt, of the Iver engagement and the predicament in which ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... any way out, Tony?" she said at last. "I—I don't seem to know what to do." She looked round her vaguely, feeling confused and unnerved by the awkwardness of their predicament. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... to suffer with the cold, and then slowly he seemed to freeze and grow numb. In an effort to roll over upon his back he discovered that his position, or his being bound, or the numbness of his muscles was responsible for the fact that he could not move. Here was a predicament. It began to look serious. What would a few hours of the powerful sun do to his uncovered skin? Somebody would trail and find him: still, he ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... very thick, and they could not distinguish the length of the vessel. They had seen the boat board, but had not seen her turned adrift without oars, as the fog came on just at that time. The yacht was left with only three seamen on board, and should it come on bad weather, they were in an awkward predicament. Mr. Hautaine had taken the command, and ordered the guns to be fired that the boat might be enabled to find them. The fourth gun was loading, when they perceived the smuggler's cutter close to ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... you gave me the book, it was to be an adventure like mine, not all standing still in an old river. What do you think Hubert Delrio ought to do after persuading me into such an awful predicament?" ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... lay the child upon a couch, and put his hands upon its forehead, and close his eyes, apparently in prayer. Then, noting the clamor outside growing louder, I went to the door and looked out, and found the Stebbins family in a frightful predicament. The mob had dragged Bertie and the chauffeur outside the car, and were yelling menaces and imprecations into their faces; poor Bertie was shouting back, that it wasn't his fault, how could he help it? But they thought ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... "Do you really so far deceive yourself in your imagination as to fancy that the author is a friend to good? Read; read the book in which you figure; and you will soon disown such crude vulgarities. Lelio is a good character; yet only two chapters ago we left him in a fine predicament. His old servant was a model of the virtues, yet did he not miserably perish in that ambuscade upon the road to Poitiers? And as for the family of the bankrupt merchant, how is it possible for greater moral qualities to be alive with more irremediable misfortunes? And ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... would. The sooner we begin calling for help the better. I never expected to be in such a predicament as this, but it is wonderful how that young fellow worked out his plan of rescue. I hope ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... the victim, the priest dropped his eyes, beat a hasty retreat, spurred on rigorously, as though in haste to rid himself of humiliating appeals, and not at all desirous of being saluted and recognized by a poor fellow in such a predicament. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think—as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too—at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... captured lord," cried the girl, "you are but now coming to a true sense of your predicament. I marvelled that you felt so resentful about the first offence, when the second was so much more serious. Am I ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the verge of bankruptcy would come to him, Verminet would look into his case and make him sign bills for the sum he required, handing him in exchange bills drawn by other tradesman in quite as serious a predicament as himself, and pocketed a commission of two per cent. upon both the transactions. Verminet obtained clients from the simple fact that an embarrassed tradesman is utterly reckless, cares not what he signs, and will clutch at a straw to keep his ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... this lively young lady was the unforeseen quantity in the problem which Woodward had been employed to solve; and, between his relations to the Government and his interest in Sis Poteet, he found himself involved in an awkward predicament. Perhaps the main features of this predicament, baldly presented, would have been more puzzling to the authorities at Washington than they were to Woodward; but it is fair to the young man to say ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... lingering about where he was. He now and then took a turn down the long room, pausing in his walk to interchange greetings with other gentlemen in his own placeless predicament; but still he came back to the magnet, Shirley, bringing with him, each time he returned, observations it was necessary to ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... was over head and ears in debt, because, in his confidence in the immediate success of his operas, he had had them printed at once, at his own expense. The opera-houses were very slow in accepting them, and this left him in a sad predicament. There were, moreover, enemies everywhere,—ignorant, old-fashioned professionals, who objected to his way of interpreting the masters (though it was afterwards admitted that he was epoch-making as an interpreter of their deepest thoughts). All this galled ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... a slight pressure of her fingers, and she had vanished so quickly I could only stare blindly along the deserted passage. Yet, an instant later, the peril of my predicament flashed back upon my mind, and I faced the immediate necessity for action. What her strange words might mean could not be interpreted; I made no attempt to comprehend. Now I must find means of escape, and learn the truth later. I opened the door cautiously, and stepped without, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... extremely indignant (though, in very truth, he had done nothing positively wrong as yet), but, with her strict notions and well-regulated principles, she would assuredly recoil from a lover who had brought himself into a predicament so hideous. He would tell her all when, or if, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... What a predicament! We were rocking frightfully. The Nautilus defended itself like a human being. Its steel muscles were cracking. Sometimes it stood on end, the three of ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... the latter seems to be something almost supernatural, not to say diabolical, and the pursuit would probably have been a lengthy one but for the fact that a tall man, who was rapidly advancing from the opposite direction, seeing the girl's predicament, came to her help and headed off the truant sheets. Within a few moments the combined efforts of the girl, the man, and the greengrocer's boy were successful in gathering them together once more, and having tipped the boy, who had entered thoroughly into the spirit ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... resting, her mind was working actively, darting hither and thither in an effort to find a way of escape from their fearful predicament. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... she in tones of hardly suppressed indignation. "It is he who is responsible for my being caught in this—this annoying predicament." ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... this, my dear. I'd better go and tell someone to pack my things. But we must, of course, wait and see Lady Dunstable—though how you will explain your coming, and get yourself—and me—out of this absurd predicament, I cannot ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... become universal, and this grand desideratum must be obtained. Then we shall find that candidates, instead of being able, as now, to become legislators by simply professing to be patriots, will be placed in the awkward predicament of having first to act as such; and that the clergy, in lieu of taking a tenth part of the produce for the mere preaching of Christianity, will be obliged to sacrifice at least a portion to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... But Dunn's predicament was, chiefly, Dunn's lookout—and, to some extent, the lookout of tradition-bound relatives. Had he been an exceptional man his attitude toward the business would have been different, and Evan, in the beginning of his awakening, ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... good man labored, the most active of all the arbiters in the world! He wished to get out of the predicament by pleasing everybody—the friars, the high official, the Countess, Padre Irene, and his own liberal principles. He had consulted with Senor Pasta, and Senor Pasta had left him stupefied and confused, after advising him to do ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... to the stable-yard to view personally the condition of his favourite, and I followed to offer my counsel as a jockey. Don't laugh, Alan, sure I have jockeyship enough to assist a Quaker—in this unpleasing predicament. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... that Barney appeared to be holding up his pants, but I made no inquiry as to the reason for his so doing. When we took our first position in advance of where the Irishmen had fought, and began firing, Barney had to use both hands, and his predicament was at once revealed. He had held up his pants by a strap around his waist without suspenders. This strap had given out, and that accounted for his holding up performance. When he began loading and firing he had to "let go" and leave the pants to follow the ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... Nether-Barnim who are altogether in that extreme predicament; but knows several in Lebus Circle, names them to the King;—and turning to the Landrath of Lebus, and to another who is mute): "Herr, you can name some more in Lebus; and you, in Teltow Circle, Herr Landrath, since his Majesty permits."... In a word, the King having informed himself ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... his overcoat in Miss Brandon's house. Then he remembered that Count Ville-Handry was waiting for him in the great reception-room, together with M. Elgin and Mrs. Brian. What would they say and think? Unhappy man, in what a sad predicament ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... said, as they were subservient to ministers, if they obtained a militia, employ it against the liberties and constitution of England. Lord North supported the bill; but he found himself in the unusual predicament ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... have it! Now he is calling companions. We will be in a nice predicament if he attracts a ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... but I confess I was somewhat embarrassed by the visit—it has placed me in an awkward predicament. I have no wish to make their acquaintance, but I cannot well be unneighbourly; one meets them everywhere, so Alick tells me that I must get rid of my insular prejudices and ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Canadians expected from the payment of some Treasury notes is taken away from them; none are paid since the 15th of October last. This, then, is the overwhelming blow to all our hopes! The Treasury notes of the other colonies are generally in the same predicament; the King pays none, and the nation groans under taxation. No credit, no confidence, anywhere; no commerce nor shipments; a general bankruptcy in all the cities of France. The kingdom is in the greatest desolation possible. Our armies have been beaten everywhere; our ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... of Lorry and when she heard her predicament—a party to be given and not enough men—patted her hand and nodded understandingly. Times were changed—ah, if the girls had been in Virginia in the seventies! And after a brisk canter through her memories (she always had to have that) galloped back into ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... united, their party consisted of M'Kenzie, M'Lellan, Reed, and eight men, chiefly Canadians. Being all in the same predicament, without horses, provisions, or information of any kind, they all agreed that it would be worse than useless to return to Mr. Hunt and encumber him with so many starving men, and that their only course was to extricate themselves as soon as possible ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... it was in forty-seven—nay, forty-six—yes, forty-six," the Ancient Mariner chattered. "It was a similar and worse predicament. It was in the longboat, sixteen of us. We ran on Glister Reef. So named it was after our pretty little craft discovered it one dark night and left her bones upon it. The reef is on the Admiralty charts. Captain Doane will verify me ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... in this predicament to have clung to the old idea of walking up wind, and it must be considered wholly providential that on this course he next struck Tent Island. It was round this island that he walked, finally digging himself a shelter on its lee side under the impression ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... friends happened to be in the club. It occurred to me that poor Nevill was diabetic, and that Charley Crossman had been boring everybody about his gout. I buttonholed them both, and laid my unfortunate predicament before them. I said I'd pay all the expenses. In fact, the more they could make it cost the better I'd ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... setting and the predicament of the engineers grew more serious. A shout from Neale, who held up the rear, warned all that the Indians had scaled the ridge behind them and now were in straightaway pursuit. Thereupon General Lodge ordered his men to face about with rifles ready. This move checked the Sioux. They halted ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... murderous intentions regarding his mistress, or had deferred them at least, under the consciousness of his own pressing danger. And it must be said, in the praise of a man who had fought for and against Marlborough and Tallard, that his courage in this trying and novel predicament never for a moment deserted him, but that he showed the greatest daring, as well as ingenuity, in meeting and averting the danger. He flew to the sideboard, where were the relics of a supper, and seizing the mustard and salt pots, and a bottle of oil, he emptied them all into a jug, ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a sign-board, but without a device," said the landlord, and while Wogan drew a chair to the table he explained his predicament. ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... your face lying prostrate upon the billiard-table here, you could hit him a square blow in the neck if you had a hundred axes. Delilah might as well cry for her scissors, for all the good it would do us in our predicament. If Cleopatra had her asp with her it might be more to the purpose. One deadly little snake like that let loose on the upper deck would doubtless drive these boors into the sea, and even then our condition would not be bettered, for there isn't any of us that can sail ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... before the green burrs would parch and give him their brown chestnuts. I was contemplating a metaphysical burr. I wanted to remain true to Phyllis, though there wasn't any sense in my doing so. Had Gretchen resembled any one but Phyllis I never should have been in such a predicament. I should have gone away the day after my arrival. Here I was going into my second week. My assistant in London was probably worrying, having heard nothing from me during that time. As matters stood it was evident that I could not be true either to Phyllis or Gretchen, since I did not know positively ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... an appeal from these unhappy bondmen, could point to no other place for concealment but this. Nor was he at all certain that they could endure the intense heat of that place. It admitted of no other posture than lying flat down, wholly shut out from the light, and nearly in the same predicament in regard to the air. Here, however, was a chance of throwing off the yoke, even if it cost them their lives. They considered and resolved to try it at ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... not of his love that next he thought, but of his wretched predicament. He was aware that in his own territory he was exposed to constant danger of detection, yet he plainly saw that escape to the United States was impossible in his present apparel. The hue-and-cry would describe him accurately; the law ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... which she should have spoken, but she did not. She, who had prided herself that she would make a race of it—she, who had always been able to slip out of a predicament in the nick of time—stood mutely by and let Transley and her father interpret her silence as consent. She was not sure that she was sorry; she was not sure but she would have consented anyway; but Transley had taken the matter quite out of her hands. And yet she could not bring herself ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... they saw written Latin; the spelling even of the modern language being in an unorganised and scrambling condition for the mass of people who could read and write, [Note] while the majority of those assembled nearest to the placard were not in the dangerous predicament ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... in despair, is knocking off an article against the Opera. Well now, my dear fellow, you can do this play; listen to it and think it over, and I will go to the manager's office and think out three columns about your man and your disdainful fair one. They will be in no pleasant predicament to-morrow." ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... affairs of mankind he entirely disowned, having proved to his own satisfaction that the idea originated entirely in priestcraft. In short, with the shadowy metaphysical exception aforesaid, Mr. Joshua Bletson of Darlington, member for Littlefaith, came as near the predicament of an atheist, as it is perhaps possible for a man to do. But we say this with the necessary salvo; for we have known many like Bletson, whose curtains have been shrewdly shaken by superstition, though their fears were unsanctioned by any religious faith. ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... yet in a predicament that he couldn't laugh or fight his way out of; he has never yet found a job that he cared to stick at for more than a year or two, and seldom one that could hold ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... time I passed that a certain part of the ship had a raised ledge. The effort was to prop the boat with spars that it might not tip as it crunched and settled down upon the coral reefs. We could hardly wait until daylight to measure the predicament. When the light grew clear so that I saw the illuminated waters, there was a scene of new and wonderful beauty,—a garden of the sea, a coral grove. Far as the eye could reach there was every conceivable ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... driven his victim into a corner. To yield a point in family discipline or to pay the price of the property he had destroyed—one of the two he must do. It was a most untoward predicament for Jacob Getz. ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... teach him manners, or the figures of the dance, or to set his wits astir. By effort, and through numerous failures, he must teach himself. The difficulties of the medium between him and his distant friend, who is generally in a similar predicament, must be surmounted. Gradually stiffness gives place to ease of composition, roughness to elegance, awkwardness to grace and tact, until his letters at length come to represent his mood, and to interest, if not to delight, his correspondent. A rigid adherence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... said no more. Meekly she laid her work on the chair by the hammock and accompanied him to the house. It was the most painful predicament she had ever been in. She knew that there was no escape for her, knew, moreover, that she richly deserved her punishment; yet, as he held open the surgery-door for her, she ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... she was decided, so surrendered myself to circumstances. I began to laugh at my predicament and we became exceedingly merry. We again changed horses. The mysterious torch of night lit up a sky of extreme clearness and shed around a delightful twilight. We were approaching the spot where our tete-a-tete ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... to swim back for my clothes but discovered that Achi had disappeared, taking my garments and those of the wood cutter with him. He evidently intended to meet us on the hilltop, but it left us in the rather awkward predicament of making our way through the thick brush with only the proverbial smile and minus even ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... impressions; he could no more tell Matt that his father would be embarrassed and compromised by his passion than he could tell him that he did not think Sue Northwick was worthy of it. He was in the helpless predicament that confidants often find themselves in, but his final perception of his impossibilities enabled him to return the fervid pressure of Matt's hand, and even to utter some of those incoherencies which serve the purpose when another ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... goodness, he should have made me thus. And in answer I am told that my question is "practically without importance," because there may be an endless series of beings who, in their several degrees, are in a similar predicament to myself. Perhaps they are; but if so, the moral evil with which I am directly acquainted is made all the blacker by the fact that it is thus but a drop in an infinite ocean of moral imperfection. When, therefore, Professor ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... off our shirts, and wrapping them in paper, informed "the kid" of our predicament, and of the fact that we would be obliged to remain shirtless in our room while he took the bundle to the washerwoman and left them as security for the laundered, without money and ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... forgot that predicament! You must have a tutor to prepare you!—but you shall go to Oxford with him. I will not have you loafing about here! You may remain with your grandfather till I find one, but you're not to ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... was hungry, drunk when dry, and knew the position of the flagon and dish to the ultimate inch. He was not caring about the light. His mind was filled to the exclusion of all else with his plight and the predicament of ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... sank back at the foot of the tree. It is probable she would have encountered Girty or a member of his band of redmen, rather than have this young man find her in this predicament. It provoked her to think that of all the people at the fort it should be the only one she could not welcome who should find her in ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... of wives, has the temerity to refer to the "holy women of old," and holds Sarah up as a bright and shining example for us to follow, saying, "even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord." But we won't lay this up against Peter, for it is a telling fact (and shows the predicament he was in) that he had to go back nearly two thousand years to find an obedient woman. There were evidently none in his day, but as he wished to make his teaching effective and submit some proof to clinch his argument, ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... have watch and ward to-night," resumed Eve, after the general pause had continued some little time. "Is it not possible for the elements to put us in the same predicament as that in which we ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... confidently he was profoundly disturbed. This was no ordinary predicament. He knew that unless the priest relented they stood small chance of seeing sun and stars again. Would he relent? Roldan's own indomitable will and growing ambitions responded to the awful forces in the man, overgrown and abnormal ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... but simply being or a state of being. You have a state of being, and the log has a state of being. It can not harm you. You must have forgotten the practical application of the truths you have been teaching us." It would be difficult to explain neuter verbs in such a predicament. ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... orthodox Chinese origin, but (even like the Chou imperial family at one time) it had adopted Tartar customs. A large number of the one thousand or more petty Chinese principalities, attached not directly to the Emperor, but to the greater vassals as mesne lords, were in the same predicament; that is to say, they were of Chinese origin, but they had found that it paid them best to adopt barbarian ways. It was exactly as though Scipio should settle in Carthage, and become a Carthaginian: C'sar in Gaul, and adopt ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... saw them and, altering her course, came fussing up alongside. Quarrington briefly explained their predicament—in the face of the Bella Donna's battered appearance a lengthy explanation was hardly necessary—and a few minutes later the tug was steaming for Netherway harbour, towing the ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... doubt you do," Sieur Raymond assented, pleasantly. "Indeed, I think half the young men hereabout are in much the same predicament. But, my question, if I mistake not, related to your reason for chaunting canzonets ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... directly from the Greek are in the same predicament as the Latin of the third period—phaenomenon, phaenomena; criterion, criteria, &c.; words which are only indirectly of Greek origin, being considered to belong to the language from which they were immediately introduced into the English. Such ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... the twisted, difficult, rather foolish smile of one who is cursing the mortification of a predicament into which he has been cast through no ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Jesuits. The latter, availing themselves of the confusion and ignorance introduced by the Reformation, had disseminated their principles with great rapidity, and become masters of the popular belief; while the poor Dominicans found themselves in the predicament of either being denounced as Calvinists, and treated as the Jansenists then were, or of falling into the use of a common language with the Jesuits. What other course was open to them in such a case than that of saving the truth at the expense of their own credit! and while ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... Maurice had received a visit from the young student at the University,—the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,—an instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and the instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke it with the ease which implied long ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Toby had been too alarmed to even think of calling for help. But as time went by, and he realized the desperate nature of his predicament, he tried ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... weth you and your fine gentleman ways of not sleeping along o' she, when she found the way she was in...." He laughed, a tiny, little old thread-like laugh, as out of the trough of the years there floated up to him Phoebe's predicament and his advice as to how to meet it—a thin little thread of laughter that spanned the years and connected that time of which he spoke with this present moment by the bed of death. The laugh died away and fell again into the abysses from which it had ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the Pallas' predicament. "Mr. Kent and Mr. Liggett were on the point of starting a search of the wreck-pack for fuel when you arrived," he said, "With enough fuel we can get clear of ...
— The Sargasso of Space • Edmond Hamilton
... would go to town. They were borrowing Jawn—so they said. I was objecting, naturally. I was quite against being left alone out here, afoot, with Babe on my hands. It will soon be coming on cold," she said. "I'd have been in a fine predicament, with supplies for only about a month longer. And I must get the assessment work done, ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... been saved. As it is, I frankly confess that I have spent the last five days in repenting our quarrel. You were right, and I was wrong, and, as you see, I handsomely acknowledge it. If I ever emerge from this present predicament, I shall in the future be guided (almost always) by your judgment. Could any woman make a more sweeping ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... in my turn what better defence is there against the machinations of a wicked, or the errors of a weak Monarch, than the impossibility of finding a minister who will lend himself to vice and folly? Every English Monarch, in such a predicament, would sacrifice his opinions and views to such a clear expression of the public will; and it is one method in which the Constitution aims at bringing about such a sacrifice. You may say, if you please, the ruler of a state is forced to give up his object when the natural love of place and power ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... to the absence of water; but there is also the chance of going astray—getting lost in the absence of landmarks. To be astray in a wilderness of any kind is a perilous predicament for the traveller—in one without water ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... courageous measures any one, he thought, could end the absurd passions which were the cause of so much pain and waste. He could foresee a time when his experiences, his discovery, and his triumph were made available for younger brothers who found themselves in the same predicament. He looked at his watch, and remarked that the gardens would ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... laid for the capture of the Prince, and which, even if not fully successful, might have placed his Royal Highness in a most perilous predicament. It appears, however, from a fragment of a letter addressed by General Washington to Col. Ogden, and apparently written almost immediately after the preceding one, that some inkling of the design had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... a comedy of incident he would have to suffer indignity to get a laugh. In the comedy with a plot, the plot makes the action humorous. We are not, in reality, laughing at the policeman. He is merely the symbol of the idea. We are laughing at the predicament into which our hero has thrust himself. It is this thought, and not the sight of the policeman, at which we laugh. The policeman merely stands for the thought, yet it is humorous action within my meaning of the term in that the ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat that God designed that that particular swallow should snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man and the gnat are in the same predicament. If the death of neither man nor gnat are designed, I see no good reason to believe that their FIRST birth or production ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... still stood at the door expectantly, and then replaced the empty wallet in his pocket. There was no use waiting here any longer. He could not dine, if he wished. Never before in his life had he been confronted by such a situation. Once or twice he had been in Harndon's predicament, but that had meant no more to him than it meant to Harndon—nothing but a temporary embarrassment. The difference now was that Harndon could still telephone his father and that he could not. Here was a significant distinction; it was something ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... devoutly hoped that Tyrrel's restive disposition might continue, to prevent the decision of the bet, while, at the same time, he nourished a very reasonable degree of dislike to that stranger, who had been the indirect occasion of the unpleasant predicament in which he found himself, by not catching a salmon weighing a pound heavier. He, therefore, openly censured the meanness of those who proposed taking further notice of Tyrrel, and referred to the unanswered letters, as a piece of impertinence which announced ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... leguas away, called Fortuna, where a few of the ship's men who had more endurance in the sea, also arrived in safety. Some perished and were drowned, for they had not even disarmed themselves, and whom this predicament had overtaken when exhausted by the long fight with the enemy. Those who met death on this occasion were fifty in all. The most important among them were Captains Don Francisco de Mendoca, Gregorio de Vargas, Francisco Rodriguez, and Gaspar de los Rios, ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... had experienced, is one thing; a continued series of incidents like these happening upon the confines of the Blue Lake Ranch, was quite another. Hampton, knowing nothing of conditions in the mountains, had been quick to imagine the predicament in which he had found Judith and Bud Lee. To Carson that had been a thing not to be thought of. Now, only too plainly he realized that Shorty had had an accomplice at the ranch headquarters who ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... all the ages and foremost in the files of time," doffs its beaver to brazen effrontery, burns its sweetest incense on the unhallowed shrine of pompous humbuggery, while modest merit is in a more pitiable predicament than the traditional tomcat in Tartarus without teeth ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... does not die so soon, or with so little suffering. Men in your predicament have been known to live three days before they went mad, and four ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... such a construction upon her innocent actions, and informed him, as proof of his folly, and in the strictest confidence, that Colonel French was engaged to her Aunt Laura. She expressed her sorrow for his predicament, her profound belief in his innocence, and her unhesitating conviction that he would be acquitted of the ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... instance, I were to say to you: my dear friend, I have fallen into quite an awkward predicament and to-day or to-morrow they will distrain upon ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... Kit, the horse of the Indian was suddenly taken sick and his strength gave out completely. The Indian could go no further except on foot, and this mode of travel he was unwilling to adopt, refusing absolutely Carson's request made to him to do so. This was an unpleasant predicament, especially as the rascal, who formed the chase, was a dangerous antagonist even to an experienced fighter and in an honest cause. Goaded on by the fear of punishment for theft, Carson well knew ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... hailed it. In a moment it was at the gangway, and with robust, hearty greetings on both sides, Captain B——, a cheery Englishman, with a round, ruddy, rousing face, sprang on board; in a few words our predicament was explained to him, and at once he invited us to share his house, for the night at least, assuring us of a cordial welcome from his wife. In the beautiful gondola of our "friend in need" we were pulled ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... repugnant to you; and it is very natural, for you bourgeois are not accustomed to it. You form for yourselves a great idea of the thing. After all, we don't wish you any harm. Here is a means of extricating yourself from your predicament for the moment. Will ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Ethel could think of a worse predicament," grinned Appleton. "She'll be a regular sourdough before spring; won't want ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... able. Farther and farther he went, until she had arrived at the junction of the Geinig and the Aivron, she being on the Geinig shore, and the fish making up the other stream. Here was a pleasant predicament! ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
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