"Alternative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nomination of a council of regency. "Your king," he said, "is an idiot, or a criminal. It would be a horrid spectacle to present to the world, if, having the option of declaring a king criminal or idiotic, you did not prefer the latter alternative." ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... report that it's passable for hotties, which is what I was inclined to doubt, but they don't think we shall ever get the guns up there. Here's your problem, then, my budding Wellington. Do we fight our way through by the ordinary track—in view of the condition of our guns I omit the alternative of shelling the enemy out of their hiding-places first—or do we take up position with the guns before the mouth of the defile and make a feint there, while the hotties are going round the other way? We might even fire the guns once ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... king, in the hope of profiting by his wisdom. Three brothers had served under him for thirteen years, and, disappointed at not having learnt anything, they made up their minds to quit his service. Solomon gave them the alternative of receiving one hundred coins each, or being taught three wise saws. They decided to take the money. They had scarcely left the town when the youngest of the three, regardless of the protests of his two brothers, hastened back to Solomon and said to him: "My ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... further action. It had, however, lately been proved in a paper read by Dr. Frankland before the Royal Society, corroborated by simultaneous investigations by Dr. Gladstone and Mr. Tribe, that the action of the secondary battery depended essentially upon the alternative composition and decomposition of sulphate of lead, which was therefore not an enemy, but the best friend ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... and revolved in aimless and disconcerting circles... No matter! she was determined to win; by hook or by crook she must make the left side of the stream and gain an anchorage. The jetty or the millpond—that was the alternative, and it was one to put power into the arm and give staying power to the laboured breath! The moments were flying now, the banks seemed to be flitting past more quickly than ever. Darsie tried to convert the paddle into an oar, with ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... from the beginning and there is no way of averting it. The object of fierce contentions on the part of others, she herself does nothing, and can do nothing, to change the predestined course of events. She is never placed, as the real tragic hero must be, before an alternative where the decision is big with fate. When the end comes there is nothing to do but let her renounce all earthly passion and face the headsman as a purified saint. So far as she is concerned, there is no action at all, but only the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... of discontent and repining generally prevails in a colony. People who have lived miserably in England, who have long doubtfully hovered between suicide and highway robbery, determine at length to adopt the still more melancholy alternative of emigration. After bequeathing a few tender sighs to the country which they have hitherto regarded rather as a step-mother than a parent; and having pathetically solicited the sympathy of those who more readily bestow upon them a few ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... Dictator, 'he understands me! I have been saying in Sicilian patois that he is a hired assassin born in England of Sicilian parents, and brought up, probably, near Snow Hill—and this Whitechapel gentleman understood every word I said! If you give him the alternative of going to the nearest police-station and being charged, or of talking Sicilian patois with me, you will see that he prefers the alternative of a conversation in Sicilian patois ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... effective bonds to union between free and confederated states. Strong as is the tie of interest, it has been often found ineffectual. Men blinded by their passions have been known to adopt measures for their country in direct opposition to all the suggestions of policy. The alternative, then, is to destroy or keep down a bad passion by creating and fostering a good one, and this seems to be the corner stone upon which our American political architects have reared the fabric of our Government. The cement ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson
... been furnished with a Firmahn from Mohammed Ali Pasha, I should have repaired at once to the great Sheikh of the Towara, and obliged him to send for some Heywat or Omran guides, who might have ensured my safety. But having been disappointed in this respect, I had no alternative but to turn back. Hamd, it is true, bravely offered to accompany me wherever I chose to go, though he knew nothing of the road before us, or the Arabs upon it; but I saw little chance of success, and knew, from what I had heard during my journey from Kerek to Cairo, that the Omran not only rob ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... sweet face turned toward me as she entered the chapel, I dared not look again! It was too late. My pride as a man, all that is sacred to me as a gentleman, has been too deeply wounded. The marchesa has done it. She alone is responsible. She has left me no alternative. I will never accept a wife forced upon me by her—never, by Heaven! My father, these are my last words. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... The alternative was a dismal one, but Dangle saw no third way. Which course was least to be desired he could not for the life of him decide. A fight with Rollitt he knew would end disastrously. But to apologise— ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... words from me, O Sanjaya, hast thou heard, indicative of war, that thou apprehendest war? O sire, peace is preferable to war. Who, O charioteer, having got the other alternative would wish to fight? It is known to me, O Sanjaya, that if a man can have every wish of his heart without having to do anything, he would hardly like to do anything even though it might be of the least troublesome kind, far less would he ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... would inevitably come to light, would be fearfully punished, if not by a death such as Scott portrays in one of his poetical legends, by a disgrace far worse than physical suffering, from which nothing but the grave could give her relief. The alternative, flight, where no provision had been made, with no possible help from any friend, with the likelihood of treachery where they might ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... have Sebelia, Sakh," he asked gently, "or Ruller I, Bellevan's world, or Labath?" There was no answer to this and he knew it. There was only one alternative to a dead, burned-out, empty planet. Mureess was in the wrong stage of development, and it would have to be brought in line. The Sirian Combine had to, and would remove any intelligent unknown menace from a position from which it could threaten its Master ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... themselves with desperate courage. If they can effect their escape they fly for concealment into the woods and thickets, which, if not too extensive, are surrounded and set on fire, so that the fugitives have no alternative but to surrender, or to perish in ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... murder. You have been defended with great ability; and if the jury believed, as they manifestly did, that your defence, so fat as concerns the introduction of the dagger, could not be maintained then they had no alternative but to find as they actually did find. It only remains for me to pass upon you such a sentence, within the discretion left me by the law, as seems to be appropriate to your offence, and that is that you ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Hitch (an alternative method of securing buntlines to a sail) is commenced as in making an outside clinch, but instead of putting on a seizing, take a longer end c, pass it over y, bring up through bight b, and tuck the end again over part y and through the last loop formed, so that ...
— Knots, Bends, Splices - With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging • J. Netherclift Jutsum
... his father or Mr. Cochrane; no sounds but those of nature. They certainly could not have found Bob at Gairloch. The only alternative seemed the scrub. ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... is identical with the alternative form (B) of the First Edition. There is no Imprint on p. 80. An Advt. of "Poems by the Right Hon. Lord Byron" is on ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... premature, can scarcely be regarded as an unmitigated evil, but pain enforces its own recognition. We can hardly agree with the frightened recruit in the farce, who thinks "Victory or Death" a forbidding war-cry, but "Victory or Wooden Legs" a more appetizing alternative. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... certain lethargy of life; and he had not shown any power of sustained production in the monotony of daily work for bread. He felt a dread of such necessity. "God keep me," he writes to Hillard before this time, "from ever being really a writer for bread!" The only alternative for ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... same conceptual direction through descending planes is another. Creative and fertile thought is the thought which adopts the second kind of work. The ideal is a continual oscillation from one plane to the other, a restless alternative of intuitive concentration and conceptual expansion. But our idleness takes exception to this, for the feeling of effort appears precisely in the traject from the dynamic scheme to the images and concepts, in the passing from one ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... no alternative left for Benjamin but to find work where he could, and make the best of it. Again he had "paid too dear for the whistle," and must suffer for it. He took lodgings with Ralph in Little Britain, at three shillings and ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... told you the alternative, and to show you that I am not joking, I will now write and sign the order. Then, if you decline this mission, or if it is fruitless, I will hand it to the officer before your eyes—and within the next ten days or so let you know the results, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... but because secrecy in itself was repugnant to her, as it is to all nobler minds. She said to herself, quickly, that her father had forgotten Old Chester, that was all. Of course, he had forgotten it!—or else—She did not allow herself to reach the alternative which his confusion so inevitably suggested:—secrecy, protected by a lie. In the recoil from it she was plunged into remorse for a suspicion which she had not even entertained. Truth was so much to this young creature, that even the shadow of an untruth ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... "You can choose the alternative: disgrace and penal servitude. Don't stand over me; you won't frighten me, I can assure ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... unreliable and a wind-bag, with the result that skippers were chary of engaging him. Not to be too prolix, at the time Captain Scraggs made the disheartening discovery that he had to have a skipper for the Maggie, Mr. Gibney found himself reduced to the alternative of longshore work or a fo'castle berth in a windjammer ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... that, at this conjuncture, he had it in his power to give the victory either to the Whigs or to the King's friends. If he had allied himself closely with Lord Rockingham, what could the Court have done? There would have been only one alternative, the Whigs or Grenville; and there could be no doubt what the King's choice would be. He still remembered, as well he might, with the uttermost bitterness, the thraldom from which his uncle had freed ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... (to Rankin). I am sorry to intrude on you, Mr. Rankin; but in the absence of a hotel there seems to be no alternative. ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... Howard's room. Viridus there had taken him. There was no other room up the winding staircase to which he could go. Here was disaster! For whether he stayed Culpepper or no, Privy Seal must know that he had betrayed him. As he ran swiftly the desperate alternative coursed in his mind. Rich, the Chancellor of the Augmentations, and he had their tale pat, that Privy Seal was secretly raising the realm against the King. He himself had got good matter that morning listening to the treasonable talking of the ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... made every effort in his power to dissuade the banker from leaving Winchester upon that night, and thus breaking the promise that he had made to Margaret Wilmot. Henry Dunbar was resolute; and the young lawyer had no alternative. If his client chose to do a dishonourable thing, in spite of all that the young man could say against it, of course it was no business of his. For his own part, Arthur Lovell was only too glad to get back to London; for Laura Dunbar ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... But neither alternative contented Herbert Onslow, and at the time he did not resolve on either. He had some little present income from home, some fifty pounds a year or so, and he would be satisfied to marry on that and on his salary as a clerk; but to this papa ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope
... getting up and now and then walking about the cave. I suffered so with the heat and thirst, that the hope of escape alone kept me from going mad. At last the rope was done and tied together with various knots. It had a creepy sort of stretchy feeling when I pulled on it, but I had no alternative but to trust to it,—it was that or nothing, and nothing meant death from thirst ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... have it so. They clung to the faith that they were by right the masters here, and we the slaves, and so infatuated were they that they brought in English troops and force to back them up. There was no alternative but to fight. Would you have had me on the other side—on the ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... who loved Christ and leaned on Him, either He must be with them in Purgatory, and then it would be no pain at all: or—Avice shrank from the alternative that perhaps there was no Purgatory at all! It is hard to break free from trammels in which we have been held all our lives. Bertha did not follow the course of her aunt's thoughts, and wondered why she said, after ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... could only make a request of the different commandants and field-cornets to ask their men to volunteer for the service. If the men refused to go, then naturally the reinforcements could not be sent, and those who were in dire need of assistance had the alternative of continuing the struggle alone or of yielding a position to the enemy. The relief of Ladysmith was due to the fact that Generals Botha, Erasmus, and Meyer could not receive reinforcements from Commandant-General Joubert, ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... man of much imagination," said the Boy, "or you wouldn't have asked such a question. How do you suppose I come every night, after all the world is barred and bolted out of your sacred Close, and the alternative lies between the porter at the postern, whom you know I shun, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... compensation to them for carrying the mail is limited and regulated, and although railroads are made post-roads by law, there is no authority reposed anywhere to compel the owner of a railroad to take and carry the United States mails. The only alternative provided by act of Congress in case of refusal is for the Postmaster-General to send mail forward by pony express. This is but an illustration of ill-fitting legislation, reasonable and proper at the time of its enactment, but long since ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... Whether the word, therefore, reached Stirling or not, we must believe that Sullivan sent it, as he ought to have done, and is reported to have done. As for the general himself and his party, retreat was the only alternative. Leaving the advanced pickets to fall back before the Hessians, they turned towards the British in their rear. Very soon they encountered the light infantry and dragoons, who were now engaging in the attack with the highest dash and spirit. Reinforced by four companies of the guards, the ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... shed over the delayed return of a selfish and unfilial daughter, for the anticipated ordeal of the gay social happenings which were to follow that return, for the besetting thought that some dread misfortune might displace all this future festivity by a worse alternative, and make the lightest ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... attack. The intrepidity she put forth was unavailing. She killed one Indian, and was herself killed by another. The Indians, meanwhile, having obtained possession of one half the house, fired it. The persons shut up in the other half had now no other alternative than to be consumed in the flames rapidly spreading towards them, or to go forth and expose themselves to the murderous tomahawks, that had already laid three of the family in their blood. The Indians stationed themselves in the dark angles of the fence, where, by the bright glare of the ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... forward (see No. 1336 note 5); and it would certainly seem as though there were no other possible way of evading the conclusion to which these letters point, and their bearing on the life of the master,—absurd as the alternative is. But, if, on a question of such importance, we are justified in suggesting theories that have no foundation in probability, I could suggest another which, as compared with that of a Fiction by Leonardo, would be neither more nor less plausible; it is, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... straight towards him. She wanted to give the dish to him then and there; but she knew that this would provide annoying gossip for many a day, and besides, she thought he would refuse. More than that, she had in her mind another alternative which might in the end secure the heirloom to him, in spite of all. As she passed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... calm in the force of his authority. The crimson flushed to his face and the fire to his eye at her words. "Refuse—and I have my alternative!" he cried. "I will never enter your house again nor interfere ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... and she would take Lily with her to the mill; for the child's work at the spinning frames was to begin that day. There was no alternative. Again the great unknown law rushed her along. Her father had signed them both, and in a few days ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... mother, speaking for themselves. "No, part of a hide still remains. When it is gone we will perish, if that be the alternative." ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... judicyary. Mind ye, Hinnissy, I'm not sayin' annything again' thim. I won't dhrag th' joodicyal ermine in th' mud though I haven't noticed that manny iv thim lift it immodestly whin they takes th' pollytical crossing. I have th' high rayspict f'r th' job that's th' alternative iv sixty days in jail. Besides, ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... which supervene on our moral judgments, admit of any explanation, or whether they are to be regarded as ultimate facts of our mental constitution. It seems to me that, on a little reflexion, we are led to adopt the former alternative. What are the classes of acts, under their most general aspect, which elicit the feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation? They are such as promote, or tend to promote, the good either of ourselves or of others. Now the feelings of which these classes ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... movements two in number: (a) Should wages be increased during such periods? (b) If so, on what basis should increases be arranged? The doctrine of the maintenance of the standard of life analyzed.—Section 2. An alternative method of adjustment proposed, based on a new index number.—Section 3. Periods of falling prices also present two problems of wage settlement, similar in essentials to those presented by ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... terms with the Portuguese Government; he could be so no longer. The remarkable kindness he had so often received from Portuguese officers and traders made it a most painful trial to break with the authorities. But there was no alternative. Livingstone's courage was equal to the occasion, though he could not but see that his new attitude to the Portuguese must give an altered aspect to his Expedition, and create difficulties that might bring it to ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... for his little girl, and when all was completed, he wrote to her, bidding her go and see the lovely home he had prepared for her reception as soon as she would submit,—and presenting, as the only alternative, banishment to a boarding-school or convent until her education was finished. This was the one drop which made the cup overflow. The poor suffering child was prostrated by a brain fever which brought her to the ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... gives the following alternative openings: "Early in the present century"; "Soon after the ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... humours; circumstances, however, occurred which rendered some energy on his part absolutely necessary. His creditors grew importunate, and the arrangement of his affairs or departure from his native land was an alternative now inevitable. The month of April, which witnessed the arrival of the Temples and Lord Montfort in England, welcomed also to London Miss Grandison and her guests. A few weeks after, Ferdinand, who had evaded ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... of his position, and confident in the valour of his troops, he chose the last alternative. Very anxiously, during the day, the British officers watched the French line of defence, fearful lest the enemy would again retreat. By sunset they came to the conclusion that Laborde intended to stay where he was, and to meet them. The French, ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... and being made so curiously to feel conspicuous and disliked, the knowledge that the only alternative was to go back to the muffled unfriendliness at Frau Berg's did make me feel a little forlorn. I can tell you now, because of the joy I've had since. I don't mind any more. I'm raised up and blessed now. ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... tale so well, representing the late overthrow of the Turks by Hunniades, and the incapacity of Amurath at present to relieve him, that the Turkish commander agreed to deliver up the place, and leave the country with his troops, particularly as the alternative of Iskander to these easy terms was ever conquest without quarter. And thus, by a happy mixture of audacity and adroitness, the march of Iskander throughout Epirus was rather like a triumph than a campaign, the Turkish garrisons imitating, without ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... At last a final battle was fought, in which the Wyandots were worsted and forced to flee in great haste. The fugitives planned to cross the ice of the Straits (Detroit) River, but found it broken up and floating down stream. Their only alternative was to throw themselves on the floating ice and leap from cake to cake; they thus made their escape to the Canadian shore, and joined the tribes of the Pottawatomies, Ottawas, and Chippewas. A year later the Wyandots, equipped with light birch canoes, set out to defeat the Senecas, and succeeded ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... is told in the Uttara Kanda of the Ramayana.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} Anaranya a descendant of Ixvaku and King of Ayodhya, when called upon to fight with Ravana or acknowledge himself conquered, prefers the former alternative; but his army is overcome, and he himself ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... troubled suitor no alternative but to say to Mr. Dosson: "I'm not, my dear sir, such a fool as I look. If you'll coach me properly, and trust me, why shouldn't I rush across and transact your business as well as my father's?" Strange as it appeared, Francie offered herself as accepting this separation from her lover, which would ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... had, not less remarkable. I distinctly remember a sermon by Mr. Sticktoright, who told us that we did not know in what way the world would be destroyed—it might be by fire, or it might be by water (though this latter alternative seems precluded by Genesis ix. 11). The Rev. James Robertson, afterwards Head-master of Haileybury, compared the difference between a dull boy and a clever boy to that between an ox and a dog. "To the ox, the universe comprises only the impassive ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's warning was no less insistent although his patient was steadily improving. I faced the alternative of my compliance or her nervous prostration and I chose the former. My desire to ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... he felt that he could not give a warrant for the burial of the deceased. However painful the duty devolved on him in thus adding to the sorrows of the surviving relations, the law appeared too clear to him to admit of an alternative." ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... been always necessary? Has there been the endurance demanded of those who have professed themselves consecrated to a missionary life? Has the return to England been accepted only when the compulsion of circumstances left no alternative, and then accepted most reluctantly? With every desire to think of others as favourably as possible, without any breach of charity, it must be acknowledged there have been cases of departure, where I think a more resolute spirit would ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... continued Greusel. "I am not attempting oratory, but trying to disentangle a skein in which we have involved ourselves. I wish to receive neither applause nor hissing until I have finished the business. You say it is the case. I say it is not. Roland gave Herr Kurzbold the alternative either of apologizing or of paying over the money, so that it might be returned to the merchant. As I understand the matter, our president does not insist on Kurzbold leaving the guild, but merely ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... it was for the Prince to consent to a separation from his beautiful young bride, the perseverance of Henry soon convinced him that he had no other alternative, and he accordingly caused her to quit the capital, and to take up her temporary abode at Saint-Valery; but the remonstrances of the monarch were so earnest, and he succeeded so thoroughly in concealing his indignation ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... voluntarily; they resolved on employing force and intimidation. Accordingly those who had been sent for the purpose, having entered the house in the silence of the night, and surprising Quinctius overcome in sleep, threatening that there was no alternative, either authority and honour, or death, in case he resisted, unless he followed, they force him to the camp. Immediately on his arrival he was styled general, and whilst he was startled at the strange nature of the sudden occurrence, they convey to him ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... after scanning the aspect without, direct the sentinels to observe closely certain points, trees or bushes, where he thought the enemy might first be seen. He never hinted once that there was a possibility of escaping an attack, and the little party felt that the only alternative was to watch with diligence and act with vigor ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... positions in the Bolshevist regime. It would be quite impossible to name any part of the Russian population to which that statement would not equally apply. For millions of people, Christians and Jews alike, the only possible alternative to starvation and death is to accept service under the Bolsheviki. Even loyal generals of the Tsar's army have accepted such service in order to avoid the starvation of themselves and their loved ones, despite their ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... alternative was not a pleasant one. Either he must remain in the power of these men, or cost his friend Mr. Pettigrew a large sum as ransom. There was little hope of changing the determination of his captors, but he resolved to try what ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... Lord Oxford's arrival, Louis, with all that address which belonged to him, had gradually prepared the earl to familiarize himself to the only alternative before him, save that, indeed, of powerless sense of wrong and obscure and lasting exile. The French king looked with more uneasiness to the scruples of Margaret; and to remove these, he trusted less to his own skill than to her love ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... state of things must of necessity exist wherever the slave-owner flies from the approach of our armies; and we have now presented to us the alternative of either allowing their state to be worse by reason of their emancipation, or better, according as the wise and the humane among us may deal with ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... after flake descended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous, interminable. To poor people, looking up under moist eyebrows, it seemed a wonder where it all came from. Master Francis Villon had propounded an alternative that afternoon, at a tavern window: was it only pagan Jupiter plucking geese upon Olympus? or were the holy angels moulting? He was only a poor Master of Arts, he went on; and as the question somewhat touched upon divinity, he durst ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... of Gilles implored the interference of Charles VII. to stay the sale. Charles immediately issued an edict, which was confirmed by the Provincial Parliament of Brittany, forbidding him to alienate his paternal estates. Gilles had no alternative but to submit. He had nothing to support his extravagance but his allowance as a Marshal of France, which did not cover the one-tenth of his expenses. A man of his habits and character could not retrench his wasteful expenditure ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... you mean that you have left her alone, you had better not spared her; you had better sought divorce; then one of two things would have happened—either she would have disproved the charges brought against her, or she would have been set free! either alternative much better than her ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... had no alternative; so they labored still more diligently to pay their taxes for light and rain, and the burden became so heavy that they could no longer bear it. So they sent up a petition praying for sunlight and rain for a one-fifth instead of a two-fifths tribute. The rich ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... trace of any person who could have effected the cut. No person could apparently have got in or out. The medical evidence goes to show that the deceased could not have inflicted the wound himself. And yet, gentlemen, there are, in the nature of things, two—and only two—alternative explanations of his death. Either the wound was inflicted by his own hand, or it was inflicted by another's. I shall take each of these possibilities separately. First, did the deceased commit suicide? ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... Cretans without also admitting the pretensions of the Hellenes. If the latter had not intruded their interests into the discussion, the former might have been heard; but from the moment in which annexation to Greece became the alternative of the reconquest of Crete, the English government could clearly not interfere against the Porte without upsetting its own work; and, if in some minor respects, especially the question of the principality, it had been more ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... represent a bad heart as only one among other possible causes of unbelief. It divides the curse with ignorance, intellectual shallowness, the unfortunate influence of plausible heresiarchs, and other alternative roots of evil. They thus leave a way of escape, by which the person who does not share their own convictions may still be credited with a good moral character. Some persons, it is true, 'cannot see how a man who deliberately ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... had not yet mastered the art of venturing into Chapel alone, grew more and more pale as the hand of the clock crawled on, and the desperate alternative loomed before him, either of sharing his unpunctual friend's fate, or else of facing the exploit of walking unaided into his stall in the presence ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... understand that, though he was to slay her, it was really for the very reason that he loved her better than anything else in the world, and that he would far rather die himself, if that would answer the purpose at all. Indeed, he is said to have offered her the alternative of slaying him, and taking upon herself the burden of indefinite life, and the studies and pursuits by which he meant to benefit mankind. But she, it is said,—this noble, pure, loving child,—she ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... position to dictate terms to the Camden and Amboy Transportation Company. The latter was given the choice, to prepare for competition with a rival railroad line, or to consolidate with the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company. It chose the latter alternative, and on the 15th day of February, 1831, the two companies became one. The consolidation still required the sanction of the legislature. This was obtained in consideration of the transfer of 2,000 shares of the capital stock of the company to the State. It was further stipulated ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... this money to be wasted?" she asked calmly; and thus questioned, there was no alternative but to reply in the negative. It would never do for the head of the house to pose as an advocate of extravagance; but all the same he was irritated by the necessity, and with ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... is only one way of avoiding this latter alternative, and that is by countering the plans of the Central Powers with regard to Poland by the proclamation of the Polish programme, which is that of the Allies. This programme is the restitution to Poland of the mouth of the Vistula, of Dantzig and of the Polish portion of the Baltic coastline. ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... hope of presiding over the reconstruction of the distant past of man, the study of language has in recent years tended somewhat to renounce the historical—that is to say, anthropological—method altogether. The alternative is a purely formal treatment of the subject. Thus, whereas vocabularies seem hopelessly divergent in their special contents, the general apparatus of vocal expression is broadly the same everywhere. That ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... dashed at two conclusions and recoiled from each. Should be follow his impulse to explain the whole affair, serious consequences would result for Tsang, while the other alternative of accepting the situation made him a party, albeit an innocent one, to a most reprehensible proceeding. It was to his credit, that of the two courses the latter was infinitely the more intolerable. He got up nervously, then ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... to the shogun, and asked for their opinions concerning the course to be pursued. Many answers were immediately received. They almost unanimously declared against the opening of the country. Some advocated the alternative suggested in the letter itself, to open the country temporarily and try the experiment for three years, or five years, or ten years. In the meantime the defences of the country and new and improved arms and armaments could be perfected. The government did indeed busy itself during Perry's ...
— Japan • David Murray
... cavalrymen and Lieutenant Belden on the road to Denver via Boulder City, to prevent the thief (who went by the name of Durant) from getting into the mountains, and so on to New Mexico. This trip proved fruitless. The alternative that suggested itself was that the thief had gone another road, towards the Smoky-Hill route. The first tidings revealed the fact to them, at the South Platte River, that the inferior horse had been disposed of near Godfrey's ranch on the Platte, where the writer's ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... (often repeated in the early days of the opposition to Darwin) that he had added nothing to Lamarck, it is very interesting to observe that the possibility of a fifth alternative, in addition to the four he has stated, has not dawned upon Dr. Whewell's mind. The suggestion that new species may result from the selective action of external conditions upon the variations from ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... hold forth, heavy rain came on, and it became necessary for the people either to disperse or to seek shelter under a roof. As the preacher had just reached the most interesting part of his sermon, the congregation did not hesitate an instant to take the latter alternative. The Church of St. Etienne du Capitole was quite near: someone present suggested that this building, if not the most suitable, as at least the most spacious for ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... maidservant, and the wild beasts bring her wood. The king sends his troops to burn the nunnery, Kwan-in prays, rain falls, and extinguishes the conflagration. She is brought to the palace in chains, and the alternative of marriage or death is placed before her. In the room above where the court of the inquisition is held there is music, dancing, and feasting, sounds and sights to allure a young girl; the queen also urges her to ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... important. I hold a great deal of money of hers in my bank. She first gave me a start. I cannot, without appearing ungrateful, act contrary to her will. Place yourself in my position, and judge impartially of the terrible alternative between obliging you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... had seen so many of the boys loaded into ambulances, and hauled off to such a place, who never returned, that I was determined never to go to one if it could be avoided in any honorable way. But the time came when it was a military necessity that I should go, and there was no alternative. The campaign that was in contemplation was a movement westward against the Confederates under Gen. Sterling Price at Little Rock, with the intention of capturing that place and driving the Confederates from the State. The officer in command of the Union forces was Gen. ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... death was caused by the difference of climate, the peculiar kind and insufficiency of food, and lack of proper medical treatment; and, whereas, those difficulties still remain, we would declare as our firm belief, that unless we are speedily exchanged, we have no alternative but to share the lamentable fate of our comrades. Must this thing still go ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Instead of showing timidity at her approach, he flew down upon her, and, with spurs and beak, began a furious assault. Being closely pursued, and seeing no way of escape from the enraged bird, she adopted the only alternative that was left, namely, of seizing her adversary, whom she carried home, but soon afterwards released; on the door being opened, however, he went out without any sign of fear, and, with a deliberate step, paced backwards and forwards in front ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... sat still in the dark while our veins grew icy. Somebody below was begging and pleading for mercy, while somebody else was commanding quiet in a voice that meant bloodshed as an alternative. At intervals there was a fierce struggle, mingled with ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the last was the only alternative. The regent collected so many French and Scotch troops that the lords did not venture to stop her return to Edinburgh. They came to an agreement instead, in which she promised to prosecute no member of the Congregation, and especially no preacher, and not to allow the clergy on the ground of ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... tremor which ran over her shoulders like a chill, and smiled when he read it as the outward signal of inward terror. He had no doubt in the world that she would lay hold of his alternative to save herself and her plans for others, as quickly as he, coward at heart, would sacrifice a friend for his own comfort ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... minds might be reconciled to the conditions. Meantime, here are the facts: we make our relief either so insulting to them, or so painful, that they rather die than take it at our hands; or, for third alternative, we leave them so untaught and foolish that they starve like brute creatures, wild and dumb, not knowing what to do, or what to ask. I say, you despise compassion; if you did not, such a newspaper paragraph ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... called Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic. Charms based on the Law of Contact or Contagion may be called Contagious Magic. To denote the first of these branches of magic the term Homoeopathic is perhaps preferable, for the alternative term Imitative or Mimetic suggests, if it does not imply, a conscious agent who imitates, thereby limiting the scope of magic too narrowly. For the same principles which the magician applies in the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... our general, saying that he had matters of high importance, and of a holy nature to inform them of, and requested permission to supply our fleet with wood and water: But they only repeated their former threats. Seeing no other alternative but retreat or war, Cortes ordered three guns to be placed in each vessel, and divided the musketeers and cross-bows among them. We who had been here before recollected a narrow path which led from the point of Palmares, through some marshes and across several brooks to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... you to—accept my conditions, perhaps the cleverest thing I could do would be to go away and never see you again. There's no other alternative." ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... whatever you please, for I will not enter the lists with any sect of philosophers: here is an alternative which no philosopher can avoid. Either matter can become a thinking substance, without adding anything to it, or matter cannot think at all, and so what thinks in us is a substance distinct from matter, and which is united to it. If matter ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... the disturbance without waxed more terrible. A vain attempt was made to address the populace by the three cardinal priors; they were driven from the windows with loud derisive shouts, "A Roman! A Roman!" For now the alternative of an Italian had been abandoned; a Roman, none but a Roman, would content the people. The madness of intoxication was added to the madness of popular fury. The rabble had broken open the Pope's cellar and drunk his rich ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... madness, and habits of life of the wretched hermit, had been so dangerous,—the probability of interference on the part of some native authority so great, and the chance of the house being left in Trevelyan's possession so small, that it had seemed to him that they had no other alternative; and yet, how would it be if they were killing him by the toil of travelling? From Chambery, they made the journey to Paris in two days, and during that time Trevelyan hardly opened his mouth. He slept much, and ate better than he had done in the hotter climate on the other ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... in all that the term implies. Until to-night, had the alternative been proposed, she would have had no hesitation in deciding, if only because she had no viewpoint other than their relative positions in ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... not pass unnoticed, and for a time Bernard Shaw showed a certain inclination to toy with it. A tract advocating Free Trade was actually set up, but got no further. Finally Shaw drafted "Fabianism and the Fiscal Question An Alternative Policy" (Tract 116), which we adopted with practical unanimity, though it was the occasion of ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... face of the hostler faintly flushes. His eyes look away from my eyes for the first time. Mrs. Fairbank furtively pinches my arm. Are we on the eve of a discovery at last? I repeat my question. The man has no civil alternative but to give me an answer. The answer is ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... effect could by no possibility be appreciable at our distance from the moon.[173] Don Jose Joaquim de Ferrer, however, who observed a total eclipse of the sun at Kinderhook, in the State of New York, on June 16, 1806, ignoring this refined optical rationale, considered two alternative explanations of the phenomenon as alone possible. The bright ring round the moon must be due to the illumination either of a lunar or of a solar atmosphere. If the former, he calculated that it should have a height fifty times that of the earth's gaseous ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... home to him, it might be the whole family's ruin, for my father would inevitably lose his post. He might lose it were only suspicion to stray to Hamish. There is no alternative. I must screen him. Can you be firm, Constance, when you ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Demosthenes. This title was suggested by the author himself; cf. the letter of Brutus (ad Brut. ii. 5, 4), 'iam concedo ut vel Philippicae vocentur, quod tu quadam epistula iocans scripsisti.' It was the usual title in antiquity, though Gellius (xiii. 1, 1) uses the alternative Antonianae. The Philippics cover the period from 2nd September 44 to 22nd April 43. They were all delivered in the Senate, except iv. and vi., which are contiones, and ii., which was never spoken, but published as a political pamphlet after Antony had ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... does. Every circumstance of my life has isolated me from this structure called society, forced me to make my own laws. I may never be happy, because my capacity for happiness is too great, but in my own case there is no alternative worth considering. This is the substance of what I have thought since we met, but you are not to speak to me of it again while my ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... can recover himself by the use of the other. If I demonstrate that I am not a knave, he may exclaim, "Oh, but you are a fool!" and when I demonstrate that I am not a fool, he may turn round and retort, "Well, then, you are a knave." I have no objection to reply to his arguments in behalf of either alternative, but I should have been better pleased to have been allowed to take them ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... laugh over Carter's drunkenness. Blix knew the type. Catlin was hardly out of college; but the older girls, even the young women of twenty-five or six, encouraged and petted these youngsters, driven to the alternative by the absolute dearth ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... English farmers, especially those holding heavy clay soils, who, with bad prospects for the coming harvest, and in want of sufficient capital to make the great improvements on their farms which would enable them to pay their old rents, have no other alternative but to cross the sea in search of a new country and of new lands. I am not speaking now of the emigration caused by the gold mania, but only of the compulsory emigration produced by landlordism, concentration of farms, application of machinery to the soil, and ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... a spot from which part of the patio, or courtyard, was visible. His command was instantly obeyed, for the craven Comandante saw that certain death was the alternative. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... that he found himself contemplating with all the ardour of desire. It justified not only his presence in the Harden Library, but Miss Harden's presence as his collaborator. With all its unpleasantness it was infinitely preferable to the other alternative. He let his mind dwell on it until the off-chance began to look ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... mind. It was from one of these terrible attacks that his alleged call to the prophetic office was dated. The prevailing theories of his time ascribed all such experiences to the influence of supernatural spirits, either good or evil, and the sufferer was left to the alternative of assuming either that he had received messages from heaven, or that he had been a victim of the devil. After a night of greater suffering and more thrilling visions than he had ever experienced before, ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... or modification of the principle, arising out of the operation of habit. Impressions made upon us are greatest when they are absolutely new: after repetition they all lose something of their power; although, by remission and alternative, the causes of pleasure and pain have still a very considerable efficacy. Many of the consequences of this great fact are sufficiently acknowledged, or, if they are not, it is from other causes than our ignorance. The weakness is moral, rather ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... the result surely does not rest with her. If the evils of war are to be encountered, especially the calamities of civil war, an elevated statesmanship would seem to require that it should be accepted as the unavoidable alternative of something still more disastrous, such as national dishonor or measures materially affecting the safety or permanent interests of a people—that it should be a choice deliberately made, and entered upon as war, and of set purpose. But that war should be the incident or accident, attendant on ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... capital A. The apex of the A is no health resort. Brother Bosche, as already explained, is only fifty yards away, and his trench-mortars make excellent practice with the parapet. So the Orchard Trench is only occupied at night, and the alternative route, which is well constructed and comparatively safe, is used by all careful persons who desire to proceed from one arm of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... "the best thing that could has happened. You will not be foolish, dear, about it, I know. Remember the alternative—and ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... which it was now too late. It is said that Laco, without Galba's knowledge, proposed the assassination of Titus Vinius, either with the idea that his execution would be a sop to the soldiers, or because he believed him Otho's accomplice, or, as a last alternative, hatred may have been his motive. However, the time and the place both bred scruples; when killing once begins it is difficult to set a limit: besides, their plans were upset by the arrival of terrified messengers, by the continual desertion of their supporters, and by a general ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... says Furttenbach, stands high out of the water, is strong and swift, and mounts eighteen or twenty guns and as many as sixty well-armed pirates. It is a dangerous vessel to attack. From its commanding height its guns can pour down so furious a fire upon a Christian craft that the only alternative to surrender is positive extirpation. If the enemy tries to sneak out of range below the level of fire, the Turks drop grenades from the upper decks and set the ship on fire, and even if the Christians succeeded in boarding, they find themselves ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... to it but defeat? The only other alternative is the break-up of the Church. And for that, thank God, they ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Must typewrite 40 words a minute, or as an alternative write in shorthand from dictation 70 words a minute as a minimum, and transcribe them at the rate ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... this alternative; either that Elizabeth should assist her in recovering her authority, or should give her liberty to retire into France, and make trial of the friendship of other princes: and as she asserted, that she had come voluntarily ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... would do this, they might have the boats; if not, he informed them that they would be left on board the burning ship, and that the mutineers would take such measures as would effectually preclude any possibility of escape. Under the circumstances the prisoners had no alternative but to comply, which they did, and the launching of the boats was then vigorously ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... she said, feeling the remark fantastically conventional, but not being inspired by any alternative. "I came to tell you that one of the stags has got through a gap ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sing, dance, be funny, and carry a love interest. When the time comes to cast the piece, he finds that the only possible man in sight wants fifteen hundred a week and, anyway, is signed up for the next five years with the rival syndicate. He is then faced with the alternative of revising his play to suit either: a) Jones, who can sing and dance, but is not funny; b) Smith, who is funny, but cannot sing and dance; c) Brown, who is funny and can sing and dance, but who cannot carry a love-interest and, through ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... prisons and the galleys, being such, that many among these incorrigibles prefer to incur the highest penalty known to the law, than imprisonment in a cell; then, doubtless, the punishment of death ought to be suppressed, in order to sweep away this last and frightful alternative. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... she fancied this alternative, but of course she could not help herself. So she let the two little Dream-Fairies flutter across her shoulders and clamber up her cheeks to their proper places upon her eyelids. Gracious! but how heavy they seemed when they once stood on her eyelids! As I told ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... her lip. She had made her assertion in so categorical a form that to withhold her authority now meant to appear absurd, and she had not wished to betray the confidence of Marian Holbury. So she fell back on the alternative of a ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... to use that magnificently courageous tragic city as a source of ideas for a Shuman revue was out of the question. As for the quiet place in the Virginia mountains, which Alice had suggested as an alternative, Rose would die of ennui there within three days. The only thing to do was to stick to her routine as well as she ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... there had the choice of being half choked or blown about by furious draughts. Miss L. preferred the draughts, which she called "fresh air." I sometimes found myself inclined to regard suffocation as the pleasanter alternative. ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... soul's career is not completed with the present life upon the earth. Difficulties on theory he will naturally expect to meet in many quarters; but these will not weaken his faith, especially when he remembers that upon the alternative view the difficulties are at least as great. We live in a world of mystery, at all events, and there is not a problem in the simplest and most exact departments of science which does not speedily lead us to a transcendental problem that we can neither solve nor elude. ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... neighbouring grass, yet distinct for all that. No villages nor homesteads tempt it aside or modify its course for a yard; should you lose the track where it is blent with the bordering turf or merged in and obliterated by criss-cross paths, you have only to walk straight on, taking heed of no alternative to right or left; and in a minute 'tis with you again — arisen out of the earth as it were. Or, if still not quite assured, lift you your eyes, and there it runs over the brow of the fronting hill. Where a railway crosses it, it disappears indeed — hiding Alpheus-like, ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... Rosenthal was but temporary. At any moment it might be lost, and then would follow another dreary hunt for work, with all its rebuffs, and sooner or later the delicately nurtured woman would succumb and go under in a mental or physical collapse, the hospital her only alternative. ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... too much good sense not to feel the truth of these observations of the girl and his son; but he knew also, that, cost what it might, the orphans must be delivered before the morrow. The alternative was terrible—so terrible, that, pressing his two hands to his burning forehead, Dagobert sunk back upon a stone bench, as if struck down by the inexorable ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... their descent from the Aryan Kshatriyas, and as regards most of the clans there are strong arguments against such a hypothesis. Nevertheless the Rajputs have succeeded to the status of the Kshatriyas, and an alternative name for them, Chhatri, is a corruption of the latter word. They are commonly identified with the second of the four classical castes, but a Hindu law-book gives Rajaputra as the offspring of a Kshatriya father and a mother of the Karan or writer caste. [45] ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... might have been as well, I thought, for all parties, that I had not been called, and that the drug, whatever it was, might be allowed to anticipate the law, but I had no alternative; I was called in my official capacity; and then a messenger might still arrive from London. I provided myself with the necessary counteracting agents, and followed the man. I passed the house of his father. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... front—and yet no real advance. The far-flung battle was practically at a stand-still. And beyond, the chaos in the Balkans, the Serbian debacle! No—the world was full of lamentation, mourning and woe; and who could tell how Armageddon would turn? His quick mind travelled through all the alternative possibilities ahead, on fire for his country. But always, after each digression through the problems of the war, thought came back to the cottage at Rydal, and Nelly on the lawn, her white throat emerging from the thin black dress, her hands clasped on her lap, her eyes turned ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... platitudinous words, trying to be grateful; but waiting, waiting, knowing that ere long I shall get a little clipping from the Somerville Journal, written by Kate Sanborn; and then I shall know what the book is. If it's good, she'll say so, and if it isn't, I think she would say so; but that alternative never has come to me. But I would far rather have her true words of dispraise than all machine-made twaddle of nearly all the book columns of ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... violence endured and succumbs rather than change. If they go to work gently, the creature subjected to them adapts itself as best it can, but invincibly refuses to cease to be what it is. It must live in the form of the mould whence it issued, or it must die: there is no other alternative. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... with him that it was our only alternative; yet I knew that sometimes for miles together along the banks such a place might not be found. We turned the head of the canoe, however, down the stream, anxiously looking out for a fit spot to land. I dreaded, as I cast a look over my shoulder at the sky, that such a hurricane as we had before ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... like Proteus, he transforms himself into a variety of shapes, and is at last about to run away in the disguise of a general. Would he rather be regarded as inspired or dishonest?' Ion, who has no suspicion of the irony of Socrates, eagerly embraces the alternative of inspiration. ...
— Ion • Plato
... Hanscha they came with the inevitability of a summons rather than an alternative, and so for a year or two he brought home rather precocious wages from his speed in a canning factory. Then he stoked his way to Sydney and back, returning fiery with new and ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... 1894. The company having met with numberless difficulties and financial troubles, the French government, on the extinction of the company's funds, came to the rescue and provided money for the construction. (In the alternative British capitalists interested in the company would have obtained control of the line.) The French government's help enabled the railway to be completed to Dire Dawa, 28 m. from Harrar, by the last day of 1902. Difficulties arose over the continuation of the railway to Adis ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... it was suicide to swim the Yangtze rapids, knew the whirlpools which sucked a man down and held him down until his body was torn to shreds. There was no alternative. And the water was now half-way to his knees. He dragged the unresisting ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... instructions from Akbar he translated the Ramayana from its original Sanscrit into Persian, as well as part of the Mahabharata. His {169} historical work above referred to as the Tarikh-i-Badauni, and which is perhaps better known under its alternative title Muntakhabat-ul-Tawarikh, or Selections from the Annals, is especially valuable for the views it gives of the religious opinions of Akbar, and its sketches of the famous men ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... cannot always be secured. When fresh fruit cannot be had every day, it is better to alternate it with canned fruit or stewed dried fruit than to have it for several days in succession and then have to serve the alternative for a number of days. The same is true of cereals. If use is to be made of both cooked and uncooked cereals, it is much better to alternate them than to serve the cooked ones for breakfast for an entire week and then uncooked ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... you will agree with me that, in view of this declaration, which suddenly and without prior intimation of any kind deliberately withdraws the solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government's note of the 4th of May, 1916, this Government has no alternative consistent with the dignity and honor of the United States but to take the course which, in its note of the 18th of April, 1916, it announced that it would take in the event that the German Government did not declare and ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... fain make his hearers believe that he has always held and taught as he now wishes he had done. It is either a case of disingenuousness or of remarkable self-deception: there appears to be no third alternative." ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... was private secretary to the Duke of Cumberland, invested a legacy that fell to him in a small vessel, and sailed with his family to the then very new world of Australia. However this may be, it was impossible to keep Louis Becke at home; and, as an alternative, a uncle undertook to send him, and a brother two years older, to a mercantile house in California. His first voyage was a terrible one. There were no steamers, of course, in those days, and they sailed for San Francisco in a wretched old barque. ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... Its first alternative is, perhaps, to impose on its delegates an imperative mandate. Delegates under this condition become mere agents of the people. They attend the legislative assembly to register the will of the people just as they receive it, and the people in reality governs directly. This is what is meant ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... interview of the baroness so significantly and unceremoniously that Rose had no alternative but to retire, but not without a glance of defiance at the bear. She ran straight, without her bonnet, into the Pleasaunce to slake her curiosity at Josephine. That young lady was walking pensively, but turned at sight of Rose, and the sisters came together with ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... labourers, as if Ashley was indifferent to abuses nearer home, and left no one in doubt of his opinions. At the same time, Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, did all in his power to defeat Ashley's bill by bringing forward alternative proposals, which he knew would be unacceptable to the workers. In face of such opposition most men would have given way. Ashley, who had been a consistent Tory all his life, was bitterly aggrieved at ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Cabinet of Naples, and turned out even the King himself from her bedchamber! So much for the overthrow of Spanish etiquette by Austrian policy. The King of Spain became outrageous at the influence of Maria Theresa, but there was no alternative. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... one, anticipate an immediate word from Mr. Jeffrey calculated to establish the alibi he had failed to make out on the day we talked with him. But no such word came. His memory still played him false, and no alternative was left but to pursue the official inquiry in the line suggested ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... client had left the building when he said he did, and knew no more of what happened there afterward than circumstances showed, or his own imagination conceived. But now the advocate took a sudden turn, and calmly asked the jury to consider with him the alternative outlined by the prosecution in the evidence set ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... putting in an ineffectual claim upon one or two of the most respectable of the caps, at last marched off with the dean's, as being certainly more like the new one he had bought the day before, than the dilapidated article with a broken board and half a tassel, which was the tempting alternative, and possessing also the common property of having a red seal in it. He was not allowed, however, to remain long in peaceful possession of his prize. Scarcely had he reached his rooms, when Robert, the dean's scout, came to inform ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... associated with military display. Besides, if hostility had been manifested, a dozen Chinese soldiers would have been of little avail among those swarming millions. But our efforts and protests were vain and we had no alternative but to submit with the ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... even if she could have lived at Fort Macleod. She must be safe-guarded. For three long, hard, lonely years he had dreamed of a commission, and now that he had secured it he must give it up, together with hope of further advancement. There was no alternative. ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... She thought of an alternative to the black gowns and unrelieved melancholy—she might become the gayest member of the gay Roman world, be known throughout Italy for her reckless exploits, her affairs and Vienna gowns, all the while hiding her passion for the Flower of Spain. It would be a vain ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... had to face the alternative of returning to the Trenors or joining her aunt in town. Even the desolating dulness of New York in October, and the soapy discomforts of Mrs. Peniston's interior, seemed preferable to what might await her at Bellomont; ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton |
